After our day visiting Jerusalem and heading to the Dead Sea, we headed back to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv to start the day long trip back home. 
As I am sure I have mentioned here before, getting out Tel Aviv often seems more challenging than getting in. As you drive up to the airport you are stopped and asked questions about where you have been and where you are going. The questions are more a formality as it is clear the member of the IDF is calculating via other means if you represent some sort of risk. And then as you walk into the terminal, this can happen again. And then as you go to the ticket counter. You are asked multiple times about your carry on luggage and if you are checking a bag, it is x-rayed before you check it or go to the ticket counter. Then you go through security (without taking your shoes off), and then passport control. It is quite an affair of checkpoints, all taken to assure a safe airport environment.
This time, getting out of Israel was even more challenged. We were notified as we arrived at the airport that our Delta flight was cancelled. In the age of cellphones, we were immediately on the line with a Delta rep, seeking rebooked flights to get us home as soon as possible. I ended up on a Lufthansa flight taking off 8 hours later than my original plans, going through Frankfurt Germany and then getting me to Denver about six hours later than originally planned.
We buzzed back to our hotel via a cab, got rooms for another night to get a shower and a few winks of sleep.
It is sort of shitty when this sort of thing happens but at the same time you realize “nothing really bad has happened yet.” (thanks for that mantra Andy W). And when I look at the posts I have put up in the past year … from mountains in Colorado, to Stonehenge, to green fields in Cork, bars in Dublin, beaches in Tel Aviv, markets in Jerusalem, hills in Valley Forge … really, who am I to bitch about a bit of a travel delay that gets me around the planet six hours later than expected?
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The trip to Jerusalem and the Dead Sea was enlightening on several fronts.
First enroute from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, you observe the wall that has been built in Israel to separate Palestinian and Israel settlements. In some places it is a simple high backward sloped fence. In other places it becomes a taller fence with aggressive barbed wire. And then in some places, for great lengths, it is a large concrete barricade, with barbed wire and guard towers. I did not get a good picture of it as we were often moving but you clearly see it along the highways. 
The wall was put up to address the issue of Palestinians coming into Jerusalem and blowing themselves and other people up. Forced now through checkpoints, people can be checked by the IDF. 
I could not help but wonder as to how different this is from anything I, my family and nearly everyone I know has ever experienced. To live in a place where you are specifically within the boundaries of a physical wall that you can see and can only exit under the watchful eyes of an armed entity … it is a level of difference that is hard for me to imagine. Yes, of course, we are all bound by walls of some type, but the magnitude of these cannot be ignored.
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Then there is Jerusalem. Even before you get into the Old City, it is clear you are in a different place. Orthodox Jews are everywhere, and in the typical all black outfits, but you begin to discern slight differences in those outfits – the size of the hat, or if it is a bowler of sorts or some sort of fur hat. These reflect followings of different rabbis in the area. Of course there are Arabs as well. And while we tend to focus on differences and clashes between these Jews and Arabs, it is clear that in this press of humanity, nearly all of these people go about their lives in a normal way and without conflict.
But again, I would look at the young Arab girls walking down the street with their shawls covering their heads. Or the Jews near the Western Wall bobbing and repeating prayers in a chant. Or the young Jewish boy undergoing his bar mitzvah. Or the bustle of the bazaar in the old city and consider how different the experiences and perspective these people have on what is life and what is important compared to mine and my friends and family. How different I would be had I been born in Palestine. Or how different would the opportunities for my daughter be had she been born an Arab in Old Jerusalem. Or what it would be like for my son to be required to be in the IDF as a young man so he could guard the West Wall from potential terrorists. 
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Lunch means falafel and shwarma. Apparently our drink choices could not be more different … some parallels there I guess.
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Of course, you can help but notice the differences in the religions and depth of belief. The Temple Mount area was closed so I did not get a good view of Muslim activities up there. Just within the Christian belief, there are marked differences between where people believe Christ was crucified, and buried. In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, there is a stone that people believe the body of the dead Jesus laid on in the tomb, a spot where they say was his tomb, and a hole where you can see where the base of the Crucifix apparently was. There people lining up to touch these, pray over these, chant and clearly they are moved by this experience.
Again, I wondered how we are all human but we hold such dramatically different beliefs on such topics – ones that some people are willing to die and kill for.
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I am not even sure pictures of the bazaar areas in the Old City can be adequately covered in pictures. The long tunnels of shops, people, trinkets, wares and foods for sale – and then how different they are from each quarter … it is something to be experienced.
Yes, this is a gym.
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And of coursing driving out to the Dead Sea … where suddenly the land becomes a Moon scape, and you wonder how the heck Moses made it out there wandering around in the desert for 40 years. You see the occasional Bedouin family … a few boards and sheet or tarp of sorts thrown up as their home, a short distance from their trash pile … why is it some chose to live like this and others design places like Saint Paul’s Cathedral or King David’s Temple? What it be like if you had been born in such a place and knew no other existence other than tending your goats in a place where there not even trees for shade?
You can see the shores of Jordan on the other side of the Dead Sea. How close is that? My cell phone, which auto roams to the next tower let me know.
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At dinner the other night, my boss (who is one of those managers who I was a peer with for years and then came over to this group when he asked me to apply for a position in it- and so we share a friendship first but an appropriate understanding of work relations) mentioned this blog. Surprisingly, one of my new co-workers (she has been with the company for six months) mentioned that she had heard about it from her cousin.
Admittedly, I was a touch caught off guard to discuss the blog and what I post here in a work setting. I looked to play down what the blog was. I don’t see this as a place of inspiring or intelligent writings like what you get from Seth Godin or Brad Feld. Even in the niche of runners, I don’t see it in same zip code of quality with what Tony writes or the incredible pictures that Joe G posts. And I am not seeking to do that. It is a place where I am just trying to capture what happened so I can go back and look at it. Someday. I want it to be public so that it is easily shared, but then I recognize that I am not sure I want to be shared with everyone. That contrast is not really a well thought out plan for these 3000 something posts. Maybe it is sort of a shack in the desert of blogs and probably like the guy who oversee the goats, I am sort of okay with that. I ain’t building Rome.
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Long travel day
Evening – 5.2 miles. It was pouring out when I got home.
