Second to Last Day

9.2.10

Best comment from Micah on the car ride back to R'anana from the Nature Reserve. "We should have done more spontaneous traveling where we didn't know where we were staying. Yesterday and today were so much fun.."

2 days ago there was a terrorist attack on the road to Hebron near Kiryat Arba.

4 people were shot in cold blood. It was a terrorist attack to try to forestall the peace talks in the U.S. which were starting up that day. Interesting enough that is exactly where Micah and I went on our last day in Jerusalem. We probably drove on the exact spot this terrible thing happened which was a political terrorist act aimed at the religious jews who live in Kiryat Arba, which is a jewish settlement inside the West Bank city of Hebron, that's where the Tomb of the Patriarchs is located and where Micah and I walked through the old city and arab market and met some palestinian arabs and the city where we drove around feeling a little out of place - go back and look at my blog from that day. I think I titled it Hebron...

It's hard to believe in 24 hours we will be at the airport checking in.

Today was a very easy going day of visiting. Lisa got her kids off to school and did her grocery shopping for the upcoming holiday. Micah slept in and I tried to catch up on e-mails and blogging. Around 10:30 am we went to return the car. I followed Lisa to the gas station and the Elton car return. It all went super smoothly, they didn't charge me any extra for the extra night, plus Lisa told me I should ask them about my Jerusalem parking ticket. All I needed to do was go to the post office which was just around the corner and pay for it there. So 100 shekels later I no longer had to worry about the wrath of the Jerusalem Parking Authority somehow coming to wreak havoc on my life in Montana... and I have the receipt to prove it.

Then onto the Yitzhak Rabin Center, a great history of Israel wrapped around the life of a great Israeli man, Yitzhak Rabin, colored with world history as well. It summarized and expounded upon a lot of the history and issues Micah and I have learned about in the last few weeks. Rabin was a man who was on the verge of making a great peace after years of service in the army, after years as ambassador to the U.S., after years as prime minister, years of meeting other great leaders of the world, who was then shot down and assasinated by an extremist jewish militant who was afraid that Rabin would succeed at making peace...

Then lunch on the beach of Tel Aviv, feet in the sand, the waves rolling in.

Then Lisa gave us a driving tour of R'anana, showing us how much it has grown since she moved here in 1995.

And then my visit with my best friend from junior high, Marc with a C. Moved to Israel about 6 years ago, living half the time in Cinncinatti, half the time in R'anana, 3 girls and a boy, a modern orthodox, his wife Joy, a very very busy hectic house, they just got back 2 days ago from a summer in the states. While we drank iced coffee and reminisced his young son, about 7yrs old had three friends over, and their parents kept coming by to pick them up, then two Russian guys delivered and put together a set of 8 new dining room chairs, a discussion ensued about them fixing their old chairs, as this was happening an insurance man came by who sat down for over an hour trying to sell them an insurance policy on all their appliances. Marc kept negotiating with him on and off, getting his wife or his 18 year old daughter to translate for him.

It was very hectic, but it was really fun, like a carnival atmosphere, they gave me a bunch of magazines for the plane ride home and we hope to have a sushi lunch tomorrow to visit one more time. He kept telling his kids this is my friend, Mark, we were best friends from the time we were 12 years old! And we sat and talked and remembered some of our old youthful times together.

Then back to Lisa and Aaron's, where we hung out and talked and had a homecooked meal with the family, Adam and Amitan, Amitan falling asleep at the dinner table. We reminisced, talked about whatever... a walk through the past, the present, the future... this is your life...

Look at me on the couch blogging along on my little pc...