Driving back to the hotel, late Saturday night, after a very happy day. Since we have to be at the airport in about 5 hours I am going to get a quick post in with the day’s highlights (and there were many!) Forgive the choppy writing. **Nazareth is a city of vibrant energy and beauty….

I am writing this in Nazareth (Nazareth!) where we spent Friday night in a gorgeous old renovated mansion — once the home of a wealthy Arab, today half hostel, half hotel, all hospitality. The sound-proofing is not so good, but even listening to very earnest and very, very young English-speaking students solving the world’s problems…

A short post today because I am an idiot and didn’t watch my step yesterday on ancient cobblestones and took a spill. Feeling every year of my age today — a little creaky and moving slow with an hour to be ready to hit the road for a trip to the Dead Sea and Nazareth…

Went to sleep last night with the window open and the sound of young people singing in the cafe across the road filtering into our room. Parts of Jerusalem seem lighthearted and joyous, filled with the energy of youth. But we saw another side too — the intensity of religious devotion as men and women,…

Not a spelling error. Today was pretty much a day of just deserts. The first was Gaza. Not a desert in the conventional sense perhaps, but a barren and desolate-looking place nonetheless, where living conditions are needlessly harsh and inhospitable. We stood on a hill and trained our binoculars at the closed-off city not an…

We are here, it is amazing, and I feel fine. So glad I did not turn tail and come home. Got in around 4 pm yesterday. It is WARM here. Nice after chilly Paris. Our hotel, the Dan Panorama, is on the sea, which is the only nice thing I can say about it. This…

Fast, cheap, and easy. In the US that describes the way we eat. In France the way they eat is way more time consuming and complex but, boy, the medical system here is a snap. I am still feeling kind of punk. My hotel called a doctor for me and they apologized that it would…

Amazing food day, and I barely even got out of bed, once I got myself into it. We flew into Paris at about 6 am and it was pitch dark. Still dark when our train got into the city about an hour later. Walked to the Relais St. Germain from the St. Michel stop and…