A very moving and emotional experience.

 This morning at 5:30 am we arrived in TelAviv, Israel. It was a quick 5 hour overnight flight and we were so tired we just opted out of dinner on the flight and got the turndown service instead. It was like sleeping on a board with a duvet cover but hey, we did get to stretch out in our own little pod so who’s complaining! If you saw yesterdays FB post you know that our luggage didn’t make it and we are keeping our fingers crossed that it shows up today. So after some gnashing and grinding of teeth at the lost-luggage counter we caught the train to Jerusalem. Our hotel, the The Three Arches YMCA had a room ready for us (check in was at 2pm but I think they felt sorry for us) and we freshened up to hit the streets in search of a good breakfast. This YMCA is nothing like you would ever imagine. It is a sports center, a preschool and gorgeous hotel. It was built in the 1930’s and designed by the same fellow that did the Empire State Building  

 The Arches 

 Our room is on the left with a beautiful view of the old city. 

Our plan for the day was to visit the Western Wall, or Wailing Wall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Wall  and the Upper Room https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Supper?wprov=sfti1 while taking in the beauty around the old city. Throughout the old city there are miles and miles of narrow alley ways where local vendors sell their crafts, foods, jewelry, clothing, almost anything you need. . We were in search of a converter plug (since ours was in the luggage and we needed to charge up our devices ) and anything else interesting we could find. Well, as luck would have it we stumbled upon an Alabama apparel shop complete with shop owner and son where tales of meeting Coach Saban and famous Alabama football players quickly started. The fellow pictured below is one the shop owners and his son. His brother  (the other owner) lived in Tuscaloosa and went to the university. Of course Bill was in his glory.  

We weaved our way thru the many alleyways to the Wailing Wall. It was unlike anything we had ever seen in our lives. Thousands of people making their way to the wall to deliver their prayers. Several of our friends and family had sent us prayers and the trick was finding a crack in the wall to place them. Both of us carried our own individual prayers, too. As Andrea made her way to the wall she quickly understood the term wailing wall. Hundreds of women crying and chanting and wailing as they delivered their prayers. Note that women and men have different sides.  It was so moving and extremely emotional, almost too difficult to describe without getting choked up. 

Click on the Video 

Andrea making her way to the wall. 

Bill at the wall . 

After leaving the wall we made our way to the “upper room”…. site of the Last Supper. Equally as moving when you realized where you were standing. 

After seeing the sites, we were wiped out since we were functioning on about 8 hours of sleep since we left on Saturday. We headed back to the hotel and we’re given an impromptu tour of the hotel grounds by the hotel’s CEO, Fatad. Very nice guy who just took over a few months ago. We rested up some before enjoying  a wonderful meal in the first station district. 

It was a day to remember .