One Week in Israel

To be perfectly honest, I'm not 100% on how this whole trip came to fruition. As best I can recall, my mom was going to be in Jerusalem for a teachers' conference, and she figured it might be fun to go out with me a week early and see the country. Of course, a week isn't all that much time, but we were helped by the fact that Israel is geographically similar to New Jersey - the same fun size with only half the stink. As I had been visiting my brother in Washington, DC prior to the trip, it worked out so that I was able to meet up at New York's JFK Airport with my Mom and "Aunt" Lucy (my mom's mom's brother's sister-in-law, who was in her 80's at the time and still had more energy than a spider monkey hopped up on cocaine and Mountain Dew). A rather bizarre trio of backpackers, the three of us flew out together for Tel Aviv on Tower Air. My only memory from the 13-hour flight was watching the plane's progress on the bulkhead television monitor. I remember an eerie silence among the passengers as we flew over the waters just south of Long Island... where, on July 17th, TWA Flight 800 exploded over the ocean. It was less than two weeks time since the disaster that we found ourselves soaring over that very space on the map, which, after countless television news stories, had become so familiar to everyone. Once we were far enough away from Long Island, the tension seemed to ease, and we settled in for the non-stop flight to Israel. I was 17 years-old at the time, and this was my first experience in backpacking and international travel. In as such, I had not learned the virtue of keeping a good journal. Therefore, my memories are rather hazy. Now, almost a decade later, I offer the following photos and notes, pieced together as best I can. To quote Jimmy Buffett: "It's a semi-true story, believe it or not. I made up a few things and there's some I forgot." (map: www.lonelyplanet.com)