Day One - Pilgrimage to Israel

All Silent Below

Perhaps it’s good that we are flying through Frankfurt. It will be a touch of the familiar and comfortable before the adventure of Jordan and Israel. We get to the airport much too early and take our time with lunch and wandering around, looking for a new shirt for me having spoiled the one I was wearing at lunch. Pacific News (with T shirts), Hermés (with $1,400 polo shirts), and Burberry (with things much too young for me) are the choices. So its Burberry and a nice black shirt – so unusual for me. Finally we board, and the upgrade that I had requested is granted, so we’re flying backward in Business Class. At least will be able to sleep and do so.

Frankfurt airport is its usual frenetic self, and there are some things to attend to first. We have to get boarding passes and change one of our seats, and that is quickly done. We store our carry-ons and go down to the S-Bahn, catching the 9 into Frankfurt. It’s a quick trip – shorter than I remember. I love European train stations. They’re so full of life, activity, and most of all possibility. We walk up Kaiserstraße (a mixed bag – the area around the Bahnhof seems a bit seedy) to the older part of town. We walk through towers and temples to finance and the Euro. There’s no passion on the streets, however – not like Manhattan, Chicago, or even San Francisco.

The older part, and there isn’t much of it, has a definite charm. Church bells are ringing and the push of tourists is invigorating. I suggest that we go to one place for lunch, but Arthur finds it too “touristic” and so we move on to a place filled with delightful buildings.

We have a lovely lunch (it’s Spargelzeit) so asparagus, potatoes, and Schnitzel all with Hollandaise. We wander back to the Bahnhof along side the river. There is a great deal of construction, and lots of Asian tourists. Perhaps we need to spend some time in Frankfurt – especially the museums.

At the airport we go through security in order to get into a Lufthansa lounge (messy) and spend some time there. Then we have to go out again, so that we can go through Tel Aviv security – much more rigorous. There is some initial anxiousness when Arthur thinks that he has lost his passport, which, after some moments of search and speaking to customs officials, is found in his back pocket. Then there’s the fun with my C-Pap – security persons always view them with suspicion, and I am in “time-out” until they are assured that it is safe.

We have sit separately since Arthur wanted an aisle seat, so he gets to sit with a bunch of travel agents. I hear his laughter throughout the flight. The flight path takes us over areas of interest to me: München, Salzburg, the Austrian Alps,

Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Thessaloniki, the expanse of the Aegean ringed with light and Rhodes shining at the end of its island. All is quiet below – and I am thinking of all the difficulty that has embraced these lands. It is not sufficient to view them at 37,000 feet. I will need to go sometime to set my feet on their soil, and see their history with my own eyes.

We land in Tel Aviv. Passport control is easy and our driver takes us to our hotel – the Diaghilev. We have fruit and trail mix on our balcony over-looking the towers of Tel Aviv, and then we collapse.