Professor Sharon

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The last few days in Three Chapters!

February 26th, 2008 · 2 Comments · Sabbatical trip, Uncategorized

Chapter I

Well, it’s been a busy and crazy few days since I last was able to blog. As I write this in a Word document, Rich struggles to get an Internet connection by paying for a service. That’s how it works here in Spain – it is paid Internet everywhere. We found a Tourist information place that had 1 hour of free Internet, and we had to wait 45 minutes to use it. The Internet is not at all as available here as it is in America.

To backtrack a bit: last Friday in Israel we spent our last day on the bus seeing (I can’t find the itinerary so I’m not sure!) Acko, Caesarea, and another old ruin site, not to mention the beautiful Mediterranean Sea!

Our last event together as a group, except for a goodbye dinner on Saturday night, was welcoming Shabbat together in Caesarea standing on the floor of a 2000 year old synagogue as the sun set! It was magnificent to say the least. I was willing to be moved spiritually by the occasion.shabbat.jpg

Saturday, since it was the Sabbath and most of Israel is closed, we had on our own. We spent the day walking along the beach to Jaffa and it’s old city and back. jaffa.jpgReally beautiful. The evening brought a farewell dinner with the group.

We had a lovely, if exhausting, week in Israel and at that point were ready to be on our own. We would both love to come back. I am particularly interested in coming back to see the country from a Christian and Muslim point of view. There is so much history here, and since the tour we joined was put together by a Jewish group, we saw this point of view. As I’ve said before, our tour guide was so knowledgeable about his country (he used to be a history teacher), it really enabled us to understand it’s current status in a new light.

Chapter II

Getting to Spain started at 2 am Saturday morning! We got on the bus and had a 6:30 am flight to Madrid! I didn’t write about it, but there was much email, and worry and conversations about getting off in Madrid. We could do it, but ensuring that our luggage went with us was another adventure. When we got to the airport, they were confused as we expected, but after holding up the check-in line for at least 40 minutes, Hurrah – our luggage was marked Madrid. The other stumbling block here – and thank goodness we brought our ticket home for the Queen Mary – was that Spain wanted to know that we were leaving!

We arrived in Madrid airport about 11 am – really tired because Rich and I had been given airplane tickets quite far apart and neither of us had great seatmates.
But we managed quite well from this point – it took several conversations with different places, but we managed to find our way to the Metro, to the high-speed AVE train.
We had first class seats on the window – very lovely. We were served a meal and we got to watch a movie in English. The only down side of the high speed train was the tunnels were quite hard on the ears (I have great difficulty flying because of Eustachian tube dysfunction).
We arrived in Santa Justa train station at 5:30 – walked about 20 minutes to our hotel – and fell fast asleep at 7 pm!! We slept until 9:30 Monday morning!

Chapter III
Here we are in Seville! We’re managing pretty well with our meager Spanish – managing to pick up a few words at a time. We can’t do whole sentences; but it’s amazing what a few nouns will get you. We spent Monday walking and walking the old city some more.oldseville.jpg

Today we are trying to catch up on sorting receipts, finding a laundrymat, and email. The weather is in the high 60s here and the sun is very bright.

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2 Comments so far ↓

  • ProfSharon

    We loved seeing you both as well — really wonderful that this technology exists! It’s not as good as a real hug, but so much better than even a telephone call to be able to see each other. Helps us miss you a little less – just a little:)

    My ears are really well — I found a trick with the tunnels – I held my breath, squeezed my nose and blew in the tunnel – seemed to help:)

  • SerahRose, profSharon's baby girl

    I completely forgot about your ears and the trains! I remember that surprised me too. I hope yours are feeling okay.

    Avi loved talking to you and likes to point at the speakers every once and a while and say, Poppi!

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