It's been a great couple of months here in Scotland...

Susan especially hates leaving!!

But first . . .

What a terrific opportunity we had - attending “England and the 67^th Anniversary of Operations of 550 Squadron, Royal Air Force from North Killingholme Airfield.”  A great friend from Tucson, 87 year old Roy Harris, was the navigator on a Lancaster aircraft which had a crew of 7 and flew bombing missions during WWII from a field nearby.  Twenty of these planes were being shot down by the Germans each night and the crew members had about a 45% chance of returning each time they took off.  Roy was one of 8 original fliers who attended this reunion which is held annually, but there were a total of 80 in attendance, including friends and families. These survivors meet to catch up and honor those who did not return or who have since died – and we were there!

After the Saturday lunch, we marched about a mile, led by the Immingham Air Cadets Band, to the memorial on the “Lancaster approach.”  There was “An Act of Remembrance and the laying of wreaths at the squadron memorial stone.”  Then, right on schedule, the only remaining Lancaster flying in the UK, the “Lancaster Bomber of The Battle of Britain,” made three flypasts - a pretty impressive and emotional sight - then headed off with three waves of the wings.

We all marched back to the village for a “Service of Thanksgiving” at the local church (which has a stained glass memorial window)  then attended a tea for the group in the historical society.  Dinner was fun and festive, the program included songs by a lovely young woman who had come with a group from a small town in Belgium that had sheltered two survivors of a Lancaster crash (those townfolk were caught by the Germans who took 20 of the them away -3 never returned - as punishment). 

No pics, we deleted them by accident!  Whoops!

We took that jaunt down to Kingston Upon Hull (Susan’s maiden name is Hull) not only to attend this event, but also to explore the east coast of England which we had never done.  A key stop was Lincoln, to visit the Lincoln Cathedral and St. Mary’s church where there is a stone carving of the rabbit that was the inspiration for Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

 

We drove up along the coast, stopping to walk out to the cliff tops and watch the hundreds of thousands of birds – including the super cute puffins - nesting in the magnificent cliff-sides.   Reminded us a bit of Mendocino and last summer, but with even more birds!

We returned to our “Chalet” in Scotland (http://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p802854) and began a wonderful 2 months – with 3 Shetland ponies, a sheep and a mass of rabbits in the field next door.  Although The Chalet presented some challenges (uncomfortable beds, up to 4 of the same picture hanging next to each other, thin bottom pots, really crummy sheets, etc, etc.) it was warm and dry, and in a fairly convenient location in a very rural area about halfway between Glasgow and Edinburgh (the two cities are about 50 miles apart).  As we explored in all directions we found larger towns that had grown up around now closed industries, and the still weak economies make the towns pretty drab and uninteresting.  So, we explored the larger towns and cities, and we found some great things, especially just north, around the Firth of Forth.

Our first find was Linlithgow, about a half hour away.  Unlike the towns near us, Linlithgow has a long history, some important sites (notably Linlithgow Palace), and some good pubs and restaurants.  It also has a refurbished canal now used for recreation, and there is an active group of volunteers, having a great time, who maintain the local facility and offer canal boats rides.

A new find for us was the Royal Burgh of Culross (pronounced coorus), on the North side of the Firth.  The town, with a fascinating history, an ancient palace, a ruined abbey and a church with it’s most important character/builder, George Bruce buried with his 5 daughters, 3 sons and wife...possibly David’s long lost cousins! The town was a backwater for a very long time.  In the 1930’s the National Trust began preservation and restoration.  We found it a quiet, delightful look at the past (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culross) with nice, helpful people (which Scotland is full of).

On one of our several visits to Glasgow, we got a taste of the Merchant City Festival, which was a fun mix of food, entertainment and just plain whacky stuff.  One of the strangest things was a group of 10 or so creatures dressed in pink from top to bottom, who pulled pranks and generally freaked out most of the people they came in contact with.  Merchant City reminds us of Soho and Tribeca as they were some years ago – great restaurants & loft conversions happening, but still very commercial.

We thoroughly enjoyed visits from our friends from Spain and from Princeton, NJ.  With the Vergaras we took a 3 day trip up into the Highlands by way of Arbroath (home of the Arbroath Smokies – a delicious fish, and of the Declaration of Arbroath http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Arbroath).  We had a delightful dinner in the very typical Scottish home of their friends in Aberdeen, then continued on to Inverness….and down The Great Glen past Loch Ness (we stayed on Loch Lochy), then back for a quick tour of Glasgow.  We also spent time touring the Falkirk Wheel, Stirling Castle and other special places.

August brought several festivals to Edinburgh (book, art, spiritual, etc), and we focused mostly on The Fringe Festival.  The Fringe is about performance – music, comedy, dance and drama.  There are about 250 venues around the city, and anyone can book one if they pay the price, so the events are very mixed.  Given all that, the numbers of things to see and the variety are off the chart.  In 2010  there were over 40,000 performances by more than 21,000 participants!  Amazing, and very difficult to decide what to see.  High Street, from early morning till very late at night is like a carnival!

 We all decided to focus on drama at the Festival, and that helped narrow the choices some.  We went to see three shows the first day, and they were fairly poor overall. But then things picked up…we saw about 10-12 performances over all (including the Intl Breakdance competition which was great) and the range was from great to yucky.  We had a special treat, because a drama teacher who worked for Susan at Service Messenger Co in NYC 25 years ago and who we haven't seen since, brought her high school group to perform.  We saw their show at 9:30 in the morning and caught up with Janet and her husband, Jim,  over lunch.  WOW!! 

When Pat and Jim Hyatt visited, although the main purpose of their visit was the Festival, we talked them into an overnight trip to the Borders region with the goal of seeing several ruined abbeys. Although it rained most of the time it was beautiful!

We are off to Ireland for the month of Sept before returning to the US on 1 October.  We are not yet sure of our plans once back, but will let you know when we know….

 Oh, just before we go, we realized that we didn't tell you about the Highland Games that happen every weekend during July and August  in towns across Scotland.  The photo below is of a contestant in the "heavy weight events" - he is from New Jersey and is wearing a breast cancer tartan kilt designed and patented by a woman in NJ who challenged him to wear it - he was quite the site - we loved it.

And, finally....we attended a Fringe event at the Edinburgh Zoo - "Feeding the People" - we sat in the rain and watched a wonderful, funny performance.   There is a huge population of penguins in this zoo and some of them take a daily walk through the zoo paths... This is the sign on the wall at the top of the very steep hill near the performance space- it resonated with us in a very big way...

Which reminds me of what one young man said to us in Israel -  “The youngsters will lead the way – we are all one.”

Hugs to you all!! 

Israel is thought provoking indeed!

You will need a few minutes to read this – it's long and perhaps a cuppa will help!!

Israel is thought provoking indeed… and a bit difficult for us to “get our heads around.”  Writing this blog has been quite the challenge and we thank you for being there to read it – we’ve grown from the exercise.

We never thought we’d get to Israel.  The usual reasons people go seem to be related to religion, culture, tradition, etc. but, for us there never was that fit.  A friend planned an extended visit to study in Safat, and then we learned that another couple were going to be there at the same time, and they asked if we’d like to join them to tour the country.  Being with folks for whom Israel was special and important would give us the  opportunity, to absorb some of the pleasure and meaning it held for our friends and others.  It brought Israel “up a notch” on our list and it turned out to be a very rewarding trip.

It may be that our doubts originally were due to a feeling that Israel would be very intense – and it was.  There is so much deep history, so many stories, so much to see and to understand, so many stresses on this small country. 

We were there for 15 days. We began our time in Tel Aviv and ended it in Tel Aviv, but in between we drove all over the country, with the exception of several days in Jerusalem when we were without a car.  We were exceptionally fortunate to be with 3 really wonderful friends from Tucson; LynnRae Lowe, an artist, had been in Safat (Tsfat) for several weeks studying kabalistic Judiasm, Karen Zittleman, who had never been in Israel before and is not Jewish, and her significant other, David Sadker, brought up in the Jewish tradition who had been a few times but not in recent years. 

As we said, we spent our first night in Tel Aviv (could have been any city in the world on the water), admiring the wonderful beach and amazed at how international the city is.  We rented a car the next AM and drove to Safat, (in the northeast part of this country that is the size of New Jersey!) meeting up with our friends and a guide, Adam, to hear about the city  The road signs are in Arabic, Hebrew and sometimes in English – this kept us on our toes throughout our visit.

Safat has a very large and popular artist quarter – LynnRae (http://www.lynnraelowe.com/) will be represented there soon – and where we spent some interesting time as well. 

It is the city where studying the Kabbalah is a tradition and so is filled with very religious folks.

 

 We had an exceptional Friday evening, first attending, a service in a very old synagogue, then Shabat dinner with a really remarkable family – one son studying to be a rabbi, another a sharpshooter in the army, who each brought a friend.  There were other children and families – about 20 people around the table (the Mom, chief cook and bottle washer, MickyG from California, said every Friday is a Thanksgiving in this house).  LynnRae had rented an apartment from them and became very good friends with MickyG and we certainly benefitted!!!  The conversation and being part of the ritual was really wonderful.  WOW!

 

Saturday, we left Safat and headed west to the Mediterranean.  Stopping at Akko for a lunch by the water and to see the crusader ruins, then heading for Haifa where we were blown away by the beauty of the B’Hai Gardens, by their beliefs and by the monument to the founder. http://www.bahai.org/

 From Haifa, LynnRae and the two of us went on to Natanya for a couple of nights, while the others headed to Jerusalem.  From Netanya we explored the ruins of Megiddo (with much ancient history and identified as the site of the final battle between the forces of good and evil at the end of time) and those of Caesarea, the huge seaport built on prior ruins by Herod where we had a most delicious lunch!

www.parks.org.il

Then we joined Karen and David in Jerusalem for a few nights.  What an amazing city.  K & D had engaged a truly fine guide, Nadav, and the five of us spent a day together with him trooping through the warrens of the old city focusing on the Jewish history.  After a goodbye dinner our 3 companions left Israel and then we spent another day with Nadav….but before we talk about that – here’s a story for you….

While at the Western Wailing Wall (which is divided)  the Davids (Sadker and Cooper), and Nadav went into the men's side while Karen, LynnRae and Susan went into the women's side.  While there, David Sadker had a tefillin tied on and David Cooper told them about our friend, Steve Schram who is a chiropractor/acupuncturist in NYC, and is very interested in the relationship between the tefillin and the meridians.  Nadav remembered reading something about that during his studies.  Susan sent an intro email to Steve and Nadav....and had a response from Nadav.  The articles he refers to below were written by Steve – one of them is here: http://www.drstevenschram.com/tefillin.pdf

            “Susan Shalom

Hope you and David are well. 

I have not yet contacted your friend but wanted to inform you that I have The Source and will be getting to read it real soon. 

Check these articles I found in my research of my second year... :)”

Another WOW!!

There is so much to say about Jerusalem.  Some highlights are:

A tunnel dug by archeologists along the 1500’ retaining wall built by Herod (of which the Western Wall is the above ground part) – people are inside the tunnel praying at that part of the wall all the time.

 The Jewish, Muslim, Armenian and Christian Quarters of the Old City, full of shops, cafes, and monuments, much of it below ground, crowded and super busy.  This photo was taken on the Via Dolorosa - the path that Christ followed after being condemned to death.  The real path is probably far below this, buried by eons of rubble and dirt, but the Church has put the stations of the cross on the buildings along this route and so this is the "official" trail.

 The Mount of Olives - there are many stories about this place, most religions have some sort of tie to it...but, one story we heard is that Jesus ascended to Heaven from here and when he returns to this dimension, he will return here to enter Jerusalem through the gate in the wall at the bottom of this Mount, but he cannot walk through a cemetery, so to keep him out of the city the mountain is filled with burials (???).

The Temple Mount and Dome of The Rock.

We were so fortunate to be here on a day when the public was able to enter this area - it is restricted to 2 days a week and then only for a few hours - non-Muslims are never allowed inside the Mosque - it is a remarkable building and a remarkable place.

 

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher   - occupied by several religious groups, there are many things going on in this building....theoretically it houses the cave that Christ was placed in, a piece of the cross, the slab that he rose from, the rock the cross was placed in, and on and on.  Many branches of Christianity claim it and that sometimes creates unseemly issues - but mostly it's cool.   To quote A Historical Tour of the Holy Land by B. Ratzer..."Possibly the most complicated of the holy places is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, also known as the Church of the Resurrection.  The key to the church is held by a Muslim family who open the doors in the morning and close them in the evening.  One representative each from the Orthodox, Catholic and Armenian churches are permitted to remain in the Church overnight.  In addition to these three churches, the Copts, Syrian Jacobites and Abyssinians all have a small part of the church."

And there is so much more!  Clearly Jerusalem was the highlight in a trip of seemingly endless highlights!

The last chunk of our time was spent at a dude ranch (yes, a dude ranch) overlooking the north end of the “Sea” of Galilee for two days (it is really a large lake).  From there we toured around the Galilee area.  There were more ruins to see and at one of them – Kursi – we sat for a long time feeling extraordinarily peaceful at what has been identified as a magnetic power point - (strongest under this rock) (http://www.geobiology.co.il/Articles/High_Energy_2.asp). We were also treated to watching a group of young, beautiful and playful Japanese tourists amid the wonderful flowering trees and bushes. 

 

The Church of the Beatification was another wonderful stop.

 We had a delicious lunch in the Little Tiberas Pub ion the resort town of Tiberas and were waited on by a pretty cool gal from California. It was amazing how many people we ran into who had transplanted themselves to Israel from the U.S.

  Hearing the planes flying over and seeing tanks on the road, everywhere young people, in the army, carrying automatic rifles, brought home the reality of the situation in Israel....and the conditions under which people live.  The problems are not simple and the solutions even more elusive.  On some level we knew this, but now it is more real to us - having the opportunity to talk with Israel's people face-to-face was really great - one really good reason to travel.

On our way back to Tel Aviv we got caught in nasty traffic in Nazareth (wonder if the donkey traffic was as bad…), made a stop in Zippori to visit more impressive ruins, then a stop in Netanya to pick up David’s cell phone left there by accident a week or so before, and finally back to Tel Aviv.  We had a great apartment at the Diaghilev Hotel and walked a bunch, particularly along Rothschild Blvd, which is filled with Bauhaus buildings.  That night we had champagne with our Indian dinner then, in the morning, flew back to London via Rome arriving late at night…..we will tell you about our next adventure on the British Isles next time.

Much love, many hugs and WOW!!

The Costa del Sol and onward.....

Time has certainly slipped away from us.  We must be - we ARE, in fact - having fun!

When we left you last time, we’d moved on from our Holy Week adventures to Spain’s Costa del Sol where we would be until late May.  Last time we posted a photo of the incredible view from the apartment we rented, so we won’t repeat that (though it’s almost worth it).  A good bit of our time was spent getting reacquainted with old friends and their families and catching up on all their news.  Amazing that there are now a number of grandchildren where there were just babies and school age kids when we used to visit.  For example, here are the delicious grandchildren of our friends Virginia and Pedro, Aitana and Adrian.

Since we sold the place we owned in 2001, the Costa del Sol has expanded and modernized, but now is showing some signs of the difficult economic conditions felt everywhere, with more vacant stores, restaurants and apartments than usual.  Even so, it is a fun place to visit and we thoroughly enjoyed our time there.

We contented ourselves with checking out the places we’d known before and seeing how they’ve changed.  One highlight, though, was a day when we ventured into the mountains near Marbella to a small, old town called Istan for which we’d seen signs but never visited.  It is really built into the mountain, with very narrow streets and buildings just sitting on the rock outcroppings.  It was quite a sight!

Entering the town is accomplished by driving from floor 0 to the 8th floor of the parking garage and exiting into the town square - this picture was taken from the top floor of the garage.

We left Spain and headed for England, to the county of Lancashire and a great cottage (owned by a terrific couple) we rented on a farm with millions of cows and billions of sheep and not another dwelling in sight.  Rolling green, green, green hills, very narrow roadways, delightful inns and pubs.  One reason for being there was to check out Susan’s father’s family – Francis was born in St. Anne’s on Sea (now joined with Lytham) in 1910 and was brought to the US in 1916 – that’s a story for another time….  We found his baptism record in the local church and then, in the Preston library, found census pages that revealed many connections, dates and names – not the least of which is Barnaby Hull (Susan’t great, granddaddy) from Goosnargh, not too far inland from St. Anne’s. (the photo is of David (not Barnaby) on the one evening at the farm when the weather cooperated for an alfresco dinner).  We also made a stop at the house her Dad was born in and were given a quick tour by a renter.... it was all really neat.

 

Another highlight was a stop at the Leeds and Liverpool Canal (there are over 2000 miles of canals in Britain that have been restored (mostly by people a little at a time).  After seeing a documentary on British canals we stopped and talked with a couple who have brought up their kids living on a canal boat – mostly parked in the town we visited near Foulridge – and with a couple of guys who gave us a tour of their boat which is much like a motor home but mostly these boats are only six feet wide, and 40 feet or so long.

We reluctantly left our farm and drove to London, stopping at Stratford-Upon-Avon for a great lunch.  We spent the night at Heathrow and left on a 6 am flight to Tel Aviv the next morning and that adventure will be the topic of our next posting (we are so far behind....).  On a rainy day from Scotland we send you all many hugs and good wishes.