TOUR ASSESSMENT
We saw a lot of sites and sights in a relatively short period of time. Given the amount of time allotted for the tour, we had to move at a fast pace. As a result, we had no time to linger anywhere. I think a little time to linger would have been nice since, without some slack time at each site, there was no opportunity for spiritual reflection. I am doing that now, and it is working for me.

I was surprised at how close things were to one another in Jerusalem and Galilee. When I read in the Gospel how Jesus walked across the Kidron Valley from Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives, I thought it was a long trek. At most this was a half hour walk. Similarly, when Mary and Joseph took Jesus from to the Temple in Jerusalem, I wondered how long it took them to get Him there. The answer was less than an hour. I found the short lecture that our guide, Rami, gave on the first day of our tour invaluable when he pointed out the approximate locations of all the places Jesus was from the Last Supper to His Crucifixion. Now, whenever I read of Jesus’s Passion and Death, I will have the picture of the route He took in my mind. Similarly, on the Sunday prior to when I am writing this, the Gospel was about how John the Baptist was in the Judean Desert baptizing in the Jordan River while proclaiming the coming of the Messiah. I could see in my mind the desert and John’s approximate location on the river since I had been there.

The thing I liked best on the tour was the Sunday Mass we had at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Without all the crowds of the prior day, I had a chance to briefly see some of the beautiful chapels in the church. The chapel at the highest point in the church is, as noted earlier, built over what is almost certainly the apex of Golgotha. I felt a sense of awe when I was there. That was the spot where my Savior died for my sins. As I was at Mass in the adjacent chapel my mind was more on the chapel next to us than on what was going on where I was. As a result, I pretty much remember all of the readings at every other Mass on the tour but not that one.

November is one of the best times to visit the Holy Land because the weather is so pleasant. November is one of the worst times to visit the Holy Land because the Christian places are so crowded. I imagine it is pretty much the same in the other parts of the year when the weather is good: March to May and September and October.

I am not sure that the visit to Petra was worth the time it took us to get there. It took a full day to get there although we did have the side trip to the place where John baptized Jesus and to Mount Nebo. The next day we spent two hours at Petra and missed some of the best parts. We then spent the remainder of that day traveling to Amman with no time to see anything in the city. Then the following day, it took us a half day to get back into Israel. It was disappointing.

In retrospect when things are always clearer, I would have spent more time in Israel. My first day in Jerusalem was very enjoyable, and I think that another two days there would have allowed me to see many more things of interest. A side trip to Masada would have been very interesting especially since that was the subject of a lecture in one of my Stanford classes. Perhaps a day in Tel-Aviv would have been nice although I understand it has a feel similar to a Manhattan or San Francisco. Caesarea is north of Tel Aviv, and I believe there are extensive Roman ruins there. Another week, perhaps, would have been good.

A final note: Israel was very clean with no garbage or litter anywhere. Both Jordan and the Palestinian Territories were not like that. Trash was strewn everywhere. Perhaps they didn’t have the public infrastructure to pick up the trash, but it still seemed that the people had no pride in the place where they lived.

PEOPLE ON THE TOUR
There were 32 people on our tour not counting our guides and Fr. Gardiner. With the exception of three people, everyone on the tour seemed to be pretty nice folks.

Fr. Jim Gardiner was the perfect Spiritual Director. He has a great sense of humor, is very approachable and is serious about presenting the faith. He is originally from the Bronx and was very capable at elbowing people out of the way when we were in crowded spaces. He attributed this to his training riding the subway in NYC.

Rami Salfiti, our guide in Israel, was very well informed and very professional. He was also quite personable. He is an Arab Christian who follows the Latin Rite. He lives in Old Jerusalem in a building with a market on the first floor that operates between 8:00am and 6:00pm. His father is on the second floor, and he, his wife and two kids are on the third floor. I learned that is very common that grown children reside above their parents in Arab families.

Emad Ziadat, our guide in Jordan, was also quite good although not quite as engaging as Rami. He, too, is an Arab Christian who follows the Latin Rite.

Rene, Linda and Matt Hachey: Rene, Linda and I got along well in the few times we were together prior to this trip, but how well we would fare during a long trip? The answer was we got along quite well. They proved to be great companions. We almost always took our meals together, and I either sat with Rene or Linda on all our bus travels. Linda loves to talk and is a very sincere person. I teased her a lot but was always quick to tell her I was doing that. Rene sometimes had difficulty hearing so he and I didn’t talk as much. I had not seen Matt smile previously, but he often smiled during the tour. Fr. Jim seemed to take a liking to Matt, and Matt always smiled when Fr. Jim was around. I expected that I would have to carefully watch over the three of them because they had no experience with international travel, but they were very capable of taking care of themselves. The only problem was that they over-packed and each brought two large suitcases.

Louise Charles was an engaging, outspoken older lady who, despite her age and seeming lack of physical shape, always managed to complete even the most arduous of our treks. She was a friend of Father Jim’s. She is a Haitian who was a nanny for an American couple for some time. When political trouble broke out in Haiti (in the 1980’s?), the family brought Louise to the DC area where she continued as a nanny.

Dahlia Nichols is a 70-year old black lady from Manhattan. She is witty and very easy to talk to. She bounced around to a number of jobs before becoming a hospice nurse which she seems to really like.

Phuong Trinh was a 20 year old gal who was married to a Vietnamese fighter pilot trained by the US Air Force in Texas when Viet Nam fell in 1975. Her husband managed to get her on a plane to the US a few days before the end. For three years she had no word on what befell her husband when she had a visitor who had escaped from Vietnam. The lady was a “boat person” who, along with her brother and Trinh’s husband, was trying to escape to Malaysia. At one point in their journey, the sea was becalmed and the lady’s brother, Phuong’s husband and two other fellows decided to set off on a small raft. The four were never heard from again. Phuong had only been married four months when she last saw her husband.

Teresa (Phung) Trinh, Phuong’s sister, was a “boat person” who escaped Vietnam in 1980. Her boat managed to reach Malaysia where Malaysian soldiers awaited them with guns at the ready. The ladies and children were sent over the side into shallow water on the hope that the soldiers wouldn’t shoot. They didn’t. Shortly thereafter, Americans contacted her and flew her to the US.

Jim and Christine Joyce are from Indianapolis. I chatted a lot with him but didn’t speak to her very much. He brokers deals for used Caterpillar equipment and says he makes a reasonable living doing this.

Michael Psencik and Jeanne Brown are married and are from San Antonio. She was a teacher, now retired, and had that outspoken, take charge kind of teacherly way about her so she was fun to talk with. Her husband didn’t talk very much probably because he couldn’t get a word in when Jeanne was around.

David and Mary Heim live in Minneapolis in the summer and Florida in the winter. He went to the University of Wisconsin so we talked football a lot. Mary is Fr. Jim’s sister so she is also from the Bronx and has not lost her New York accent.

There were eight Filipinos on the tour who I rarely interacted with. I don’t think they were traveling as a group. There were also two older ladies (about my age) from Manhattan who were very charming and with whom I conversed occasionally.