Day 0.1 and 0.2 : Travelling to Jerusalem

Day 0 Saturday : leaving for Jerusalem 

We're off at last. I'm here in the international part of the Melbourne airport. The QANTAS airbus is waiting outside ready to take me on a new adventure. I feel like a little kid again - excited , nervous and raring to go. 30 minute delay is not going to dampen my spirits nor is the thought of the 14 hour trip to Dubai arriving at midnight UAE time. I'm travelling with 5 other pilgrims who are on the course with me: back row :Tony Brennan, Mike Garnsey, Fr Mike Delaney. 

Front row: Libby van Tienen, myself of course - don't i look excited - and Joe O'Hea

The plane trip to Dubai was long, but made easier by the fact that the two passengers I met either side of me were good company. One guy was a fellow Launcestonian, home educator and an acquaintance of a few friends of ours... So it was great chatting to him. He also was happy to help with a few tricks of the trade when it came to flying such long distances. The fellow next to the window was a Spanish surfer, who had spent some time in Queensland and surfing. He was an architect from Barcelona and he was learning English to broaden his employment prospects. Not much building going on in Spain. 

The trip was long as I said, and the amount of leg room offered economy passengers on a QANTAS flight was a little disappointing. But I didn't really care ... In fact I enjoyed it ... I watched four movies and caught up on some sleep during the movie Lincoln ... There was no down time in this movie so sleeping seemed a good option. Every time I woke up, Lincoln would be saying something profound, sending me straight back to sleep again.  We touched down in Dubai a little after midnight ... A city lit up to the max. Highways leading out to the desert it would seem were lit up like a Christmas tree ... And without any traffic.  The airport was pretty swish ... And big ... We had to catch a train to the baggage area. When we hit outside it was like walking into an oven. I was relieved when we finally made it to the hotel about 5 kms from the airport ... it had taken about 2 hours but I was ready for a few hours sleep

Day 1 Sunday ...Dubai and  arrival at Ecce Homo

Turns out I was the only one of us who slept well. Our trip to the airport mid morning allowed us to have another view of Dubai. 

A tall pole thing ... Maybe a mosque but the guy at the hotel seemed to be telling us it was a flag pole. If it was it was the biggest flagpole ever.

According to one of our travelling companions, Mark, who had spent some time here, the city was just one big development site, with housing built over the place and no-one living in them. It was so hot outside I can understand no-one living there. But what an amazing waste of wealth, especially when we were about to see such poverty.. Not that far away too.

Air Jordanian took us to Amman in Jordan ... Only a short distance from Israel but there are no flights from Dubai to Israel ... And this airport was largely under construction also. ... I guess. ... At least the plane pulled up a distance away from the terminal and we needed to catch a bus to get into the building . A little odd. 

 

A view from the window over the desert. Unbelievable.

Our trip to Tel Aviv was short and before we knew it we were catching a chartered bus to Jerusalem with this driver from Bethlehem who knew all about Australia from reading National Geographic. "Tasmania has the Devil and the Tiger that is now gone." On the way to Jerusalem, which was an hour drive, we witnessed for the first time the land we were going to be spending the next month exploring.

I took a few photos like this one that reveal nothing except a tourist who was too awestruck to take good photos.

We arrived at Ecce Homo at night and spent time settling in to our cosy little rooms and beautiful night views of the city.