Big Wheels Keep on Turning
The streets and highways were filling up with flags, while cars zoomed by with clipped ones, like the country had just made it to the Superbowl.
This I would have noticed on the bus ride up, but I took the 11:30 to Tiberias with Waxman. Where? To Tiberias. With about 24 hours notice, I was kindly invited by Romirowsky to bike around the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee). I had been so busy, though, with a doctors appointment (GPC is official now, no more contacts for a while), laundering, and trying to unpack from Italy, that I had to say yes, but forgot my sneakers.
Wax and I arrived around 2:15 at the hostel, slept a few winks, and were off to bike, God it's still mind blowing, 56km, about 35 miles. Only, I hadn't ridden a bike since 11th grade, and never in my life for more than 2 hours. That was all about to change.
The weather was really perfect: hot, but cloudy and windy, so you didn't feel the burn from the sun, and the fans were on high the whole way, sometimes to the point of slowing you down.
And then the pain began to build, starting where the seat is supposed to serve a comfortable function. Then the soreness spread to the palms, perhaps because of past Palm Sunday, the Jesus Trail, or too much grip. But enough about the pain, I'm complaining without the convenience of context.
The path was mostly steady, with a few kilometers of steep uphill riding and walking, but only in the first hour or so. The Kinneret is 200m below sea level, so all the mountains around it really just go back up to the real shoreline, and those mountains were something else. The pictures and video don't even begin to tell you how small I felt, especially when I lagged behind, capturing them in one hand, and trying not to swerve into the buses and trucks on the road with my left. We rode by an ancient boat and other ruins, some of the earliest modern Jewish settlements, and the Jordan River, twice. I also passed a kibbutz where I stayed when I visited freshman year to paint bomb shelters in a school, as well as Poriya, where I was on Yam el Yam just two weeks ago.
Tiberias could not come sooner, and the signs meant nothing to me except smaller numbers. Once I arrived back in the city, I was a afraid for a moment that I wouldn't be able to find the hostel, since I hadn't come from the opposite direction, and was really having problems moving any part of my body (people were nearly walking faster than I was biking, imagine) but it lay on the main road. Two flights of stairs later I was sure I was gonna need surgery somewhere. I joined Theise, Rena, Waxman and Aliza on their beds, all wincing, we enjoyed sliced turkey, Bartenura, and the pita hummus and peanut butter we had been eating all day (as well as the pound of raisins I had brought, and the quarter pound they had brought), and sleep opened its doors early that night.
The next morning, we went to another beach, since, according to a ramah mishlachat staff member we passed while biking, beach season didn't start until Saturday. We found a place with incredible water slides, and Wax and I played all day, as well as played some ball games with the kids in the wave pool. It was a great day to the be at the beach, doing nothing but eating sliding and sleeping.
Then at night, everybody headed for the bus station to head back to Jerusalem, but I was hesitant since it takes to long to get up north and I didn't want to spend Sunday doing...homework!
The miracle took place at the bus station, where I found free wireless, and not only got a phone number, but even Google maps of Nazareth. Last semester, I had written a detailed study of the Greek constructions of the word in the New Testament Gospels, exploring the meanings of the different ways it was written (different vowels), and the audience it was written for, but all the while avoiding the problem that Nazareth isn't mentioned anywhere until later. I was interested in seeing any archaeological sites in the area, and was disappointed not to find any, but at least I had a dorm room waiting for me at the Fauzi Azar Inn, and even though I had to take two buses, got dropped off at the side of the road, and walked through an enormous and closed shuk, I found the 200 year old Arab mansion with its extra fancy blankets.
The next morning was not as I had expected, since everything was still closed. I stopped by the Church of the Annunciation, and the Church Synagogue, and then caught an early bus back up, to Jerusalem.
Shelter for the night
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