The Road To Pilgrimage: February 1, 2009, Part 3

We are dropped, with our luggage, at the Jerusalem bus station and find our way onto the express bus for Haifa. Not seeing two seats open together, I make my way to the back seat, but am not followed by Enayat, who sits with a pleasant lady and has a pleasant journey.

I am seated next to two men cheerfully getting drunk on Vodka which they have in a Coca Cola bottle. At first they are pleasant. One of them keeps asking questions about the Baha'i Faith and I eventually refer him to the Internet. He talks about his messy divorce, his children in Sweden which he has just left. The young, drunken soldier next to him decides to urinate into the Coca Cola bottle. Eventually my seatmate is turning on his laptop and playing a Seinfeld episode dealing with the subject of masturbation, and asking me if I am the "master of my domain." This behavior escalates to intolerable by the time we reach Haifa. The worst of this is my concern that my first view of the terraces and the Shrine of the Bab should occur under these circumstances. Fortunately, this does not happen.

At the Haifa bus station we take a bus on Enayat's initiative which goes up to Carmel Center. I protest; center of what? After a long and confusing ride up the mountain, we get off at Carmel Center and are looking around for signs indicating the Nof Hotel. A young man Enayat asks directions of gives us a lift to the Nof. He says, "most people find Israelis rather brutal," but we say, no, most have been very friendly.

Nof Hotel, at last, 2000.

Baha'i Devotional Morning

Although I leave for work in a few minutes, as I work the evening shift, I had the pleasure of seeing the Baha'is this morning at Tim and Deb's Devotional meeting with waffles [!]. I loved the selection of writings about Baha'i civilization, and it put some thoughts into my head for teaching the Faith.

To my delight I met a young woman who has served at the Baha'i World Center in Haifa, Israel, who had some good ideas for what to do with our 3-4 days in Israel prior to the start of Pilgrimage. Given that there are some places we are warned to avoid, such as Jerusalem, the West Bank [Gaza goes without saying], Cara suggested we rent a car and drive to the Sea of Galilee. With a car we will have more mobility to go exactly where we want, when we want. Okay, I realize that for some people this is a no-brainer, but I really had not considered trying to drive in a foreign country. As long as we drive on the American, i.e., correct side of the road ; > . Freedom!

I found myself speaking with my friend Bonita, who is going on Pilgrimage in April, and urging her to get the passports now, as it takes some lag time.

After the waffles, I went to Office Max and found some inexpensive small [6 X 9] clipboards. Maybe because at the SNF where I work as a nurse, I keep myself organized with a clipboard, it seemed like a good idea to keep my papers organized on a purse-sized clipboard when we travel.

Time to get ready for work.