Laughter is the Best Medicine, Much Better than Snotty Desserts

Katrina and I had some free time to hang out b/f our final meeting last night, so we finished our bottle of wine and watched the Russian music channel. (Ask us to show you the dance from the remake of Numa that we see at least twice a day!) The guests at our meeting were Debbie Weisman, who was our host at the synagogue on Friday night, and Daniel Rossing, our guide through the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They ae both fairly liberal Jews who are Pro-Israel and Pro-Palestine, or as Debbie put it, Pro-People, which is really where I am at this point. They are both Zionists, so they believe Jews need the state of Israel to survive creatively, but they also believe that a two state solution is the only way to find some kind of peace in this situation. As Daniel pointed out with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, there is no permanant solution for the situation there, nor for the larger situation of Israel and the West Bank. There is only constant negotiation and cautious balance to keep the parties involved satisfied.

Now, while listening to some of our group members ask questions last night, I have to wonder if Trisha is ever disappointed that we didn't come further in our thinking. When I say "ask questions" I am being generous. What I meant to say is when members of our group rambled on for a few minutes before stumbling into some sort of a question. Sometimes the statements were so misinformed, even after all our information, and offensive and prejudiced. After all we've seen and heard, I could not believe some of the statments/questions coming out last night! First of all, people should never talk for the whole group, b/c we do not agree. Likewise, talking to Debbie and Daniel like they stand for all Jewish Israelis doesn't work. Didn't we read about the differences in the Jewish religion? And that's not even getting into politics! I find it funny that even though, as Christians, we have sooooo many different denominations b/c we can't agree, and even within denominations we can't agree, yet people assume that other religions, such as Judaism, have no divisions. But that's just me...

Out final dinner at the Tulip Inn at the Golden Walls Hotel was just ok foodwise. One of the waiters joked around with us b/c at every meal since we've been here, K and I always ask him if the soup has meat, this dish has meat, etc. He started telling us "no meat" without us even asking! I picked up my dessert, which was clearly a pudding like dessert, he tells me "no meat!" Thanks! K, B, Eugene, Asamoah, Maryann, Elizabeth, Pat and I sat together. YoHan tried to sit with us, but Elizabeth came over to talk with Pat about Bruce and our table was set. The company was excellent! Bruce had a heart attack a few days ago and has been in the hospital. He's doing fine, but he most likely won't be flying home with us today. K & B & I are always jokesters, so we made Pat laugh several times during the dinner. A particularly memorable moment was when I mentioned that I couldn't finish my dessert b/c the consistency was starting to remind me of snot right when Elizabeth was eating. She put down her fork and was done! Hahaha! Let's face it, there are no holds when it comes to our dinner conversations, which is probably why a lot of people never really want to sit with us, which is fine. We like doing our own thing. Pat said she had a good time sitting with us, so I'm glad we could help take her mind off all the stress for a couple minutes. Mission accomplished.

After dinner, K and I got stuff from our room and went downstairs to hang out with people for the last time. The English movie channel had just started "Failure to Launch" so we sat to watch it. I moved chairs so that I could sit with my feet up, and YoHan tried to race me for it and take it from me, yet when B came over, he offered to get her seat for her. See how it goes? Haha! It was like we were in a movie theatre, all sitting in a row: K, Eugene, me, YoHan, B, with Maryann sitting opposite us. K and I shared a bottle of wine for our big finale! We had a good time. Now we're pretty much packed to go! We have breakfast and a closing worship, which a few of us are participating in, and then free time until 2! I think some of us are going to try to walk up on top of the walls of the Old City and I need to spend my remaining shequels. Maybe I'll get chocolate!!!!!