We’re here! Finally. In Israel. This morning I read a Psalm from the Daily Office – and the very thought that I was reading a Psalm – in Israel – gave me goose-bumps.

We flew in yesterday afternoon over the Mediterranean Sea and the green rolling hills of Israel dotted all over with settlements and high rises.

As we waited at the luggage carousel we noticed a couple about our age standing nearby and Philip thought he knew them but couldn’t place where. But they came up to us and said they thought they knew us too. It turns out that they go to the same church we do in Perth! The amazing thing is that they hadn’t flown in from Perth, they’d come from Germany and were in Tel Aviv to see their daughter who lives here and is marrying a Jew. He’s a water engineer who mainly works with NGOs in Zanzibar in Africa. So we shared a taxi through the peak traffic with them, listening to our 66year old taxi driver who lives in Israel but has girlfriends in Ukraine and Thailand and visits them regularly.

We had our first minor adventure of our trip just finding our accommodation – and then discovering how to get inside. But that’s what makes trips such fun. We’re staying in an old part of Tel Aviv in a very sparse, tiny little room with “interesting” plumbing. It’s called a guest house but is more like a dilapidated back-packers. But quite adequate for us. The narrow 2 and 3 storey houses with flat roofs open straight out on to a tiny narrow street of cobbled stones.

And we slept very well after eating dinner at a little Ethiopian cafe round the corner. And despite being woken early in the morning by cats fighting, we went back to sleep. Slept nearly 12 hours.

We planned today to be a recovery day after our long haul. A good plan. We walked to the nearby Tel Aviv beach to eat a huge Israeli breakfast at a cafe – eggs, tuna, hummus, olives, labnah.  There were a few locals brave enough to swim in the cold water. Lots of yellow sand with colourful recliners and beach umbrellas

A lovely sunny day with a fresh breeze blowing off the Mediterranean Sea. We walked further along the beach to Joppa. Which is really another part of Tel Aviv, but it’s also the place where Jonah ran away from. But there’s no history markers about that.

Big, flash, high rise buildings all along the beach – often next to dilapidated wrecked buildings. More and more people appearing. Lots of electric bicycles whizzing about. Hundreds of sailboarders out on the Sea.

We went looking for an archaeological museum but none of the locals seemed to know about it.

Found another tiny little museum by the beach, built into the wreck of an old building. We got checked out by the guard at the door, wanting to see our passports. Inside was part of the story from the days of the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. Most of the exhibits written in Israeli, so we mainly looked at the pictures.

We walked further on to an old railway station that’s been converted into very trendy shops and cafes.This is one of the ways the Israeli guerilla fighters smuggled weapons in, past the British who were in charge of the United Nations Palestinian Mandate.

And next door, another museum that also explored the wars that led to the creation of Israel and the wars they’ve fought since. It reinforced to me the layers, complications and complexities of this whole region. And none of the complexities have been helped by the ruthless machinations of European and other countries over the years. Very sobering and thought-provoking.

So we never got to see that archaeological museum. By this time we were both very weary and decided to head back to our accommodation. Where I discovered a lovely little rooftop spot with tables and chairs, potplants – and a cat. Wonder if it was one of the cats fighting early this morning? But a great spot to write this blog.