I slept so well on the ferry that I didn't even notice when it reached port, finally waking up to a 6:00 AM announcement. We'd probably been there for nearly an hour. I had confirmed the night before that we didn't have to disembark until about 8:30 AM, though, so there wasn't a rush. I took a quick shower, and then we repacked our bags and headed off the ship to get our bearings in EN Pireaus EL Πειραιάς , the enormous port near EN Athens EL Αθήνα  – and the largest passenger port in Europe. Once off the ship, between gates E2 and E3, we walked to the Metro station – which doesn't look so far on the map, but trust me, it's a hike. Note that this is just the main passenger port; there are other, smaller passenger ports, a commercial port, and a ship construction and repair facility. Greece has been conquering the seas for a long, long time, and this harbor is testimony to that rich history.

Pireaus

Though a separate town, Pireaus is inextricably linked to Athens, and has been through the millennia. As far back as the Peloponnesian War, it was protected by the Athens city walls, in an amazing, dumbbell-shaped extension:

Athens Walls

At the Pireaus station we bought our tickets for the EN Athens Metro EL Αττικό Μετρό  (which, oddly, takes the name of the city of Athens in English, and the name of the EN periphery EL περιφέρεια  [Greek administrative division] of EN Attica EL Αττική  in Greek).

Athens Metro

We bought tickets for the EN Monastiraki EL Μοναστηράκι  Station, where we checked our bags, had breakfast – omelet with french fries on top (!?) – and then headed to the Acropolis.

From Monastiraki Square, we began our long walk to, around, and up the Acropolis – first passing the Library of Hadrian.

Library of Hadrian

Then we skirted the EN Agora EL Αγορά , the ancient marketplace and forum, and got our first views of the Acropolis.

Then at long last, we entered the grounds of the EN Acropolis of Athens EL Ακρόπολη της Αθήνας  – the specificity is there because the word "acropolis" simply means "high city," and there are several acropoleis (yes, that's the plural – with the accent on the third syllable) scattered around Greece.

But if you hear of "The Acropolis" without further designation, you can rest assured that it's this one. Though the mountain is only 150 m (512') above sea level, it towers above relatively flat Athens – and above the history of our civilization. The monuments on it speak for themselves, but the history is no less important: This is where legend holds that the nymph EN Aglaulus EL Άγραυλος  jumped to her death, as an oracle had told her that doing so would to save Athens from the Persian siege in 480 BCE. Following this sacrifice, Athenian youths would bring their military gear to the Acropolis and swear thereupon to protect with their lives "the sacred and the holy" as she had.

World Heritage Site

Acropolis, Athens Date of Inscription: 1987 Brief Description: Illustrating the civilizations, myths and religions that flourished in Greece over a period of more than 1,000 years, the Acropolis, the site of four of the greatest masterpieces of classical Greek art – the Parthenon, the Propylaea, the Erechtheum and the Temple of Athena Nike – can be seen as symbolizing the idea of world heritage. Criteria:   ✔ i.    to represent a masterpiece of human creative genius;   ✔ ii.    to exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning or landscape design;   ✔ iii.    to bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared;   ✔ iv.    to be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history;     v.    to be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture (or cultures), or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change;   ✔ vi.    to be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance. (The Committee considers that this criterion should preferably be used in conjunction with other criteria);     vii.    to contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance;     viii.    to be outstanding examples representing major stages of earth's history, including the record of life, significant on-going geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features;     ix.    to be outstanding examples representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals;     x    to contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation.

This is how Leo von Klenze imagined it looking before the ravages of time:

"Akropolis" Leo von Klenze, 1846

We knew it wouldn't look a thing like that in 2007, but it was still an impressive site. Even the admission ticket was elaborate.

Admission Ticket to the Acropolis

Acropolis Source: Wikipedia

We had the fortune (good in my opinion, 'cause I wanted to see a lot; bad in Billy's, 'cause he was exhausted) to have entered at the north side of the complex, giving us the opportunity to explore the whole site without going out of our way to do so. Our first stop was the EN Cave of Apollo Hypoakraios EL Σπήλαιο Απόλλωνος Υποακραιου .

Then we continued around the Acropolis on the EN Peripatos EL Περίπατος  (#21 on the map), the sacred walkway that encircles the mountain. Following the Peripatos around, we got to enjoy many of the ground-level sites around the Acropolis, starting on the North Slope:

Then we made our our way around to the South Slope.

First we came to the EN Theatre of Dionysus EL θέατρο του Διονύσου  (#18 on the map), the first stone theatre in the world (substantially rebuilt by the Romans) and the birthplace of the Greek tragedy; this is the theatre in which Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes and Aeschylus would present their plays for the Athenian audience to judge. Then we came around to the spectacular EN Odeon of Herodes Atticus EL Ωδείον Ηρώδου του Αττικού  (#15 on the map), And, finally, our first glimpse of the Parthenon:

And then we found the crowds we had avoided, as we went with the masses past the Monument of Agrippa through the EN Propylaea EL Προπύλαια  (#5 on the map) – the monumental gateway so profound that its name was taken for any monumental gateway. Unfortunately it was difficult to see much of it through the crowds and the scaffolds:

Then we skirted the Parthenon (saving it for later), to look at the EN Erechtheion EL Ερέχθειο  (#3 on the map) with its Porch of the EN Caryatids EL Καρυάτιδες . The Porch of the Caryatids has an interesting history – it's one of the most graceful features on the Acropolis, but basically it's there because of budget cutbacks: At the start of the Peloponnesian War, the scale of the Erechtheion was drastically reduced, which left an unsightly support beam on this corner; the Porch of the Caryatids is there to conceal it. You will see all six caryatids on the porch because they are reproductions; five of the originals are in the Acropolis Museum; the sixth was taken by Lord Elgin (more anon). Legend holds that the remaining five caryatids wail at night for their lost sister.

Finally, though, we turned our attention to the EN Parthenon EL Παρθενών  (#1 on the map), the temple of Athena. Now it bears note that there are two Parthenons:

The One in Your Mind ...	... And the One on Top of the Acropolis
Graceful and majestic	Serving as but a thin membrane between the scaffolding and the tourists

Still, this is a stunning building:

The question then arises: Why does the Parthenon look like this. The answers come down to math. (This is why my trip reports are so much better than just a bunch of pictures.)

Going Up:   1.6180339887 4989484820 4586834365 6381177203 0917980576 2862135448 6227052604 6281890244 9707207204 1893911374 8475408807 5386891752 1266338622 2353693179 3180060766 7263544333 8908659593 9582905638 3226613199 2829026788 0675208766 8925017116 9620703222 1043216269 5486262963 1361443814 9758701220 3408058879 5445474924 6185695364 8644492410 4432077134 4947049565 8467885098 7433944221 2544877066 4780915884 6074998871 2400765217 0575179788 3416625624 9407589069 7040002812 1042762177 1117778053 1531714101 1704666599 1466979873 1761356006 7087480710 1317952368 9427521948 4353056783 0022878569 9782977834 7845878228 9110976250 0302696156 1700250464 3382437764 8610283831 2683303724 ...      Even in ruins, the Parthenon is a stupendously graceful, beautiful building. There are many reasons for this, some owing purely to the aesthetic sense of the Athenians when they replaced a building now known only as the "Older Parthenon." But one of the reasons is phi (φ), the irrational number also known as the golden ratio – starting as 1.6180339887, and going on forever thereafter as it approximates the formula (a+b)/a = a/b = φ or φ = (1+√5)/2. The golden ratio manifests itself (approximately) in nature, and (precisely) in many geometric forms. For example, several of the line segments in a pentagram are in a golden ratio to each other. And in a pentagon, any of the isosceles triangles that can be formed by drawing lines across the face have a φ relationship between the short and long sides: either as a "golden triangle" (the two sides of equal length are the shorter measurement) or as a "golden gnomon" (the two sides of equal length are the longer measurement). And phi can be important in pyramid design: For example, a pyramid in which the measurements can be factored to a semi-base:height:apothem ratio (b:h:a in the illustration) of 1:√φ:φ is a "golden pyramid." And a ratio of 1:4/π:1.61899 is prominent in the Egyptian pyramids (the apothem measurement here being less than 6/100 of a percent deviation from φ). But in construction, the most accessible use of φ is in the "golden rectangle." In short, this means that if you have a rectangle sized such that you can multiply the short side by φ to get the long side, then you can also multiply the long side by φ to get the sum of the short and long sides. This is easier to visualize than to describe: The short (dotted red) line is 200 pixels long; the long (dashed blue) line is 323 pixels; the sum of the two (solid black) is 523 pixels. 200 × φ = ~323 323 × φ = ~523   The nesting and concatenation of golden rectangles echoes natural forms with a mathematical precision and is found to be very aesthetically appealing.   The designers of the Parthenon knew this, apparently, as the building is structured with dimensions that reflect many applications of the golden rectangle: Golden Rectangles in the Parthenon         Going Down: 75:15:10   A very different kind of ratio came in to play when the Parthenon barely survived the greatest threat to its existence. If you mix 75 parts saltpeter with 15 parts charcoal and 10 parts sulfur, you get gunpowder. The ingredients have been known since the 10th century, and the mix was tested and improved for half a millennium before this most explosive combination was refined. But to understand why this is important, we have to step back a bit: The Ottoman Turks had conquered Athens two centuries prior, and had converted the Parthenon to a mosque – complete with a minaret. Had they kept it a mosque, no doubt we would be saying today, "The Parthenon is beautiful, but it would be so much more so if it had never been converted to a mosque." Instead, we must say, "If only they had kept it a mosque!" For during a war with Venice, the Turks put the Parthenon to a baser use, fortifying it and and converting it to a gunpowder magazine. We have no way of knowing how good the Ottoman gunpowder mix was. But it was at least as good as the Venetians' aim: When a mortar hit the building on September 26, 1687, the explosion was enough to collapse the Parthenon's roof, demolish its interior, and destroy many of its columns. And that's how the "most serene republic" blew the Parthenon to smithereens.         Going Away: £35,000   The problem with the Ottomans was not that they disrespected the Greek treasures, but rather that they were incompetent at protecting them. In this vein, they allowed Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin – the British ambassador at the turn of the 19th century – some liberty with regard to measuring and copying the stones. And he loosely interpreted this liberty as allowing him to take some of the stones to England and sell them to the British Museum for £35,000 – thus setting up a long-simmering row between the British and Greek governments. Even in its day, even in his homeland, Elgin's act was considered despicable in some quarters. Lord Byron was a particularly harsh critic, penning the following: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Dull is the eye that will not weep to see Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed By British hands, which it had best behoved To guard those relics ne’er to be restored. Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved, And once again thy hapless bosom gored, And snatch'd thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorred! – Lord Byron Nonetheless, they rest to this day in the British Museum, which displays them unashamedly in its Duveen Gallery. The position of the British Museum is that its charter forbids the return of any part of its collection. Bolstering the legal framework for this dubious claim, the British High Court ruled in 2005 that Nazi-looted art which had made its way to the British Museum could not be returned to the Jews from which it was stolen because the British Museum Act cannot be overridden by "moral obligation."

After getting our fill of the Acropolis – except for the Temple of Athena Nike, which was completely obscured by the restoration work – we made our way back down to the low city.

We poked around the Odeon of Herodes Atticus as much as we could, and then went in search of lunch, struggling a bit with the language barrier (and I am pleased to face such a struggle) and finally eating a forgettable lunch at an unforgettable hole-in-the-wall gyro shop. Afterward we searched for an ATM so that I could withdraw just enough in euro to get us to the airport, and then searched for the Metro (which was clearly marked on the local street map, but I didn't even notice it). We hopped on at the EN Acropoli EL Ακρόπολη  Station, transferred in EN Omonia EL Ομόνοια , and retrieved our luggage at Monastiraki. From there it was a straight (but hour-long) shot to the EN Airport EL Αεροδρόμιο . The Athens Metro is spectacular – clean, efficient, and very easy to use.

So this was Day 6 of our trip, and our last day in Greece and in Western Europe (a term, by the way, which refers to the safe U.S.-aligned nations in Europe, regardless of their geographic position – which is why Greece, in the far southeastern corner of the continent, is part of it). This was the day we would depart for the Middle East.

Billy and I didn't worry too much about terrorism; I had done enough research to know that a visit to Israel (the only country on our list with a U.S. State Department travel warning) was safer than a visit to New York City. But just in case things deteriorated during our trip, I had taken the step of registering our itinerary with the State Department, which I had never done with our previous vacations.

With this subject of anti-American terrorism in mind, let's play a quick game, which will be familiar to anyone who grew up with Sesame Street:

Three of these things belong together Three of these things are kind of the same Can you guess which one of these doesn't belong here? Now it's time to play our game. One of these things is not like the others, One of these things just doesn't belong, Can you tell which thing is not like the others By the time I finish my song? Did you guess which thing was not like the others? Did you guess which thing just doesn't belong? If you guessed ...                                 Egypt Greece Israel Jordan                                 ... is not like the others, Then you're absolutely...?

Now if you got that right, the second question is why? Answer: It's not because it's the safe one.

Yes, Greece is the only country on our itinerary where the U.S. embassy was shut down while we were there! if I had been able to access my e-mail on this particular morning, I would have been able to read the following message, informing me that the U.S. embassy in Athens was closed because of a specific threat:

This is, however, not to disparage Greece in any way whatsoever. Rather, it is to disparage our preconceptions about foreign environments and about terrorism. We might be forgiven for stereotyping if the stereotypes provided any accurate guidance whatsoever – but they do not.

And indeed, just as the stereotypes about Greece being a better place with regard to terrorism are wrong; so are the stereotypes about Greece being a worse place in quality of life. Two very unexpected things about this country are that it is amazingly clean and surprisingly free of beggars. It's true that Iraklio and Athens carry a layer of grime that one sees in all cities – or, at least, all the cities I have ever visited. In fact, I think it may be possible to assess the age of a city by measuring the depth of its grease layer. But Greeks are conscientious about using trash cans and the state of their streets bears witness to this dedication. The Athens Metro practically sparkles. More surprising (after visiting Italy twice, and living in America) is the lack of people begging on the street. In our entire time in Greece we saw only two people begging – and, even more unexpected, these were not in some busy Athens square but rather on an uncrowded side street in well-heeled Oia.

My final observation on Greece is that it runs extremely well. When Athens won the 2004 Olympic Games there were doubts about its infrastructure (a belief that also helped Atlanta best Athens for the Centennial Olympic Games). But such a problem has either been completely overcome by the Greek government, or never existed in the first place. I suspect the latter as we visited places outside the main Olympics staging area, and they were no less efficient than Athens. But the upshot is this: If ever you find someone who claims to have been here, and who describes Greece as filthy, incompetent, or backward, you know that you have found a liar. Greece is a gem. And as I sat in the Athens airport waiting to check in for the flight to Jerusalem, and typed the first draft of this report on my Treo, I already knew that I was eager for my return to this amazing country.

Billy and I had dinner at the airport: pizza with three kinds of pork, because we thought it would be our last chance until we were back in America. (Little did we anticipate that there would be a restaurant just outside our hotel in Jerusalem proudly offering ham sandwiches.)

And since I've praised the Greeks so lavishly, I'm not going to restrain myself from a bit of criticism: Their air travel facilities demonstrate what is, in my personal view, an inappropriate comfort level with individuals who did not finish their flights successfully. I was already nonplused by the fact that Olympic Airlines's reward program is named the "Icarus Club." Then I ate my three-pork pizza under a montage of Amelia Earhart photographs. And just left of Amelia was a similar montage: enlargements of a frame from one of those grainy black-and-white early-attempts-at-flight films showing a man leaping off a cliff attached to one of those contraptions with sinewy wings rigged to a frail exposed wood skeleton; like Amelia smiling as she posed on the wing of her Lockheed 10E Electra, it was not horrifying in itself. But anyone who has watched the filmstrips at the local science museum knows that he landed abruptly at the bottom of that cliff in an oozing entanglement where about half of the sinews and frail exposed skeleton were his own.

Waiting for our flight, I finally got a chance to practice Arabic with a Saudi fashion worker and his Syrian friend. They were transferring through Larnaca to Riyadh as we were transferring to Tel Aviv. Considering that Saudia Arabia is hostile to Israel, and Syria is officially at war with it, I was surprised at what a non-issue my travel plans were in this conversation.

At the Athens airport, about 75 minutes later than scheduled, I did something I suspect few (if any) reading this have done: I boarded a Cyprus Airways plane. I'm prepared to make this claim because the in-flight magazine, SunJet, lists the airline's full inventory:

• 2 Airbus A330-200s,
• 2 Airbus A319-100s, and
• 7 Airbus A320-200s (the plane we were on).

Despite its size, though, I found this airline extremely impressive. The delay threatened our transfer to Tel-Aviv, but the staff was conscious of the situation and kept us both informed and reassured. The articles in SunJet were enjoyable as well, with shaded panels guiding the eye as to which part is in English and which is in Greek. As for the former, it is translated by someone who clearly has an ear for the richness and poetry of both languages, viz.:

It makes me want to spend some time in Cyprus. Now mind you, they are not above a little puffery: The same magazine describes sites in Cyprus, and states that Hala Sultan Tekke, near Larnaca, is the "3rd most important site for Muslims, after Mecca and Medina." This is a claim disputed by – let's say – more or less the entire Muslim world, which jealously guards its control of the Haram ash-Shareef in Jerusalem with the identical claim.

ATH EN  Athens International Airport "Elefthérios Venizélos"  EL  Διεθνής Αερολιμένας Αθηνών "Ελευθέριος Βενιζέλος"
1 hour, 35 minutes
LCA EN  Larnaca International Airport   EL  Διεθνές Aεροδρόμιο Λάρνακας   TR  Larnaka Uluslararası Havalimanı

I loved Cyprus Airlines on the first flight. And I think I could love Cyprus too; I really want to come back here. The name likely comes from the same root as "copper," as that's what the island was known for. This is, in fact, why the outline on the flag is copper-colored. Unfortunately, that outline doesn't tell the whole story: On most maps of the island, the uninhabited UN buffer zone is clearly marked – like the ragged ear-to-ear cut of one of the Carver's victims on Nip/Tuck. One can pass with relative ease through the gate in the bisected capital of EN Nicosia EL Λευκωσία TR Lefkoşa , and someday I hope to do so. Today, though, I never made it out of the airport. Having mastered that transfer-flights thing, I never even got a passport stamp.

I'm pretty sure we got on the exact same plane for the trip to Tel-Aviv, but my seat was a less prime bit of real estate and reflected perhaps more accurately the age (and lengthy chain of ownership?) of the plane.

LCA EN  Larnaca International Airport   EL  Διεθνές Aεροδρόμιο Λάρνακας
55 minutes
TLV EN  Ben Gurion International Airport  HE  נמל תעופה בן גוריון  AR  مطار بن غوريون الدولي

Having heard endless horror stories regarding Israeli security procedures, I was prepared for just about anything – just about anything, that is, except for "nothing." This is what happened: We exited in Larnaca. I saw the guys again in the transfer hall and practiced more Arabic. We were shuttled to another part of the terminal. We passed through one metal detector to enter the terminal, and another to enter the gate area (the only real nod to heightened security). I triggered the alarm. The guard looked at my belly button and patted my thighs. And that's it; I was in! But then I had to go to the bathroom, so I left the gate area (with permission) and went to the restroom down the hall. (The Larnaca restrooms are cavernous, by the way, but that's beside the point.) When I returned, they didn't even want me to empty my pockets – so my camera, PDA, belt buckle, and stack of euro coins triggered the alarm. The guy looked quickly at my belly button again (and nothing else) and I was cleared for take-off.

As for Ben Gurion – first impression: it's gorgeous; second impression: lines were long and slow moving, but security did their best; third impression" questions were the least intense version of the "grilling" I could imagine – "Why are you here?" "Where are you staying?" "When will you leave?" Look at passport for a couple of minutes. Then stamp it. So with almost no scrutiny whatsoever, we were in Israel.

I don't normally like to shut doors of opportunity, but with this particular passport stamp I became subject to what is knows as the "Israeli passport stamp stigma." This means, essentially, that because my passport shows evidence of a visit to Israel, I am officially barred from travel to various countries that still consider themselves in a state of war against Israel (or that enforce the ban out of solidarity, but without a formal declaration of war). In theory, I could have avoided this by jumping through a lot of hoops, which essentially boil down to

1. Having Israel stamp my entrance and exit on a separate piece of paper;
2. Having Jordan stamp my entrance on a separate piece of paper (as it would otherwise be obvious that I had entered from a checkpoint on the Israeli border); and
3. Having Jordan stamp my exit on a separate piece of paper (as a departure from Jordan without an entrance to Jordan would be taken as a sign of obfuscating a visit to Israel).

In practice, this adds a lot of anxiety that I didn't need: Anybody along the line could absentmindedly stamp the passport, or simply refuse to stamp the separate paper. And Israel sometimes delays entry – by hours – for people who request this special treatment.

But my decision was more high-minded: I'm proud to have visited Israel. And while there are things I would like to see in all of these nations, I'm not going to lie to get to them. I hope they and Israel make peace, but until that happens I'll honor their wishes and stay away.

Or I could simply get a new passport (or a second passport). This is how most people get around the issue – but I'm hoping to wait out the peace process.

The Israeli Passport Stamp ...	... And the Israeli Passport Stamp Stigma
	Preventing travel to Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Yemen, Sudan, and Libya.

If you've ever traveled with me, you should not have any trouble with the question, "What is the first thing Joe does when he enters a foreign country?" If you haven't, the answer is: Load up on the local currency. So I made a bee-line from customs to the nearest ATM, and filled my wallet with the EN new sheqel HE שקל חדש AR شيكل جديد  (plural - EN new sheqalim HE שקלים חדש AR شيكل جديدة ); the subunit is the EN agora  HE אגורה AR اغورة  (plural - EN agorot HE אגורות AR اغورات ). (My stilted language is because of the weird way that Arabic treats plurals; had I said in English, "it is divided into 100 agorot," the equivalent words in Arabic would have used the singular "agora" – and then you would have been mislead as to what the plural of "agora" is in Arabic. Trust me; I've got your back.)

Anyway, this is the best new currency I've handled since Switzerland; it actually may be the best ever: It's pretty; it's printed on good paper; it has interesting security features; it is written in Hebrew, Arabic, and English; it has a unique currency symbol ("₪"; printed after the number – i.e., to the left of the number in Hebrew; to the right in English). The new sheqel was immensely satisfying.

The Israeli New Sheqel ILS (₪) 20.00 ₪ Portrait of Moshe Sharett; picture of the ceremony of the unfurling of the Israeli flag at the UN building on May 12, 1949; text from the speech given by Sharett on that occasion. 50.00 ₪ Portrait of Shmuel Yosef Agnon; picture of Agnon's study and personal library. Text from the acceptance address given by Agnon when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1966. 100.00 ₪ Portrait of Itzhak Ben-Zvi; picture of the interior of the wooden structure which served as the President's residence; text from the speech given by Ben-Zvi at the first assembly of the Yemenite community held at his residence in 1953. 200.00 ₪ Portrait of Zalman Shazar; picture of pupils in an elementary school class. Text from Shazar's address to the Knesset on July 13, 1949, after the Compulsory Education Law was passed.

By now it was quite late (almost 1:00 AM), so we immediately put ourselves to the task of spending that money on a sherut to Jerusalem, so we could check into the hotel and sleep for what was left of the night. Ordinarily, the sherut would wait until it was filled with passengers going to the same destination, but with the late hour and small crowds our driver departed immediately. As far as I can tell, the amount he charged us (100.00 ₪ each) was reasonable and didn't reflect some huge surcharge for running a mostly empty sherut.

The driver was great: genial; fun-loving; visibly Orthodox. He spoke almost no English, but we tried to make do. Just outside the airport gates, he pointed to the dashboard and said, "waffle." I was trying to make sense of this word, and it took me a while (and further gestures toward a foil pouch on the dashboard) to understand that he was actually offering me a waffle.

Now, the argument can be made that he spoke clearly and I should have understood without effort. But I stand by my position that the most logical assumption was that this person, who spoke precious little English, would not know the word "waffle" and must have been saying something else. Hell, I can carry on a conversation in six languages other than my own (and have some background in two more), but I don't know the word for "waffle" in any of them – or I didn't until I looked it up for this report:

• Spanish: la galleta
• American Sign Language: ØW_ɒ^ɑɒB
  (That's Skokoe Notation, by the way; until I used it here, you were more likely to see a yeti.)
• French: la gaufre
• German: die Waffel
• Italian: la cialda
• Arabic: بسكويت الوفل
• Esperanto: la vaflo
• Greek: τηγανίτα

It is also worth remembering that cab drivers don't ordinarily offer waffles to their passengers.

Then, about 30 km outside of Jerusalem he asked if I wanted to drive. At first I demurred – but when the offer was repeated, I realized he was serious and jumped at the chance. How often does one get the opportunity to say, "I drove a sherut to Jerusalem"? So he pulled to the shoulder and I took the wheel.

In retrospect, maybe this was reckless: It was the middle of the night in an unfamiliar war-torn country. I had no idea how to behave at the police checkpoints (or that I was even supposed to stop until he started making enthusiastic braking gestures). But he talked us through; the police didn't seem to think it was weird that I was driving; and we continued.

Street Signs in Israel These (by night), and the sherut driver's instructions, were what I had to follow to get the sherut to the Old City.

There was confusion on his part as to whether we wanted Jaffa Road or Jaffa Gate. And the language barrier prevented me from communicating this information in any way that was meaningful to him. I had not wanted to test the waters in Arabic because of the political overtones – but finally, in desperation, I gave it a try. He understood a bit and took no offense at all (if anything, he seemed confused as to why I had been holding back), and was able to steer me along the right path to the Old City walls and right past the Jaffa Gate. I remember an expressway, and a confusing exit, and a lot of roundabouts, and then being amazed to realize that I was actually inside the walls.

I paid him the 200 ₪ ($49.16) fare with the recently withdrawn new sheqalim, but to avoid breaking another 100 ₪ bill, I asked if I could tip him in euro. He seemed genuinely ecstatic; when I handed him about € 7 ($9.53), he thanked me enthusiastically and repeatedly.

So far, Israel was nothing like I had expected.

We walked to the hotel a block away and repaired to our room. Billy went to sleep right away. I stayed up until 2:30 AM writing the first draft of this report while it was fresh in my mind. This was a day I didn't want to forget, and there was a lot to write down. It seemed like ages ago that we got off the ferry in Pireaus.

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