November 11, 2019
The past two days were CRAZY because we hit up a bunch of sites. For today, I figured some time for rest and recovery would be good.
Today illustrates a concept about how pilgrimages can be both spiritually edifying and travel-ly edifying too. Out there in the wild, when you search for pilgrimage packages, oftentimes these pilgrimages include touristy aspects (not just holy places).
An example would be visiting Rome and Vatican City as a pilgrim hitting up the major churches and basilicas. And then going into tourist or vacation mode checking out the Trevi Fountain and Colosseum out as well as doing what the Romans do.
For me? That’s basically what I planned on.
TJ lives north of Tel Aviv, and this part of Israel is known for its beaches.
As a reminder, “TJ” refers to my hosts, whereby both husband and wife’s initials are TJ. Confusing, but whatever.
I didn’t catch TJ going off to work, but I had breakfast and coffee with TJ. Their backyard was mighty inviting, so we hung out there.
After breakfast in the morning, TJ showed me around the neighborhood. She showed me a strip mall just a few blocks away that has a grocery store, butcher, produce market, some cafes, and she even introduced me to her hairdresser.
When we got to the beach, she basically dropped me off as she had some errands to take care of.
To start off, I walked up and down the beach to explore.
After doing that for a while, I decided to set up camp in a section of the beach that had less people.
Nothing really exciting here. I swam a little, laid out a little, read a little, prayed a little, Pokémon Go’d a little, journaled a little, and people-watched. I did this for several hours.
Closer to mid-afternoon, I decided I had enough and went to grab food at a local restaurant that serves breakfast all day. I wanted something light and ordered a delicious Greek salad that came with a basket of breads. And this marked the first time I grabbed food on my own in Israel.
I walked back to TJ’s house attempting not to get run over whilst playing Pokémon Go. When I arrived, I happenchanced upon arriving at the same time as some of the other expat wives. They were all running errands during the day, and TJ’s house was the next stop.
We sat and chatted a bit. One of the expat wives had just arrived in Israel not too long ago and is in transition for moving into their house. And that’s a whole ordeal. It was interesting hearing their adventures with getting that all straightened out and taken care of.
After they left, I showered and chilled until TJ came home from work. While we were waiting, TJ taught me about sea glass.
Apparently, a local glass factory got destroyed right by the sea and spilled a bunch of glass into the water. Over time, these glass shards effectively went through a tumbling process due to the waves and sand/rocks. This results in a hardened and smooth piece of glass. It’s a cool hobby and pastime for people to collect this sea glass. TJ was telling me and showing me the different ways you can display them.
TJ proposed that we go out to dinner then go see a movie. And that’s what we ended up doing.
We saw MIDWAY, a movie that shows how the Battle of Midway in World War II was won. I thought it was really cool because I’m rather intrigued by World War II events and stories.The only downside is that I couldn’t really read any of the English subtitles during the Japanese dialogue parts of the movie due to the Hebrew subtitle overlay. -shrugs- Guess I’ll have to watch it again!
The moviegoing experience in Israel is not that much different than the US. I will say though that McDonald’s has some hilarious and ridiculous commercials that they showed before the movie started.
After that, we sat around and talked a bit at home. Then bed time!
Current Stats
Total Cost So Far = $489.45
- Breakfast costed about $20
- Dinner costed about $20
- Movie ticket costed about $10
What do you like to do at the beach?
Navigate to other days:
- Day 0: Preparations and Initial Thoughts
- Day 1: Going MAD
- Day 2: Subway Struggling in Madrid
- Day 3: The Fastest and the Slowest
- Prev> Day 4: Up In the North
- Next> Day 6: Avoiding Missiles and Apollonia
- Day 7: Let’s Avoid More Missiles Today
- Day 8: One Last Time Before Leaving
- Day 9: A Fly Way To End It
JR is a full-time engineer working in the aerospace industry. Apart from having such a fly job, he flies unto the arms of Our Lady and the Church pursuing his faith and a relationship with Christ. Over the past several years, faith and flying via pilgrimages became a thing. When he’s not being fly, JR hangs out with family, friends, his chihuahua, and with thoughts of the next trip.
Beach looks heavenly! I could sit for hours having a quiet retreat! The kids and I totally shouted out at the same time, “goatee!?!?” Ha! I can’t unsee it! You could totally get a way with one! Love your reminder… Even while on a mission (on vacation or in the hummm of our everyday life) it is important to take a rest, to be quiet, and to be still. Looks like you are having an amazing time! Continued prayers for your safe travels!
Haha, I posted that picture on Facebook and got a few comments from *multiple* people saying it looked like an extension of my goatee, haha. But thank you! Yeah, definitely some needed R&R after a crazy weekend of visiting major holy sites so I definitely needed some time to reflect on that. ‘Twas amazing indeed, and thank you for the prayers! (though I am back home now ^_^)