First day in Nablus

On Saturday morning, I had a nice breakfast in the guest house. Then I went to the bus station. I asked where the bus to Ramallah was and a woman showed me. I ended up sitting with her on the bus. She had a book that said Travel and Tourism in English. I asked her some questions and she spoke almost no English, so I made due with my Arabic. She is taking a class on tourism in Ramallah, but she only knows a little English.  In Ramallah, I asked for the bus station.  People showed me the Nablus bus.  There was a man sitting behind me with his little boy.  He spoke English and told me he would let me know when to get off the bus.  When we got to Ramallah, I had to ask several people for the Yasmeen Hotel.  Some didn't know, but all answered in Arabic.  This will be a much bètter place to work on my Arabic than Beirut.
At the hotel, I called Taufique. He said his colleague was taking new volunteers on a tour of the city and that he would come for me.  After about thirty minutes, Ahmad came with six other volunteers.  So, I got a chance to start making friends. We got some lunch and I bought a Palestinian phone during the tour and then went back to the office.
At the office, Ahmad introduced us to Taufique and Noura. Noura organizes the classes.  Then, Ahmad took us to our apartment.  The Project House is full, so they got an additional apartment for us.  So far, we have Lena (Australian/Palestinian), Reema (also Australian/Palestinian) and Silvia (Italian).
There was a picnic in a nearby park. We went to it and met more volunteers -  some Brits, Norwegians and Germans. So far, no Americans.
The night went fine except that the house was FREEZING. 

arriving in Israel

march 5, 2017
I'm beginning to wonder whether I'll be able to do this blog.  I type stuff and then the internet cuts out and I lose it all.
Summary from where I ,soft off:  they didn't ask many questions at the airport : was it my first time in Israel?  (No). Why am I here? (Tourism). He asked to see my ticket. I showed him my boarding pass because I didn't want him to see how long I was staying, but he asked me that anyway.  Then he said Welcome to Israel.  I got the shuttle to jerusalem.  It dropped me off at Saint George's,where they had my reservation and were expecting me. They don't have dinner there, so I went out to a restaurant.  That was good because I got my bearings - remembered where to go places and found the bus station. 

Traveling to Israel/Palestine

March 4, 2017
Sorry I've taken so long to start writing. The first day I was really just too tired.  I flew overnight to Brussels. My seat mate was a woman originally from Gambia, but who has been living in Miami for the last 30 years. We had a nice time talking about West Africa. I hardly slept on the plane.  I really tried,  but just couldn't. Part of the problem is that the time to sleep is at around 9 PM.  I'm not tired enough yet. The plane landed at 6:40 AM.  We had breakfast at around 6 - that's midnight at home - right about the time I would usually go to sleep at home. The next flight left Brussels at 11   I didn't eat lunch before boarding the plane, which turned out to be a mistake since they gave you no food on the plane.
When I got to Tel Aviv airport, there was a huge crowd waiting to go to passport control.  There was no organization to it - just a mass of people pushing each other.  It took over an hour to get up to the window. 

Going to Vermont

July 17, 2016

At about 6:00 this morning, it started raining. We waited a while in the tent, hoping it would stop. Then Wendy went out to the bathroom and came back and said the sky was full of dark clouds. There was no point in waiting. We packed up our stuff. As we were getting stuff in the car, it was really pouring. We just kind of threw things in the car. 

We started driving out of Acadia at 7:30 - the earliest morning we've had this trip. At about 8:00, we passed a Tim Horton and got breakfast. Then we drove the rest of the way to Montpelier.  We passed all the way through New Hampshire. Montpelier is tiny.  We are staying at the Econolodge.  It's definitely not luxurious, but is quite cheap - $75 per night. 

We checked in and then started taking stuff out of the car to drive. Wendy managed to get her tent dry in the sun in the parking lot. Then we drove to Cabot Creamery to see how they make cheese. It was interesting. They don't allow you to take any photos. I was in mpressed that when farmers bring them their milk, it is tested for antibiotics and hormones. They won't accept milk with either. After the creamery, we drove to a place where they make maple syrup. They are not making syrup now, in the summer, but you can walk around and see the machinery and also walk up the path into the forest to see where the trees are tapped. We had a maple flavored ice cream cone. It was very good. 

Last, we walked around Montpelier. It's only about 4 blocks. There are Bernie Sanders photos in many store windows. We had some Mexican food and then headed back to the hotel room. 

Acadia National Park

July 15 and 16, 2016

We left Portland and headed up to Bar Harbor. We took a slight detour to go to a farmers market in Belfast. We were hoping to get Maine blueberries, but didn't find any. We bought some cheese and wine for dinner tonight. When we got Bar Harbor, we stopped at a little lunch place and had sandwiches. We also stopped at a roadside stand and bought strawberries. Then we continued on to find our campground in Acadia. It's kind of strange. I think the whole island is the park, but there are private homes here. There are also many private roads. When you enter the campground area, you have to pay or show your admission permit. We needed to go in to register for our campsite. We had a reservation, which I had made online ahead of time.  I asked whether I could get my senior national park pass there. I've wanted to get one, but you have to buy it at a national park and there's always a long line to enter at Great Falls and I don't want to do anything to slow up the line. So, I got it at Acadia. It's $10 and it's good for life. If I had gotten it before I reserved the campsite, it would have been half the price. (Still, $22 per night was a great deal). We set up our tent and then went out to drive around. We are at the Saewall campground. It would have been better if we were at the Blackwell camp. Most of the interesting things are near there. There wasn't time to drive all the way to Park Loop Road. It's on the other side of the island, so we just drove around the area near our campground a little. We found a store and bought more dinner supplies: ice, pepperoni, more cheese, tomatoes and grapes.  It was a very gourmet store - nice stuff, but expensive. We would have been better off to buy things at a regular grocery before we got to Acadia. Then we went back to the campsite and ate dinner. I went for a walk after that. Then we started a fire and had some wine. 

On Saturday, 7/15, we left the campground to go see the sights. We had intended to stop in town to get coffee and then find a nice spot to have coffee with our blueberry scones that we got at the bakery yesterday, but the town was packed. There was some kind of parade (flamingo festival?). People were lining the street and the road was full of traffic. We just drove on as quickly as we could. We ate our scones in the car a little later. We also had bananas. (I got up before Wendy and I had 2 chocolate covered coffee beans when I was getting dressed in order to get my caffeine. Than we drove over to the park loop road. It means getting onto another peninsula. We drove to Cadillac Mountain. It has unbelievable views. Also, the gift store had coffee. 

After that, we went to see the wild plant garden. 

We also went to Sand Beach. It was wonderful. I took off my shoes and walked in the ocean. This is a beach where I would have loved to swim. The water was cold, but it would have been lovely to swim I it. 

Then we went to see Thunderhole. It's a place where the tide comes in and fills a little area. We could also see whales from there. 

We went to Gordon's Pond and had lunch in a lovely restaurant. I had lobster roll. I feel like I need to keep trying lobster roll at different places. It's always good. 

Then we decided to walk the trail around Gordon's Pond. The ranger said it was 3 miles, but I'm sure it was more than that. It was a nice trail. We climbed over rocks and walked on planks over a bog, but we were worn out after that.  And Wendy had a blister on her foot. 

When we got back near the campground, we were totally sweaty. There's a store near he entrance to the campground that has showers for $1.50 for 2 minutes. We had enough quarters for each of us to take a 4 minute shower. We took showers right away - at about 4:00 because we thought it would be crowded in the morning. And it was getting crowded as we left. So, we got ourselves nice and clean to drive to Vermont tomorrow morning. 

We came back to the campsite and had our leftovers from last night for dinner. It was more than enough. We had leftover cheese and gave it to some neighbors at another campsite. Wendy went to bed early because she didn't sleep last night. I sat up and drank some brandy that I bought in town. 

Second day in Portsmouth

July 14, 2016

Today we walked around downtown Portsmouth in the morning. We just kind of got a feel for the city. We went by the Wadsworth Longfellow House and the Victorian mansion. We are kind of old house'ed out, so we just looked from outside and didn't pay the entry fee. We went in lots of little shops. Wendy actually shopped for herself and for me. She suggested things for me to try on.  I bought a dress and a top. 

Then we drove to the Maine Craft distillery.  We tried several gins, rum and vodkas. The guy was very knowledgeable and explained a lot. We each bought some blueberry moonshine. 

Then we drove to Freeport. We had lunch at a little stand outside LLBean.  I had a lobster taco.  It was good. The lobster is always in big chunks and it's fresh. We shopped some more at the outlets there

After that, we went to the Cold River Distillery.  It was not as interesting of a tasting. The girl had us try only three and didn't say much. Wendy liked the liquor there much better, though. (I thought they were about the same). Both tastings were free. 

At that point, we were getting hot and tired. We went back to the hotel to go to the pool. 

We asked the girl at the front desk where we could get a good burger. She recommended The Lost Bear. We went there and it was great. 

Portsmouth, NH and Portland, ME

We had a very nice breakfast at our hotel in Gloucester. 

Then, we drove for about an hour to Portsmouth, NH. We took a walking tour - described in Wendy's book. It's again a cute little seaside town. We sat and watched a kids' camp practice their musical and in a park and ate lunch at Copeland's. It's a restaurant where they don't allow any political campaigning.  After spending the morning in Portsmouth, we drove to about an hour to Portland, NH. We went to a brewery and took a tour. The tour was interesting. Wendy and I tasted a little beer, but neither of us likes beer. 

We then drove to our hotel (LaQuinta again). When we got there, I checked the email confirmation and realized that I had made the reservation for the 12th and 13th, but we needed the 13th and 14th. We went in and explained to the girl at the desk. She said that in the case of a no show, it charges you for the first night and cancels your reservation for the following nights. Fortunately, she was able to fix it for us. 

We went to the pool for a while and then to the outlet mall. We found quite a few bargains.