Cold again

Sunrise at
Rockefeller Park

The Octave of Christmas is almost over. And the New Year is only a couple of days away. Time flies. Not that anything will change much. The tensions in our region will continue. And my workload and illness will not go away. And I will never see a vacation in 2018 ... like in the past 14 years.

It's very cold these 2 mornings and it even drizzled this morning. The prayers and fasting are having a little result ... Anyway this week was my turn to celebrate Mass at the Ivrea convent. It's almost 1 km away and the Masses are real early ... like 6am so we need to leave our house at 5.30am in order to get there. But it's a nice walk if it doesn't rain. Coming home you get to see the sun rising over the Augusta Victoria Hospital ono the Mt. of Olives. And the walk passes by Rockefeller Park next to the Rockefeller Museum. The park used to be the agricultural fields of the Crusaders 900 years ago. But as a modern park it's been badly neglected and even destroyed by the arabs living around there. The Municipality is pouring lots of money now to redo the entire park, landscaping and creating new areas for exercise and sports. Lets see how long it will last. As we all say in our area ... one week and everything will get smashed up or stolen.

There were clashes yesterday ... quite violent in the Palestinian Territories and the border checkpoints. Reports say 5 were injured. Thousands were involved throwing stones and Molotovs at Israeli soldiers. Thank goodness Jerusalem had nothing going on. Today some clashes also occurred. This Trump disturbance is having too much negative effects in our region.   https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.831960  and   https://www.timesofisrael.com/thousands-of-palestinians-clash-with-israeli-forces-in-gaza-west-bank/

Basking in the cold

Yesterday was again another afternoon full of events: work till3.30pm when I had to upgrade the work of our library; then 5pm when I had to meet the Archbishop, then 7pm to meet some volunteers from the library. Came straight home and slept. But amid the exhaustion I did have some nice moments: bumping into 3 israeli security friends. Haven't met one of them for a really long time and we chatted for over half an hour. Another had shaved his head and beard so I couldn't recognised him at first and walked right past until he called.

Well the cold is not stopping people from enjoying the weekend. Some of the famous baskers continue to perform at Ben Yehuda Mall and Zion Square.