Tourists are back

Sunrise today

The outbreak of infections have flooded Israeli schools. Over a thousand just in Jerusalem alone. There are calls to close the schools again. Parents have refused to let their children go to school. And hundreds are in quarantine. Now we learn that a synagogue in the next neighbourhood has been detected with one case. Newspaper reports say 2 or 3% of the country's population has been exposed to the virus. That's not good if asymptomatic carriers continue to spread the pandemic. The solution is to test, track and isolate in order to break the cycle. And we read from the newspapers that Japan is facing a 2nd wave ... so it's like a global trend.   https://www.ynetnews.com/article/Syv1PqQ2I?fbclid=IwAR3E-9rIB9BY5kf6WwpmsBlWAghjaHY5oLiEBjr1Fo0bQgPHxWs4IcJNizw

Tourists are back!!

Summer is really on us because the sun rises at 3am (4am solar time). The muezzin begins predawn prayers 15 mins before that. It's early ... to wake people up. By July it'll be as early as 2am. It may be a bother to most people but it is summer to me ... early muezzin calls on the PA system, hot days, holidays, reading up on books, gardening, long evening walks. That's summer for me.

And the tourists are back. Just a few minutes ago I saw a group of 10 westerners pulling their luggage up our street to go to Austrian Hospice. Every morning small groups of tourists ... between 2 to 6 people ... make the Way of the Cross. Israel has allowed Greeks and Cypriots to enter the country ... and a couple of slavic countries like Georgia. We've been enjoying the silence and peace of lockdown ... I'm not sure if we're ready to receive crowds of tourists again. I certainly don't want to be stressed out with those unruly foreigners.

Anyway I'm excited planning what to do during the summer holidays. Certainly I want to study more of armenian and coptic languages, maybe read a couple of plays by Shakespeare again, definitely I want to go and have a meal at Thai House ... This summer is going to be stress free. No more high bp.