Archive for December, 2006

for someone who doesn’t like frank

For someone who doesn’t like Frank Lloyd Wright, I sure seem to spend a lot of time thinking about how much I don’t like him.
Some friends and I have a subscription package to a number of plays throughout the year at a relatively well-known theatre in town. We purchased tickets to the five big ones, […]

Posted by Marie on December 15th, 2006 under art | Comment now »

when ugly people get uglier

I rode the bus this morning, the express bus from way north to the loop. Before we went express, someone from the CTA radio told the bus driver that there was an accident on Lake Shore Drive, so we had to take surface roads to downtown instead of the very quick LSD. This did not go […]

Posted by Marie on December 13th, 2006 under Uncategorized | Comment now »

the tour groups

Every time I have been to Israel for work, life in the hotel is dominated by the tours. I was there this last time for two weeks , and during that time we probably had four tour groups come in and out of the hotel. The tours are usually accompanied by big huge buses parked […]

Posted by Marie on December 12th, 2006 under Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

back in the profane

So, I’m home, and have been for a few days now. Getting through security at Ben Gurion airport has never been so easy; maybe it’s because I’m more used to being questioned and have been there enough times that they don’t find anything amiss with me anymore. It was Heathrow that was the security bottleneck […]

Posted by Marie on December 11th, 2006 under Uncategorized | Comment now »

moving from the sacred to the profane

So the hotel mixed up my planned trip to Caesarea yesterday, my last free day before coming home. After I got over my extreme disappointment, I walked over to see the Israel museum again — I hadn’t seen the archaeology section last time so thought I would take this opportunity to spend a lot of […]

Posted by Marie on December 8th, 2006 under Uncategorized | Comment now »

third holy site - check

So we saw the Dome of the Rock (Temple Mount) today, this morning before work. The visiting hours are limited, it can’t be Friday (holy day for muslims) or Saturday (not sure if it is because it is the Sabbath or what). So anyway, we went Thursday morning (today) before work. It was very pretty, […]

Posted by Marie on December 7th, 2006 under Uncategorized | Comment now »

i’m a coffee-american

I wrote about this after my trip to Italy too, so I think I’ve become one of those Americans who need their Starbucks (or less corporate but still Starbucks-like) coffee in the morning. Our offices here are in nice, big corporate office buildings, with many different companies (and people) going in and out. Without *one* […]

Posted by Marie on December 4th, 2006 under Uncategorized | Comment now »

the old city

Today I walked through the Old City again. I’ve been to the old city before, and have seen the Western Wall (holiest site for Judaism, the wall behind which sits a stone where Abraham agreed to sacrifice his son Isaac and Jacob saw his ladder) and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (holiest site for […]

Posted by Marie on December 2nd, 2006 under History | Comment now »

masada and the dead sea

So I’m in the middle of my two weeks here in Jerusalem so I had Friday and Saturday to hang around. Note that the Israeli work week is Sunday through Thursday, so the weekend is Fri-Sat. During the other times that I have visited, I have never had the chance to see more of the […]