Crossed the Allenby/King Hussein Bridge again yesterday, and just made it across. I have to learn not to travel on the Sabbath in this place. Then we took a taxi to Amman, where we ate a good cheap dinner and collapsed. Amman really isn’t such an interesting town, but we needed to go through it to get here. Took a really early flight to Beirut, and made it through immigration without too much trouble. We are being put up by Jared’s friend Shireen, who is staying in her Aunt’s fabulous apartment. Going to a beach party tonight, so we’re all catching up on rest beforehand. We’re all experiencing pretty severe culture shock, coming from Palestine where women are all covered to Lebanon where it seems anything goes. It’s also amazing that we are only a few hundred miles from Jerusalem, and yet it took us 24 hours to get here. What seems like a small part of the world is not always so easily traversed.
Peter M
Thanks for the illustrated journal entries, living history by the day, and night.
As is my wont I’ll share from the local weather journal:
A totally confirmed tornado in southern NH moving south-north about 20 miles from the coast tore a swath forty miles long, winds around 115 mph w/more or less total destruction in its path. Luckily and oddly the area is not much populated: a couple of people dead, maybe a dozen houses destroyed. It’s a first for me. (Is this news to you?)
Ruth
Gosh, good thing you’re safely in Lebanon, then.
Jan
I’ll jump in here to say that our home is 3-5 miles from where the tornado touched down. Lou and I were driving back from Concord, NH. oblivious to what was happening as we were just west of the path of the tornado. We got a test message from UNH to “Seek shelter” so we called some friends and got some necessary information. We entered the area just after the tornado had passed. Traffic began to stop on Route 4, and more fire trucks and rescue vehicles than I knew even existed in NH came flying by us.
All traffic was diverted South and then East and then eventually we came back West to get home. What is normally a 1/2 hour drive was a 3 1/2 hour excursion. Fortunately for us, there was absolutely no damage to our home or any of our friends’ homes as this was a very strong but localized path of destruction. Unfortunately, others weren’t as lucky. Each day when we drive down Route 4 we can see the storms path as the winds just snapped off trees and powerlines as it blew through the area.
In one of my emails to Josh, I wrote that the tornado experienced has pretty well calmed my anxiety related to his travel plans as it is clear that we have no idea what fate has in store and things can change in a moment.