Work Trip to Israel

In early February, I traveled to Israel of all places for work. My company (now NXP) was closing our design center in Herzliya, Israel (just outside Tel Aviv). A few people from across the globe were traveling there to get first hand knowledge transfer of all the design elements that we would now be responsible for. It was a very last minute trip - I think I literally booked my flight 4 days before I left! Thank goodness I have a husband and family who can pick up our crazy lives and keep them going. It was stressful trying to put everything into place in such short notice, but somehow we made it work.

I flew out on a Friday afternoon and arrived in Israel on Saturday evening. It was a LONG flight. But this was the view from my hotel room each day when I woke up! We were staying right on the Mediterranean Sea.

We'd have breakfast each morning in the hotel and then walk about 3/4 mile to work. It was actually really nice and made me wish we sometimes lived somewhere more metropolitan and less suburban. We worked Sunday - Thursday (typical Israeli work week). It was some long days and often in the evening, we'd go out to dinner with co-workers from other NXP sites around the world who were also there for the knowledge transfer.  Every one at the Israel site was very nice and gracious - considering they were all losing their jobs! Fortunately, most of them already had new jobs. But I really appreciated how helpful and understanding they were.

I was able to skype with the family back home usually - much harder because of the time difference. I didn't sleep all that great as my body had a hard time adjusting too (I think because we spent most of our days indoors working!). We were flying back on Saturday evening to Austin so we had all day Friday/Saturday to do some sight-seeing. My co-worker from Austin and I booked a 2-day tour to go see some of the sites. The first day we spent in Jerusalem and the 2nd day was at the Dead Sea and Masada. I'll post some of the highlights!

First stop was at Hebrew University with a view of Jerusalem. Then we headed down to the Zion Gate to enter the city. It's divided into 4 sections: Armenian, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian. We visited 3 of the 4 (you aren't allowed to go into the Armenian). As it was Friday, we saw many people preparing for the Sabbath and also going to Friday prayers at the Dome of the Rock/Temple Mount.

Restored Roman mosaic of the old city of Jerusalem - there are all these tunnels beneath the city which you could tour. The city was destroyed so many times and each time was rebuilt on top of the old one. Fascinating to see the different layers!

The beautiful Dome of the Rock and Temple Mount - you can see the dome from all over the city! Only Muslims are allowed into the area surrounding it on Fridays so we did not get to see it.

The Wailing Wall - this was the only area of the Old City where we had to go through a metal detector. Also, it's separated into two sections - one for women and one for men

We went along the Via Dolorosa - the path that Christ took to his crucifixion and the Stations of the Cross. We started at Station 4.

 

The fifth station of the cross - where Simon helped carry the cross

This blackened stone next to Station V is supposedly where Jesus touched the stone (which is why everyone else touches it)!

I'll post some more pictures from the rest of the trip in another blog entry - just too many interesting and fascinating things!