Graceland

It was time to check out some of the new ships with a venture down to Florida, but it had been a lifelong dream of my mother's to see Graceland.  So, we decided that we would actually drive to Florida for a change and stop in along the way at Memphis to see the home of Elvis Presley. 

The very kind staff at Graceland is nonetheless pretty protective of this monument to The King, so I could only use my iPhone for photos (no bags allowed and no flash photography).  Subsequently, these pictures are not the best.  It was a beautiful day for going there, but the bright morning sun also hurt some of the picture quality.

 

 

You start out here in the living room and the iPads with headphones that can give you a guided tour are actually pretty neat.  Its important to keep in mind that nothing has been changed here since 1977, so the décor is going to be reflective of that.  This is big time 70's here and Elvis could afford the best, making Graceland an almost perfectly preserved museum to this era.

 

 

  

 

No commentator on Elvis can fail to note how good he was to his parents.  This photo of his mom and dad's room is a good opportunity for me to make that observation as well.  "Elvis was good to his parents", according to this commentator.

 

 

   

 

Unless I heard incorrectly, Priscilla and Lisa Marie will sometimes still eat at this table on special occasions....

 

  

 

This pool table still has a tear in the fabric from someone's failed trick shot.







  

 

I know this is out of date styling, but actually I think this is a pretty cool basement area.  Yes, there are the three (3) TV's Elvis would watch simultaneously.  The tour guides do not mention Elvis ever shooting his TV's.  But he did.  Multiple times.  Usually whenever Robert Goulet would come on, for some reason.

 

 

 

 

The famous Jungle Room.  Lisa Marie's favorite room was actually used on several occasions for recording sessions.  The carpeted walls and ceilings gave it excellent acoustics.

 

 

 

 

 The kitchen.  Actually kind of small by today's standards (and smaller than what you would expect for The King), however, its important to keep in mind that Graceland was built in 1935, so it was large in that era.  Also, Elvis was a star when he bought this place at age 22 and not a superstar yet and this was about as much house as he could afford. 

 

I love this sign Elvis's dad, Vernon, put on the door of Graceland's office!

Why loafing in the office would bother Vernon more than the shooting range immediately adjacent to the office is beyond me...

They still actually have at least a couple of horses on the property.  Priscilla's?  Lisa Marie's?  I really should have asked who these two horses in the far distance belong to.

Of course they have samples of Elvis's jump suits at Graceland!

Lots of jumpsuits...

This is where Graceland starts to become less of a joke, however.  The number of gold and platinum records lining the walls is just astounding.

This is not a reverse angle of the shot above.  This is the other side of the hallway with even more records.

 

 

 

A whole 'nother entire building full of records and awards.  No joke!

Everyone ends their tour here at his grave, and we did too, though I almost wonder if starting here wouldn't be a better idea.  The trophy rooms just seem like a better place to end because that is really his immortal work.  Just a thought...

Anyway, we did of course have to stay across the street from Graceland at the Heartbreak Hotel.  No, its not the Waldorf Astoria and they are planning a "Guest House" that's a little more up to date, but honesty just to spend one night there wasn't totally awful or anything.  The staff is really nice and it is convenient to Graceland.  In any event, the trip was actually a lot more worthwhile than I was expecting and for sure my mother was grateful to have this particular dream come true!

 

 

 

 







Our Trip to The Holy Land: Pictures of Bethlehem

With the pyramids receding in the distance, we set sail for the Holy Land with our first stop there in Ashdod, a port about an hour away from Jerusalem and Bethlehem.  Security is especially tight for this leg of the cruise with Israeli customs officers actually embarking with us in Alexandria so that they will have lots of time to spend one-on-one with everyone's passports before we even arrive there.  And one-on-one with US as well.  This is because not only did we surrender our passports to the Israelis even before we got on the ship, everyone planning on going ashore had to be interviewed face-to-face by the customs officers while we were still at sea.  

Beyond that, there are many interesting things about going on a tour into Jerusalem and Bethlehem.  To begin with, most guides are indeed Israeli citizens.  However, when you go into areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority, you MUST have a Palestinian guide with you.  Since our first stop is Bethlehem and that lies within Palestinian territory, we have to stop the bus and let a second, Palestinian guide board with us.  Both guides go to great lengths to assure the passengers that the differences between their two peoples is not personal, but rather the result of political turmoil among their respective politicians.  There is no way I am going into that whole issue on a simple travel blog, however, I will say its apparent that both groups REALLY want to make sure the tourist dollars are able to keep coming in, as evidenced by the fact that tour buses are allowed to pass checkpoints (of which there were several and they looked pretty threatening) completely unmolested.

Crucifix above the altar in a secret church underneath the Manger

The Church of the Nativity built around the Manger where Jesus was born

Agnes about to go through the tiny entrance into the Church of the Nativity.  You can see how the larger, original entrance was bricked up to keep early Crusaders from riding their horses directly up to the altar!

Inside the Church of the Nativity.  There is a 2 hour waiting line to touch the floor where the manger itself lay.

Despite the crowd, silence and reverence is strictly enforced.  As is the dress code: women's knees and shoulders MUST be covered.

The Altar of the Church of the Nativity

Catholic Church immediately adjacent to the Manger.  This was built many years after Christianity became accepted.

The original church is actually hidden away in tunnels and chambers underneath the manger, safe from Roman soldiers that would have closed it down and rounded up practitioners of this forbidden cult.

My Latin is not that great, but the best I can make it out its something like: "Paul's brothers, Jerome and Eusebius  burn  to ashes  and overcome the priest".  I could, of course, be totally wrong though I do know that it was Jerome who translated Christ's teachings into Latin and thus set the stage for the new religion to spread throughout the Roman Empire.

Agnes stands outside the Church of the Nativity looking out from the "suburb" of Bethlehem to Jerusalem not far away in the distance.

Sadly, we miss a chance to get a cup of coffee at the internationally renowned Stars & Bucks because they were closed...We did NOT however, miss a chance to go to a nearby gift shop since spending a minimum of a half hour for shopping is actually mandated by the Palestinian Authority for visiting tour groups.  Interestingly enough, that gift shop is owned by Christians.

I just had to get a shot of my namesake hotel (Betlejewski means "of  Bethlehem" in Polish).  Would have loved to spend the night, but we had to get moving along to our next stop: Jerusalem

So we must pass back through this security wall and checkpoint that separates the West Bank from Jerusalem

By local law and custom, all buildings in Jerusalem MUST feature facades made of this stone and in this color.  All residential structures have strict height limitations as well and I didn't see anything that was more than a couple stories tall.

We stop at this monastery to have lunch

We sit on plastic chairs inside this 2000 year old monastery taking advantage of its All You Can Eat  buffet...the mind reels.

Jerusalem, and at least the area right around it, is quite a bit  more lush with vegetation than I ever expected it to be.  Its plenty dusty, don't get me wrong, but its hardly desert-like.  More to come as we journey inside the original walls of Old Jerusalem and walk down the Via Dolorossa as Jesus did on his way to be crucified...

Alexandria, Egypt

So, how do you top the pyramids we saw the day before outside Cairo?  Well, you don't really, however, we still had a great time exploring Alexandria before our ship left Egypt.  We played this one a bit more by ear simply by walking off the ship and negotiating with multiple taxi drivers to take us around town.

Negotiating with your average Egyptian is really an experience itself.  Right outside the customs office near the ship are a bunch of market stalls operated by the most persistent salespeople I have ever met.  They won't exactly grab your arm and pull you into their shop, but they will not stop calling after you.  Turning your head and making eye contact is the kiss of death if you don't want to buy because then they will REALLY come after you!  If you ARE looking to buy, they will NOT stop offering you whatever they have until you buy something.  Oh, you want a red shirt?  How about this one?  Or this one?  No?  Well, the guy in the stall next door is my cousin (ha!) and he may have it.  Ah, yes, this is $20 (near the ship and in many places in town they will negotiate in dollars and euros).  What?!  I can't give this to you for $10?!  $15?!  You're cutting my hands off!  Ok, throw in the cheesy coffee mug and I'll take it at $17.

Anyway, we found a good driver that took us here first:

The Fortress of Salah ad-Din (the same guy featured in the movie "Kingdom of Heaven")

Entrance of this seaside fortress.  Very impressive, though we didn't go in because there were other things we wanted to see and we were kind of cheaping it out a bit.  

Our driver also thought he would show us a very impressive collection of mosques all clustered together:

Agnes was allowed in the women's entrance if she took her shoes off and we paid a small fee (like $1 or $2)

When they found out I had like no money on me (I was hiding it), they did NOT offer to take me to the men's entrance.  Oh well, we got the pictures and this wasn't really what we came here for anyway...

THIS is what we came here for: wall-to-wall traffic!  Not really, but that's what you get here in Egypt..

After the mosque, we really wanted to see the library at Alexandria, which is probably the most popular thing for people (not just foreigners) to do there.

The original library at Alexandria, the largest and greatest library in  the world  at one time, was sadly destroyed by a fire fire possibly set by Julius Caesar more than 2000 years ago.  No one knows for sure, especially since the ruins of that library sit under some very murky and polluted waters out in the harbor now. 

The new library, completed not many years ago, was built at a cost of approximately $220 million.

Just a ton of people here, including a lot of school children coming in buses.

Inside the library at Alexandria

I actually wanted to see the "relics" of Anwar Sadat, including the uniform he was wearing when he was assassinated in the early 1980's, but we couldn't find the exhibit in this huge place!

Thought we would do some shopping since this place has stores just everywhere...

...right on the street

....in alleyways

Wherever!  And they sell everything.  I was thinking of posting the pictures of the open air butcher shop, but on close examination, those photos were pretty gory.  Needless to say, the USDA would just outright condemn a fair portion of the city if they had jurisdiction here.

Before we went shopping, however, it would be necessary for our cab driver to get in a very violent and heated argument with another motorist.  Apparently, this other guy had been tailgating our cab and honking his horn incessantly and this was really getting on our driver's nerves bad.  So, he stops the cab, gets out of the car and starts yelling at the guy behind him.  Who also gets out of his car.  And right in the face of our driver. For a couple minutes there at least it was touch and go whether they were going to come to blows, but thankfully some passerby managed to unlock these two from their altercation and return our driver to us.  Did I mention how bad traffic was there?

Our driver really felt bad about the whole thing and after finding a place for his car he took us down some alleyways that Agnes said she sure never would have gone down by herself.  Wall to wall shops wherever they could find room, so it was good to have a driver that knew a couple places that might have something we were looking for.  After looking around a bit, though, we decided we had had enough of Egypt and it was time to go back to the ship.  When we got there, this is what we found on the bed:

Agnes thought this thing looked like a pig, but to  me it seemed more like a dog.  They actually had a class onboard that teaches you how to fold towels like this, should you ever want to for some reason.