Chapter 2 take in the sights

It was three in the morning and the two cousins were lying in bed and for once, trying not to fall asleep. Max has warned them about jet lag and advised them to stay up as late as they could to adapt to the time zone change a little faster. Twenty minutes later they were both comatose and were woken up by Grandpa Max at eight o'clock in the morning.

"Ugh… I'm tired let me sleep a little longer…" groaned Ben

"What time is it?" groaned Gwen

"It's eight o'clock. Breakfast ends in an hour. I thought you might want to get some food; you can rest more after we eat. Our tour starts at one PM.

"Okay…" groaned the two kids and got up to join their grandfather and went down to eat some breakfast. By the time breakfast was over the two cousins and their grandfather was asleep again, only to wake up again at twelve o'clock. Now that they had a total of about eight hours of sleep if you count breakfast and they felt a little bit better but still sleepy. The three tourists got up and got ready for their tour. At twelve fifty they went downstairs to the lobby and waited for their tour guide. At around one o'clock a man of about thirty or late twenties with short brown hair walked into the lobby and came up to Max.

"Max Tennyson?" he asked

"Yes that's me and these are my grandkids Ben and Gwen" said Max as the two kids waved

"I'm Michael Cohen. Nice to meet you"

"Nice to meet you too" said Max

"So shall we start the tour?"

"Sure" said Max as they joined him and they all got into his car which was a family minivan.

Michael started the van and drove off and said

"So what brings to Israel?"

"Just a family vacation and a chance to get a little history"

"I can relate. This country is very historical. there's a lot of interesting stuff to see here"

"One would assume" said Max

"One of the most historical cities is of course Jerusalem which is where we are headed now"

"Is there anything interesting to see in Hertzelia?"

"In terms of history not really. it's a nice looking city but it doesn't have much historical background except for the fact it's named after Binyamin Zeaev Hertzel who was the person who came up with the vision of the rebirth of Israel" said Michael as he turned the steering wheel and the car entered the highway

"What was his story?" asked Gwen

"Don't remember much about him. I don't normally give tours in Hertzelia so I don't want to give you wrong information"

"I see" said Gwen

There was a short silence which was broken by Michael asking

"So where are you guys from?"

"Bellwood" said Ben

"In Illinois?" asked Michael

"Yeah" answered Ben

"Nice. I've been to Illinois once. I was in Chicago. Beautiful place. Very friendly people"

"Yeah I like that place" said Gwen

"We all do" said Max

Before long they have reached Jerusalem which looked a little different than Hertzelia which had lot of skyscrapers and looked more stylish.

"Why do the buildings here look different?" asked Gwen

"Different style I guess. Plus it's much older than some of the other cities and I don't think sky scrapers suit it very much"

"Uh huh…" said Gwen as they passed by a gas station and saw a big white hanging bridge ahead of them, supported by a tall bar with strings attached to it supporting the bridge itself, making it look a little bit like a harp

"Ooh… that's a nice bridge… its beautiful" said Gwen

"That bridge is actually part of the new light rail system we have; it's called the cord bridge. The program has been talked about for years and the building work caused a lot of headaches for people downtown, it still does though even though it's complete. It was supposed to make public transportation easier but it didn't work out very well" said Michael as they stopped at a traffic light

"Why not?" asked Gwen

"I don't know. I guess they didn't do it properly"

"When did they start using it?" asked Max

"Last January so it was almost a year ago"

"Nice" said Max

"If you're lucky we might see it ride on the bridge" and sure enough they were when they heard a few bell dings and saw a train go on the bridge

"There we go" said Michael

"That's a nice one" said Gwen

"Cool" mentioned Ben

"It's beautiful. All nice and shiny" said Max admiring the beauty of the shiny train go over the bridge as the traffic light turned green. Shortly afterwards they were driving on a road with several shops on the sidewalk and one big building with shiny blue windows and big clock.

"That is Jerusalem's central bus station. It's where you can take buses to different parts of the country" said Michael

"It's nice" said Gwen

"Yeah it's a pretty one" said Michael as they drove on. Before long they were passing by a building designed like no other building the Tennysons have seen before. It was a brown and beige rectangular building with supporting columns outside of it supporting a roof that was bigger than the building itself.

"That my friends; is the Israeli parliament known as the Knesset. It is named after the great Knesset of Israel that used to judge people during the time of the second temple and it had one hundred and twenty judges. So our Knesset is named after it and has one hundred and twenty ministers like the old one had the same number of judges. Like you have requested over the phone I made reservations for a tour for us. So I'm gonna park the car and we'll go get in line" said Michael

After ten minutes of walking they have entered the security checkup zone and once cleared they walked towards the Israeli parliament ready to take a tour they will never forget…

To be continued…

Well? What do you think? Pretty interesting huh? Did you like it? Did you dislike it? Did you like it even more? Please tell me what you think on your reviews on your way out…

PS: I will also appreciate it if you tell me if you want me to continue telling Israel's history through this story because that was part of the original plan. If you don't want to you can tell me and I'll try to cut down on the history part a bit.

Thank you…