Last Day of Pilgrimage

Well, today is the last day of pilgrimage, which is quite sad. We've really enjoyed it here and made a lot of good friends, as well as meeting up with a couple of old friends. I had a fever for a couple of days, but it was when we had some spare time, so thankfully I didn't miss anything. The weather here is nice of course, in fact it's almost too hot for me sometimes. Our pilgrimage group included a young lady named Sothie that I met in India 9 years ago. Now we're both old and married. Her mother joined the four of us in going to various places around Haifa on a couple different occasions, including the cable car going up the mountain, the lower cave of Elijah and the Baha'i cemetary. Our pilgrim guide was a very kind lady of German background named Ursula. She has more stories and knowledge in her mind than anybody I've ever met. She always says: "And after that, if we have time, I'll tell you a few more stories." We spent part of another free day in the ancient prison-city Akka, where we saw the old gates to the city (both land and sea), and the Turkish baths. Akka is certainly a beautiful place for a prison, but at the same time it's easy to imagine how it might have been an unpleasant place to be confined.