Seeing new friends sometimes is like seeing old friends.

Our Group Study Exchange team arrived in Jerusalem this afternoon. We checked in at our hotel, some pretty posh digs called the Regency. We’re tired, but thrilled to be near the end of our adventure. And in some strange way, we seem to have found our second wind as the Rotary District Conference has gotten under way.

The reception this evening was a coming together of new friends we have made along the way, but seeing them again was like a gathering of old friends.

These were our “house parents.” They were the folks assigned by the Rotary District in Israel to play host to this band of travelers from Texas, U.S.A., and from The Netherlands — with whom we’ve been traveling for the past four weeks.

From Tel Aviv, Eilat, Nazareth, Nahariya, Haifa, Be’er Sheva, Zichron Ya’Akov and Tivon they all came to this conference. Old friends who took care of us along the way, opened up their homes — and their hearts — to us all. They told us to make ourselves “at home.” They said their homes were our homes, that their fridge always would be open to us. “You need laundry done? I’ll do it,” they said. “You want to call home? Go ahead, use our phone,” they implored us.

It’ll be strange later this weekend when it all concludes. We parted company earlier knowing we’d see them in Jerusalem. That wasn’t so bad and I took comfort knowing we would gather once again in this holiest of cities.

But when the exchange ends for keeps on Sunday, someone will have to keep the Kleenex handy.

I just hate saying goodbye to friends.

I’ve officially gotten my second wind. Three days to go until the end of our Rotary Group Study Exchange journey through Israel and I am re-energized.

We leave Thursday morning for Jerusalem. The Rotary district we’ve been visiting, 2490, is having its District conference in Israel’s capital city. Our team will make its final presentation to a fairly large assembly of Rotary members. Then the official mission is complete. Yes, we’ll stay on until the end of the conference and we’ll still acting as ambassadors for West Texas, for our Rotary District 5730 and for the United States. But then the exchange ends on Sunday.

We’ll be left, then, with our memories of what only can be described as a monumental personal experience for all of us.

But for now, we have one more exciting chapter awaiting us. Taking a gander at the Spiritual Capital of the Holy Land, the place where our faith has its roots.

Allow me to sum up one critical aspect of our trip through Israel with a single four-letter word.

Food.

We are eating our way across the Holy Land. Katt Krause, one of our Rotary Group Study Exchange team members, has the perfect description of what she feels when she awakens every morning. She calls it a “food hangover.”

Amen, Sister Katt.

Do not misunderstand me. We are enjoying ourselves immensely on this journey. The hospitality has been astonishing. Our Israeli hosts at every stop on the way have gone out of their way to show us their country, its traditions and its very special places.

The dinner table appears to cover two elements here: It’s a special place that honors a longstanding Israeli tradition.

Our lunch today in Ramla was a feast fit for royalty.

First came the appetizers: vegetables, salads, bread and a spread called hummus, which everyone here praises as a delicacy sent from heaven.

Then came the next course: it included a pastry filled with meat, which Shirley Davis, another GSE team member, compared to a Philly sandwich; it also included grilled chicken kabobs and some more salads.

The next course included even more salads and a rice dish with seasoned roast beef.

It kept coming and coming and coming.

Dessert? How about cream-filled pastry, such as chocolate eclairs and some other goodies.

And no meal is complete without coffee. It’s either instant coffee or what the Israelis refer to simply as “black coffee,” which in fact is a Turkish blend that makes your hair stand straight up.

Israelis are quite proud of the food they produce here. We have heard about that pride virtually every step of the way. The problem now, though, is that it is getting just a little more difficult to step quite as lively as we were when this adventure began.

I’ll be back at the gym first thing when I get home.

I’ve been telling some acquaintances in Israel that one potentially positive effect of the concealed handgun carry law in Texas is that it might have made Texans a little more courteous behind the wheel of a car.

OK, that’s open to debate. But you have to admit that you think twice about honking your horn at someone believing he or she could be packing a pistol, right? I know I have given it some thought.

But in Israel, where automatic weapons often are seen slung over the shoulders of active-duty soldiers, horn-honking is a way of life. If you don’t move immediately after the light turns green, the driver behind you pounds on his horn. If you slow down on the street because you might be lost trying to navigate through a street-grid maze where a right-angle turn cannot be found, the same thing happens. Sometimes, it seems, people honk their horns just for the heck of it.

Our Group Study Exchange team was warned about Israeli drivers before we got here. They’re aggressive, rude and impatient — and this assessment came from an Israeli professor at Texas Tech University.

I’ve been considering whether to rent a car while I’m in Israel on vacation for a week when our GSE assignment concludes. To paraphrase Clint Eastwood in the film, “In the Line of Fire”: I might learn to love public transportation.

I knew it would happen, but I’m still not sure I’ll be ready for the conclusion that is now just around the corner.

Our Rotary Group Study Exchange trip began on May 10. We were midway through our first week in Israel and one of our team members, Fernando Valle, said, “I’ve been here less than a week, but already it feels like a month.” I recall saying something like, “Amen to that, brother.” But remember this, I cautioned: It’s going to fly by and when we get near the end, we won’t know what had happened to the time we have just spent.

With eight days to go, the reverse of what we felt at the beginning is setting in.

At least for me, it is.

I’m going to take an extra week of vacation when my wife arrives at the end of our GSE assignment. I will enjoy tremendously showing her a taste of what we will have seen.

But most of our team is going home on June 7. Saying “so long” to them will be difficult.

This journey to date has been one for the books. It looks for all the world, though, like the final chapter is going to be a doozy.

Perhaps you’ve been checked on your way out of a Westgate Mall department store by some guy looking for a receipt to prove you bought the merchandise you’re carrying with you.

In Israel, though, mall security takes on a different meaning.

We went to the mall Tuesday night in Haifa for a quick bite to eat. My host, a Rotarian who came to Israel from South Africa nearly 50 years ago, parked his car underground and we walked to the mall entrance.

We were met by a security guard standing next to a metal detector. I emptied my pockets and walked through.

OK, no problem. I was told about this in advance. Terrorists have blown up shopping malls in Israel. So, the Israelis take no chances. The guard even had one of those wands they use — just in case they sense something suspicious. What if I were carrying a gun? My host said I’d better produce a license to prove I was allowed to be packing heat — or else. He didn’t say what the “or else” would entail.

I don’t think I want to know.

We received a heads up today.

The Israelis need to stay alert to any eventuality. Heaven knows they get enough surprises in their lives, with rockets and mortars fired into their cities from time to time across some quite hostile borders.

They’re going to have a drill next Wednesday. Sirens all across the country will wail. Stores will lock down. Business will stop. The sirens are meant to test Israelis’ quickness to respond.

There’s no telling how quickly everyone will need to run into the bomb shelters. My hosts, a Rotary couple in Haifa, tell me the sirens aren’t the same as the “real thing.” But it’s a drill, and it’s supposed to be realistic enough to make them go through the motions.

I’ll be curious to know whether the country responds more quickly to than many private businesses do in the States when a routine fire drill occurs.

I’m guessing the Israelis are pretty good at this.

I was pinching myself Sunday night because for a moment, I couldn’t believe I was doing what I was doing.

Our Rotary Group Study Exchange team met with a combined group of Rotary clubs under a Bedouin tent … in an Arab village … in an Israeli city … far from home.

Our presentation went off without a hitch; well, maybe one — we’ve had some audio trouble with one portion of it, but we’ve learned how to improvise. It’s the same one we’ve been presenting ever since we arrived in Israel on May 10. We’re getting pretty good at this. Our team — Katt Krause of Amarillo, Aida Almaraz of Amarillo, Shirley Davis of Levelland and Fernando Valle of Lubbock — tells our hosts a little about themselves, their occupations and their families. They sprinkle their presentation with just the right amount of West Texas color, which our hosts appreciate very much.

We’ve also been blessed to be traveling with an engaging team from The Netherlands, who are conducting a simultaneous exchange right along with us. So, this GSE team is getting a double dose of cultural exposure — from our hosts as well as from our traveling companions.

But this event Sunday night was quite special. We had Jews and Muslims and Christians sitting under the same tent, eating a wonderful assortment of food prepared by our hosts living near Karmiel. Many of the folks were familiar, as we had met them the previous day.

The first two weeks have rocketed by, as I look back on it. The next two likely will fly past us even more quickly. Everyone keeps telling us the same thing: Wait until you get to Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is our final stop. We’ll deliver our final presentations to the Rotary District 2490 conference before a crowd predicted by our hosts to exceed 600 people — by far the largest room we’ll “play” on our journey.

With all due respect to The Beatles (who helped raise me during the ’60s), the “Magical Mystery Tour” had nothing on this adventure.

Our Rotary Group Study Exchange team was strolling through the old market place in Nazareth, Israel the other day.

Fernando Valle, a team member from Lubbock, was asked by an elderly gentleman, “Where are you from?” Fernando responded, “The United States.” “Where in the States?” the man asked. “Texas,” Fernando answered.

“Ah, Texas,” the man said, smiling.

He then began twirling his hands, as if to be spinning six-shooters around his trigger finger.

Therein lies the prevailing image that Texas — and Texans — seem to have in the Middle East. We’re all a bunch of gun-slingers.

It’s not entirely clear to me whether rank-and-file Israelis believe that about Texans and our state, or if they’re just speaking to the stereotype just to get a rise out of us.

We laugh it off — and continue to have the time of our lives.