Long holidays and a lot of traveling and sightseeing - part 1

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Time is flying… I haven’t written for a long time and therefore I’ll write about my traveling in two separate entries (otherwise you’ll fall asleep or get bored 😊).

The ulpan (language course) ended towards the end of September and was followed by a three week long very nice break. Compared to the beginning of the ulpan, when basically every word that came to me was in Hungarian (after having spent a week in Budapest right before coming here), I recovered most of what I had forgotten and learned a lot of new words. Speaking, my biggest weakness, has also improved, and by now it’s not difficult anymore to have a conversation about every-day things. Practicing with the other Swiss girl in my class has helped a lot. Thanks to her being from Geneva and therefore French-speaking, speaking Hebrew to her is a perfect way to practice. It anyway would be too hard to speak French. I realized that actively using any language except for German, English and Dutch would ask too much of my brain at the moment, so I decided to focus on Hebrew. Besides, having lived in the Netherlands without meeting almost any Swiss (mainly because I wasn’t looking for them), I really enjoy spending time with my Swiss friend. I appreciate all the little things we have in common, which are surprisingly many, despite the Röstigraben (Rösti is a traditional dish mainly eaten by Swiss-German speakers) that supposedly separates German- from French- and Italian-speaking Switzerland. All those ignorant people who think that I am basically German and she is French would be surprised! Why don’t they understand that there actually is something like being Swiss, even if there’s no language called “Swiss”?!
The ulpan as a whole was really good. I loved being able to focus on one single language the whole day, and the class was very nice too. Just the amount of exams and homework (which wasn’t always very useful) was ridiculous and at some point I gave up on trying to do it all. Instead I came to see the homework as an invitation to pick the most interesting and useful stuff, so the more homework we got, the more I had to choose from 😊 Unfortunately, the grammar we learned on my level was not new, but I got what I needed most - practice and a bigger vocabulary.

Towards the end of the ulpan Markus arrived. We didn’t have a lot of time to travel together during the ulpan, but thanks to Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year), which was right when he arrived, we could make a day-trip to Ramallah. Getting into the West Bank, or Palestine, as the Palestinians call it, is easy (unless you are Israeli citizen, in that case you’re forbidden by the State of Israel to enter Palestine), just leaving can be a problem, especially for Palestinians. Public transport however is very good and inexpensive. There are many Arab buses and service taxis leaving from the Old City directly to the main Palestinian cities. I had never before been to Palestine, and I realized soon how much I had missed. Ramallah is a relatively rich town and many of the shops were western-style (more so than in other Palestinian cities we visited later). The people were very friendly and we met an incredibly nice and interesting Couch Surfer who showed us around. He took us to the tomb of Arafat, the old city (of which unfortunately not much is left), the grave of the poet Mahmoud Darwish, and to a hill outside of Ramallah with an amazing view. It was a really great day, the only negative thing being the waiting and the tension at the checkpoint when returning to Jerusalem.

After the end of the ulpan we finally had more time to travel. Together with my friend Psyche (like many Chinese she adopted a second name that is easier to pronounce for Europeans), who is studying the same programme with me in Leiden and who came to visit me, we explored the Old City, where among other things we visited the famous Church of the Holy Sepulchre (which I think is a strange name, in other Germanic languages it’s easier to remember: “Grabeskirche” in German, “Heilige Grafkerk” in Dutch and “den heliga gravens kyrka” in Swedish). In my opinion the “holy” part of the name in English, Dutch and Swedish could be left out: Six different churches (Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, and Ethiopian Orthodox) are fighting for it and show a quite un-holy behavior. Maybe it’s because I’m protestant that I can’t really appreciate all this Holiness and the people going crazy because of it… Psyche and I also visited the Cathedral of St. James in the Armenian quarter which I liked much more. This beautiful church was built in the 12th century and unlike the Church of the Holy Sepulchre it isn’t so overloaded with gold and holy objects, even though there are many colourful oil lamps hanging from the ceiling, but in my opinion these rather add to the church’s character.

One day we went to Tel Aviv where instead of sightseeing we ended up taking care of an abandoned kitten that we found in the harbor in Jaffa. Luckily she found a wonderful home with my Israeli friend whom we had planned to meet. As a result, Markus and Psyche didn’t see a lot of the city, apart from the interesting immigrant neighborhood around the New Central Bus Station, where Markus got some Ukrainian beer in a Russian supermarket. There and also later at a fast food corner he could practice his Russian, which can be heard everywhere in Israel (sometimes I feel like living in a Russian-speaking country with a lot of Israeli and other immigrants 😊).

Another day we planned to visit the Dead Sea: Qumran, Ein Gedi and Masada. The easiest way to get there is by car (there is almost no public transport in that part of Israel), so we decided to rent one. After having spent a few hours on trying to find a cheap rental company that would rent out a car for only one day (right then was Sukkoth, the Feast of Tabernacles, and the numerous and long-lasting holidays made organizing things a bit more difficult), we booked a car at Shlomo Sixt. It was relatively inexpensive but getting the car was a disaster. It took us almost 3 hours from the time that we got to the office of Shlomo Sixt until we got the car and I was shocked by the inefficiency of the people working there (it took them more than half an hour to handle every single customer, and this was only to set up the contract, not to actually get the car) and the rudeness of some customers (one of them would go outside to talk on the phone about ten times while it was his turn, as if he were more important than anyone else). After having survived this office we were sent to another one where the cars were parked. There we waited some more until we were shown the car. At least the guy showing me the car was very friendly and helpful and eventually we could leave. Due to a lack of time we had to skip Masada, a fortress where in 73 AD, after the First Jewish-Roman war, jewish rebels committed mass suicide when they were about to be defeated by the Romans. While I had already been to Masada, I really would have liked to visit it with Markus and Psyche, as it is a very interesting place.
After having written my BA thesis on a grammatical feature of an Aramaic text from Qumran, I was happy to finally see the place where the scrolls were found. However, as I had suspected you couldn’t get to the caves themselves, and I was a bit disappointed about the superficial and meager information on the scrolls and the community who supposedly produced them. But it was still worth a visit and afterwards we just made it in time to go “swimming” in Ein Gedi. I remembered that there is a reason why I don’t go there more often, due to the high concentration of salt the water feels extremely oily and sticky. When we went back it was already dark, but driving through the Jordan Valley was very nice (especially at day-light) and I enjoyed driving an automatic car.

We also made a day-trip to Bethlehem, which was one of the most memorable days. First we visited Bethlehem University, a catholic university in the Lasallian tradition. We ran into Brother Peter Bray from New Zeeland who is the Vice Chancellor, and he showed us around and told us a lot about the university. Even though Bethlehem University is a Christian University, about 70% of the students are Muslim and religious tolerance really seems to be lived among the students. Many of the about 3000 students have suffered a lot from Israeli travel restrictions and harassment at military checkpoints, and up to this day they never know whether they’ll be let through quickly or whether they will have to wait for a very long time or even be humiliated. There are also checkpoints within Palestine and it has sometimes been almost impossible to get from one place to the other, which for some students studying at Bethlehem University was a big problem (for example for the Couch Surfer we met in Ramallah, he told us that when he was studying at Bethlehem University he could sometimes not go home or had to walk all the way to avoid the checkpoint). According to the Vice Chancellor the students show great solidarity and help each other wherever they can in trying to pursue their studies. I was impressed by the Vice Chancellor’s passion and the fact that he took so much time for us. Places like Bethlehem University and people like him really give me hope for the future (which otherwise doesn’t look so bright here, at least not for the Palestinians). Afterwards we strolled through the city centre towards the Church of the Nativity. Many people stared at us (more than in Ramallah), and it seemed as if they were not so used to seeing tourists. But it wasn’t especially uncomfortable, I was just glad to have Markus with us when visiting Palestine and the Old City. I think that without him we might have been treated less respectfully and talking to some people might have been more difficult. We had delicious mint tea and fresh falafel before we reached the Church of the Nativity. As I had expected, it was crowded with tourists, who are brought there in large groups only to see the church, leaving without having seen anything else of Bethlehem. The church didn’t impress me, and after quickly having been inside among many Indian and Russian tourists we continued walking around. We met an incredibly kind wood carver who showed us the workshop, and invited us to go up to the roof to take pictures of the amazing view of the city. He told us that he had emigrated to New Zeeland because he didn’t want his beautiful children to be affected by the conflict and to grow up with hatred in their heart. He came back for a few months now to be with his dying mother and to celebrate Christmas here. He told us about the many olive trees his family had owned before the separation wall was built. Now they cannot access their land anymore, because part it is on the other side of the wall while the rest is too close to the wall for them to be able to access it. Therefore they have to buy all the olive wood (for which no trees are cut, all the wood comes from pruning the olive trees). Hearing this friendly and kind-hearted man tell us his story really hurt. He didn’t sound bitter and he didn’t say anything about the Israelis who did this to him and to his family, but I could feel his pain about leaving his country and his family for the sake of his children and the loss of his land. After we had done some extensive shopping at his sister’s shop it was getting late and the wood carver asked us whether we were staying in Bethlehem. When we told him that we were planning to head back to Jerusalem, he told us that there might be no buses anymore and that he would take us to the checkpoint. He almost insisted but we told him that we would definitely find a way to get back. And we did, but even though there were still buses running for some reason tourists are not allowed (by the Israelis) to use the same checkpoint as the Palestinians, so we had to take a cab to a different checkpoint and another cab to Jerusalem.
The day in Bethlehem was simply amazing and traveling in Palestine and especially meeting people like the wood carver in Bethlehem or the Couch Surfer in Ramallah made a permanent impression on me. Meeting all these friendly, hospitable and interesting people made our trips very precious and I would very much like to travel more in Palestine.

I think it’s more than enough for now, I’ll write about our trip to Jericho, travelling with my family to the North and the beginning of the semester another time. One last note about the weather: it’s still very warm 😊 I expected it to get colder (after all, Jerusalem is built on a hill and is not so close to the sea) but most of the time it’s still around 30°C (and in other parts of the country, like Eilat or the Jordan Valley, even much more), and even the nights are still warm…
Have a nice weekend and I’d be really happy to hear from you!

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Photos

Checkpoint on the way to Ramallah
with the separation wall in the background

Ramallah
The busy city centre

Ramallah
View from a hill outside of Ramallah

Jerusalem
The Old City

Jerusalem
Cathedral of St. James in the Old City

Jerusalem
Jews dancing next to the Western Wall at Rosh Hashanah

Qumran
The archeological site and in the background the hills where the caves are located

Bethlehem
Cute girl who wanted to have her picture taken

Bethlehem
Friendly owner of a falafel place (the falafel were delicious!)

Bethlehem
The wood carver

Bethlehem
View from the wood carver's rooftop

Bethlehem
The city centre

Jerusalem
One of the many cats in the Old City

Ramallah
Remains of the old city

Bethlehem
Delicious mint tea we had at a tiny coffeeshop in a sidestreet

Jerusalem
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, or rather some buildings right next to it. After having visited it twice since I came here I decided to stay outside (the smell of incense in there is very strong and makes me nauseous) Markus and Psyche went inside.

Jerusalem
Western Wall and Dome of the Rock

Jerusalem
Mount of olives with Jewish cemetery

Dead Sea
People swimming in the Dead Sea at Ein Gedi.

Jerusalem
Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Believers praying and putting objects on the “stone of anointing” where Jesus’ body is reported to have been prepared for burial. However, this tradition is only attested since Crusader times and the present stone was added in the 19th century.

Jerusalem
Dome of the Rock

Jerusalem
Jewish Orthodox family at Sukkoth in the Old City