The Amazing Race

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Chapter 2.

I had previously decided that Chapters made the whole thing seem much more dramatic. However, they kind of lose their potency when you only have two. But no matter.


I proceed to wander around Tel Aviv. I find, while traveling, that there are no excuses for not exploring. In India, I was walking around for a week with infected lymphnodes. In Argentina, I was traveling for a month with pneumonia. So, after chatting with Jacko, the manager (obviously not his name, but I realized, shocked, that the only word I knew in Hebrew was "Shalom" and that it was NOT a language I could easily pick up), I wandered to the beach to see the sunset, and again, was unworried by the fact that I didn't pay a single bit of attention as to how I got there from my hotel.

So I spent 3 hours wandering downtown Tel Aviv.

It was great. I feel a bit of a traitor saying that, knowing as I do so many people that decry the Israeli state. But after spending so much time in Muslim countries traveling alone, it's ingrained in your head not to be out past sunset. But every time I found myself panicking, an Israeli woman would turn around the corner, in a low-cut top and short shorts, and I would tell myself to not be so stupid.

I'm glad that I had the stopover in Tel Aviv. In order to appreciate the situation in the West Bank, I suppose it's only valuable to see 'how the other side lives', as it were. And Tel Aviv reminds me of a Mediterranean city- beach, people just chilling, lots of trees lining really narrow streets, people getting around on mopeds and bicycles, and that kind of salt worn out look on buildings the closer you get to the sea.

I even went out partying that night, at a legit Israeli club. It was fun, and you realize that people are still very much the same wherever you go in the world.

So. The next morning, I wake up insanely late, curse myself, and go out to follow the only instructions the center in Nablus gave me:

"Take a bus to Jerusalem (1 hour), then a bus to Ramallah (20 minutes), and then a taxi to Nablus (40-50 minutes). We are near the bank, people know us. You will be fine."

I need to start watching the Amazing Race. I think I would rock at it.

So. I take the city bus to central station, get on the bus to Jerusalem, wait at the ticket counter at the station there... and "what are you talking about? there are no buses to ramallah!"

...and I'd been doing so well up to that point.
Yeah, so no one know what the hell I was talking about. Maybe another bus company? "I don't know" Great. Thanks.

I mentally curse the center's "You will be fine." I honestly think of giving up completely at this point. I mean, hello, I'm in one of the oldest places in the world. I can go to Bethlehem, see more of Jerusalem, Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee....

But I suck it up, make it to an internet cafe, and then onward ho to the informal bus system to Ramallah and then to Nablus.

Without a hitch, I swear. I was even slightly let down that they simply waved us through the checkpoints. I was thinking to myself "But this was the one thing I was actually Prepared for!" In any case, I get in to Nablus, thankfully before sundown.

Nablus is great. Well, addendum, the people of Nablus are great. I don't know enough of the city yet to properly evaluate. I get off the bus, kind of take a look around, and you can almost see me mentally clicking my tongue and saying "SO."

But this lady and her husband immediately come to help me and walk me to the center. They leave me in the capable hands of women living in the building. And the center is closed.

At this point, I couldn't even care less. I could have expected as much. The women throw their hands up and practically yell at me, asking me what I'm going to do next. I can't call Bilal, the director of the center, because my phone doesn't seem to like Israeli numbers. I could try to go to his house, but screw that, I check myself into a hotel.

This hotel cost the exact same amount as the hotel in Tel Aviv. I walk in, expecting the same small room and maybe washroom... it's a freaking SUITE. I have two balconies, two washrooms, a living room, a tv, a king sized bed, air conditioning... you definitely can see the difference in the economies between Israel proper and the Palestinian territories.

I wake up the next morning, scared witless in a 'first day of school, will they like me, what to expect' kind of way, and finally make it to the center. A full two days after they were expecting me.

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