Someplace like home...

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Tel Aviv is a great city. For those of you, who, like myself, thought of Israel like it was a dusty crumbling country of the olden days think again, Tel Aviv is as much of a modern Mediterranean metropolis as any European city. We were so happy when we arrived in the airport to escalators and moving walkways with duty free shops and pristine bathrooms, we were back to the first world! It was such a great feeling. We even took the train into the city from the airport. Our hostel was just 1 block from the beach and we got the only room with a sea view from the balcony. The girl at the front desk recommended a great place for lunch and we got some delicious pasta real cheap, the place had a wait at 2:30pm for lunch! We took it easy, still had to recover from the jet lag and whatnot, and stayed in the first night while it thunder stormed outside.

Our second day was beautiful and we spent it touring around Tel Aviv. We hit up the art museum, the big market, the crafts market (just like the Santa Barbara art walk on Sundays), and even went down to the old city of Jaffa. Jaffa is on a point overlooking the sea and it was a perfect day. It was also Friday and Shabbot starts on friday afternoon so lots of the shops and things start closing. Of course the place we wanted to have lunch had already shut, but we got great mezze (kinda like tapas) overlooking the sea, watching the surfers bail on the huge waves. That night we met up with an old friend of mine Avia, she was my roommate in NY, and has since moved back to Israel. She took us out to a Chocolate Bar where we ordered amazing chocolate drinks and a chocolate fondue! Never had such amazing liquid milk chocolate.

Saturday is full-on Shabbot. Everything was closed, and I mean everything. We walked up to a movie theater which was in a big mall, and everything but the movie theater was closed, walking through a deserted mall in the middle of the day is weird. Since every thing was closed we took it as a day of rest as well.

Sunday is like our Monday and everything goes back to normal, the work week begins again. We signed up for a two day tour out to the Dead Sea and Massada, then Jerusalem and Bethlehem, overnight in Jerusalem.

We got picked up at 7am and started out to the Dead Sea. Along the way we saw the Inn of the Good Samaritan and the caves where they found the dead sea scrolls, cool! There were actually some other Americans on the tour with us but unfortunately I had to nic name one of them Sir Cheeseball because he was extremely outspoken of the cheeseiest kind, and spent the whole tour hitting on a single Romanian girl with lines like "Which movie do you like better, Lion King or Terminator 2?" and by the time he was administering a "personality test" I was actually ashamed that we were both from California. And this guy was like a millionaire at 35 and is now retired from the sale of his software company in the late 90s. arg! Anyways back to the tour... Our guide was great, although he couldn't drive for shit and kept slamming on the breaks and swerving so much that the Korean guy sitting across from me puked all over himself and for the rest of the day he, and the bus, smelled like vomit. Okay, so we finally got out to Massada with just one stop at a shop along the way, a shop selling high dollar personal care products with minerals from the Dead Sea. Massada was the last strong hold for the Jews when they were persecuted by the Romans but eventually the Romans broke through the wall, but they were too late cause all the Jews had committed suicide the night before. It was a really amazing place, originally built as a palace by Herod, with incredible views of the whole dead sea valley. From there we drove out to the Dead Sea, but it rained and a river started flowing over the road. Our driver went for it and we got stuck, luckily Aaron got out and pushed and we were back on the road. But then we had a bunch of rocks stuck in between the back tires. We spent like an hour trying to get the rocks out, there was no car jack, so we couldn't just take the wheel off right away. Finally Aaron convinced the guy to un-screw the tire mostly and then we could get the rocks out, it worked, of course, and we were back in business. We made it down to the water by 4:30 or so, and by then it was quite chilly, but we jumped in anyways and got the mud treatment as well. You really float in there! That night we spent in a very Jewish hotel that was even fit with a Shabot elevator, haha.

The next morning we were out to our tour of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. This time a new tour guide and the Koreans were with us again, but luckily not the cheeseball dude. Old Jerusalem is a lot like I imagined Israel. There are narrow alleyways, old stone walls, and all the ancient architecture that just makes you feel the history of the place. We went through almost all the stages of the cross and visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where Jesus was said to have been on the Cross and everything. The church was somewhat of a disappointment as there had been a fire there like 300 years ago and no one could agree on how to renovate it, so its lain in disrepair for quite a long time and now is just starting to be fixed up. But being there itself was very surreal, being around that much history is so strange. We also went to the Western Wall or Wailing Wall, and saw all the people praying and wishing, and apparently since it was a Monday there were also lots of boys having their Barmitzvas. We couldn't go into the area around the temple Mount because it wasn't open or safe, due to all the protesting of the restoration of the bridge which was damaged in an earthquake. Just several weeks prior our guide said he'd been inside, but now its not open to non-Muslims. Bummer.

After lunch we headed over to the West Bank for the Bethlehem tour. Since our guide is Israeli he can't go to the West Bank and we had to change buses and get another tour guide inside the West Bank, wow. So we went through the huge gate and check point without any problems and got to see both sides of the big wall. On the outside its just plain but the inside is filled with graffiti, my favorite was "This wall is not cool." Plain and simple. It is a terrible eye sore, and really makes it feel like a prison in there. The West Bank was a completely different world compared with Israel. Its really poor there and the buildings show it, we could really feel why there is so much strife for these people. The Bethlehem tour was quite short, we only went to the Church of the Nativity. The Church was sectioned off for all the different sects with their own church proper, the Catholic one was the nicest surprisingly. The "cave" where they say Jesus was born is dark and the "manger" is now marble, but it was really cool to be where they think he was actually born. Of course after the church we went to a shop where the sales people tried to guilt us into buying stuff, and reminded us how they were Christians. The way out of the West Bank was definitely the real fun. There was a big line of cars exiting through the checkpoint so our guy just parks and says that we'll walk through. Well the Israeli security forces didn't like having a big group of people walking up to the gate and so they shut the gate. This is a massive metal door that slides shut right in our faces, intense. So we have to walk out the pedestrian exit which includes several passport checks and metal detectors and takes forever, but there we were with all the local people who have to do that every day. We really got to see what its like for them, its rough. We did make it back over to Israel and got back to Tel Aviv fine. Being in such a historical place was definitely amazing, just to know that for so long these places have heald so much meaning to so many people is really a cool feeling. Unlike any other place its been the center of so much struggle throughout the ages and still that struggle is going on today.

We went out with Avia again that night, late though, cause she was cramming for her bio-medical engineering exams all day. It was so great to catch up with her and hear about what its like for young people in Israel. The next morning we were supposed to be on our flight to Jordan, but it had been changed to 3 hours earlier and we missed it, oops. I was pissed, but we were stuck, the next flight wasn't until the next morning. We went back to our nice hostel and had another relaxing day. MTV actually plays mostly videos there, so that kept us entertained.

Wow, it was way back on Feb. 21 that we caught our flight to Jordan. The flight was seriously delayed, like 3 hours for a 30 minute flight! We could have just taken a bus and it would have been faster. Ahh well...

Just a little better update, I am currently in South Africa and loving it, in about a week we'll be in Ghana starting our month long volunteering on a Liberian refugee camp with 40,000 refugees! Sorry again that I'm so far behind, there aren't any computers in the Serengeti so we got behind. And also sorry for the lack of photos, its just hard to get them uploaded and that's why I havn't posted this one till now, but for those who want to see some just take a look at www.pairedhearts.com and you can see lots.

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Photos

Our view
Right from the balcony at our hostel, we had the beautiful sea.

Dead sea
Took this one while waiting to get the rocks out of the tires...nice.

MUD
the newlyweds, awwww

Birds eye view
Overlooking the old town of Jereusalem.

The Wailing wall
Powerful stuff.

Comments

[Tandy]

It's great to read about Israel. I loved it there! I'm glad you had a good time. I miss you!!