A New Journey

Hope that this acts as a bit of a flush out entry. I still have my subscription list from 2006 and my South Pacific trip and I have added random contacts. If you are getting this and want to unsubscribe, I'm sure the notification email gives you the option to do so. Otherwise, if you get this and think you know someone who might want to be on the list please send along the link to http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/CharlieWood/ and they can subsrcribe.

Sorry about the admin.

As it is, I find myself at the start of a great adventure. I have once again left the comfort and relative success of my situation in the US to venture into the unknown of the world. I wonder if someday the itch that sends me traveling will subside, certainly hasn't yet. This trip I left Bovis, Amanda, and my Family among other things and I truly miss all of them. I don't know what my life is going to look like but I do know that this is something I need to do right now.

As with my previous blogs I will be sectioning off each entry into a story or concept. Since I am only 3 weeks into this trip I am going to keep this entry nice and short. Today we have Birthright, Shvil Yisrael, and The Future.

Birthright

I am writing from the German colony, a neighborhood a few minutes south of Jerusalem. On January 15th I left the US on a Birthright trip with a group called Shorashim. One of the best aspects about Shorashim is that they have Israelis that come on the entire trip with the Americans so the friendships and perspectives this bring are amazing. It was a surreal experience to be in such a beautiful and storied place and even more amazing that it was all for free! All it took was a few phone calls and a $150 ticket to New York and I was taken on 1 10 day trip including meals, accommodation, tours, basically everything. All in all the trip was a fantastic success. Starting with 30 22-26 year old people most of whom knew none else on the trip and we ended as a community. Not always a community that agreed but a community. For me personally so much of visiting Israel has become an introspection into my feelings on Zionism and its various incarnations. I want to take some more time to mold my thoughts since I have been talking so much about this topic with both Americans and Israelis both young and old so look out for an update in a month or two. Back to Birthright the amount of places we saw, from the Golan, to Tel Aviv, to Independence Hall, to the Kotel or Western Wall, to the Negev and camel rides, to cave villages from millenea ago, was astronomical. There was too much to put into words and I decided to take very few pictures as I wanted to experience what I was doing instead of searching for photo ops but take my word (and my few pictures) as an endorsement for experiencing Israel in and its beauty and through all of its quagmires.

Shvil Yisrael

Birthright ended about 8 days ago and I have yet to touch an uncleaned hostel sheet. Partly because of my connections I made on Birthright and partly because my parents in their infinite world network have a friend in Jerusalem. Directly after the trip I split time between two Birthright friends Amir and Dana, in Tel Aviv and Netanya respectively. Both were amazingly hospitable and kind. I hope they remain a part of my life for a long time to come. Yesterday I came to Jerusalem to stay with Sue Bass and Ian Firestein. They also have opened their home and their hearts to a smelly traveller (although I am doing my cleaning here and hopefully that will help with the smelly part). I'm not sure if all who read this would know but I am traveling with an old friend of mine Sam Hitchcock-Tilton. Our next plan is to begin hiking the Shvil Yisrael, an approximately 600 mile trail from the Northern to the Southern tips of Israel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_National_Trail). At the moment our plan is to do a part of the trail but I am keen to try and do the whole thing if time and circumstance permit. While I am planning on travelling through 2009 and possibly 2010 Sam is most likely heading back to the states in early April so doing the whole trail would take up the bulk of his time here. Thinking of trying the trail really has me excited. I haven't had a chance to do much backpacking over the past couple of years and this feels like great opportunity. We shall see, I will keep you posted.

The Future

I suppose the last segment led up fairly well into wham my plans are for this journey. Loosely, I have some money that I can use for school here in Israel and a research topic that I would like to pursue. This would involve looking at the impact of contemporary missionaries on non-western cultures and how their impact is different then their recent (~100 years) counterparts. I would like to use Israel as a location to to lay a baseline for this and then pick some distinct locations to conduct field research around the world. I stumbled upon this idea/fascination while living in Fiji for a couple of months in the end of 2006. I happened to be in a situation that was very remote and very non western and there was an evangelical missionary there. It was pretty surreal to witness some of their efforts, organization, and effects thereafter. With the way the semesters are set up here and Sam's situation I have pretty much decided to spend the next few months at least travelling. Potential locales include Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Senegal, Turkey, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Uruguay, Colombia, Thailand, India, Jakarta, and Manila. I bit broad? I would be happy if I hit 80% of those. I would like to try and set something academic up for either the summer or next fall. That would being me the the end of this year at which point I am probably going to go to Hawaii for 4 months to work in the state legislator. My Aunt is a state rep and my brother did it for a session. Living in Honolulu with a pretty sweet job for 4 months sounds an opportunity too good to pass up. So I think 16 months is way longer that I can actually plan but that is the plan as of now.

That's all I got for now but take care, keep in touch, and know that I am thinking of you all as I experience the amazing diversity of the world. Sitting talking with Sam the other night smoking a nargile playing shesh besh I realized that one of the biggest things traveling does is make you realize how much what you have at home is special. I realize this and I hope you all know that.

Love,

Charlie

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