My trip to Israel in a nutshell...

Middle East » Israel » Jerusalem District » Jerusalem
February 5th 2009

Published: February 5th 2009

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Lauren RF

Jerusalem

one of the streets of the Old City in Jerusalem in the arab section

My trip to Israel was the biggest portion of my journey in the fall, so I will try to summarize it the best possible.

Upon our return from Egypt, we crossed back over the border into Eilat. We spent the night there, a very pretty, fun beach town on the Red Sea, and then took a bus up to Jerusalem the next morning. The bus ride was 4.5 hours and followed a route up eastern Israel, passing through the Negev Desert. It was a really nice bus ride because I sat next to 4 guys from India who had also just come from Egypt and behind us was an older Israeli man who reminded me exactly of the Jewish grandfather in the rugrats if you remember what he was like (Borris I think??)... anyways, basically for the entire bus ride, he gave the 5 of us an in depth description and history overview of everything we passed by (Masada, Kibbutzim, Hebron, Jericho, Bethlehem, and more). We arrived in Jerusalem by mid afternoon, check into our hostel, and spent that night and the next day familiarizing ourselves with the city. The next day we went to visit the Old City. There

Jerusalem

our picnic lunch on shabbat... lots of hummus, pita, guava and mango juice. The first time we went to the old city to ask for hummus, we asked in a very American accent. The Arab vendor at the shuk looked at me like I was crazy, and starting trying to guess what I wanted by pointing to things like cheeses, olives, etc. So then I asked again, this time saying CHoumous... then he brought out maybe 10 different hummus options.

are 7 gates into the Old City, so we entered through the Jaffa Gate and then wandered around the narrow, cobblestone streets and had fun looking at all the vendors´shops (filled with vibrant scarves, tapestries, decorations), many falafel/shwarma/kabob stands, and getting lost. We came pretty close to the Dome of the Rock, which was when we decided to figure out where we were and turn around (not as many tourists around there... can be a little iffy). We also went to visit the Western Wall, which was incredible after hearing so much about it for so many years, then finally standing in front of it. The Old City was probably my favorite part of Jerusalem to just wander around in... Not only do you get completely lost in the surroundings as you look around while walking through, but it´s a tiny walled in portion of Jerusalem, and within its walls is a Christian Quarter, a Muslim Quarter, a Jewish Quarter, an Armenian Quater, plus all the tourists and Jerusalem inhabitants walking through from all corners of the world. Also, the Old City is home to the Temple Mount and its Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the

Jerusalem

Viv with our lonely planet guide

Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa making it a highly visited place.

Also... something that shocked us when we first got to Israel was the amount of guns you see people carrying on the streets. After a few days this felt completely normal, and made us feel safe, because every Israeli citizen has to complete their service in the army (3 years for girls or 4 years for boys) when they turn 18, so you see young people walking around everywhere in army uniforms with guns strapped around them.

Our hostel was at the bottom of Ben Yehuda St. in the center of the city, which was a lot of fun at night, and even during the day... lots of shops, juice stands (reallyy good fresh squeezed pomegranate juice...), groups of people performing, singing, dancing, selling crafts in the street.

On our third day, we started work at the dig site Tel (Ancient) Meresha in Beit Guvrin, a national park, with Ian and Arava at Archaeological Seminars. It´s located about 45 minutes outside of Jerusalem, so we drove in with Arava everyday. It´s a really cool company- there are 5,000 caves in this National Park, a few

Jerusalem

Oren and Nadav

being fully excavated. The caves are 2-3,000 years old dating back to the Hellenist period and King Herod... the time of Hannukah. The caves are man made (they were once used as these people´s basements and made up an entire town), and there are remains of olive oil presses, water sisterns, oil lamps, ceramics, figurines, coins, jewelry, and bones (from animals). Anyways, the way it works basically is tour groups come for a few hours of the day. We begin by digging in one of the unexcavated caves, then once we have filled all our buckets with dirt, move up out of the caves to sift through the dirt for ceramic shards that will later be used by people working to put together the pieces (it can take up to many years to complete a ceramic piece). Then we take the groups either through a tour of a fully excavated cave, which displays different rooms, olive presses, water sisterns, and weaving instalations, or they have the option to go spalunking through an unexcavated cave, which is a lot of fun as you can see in some of my pictures... includes crawling and sliding through narrow openings, jumping through holes... The

Jerusalem

graffiti- we liked this one because a headmaster at choate said "ask not what your school can do for you, but what you can do for your school"... then JFK altered it a bit for the country

second part of our job was winterizing the caves... we basically had to build huge what looked like giant greenhouses over the caves to protect them from wind and rain that would come in late December. Sounds boring, but it was a lot of fun because we had a good crew working with us... Arava, Phil, Thierry, and of course Viv and me. Oh- and by the way, everyone we worked with either was either a certified tour guide or was going through the process to become one, which is a very difficult process in Israel and requires a lot of preparation... but it was great because they loved giving us explanations of everything we passed, taking us to interesting places, and helping us to plan our excursions. So that is generally, VERY generally, what we did at work. We would normally finish working at around 5 or 6 when the sun was setting (which was beautiful from Beit Guvrin). Then we´d drive back to Jerusalem with Arava and anyone else who was out working. Depending on what route we took to the site, we sometimes had to pass through parts of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, so

Jerusalem

Nadav and me

we had to go through checkpoints. We would just slow down so they could look into the car, and then we always were just waved forward because we pased through every day. A lot of times though, I would see a lot of people getting stopped, because these crossings are where there have been issues in which people transport bombs into Israeli territories through all kinds of vehicles (even through ambulances), so it´s simply part of the country´s security. We also had to drive by a giant wall, that looks like one of the huge New York sound barriers, but is in fact to prevent bullets and bombs from coming over to the highway that leads into Jerusalem.

Because we were working during the low tourist season, we only worked 3 or 4 days a week, so on our off days we traveled around Israel. Our first excursion we took was to Tel Aviv, a metropolitan, very westernized city on the Mediterranean Sea... one of those cities that "never sleeps", even on Shabbat. Our friend from Choate, Adam King, happen to be living in Holon, a smaller city 20 minutes outside of Tel Aviv, so we met up with

Jerusalem

our bathroom... antiquities on the counter

him there which was a lot of fun (when we were at Choate together last year, who would have thought we would be hanging out in Tel Aviv a year later?). Anyways... in Tel Aviv we enjoyed the beach and the nightlife... but we also did some sightseeing to the Jaffa Port, an Arab area with lots of fun shops and falafel/shwarma stands (similar atmosphere to the Old City), and some museums.

Our second excursion was to Tiberias, a more populated town along the Lake Kineret, also known as the Sea of Galilea. We went to Tiberias on a Friday and arrived after the start of Shabat. A lot of Israel completely shuts down on Shabbat, which begins at around 3pm on Friday and ends at sunset on Saturday. Just a side comment- our first Shabat in Israel was in Jerusalem, where it is taken VERY seriously- all stores and restaurants close, even most taxi drivers can´t be out on the roads, etc. Well, to signifiy the start of Shabbat in Jerusalem, a city wide siren sounds... kind of startles you unless someone warns you previously as to what the siren means. Shabbat in Jerusalem was fun- we went

Jerusalem

Hostel

to my dad's friend, Rony's house and celebrated with their family. Anyways, back to Tiberias- we arrived after dark and the city was very barren because of shabbat- so we found our way to our hostel, checked in, and went out to dinner to one of 2 restaurants that were open with our friend Chris who came to Israel for a week (met him in Portugal when we were working on the Habitat for Humanity build- he came to work a few days while backpacking through Europe) and an Israeli we met at the hostel named Dvir. After dinner, we went swimming in the Kinneret and then went to bed. Had to wake up early the next day, because we planned to bike around the Kinneret- it´s about 40 miles. Well, we were off to a great start (pretty much after you leave Tiberias the scenery turns into farmland, mountains, rock formations, hills, and Kibbutzim- it´s really pretty... there is also one point when you cross over the Jordan River, which is part of a large environmental issue having to do with the watersupply for many middle eastern countries because it has been drying out ever since Israel, Jordan, and

Jerusalem: Old City

on the Rampart's Walk- a part of the gate of the Old City where you can walk on top- nice views

Syria built structures to divert water from some of the major water suppliers into the Jordan river... but not much civilization outside of Tiberias) and after a few hours of biking we came across a Bustan Restaurant that serves all kinds of Middle Eastern food to have lunch at- it was really good and the only restaurant we ever saw around the entire lake. Well, when we were about 12km from Tiberias, Chris´bike tire popped... so we were making really good time until then... so we all had to trade off riding his flat tire bike for the last stretch, which was the most hilly.

Anyways, we made it back eventually, and then Vivan and I headed over to Haifi, which is a beautiful port city in the north on the Mediterranean Sea and is known for the way the Arabs and Israelis get along peacefully. We arrived at night, so we went to get dinner first thing- had the best hummus I have ever had... and our waiter was young, about our age, so we ended up making a friend and hanging out with him later. His name is Tareq and is Arab, so he introduced us to

Jerusalem: Old City

lunch with a friend we met in the Old City who was from Hungary

a lot of cool Arab music from all around the middle east... Lebanese music was my favorite. We went to bed early, but then we all woke up pretty early the next day to visit the Bahai Gardens. Unfortunately, we didn´t have time to do a tour through them, and you can only view them from the very bottom or top portion if you don´t go in with a guide. So we just tood from the bottom for a bit before we had to catch a bus back from Jerusalem. The view over the port from the bottom of the gardens is really pretty though, because you can see the mountains of Lebanon just over the water. This is why Haifa and the north were targets where Hezbollah fired a lot of the Quassam Rockets during the 2006 war. Anyways, we headed back to Jerusalem to work to the next day. Our last excursion was the Jordan... but that´s another entry... Overall, Israel was incredible- a beautiful country, so much to see and learn, most often tranquil (even though the news gives you a very different idea), and extremely friendly, caring people. Don´t let what you see on the TV