Israel

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Okay guys. If you're still reading this blog, I finally managed to finish my entry about Israel. The trip was about nine days, and was packed full of sight-seeing, so this turned into something of a novella. My apologies.

For the second Eid holiday (a Muslim holiday that celebrates Abraham offering to sacrifice his son Isaac) we got the week off of school, so Andy, Luke, Chelsea, Corina and I visited Israel and Palestine. During the course of a long bus ride, we met a Austrian kid named Marcus who was also going to Israel and, having done this before, was able to help us through the interesting process of crossing the border. We didn't have any real problems on the Egyptian side, other than the fact that it was Egypt so it took forever. They also acted like it was a big issue to get the border crossing stamp on a separate insert instead of directly in your passport, which is recommended if you want to go anywhere in the Middle East ever again. We got through eventually with stamped cards in hand and headed to the Israel side of the border.

This was going to turn out not to be so simple- by the fault of Andy. As he is taking a class on the Quran and had to write a paper on it, he of course had brought his copy of the Quran with him, as well as the Bible. One would think that perhaps these would cancel each other out, but as it turned out, not so. This Quran in his pack led to 30 minutes of questioning by the border patrol. Then they saw the stamps from Lebanon and Syria in his passport, which led to a further 45 minutes of questioning and background checks. Eventually they decided that we weren't terrorists or whatnot, and let us go. We got into a cab and Marcus suggested this Irish pub he knew for dinner. Being the genius that I am, I blurted out, "We could do carbombs!(Meaning Irish carbombs, as in the drink.) ...oh." Welcome to Israel.

We spent that night in a hostel and in the morning hung out on the beach in Eilat waiting for Luke and Chelsea to join us. Andy and I did one of those slingshot things that you see at the fairs where you're strapped into a dome attached to giant rubber bands and get shot into the air. Lots of people we didn't know were taking pictures of us, which was kind of awkward, but the guy let us do it twice. Nice view from up there. The sun was now setting, but I wanted to swim in the Med at least once. Most of the snorkellers and swimmers were already headed into shore, but we went out anyway, and I promptly lost my contact lenses. Every trip I know that I will forget something, and this time I quickly discovered what it was. Extra contact lenses. I hadn't forgotten my glasses however, so I got to look like a librarian the rest of the trip. After our little dip we had dinner and then got on the bus to Jerusalem.

There are two parts of Jerusalem- New and Old. The bus station was, appropriately, in New Jerusalem as, if you hadn't heard, automobiles are a relatively new concept in human history. Despite the many offers from cab drivers, we decided to walk. The cab drivers all assured us that it was some large number of kilometers away, but cab drivers as a rule tend to grossly exaggerage distance to discourage walking. I asked an offical looking person in a uniform what the name of the bus station was so that we could get our bearings, and he said something in Hebrew and then pointed at the sign above him. Which was in Hebrew. Which, it turns out, is not Arabic so I can't read it. We finally got pointed in the general direction and set off. After about ten minutes of walking and finding that the further we went in that direction the more black seemed to be in fashion, we found ourselves in the Orthodox Jewish part of town. This means that the women are covered with long sleeves and long skirts, and some have their hair covered, and the men are in mostly black, with many wearing some sort of odd black hat and tassels hanging from their belts. We stopped and got some pizza among the company of these strangely-dressed men, and then continued on. Soon we saw on the walls of a building a couple of large posters asking foreigners to "Please stay out of neighborhood." Um. Well. I suppose that's reasonable, but there were no cabs and turning around after walking twenty minutes at 11 at night wasn't very appealing, so we decided to forge on, albeit quietly. Finally we made it to Old Jerusalem, which is the very old, walled part of the city. We found our hostel, the "Golden Gate," and passed out.

Much of the first day in Old Jerusalem was spent trekking back and forth from one of the gates to the post office in order to pick up some money that my dad had wired to me, as my debit card had been munched by the ATM in Dahab. The necessity of the second visit was that I had forgotten my passport the first go around, which apparently is necessary. Andy was kind enough to volunteer to accompany me, although I insisted that he didn't need to. Finally, money in hand, we went to see various religious sites. You'll notice that this is a recurring theme on this trip. We went to the Wailing Wall, which was pretty incredible. There are separate sides for men and women, and Andy had to wear a silly cardboard yamikah on the men's side. I wrote down my prayer and went up to the wall, which is just stuffed with paper. What at first appears to be mortar is actually solid paper, turned into pulp and hardened over the years. Many people were reading from the Torah, and some approached the Wall, while others sat in chairs near it and prayed or contemplated. After leaving the Wall I found Andy again, as well as Corina, Luke and Chelsea, who had magically appeared. From there we went to see the Dome of the Rock. But first we got lost and found the Dome of the Crane (see picture). We found the actual Dome of the Rock, which is incredibly beautiful. In case you didn't know, this is a very holy site for Muslims because it is believed that this is where Mohammed ascended to heaven. This is also the site of the Temple Mount for the Jews, making it a place of contention between the two faiths. Anyways. That's a whole other discussion. So, we couldn't go into the Dome, or the nearby mosque because we're not Muslim, so we walked around the site. When we were waiting near the stairs leading up to the Dome site, we heard, to our horror, an American tourist father telling his young daughter to, "Come see the pretty building!" The family (Mom, Dad, two small children, boy and girl) then proceeded to take what I can only imagine is their Christmas picture with the Dome of the Rock in the background, all wear sparkly Santa hats while the kids each clutched a camel with "Israel" embroidered on the side. And we wonder where all these stereotypes come from...

The last holy site before dinner was the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which is the location of this rock that sealed Jesus' tomb. People were crying and touching their rosaries to it and rubbing it with oil. However, it's almost certainly not the actual rock, but I suppose everybody likes a good symbol. The church was really impressive, and despite the lack of the authentic rocks, had a very holy feeling. The history of the church is actually really interesting, and you should read about it because I'm not going to tell you. It's very long, kind of like this entry. But, suffice to say, now there exists an establishment known as the "status quo," in which nothing can be done to the church, including repairs and renovations, unless all three sects (Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Armenian Apostolic) that have control there agree. This has led to centuries long delays in much-needed repair. They also all conduct a Holy Mass at the site, which we witnessed some of. It was really beautiful to hear the mass being sung in the Latin. We lit candles and prayed, and then went to dinner. Oh! But not until after we had walked the Via Dolorosa (backwards), which is the path Jesus walked with the cross on the way to Golgotha.

After dinner we went outside of the city to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus was betrayed by Judas. There were really old, incredibly gnarled olive trees, and we were allowed to walk around in the garden. After that the other four walked up the Mount of Olives, but knees were in a lot of pain, so I decided to sit outside the gate of the Garden and wait for them. While I was waiting a taxi driver who was VERY concerned about me just sitting there asked if I wanted a ride up the hill. I tried to explain to him that I was perfectly content where I was, and that I would just wait for them (I was still in the Egyptian mindset that nothing is actually free), but he wasn't able to accept this answer. Every time I told him that I was fine, he would roll a few centimeters forward, stop, stick his head out the window and ask, "Are you sure you don't want me to drive you up to meet your friends?" I told him I was sure. The whole process started over again, until finally after about 15 minutes of this he left. After him, three Arab boys came walking down the hill and I ignored them. Several minutes later they came back up the hill, and one of them threw a coin at me. I'm not sure what the significance of this was or the thinking behind, but then when they came back yet again a few minutes later and he came over to pick it up, I told him off. He just laughed, but at least I felt better, and they didn't come back. Finally the group came back down the hill and we packed to get on the bus.

Tel Aviv was a really nice town, and a definite culture shock after Cairo when I saw people biking, running and playing sports in a park that was just along the street and open to anyone who wanted to use it. Amazing, I know. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling well due to a lack of sleep, so while the others rode bikes around town, I slept all day, and all night. I'm pretty much a pro sleeper now. Chelsea, Luke and Corina had gone to a different hostel on the other side of town while Andy stayed with me, and the two of us were walking around town the next day looking for the restaurant we were supposed to meet everyone at when it started pouring down rain. We traversed the street several times looking for the restaurant, but apparently it had closed down since the time the guide book was printed. We found a different cafe for lunch and waited out the downpour. The city reminded me in some ways of Portland- there wasn't a lot in terms of historic sight-seeing, but it would be a lovely town to live in. There were lots of little shops and cafes everywhere, and we saw many people using their bikes to get around town. After the rain let up we walked down to the coast and walked along the beach of the Med. We ended up in Old Jaffa, which is an older, historical part of town where I purchased some of the best strawberries I have ever eaten at a small fruit stand in the poorer part of town. That store is also where we bought the dragonfruit that we finally consumed just before going back into Egypt. Dinner was pizza and strawberries, and then it was back on the bus to Jerusalem.

We spent two more days in Jerusalem. The first day we crossed the border into the West Bank and paid a cab driver to show us around Bethlehem. There wasn't quite enough room, so Corina and I rode in the trunk. We went to the Herodian, which is the ruins of King Herod's palace. The really cool thing about this was that you could explore this really large system of tunnels that used to be used as cisterns. First you hiked about half a mile up the hill to the fortress at the top, then went back down inside the hill through the tunnels. After that we went to Shepards' Field where the angel supposedly appeared to two shepards to tell them of the birth of Christ. Tunnels again. These I think were old, underground chapels. We got incredibly dusty and explored caves in the tunnels that were pitch black. I had to use my camera flash to momentarily see where we were going several times. After that we went to the Church of the Nativity, which is where Jesus was born in a cave underneath the church. Our cab driver was a Muslim whose family lived in the West Bank, and was very gracious in answering our questions about the conflict and about the settlements in the West Bank. The border crossing was very intense, not in that it was difficult to get through, but in that the passport check is a series of labyrinthine hallways which lead to a long chainlink walkway on the other side of a thick cement wall covered in graffiti. It reminded me very much of the Berlin Wall.

That night after dinner Andy, Corina and I went to see David's Tomb. It was underwhelming, but it was very close to the graveyard where Oskar Schindler (Shindler's List) was buried. I had followed Andy around to all the holy stuff, and two of the main things I wanted to see were the Holocaust museum and Oskar Schindler's grave. Both days we had planned to go, the other sight-seeing took too long and the museum would have been closed by the time we got there. This in mind, I was determined to see the grave. However, it was now night-time, and the graveyard was closed. I started walking along the wall to see if there was a place where I could climb over it without breaking any bones. At a far corner we found a place where it was only a short drop from the wall to the roof of the caretaker's hut, and then from there about a 10 foot drop to the ground inside in the graveyard. Andy, my trusty adventurer, accompanied me on this expedition while Corina "stood guard." Once inside, we realized that we had no idea where Schindler's grave was, and walked around for about ten minutes before we finally found it. I added a rock to the grave, took a couple pictures, and then we reversed our path out of there after ducking down a couple of times to avoid being seen by the mounted guards who stopped by outside the gate. My hands were a little scratched up, but all in all mission accomplished.

The next day we went on a tour that hit Qumran, where the Dead Sea scrolls were found, Masada the site of the last stand of the Jews before the Romans, Jericho, and the Dead Sea. Masada was actually pretty cool. We elected to hike up the hill, which was about 2.5 miles, but fairly steep. It was a little tough on my knees, but it was nice to hike and sweat again. At the top is a remarkably well preserved, expansive fortress, however one can only look at so many ruins. The Dead Sea was really cool though! Everything that lies near the water is covered in a thick crust of salt. We floated in it, and was really incredible how buoyant the salt content made us. I was in water that was much deeper than I am tall, and yet I was in a standing position, bobbing with the water at chest level. The only problem was that if the water got on your face or in your mouth, it burned. This meant that you had to be careful how you swam. That was our last day in Israel, and for dinner we had Ethiopian food with two Israelis, Minnear and Sulafa that the others had met on a trip in a different country. If you've never had Ethiopian food, it basically involves pieces of bread that are used to eat various combinations of chickpeas, beans, corn, tomatoes, meat and spices. These were quite good. The bread I found revolting. The whole meal was served on a large tray, and the bread was under the bowls so that I thought it was a cloth. But no, it is this very thin, flat grey bread, about the exact color of an elephant. It is a sourdough, it's clammy, and it looks like a sponge. I was hungry enough however, and everyone else was eating it, so I ate enough to satisfy my tummy for the time being. Minnear and Luke raved about the bread, but after dinner I found out that Andy thought it was gross as well. However, as he is a human garbage disposal, Andy ate it anyway. After nargele (sheesha in Israel) and stories of Minnear's odd childhood, we went back to our hostel for the night.

The ride home would have been uneventful, had Andy and I not managed to fail repeatedly at catching buses on time. So instead of taking the bus directly from Jerusalem to the border, we took the bus to Tel Aviv, and then from Tel Aviv to the border, because the next bus leaving from Jerusalem would not have brought us to the border in time to catch the bus back to Cairo, although we still had to stay the night again in Eilat and leave in the morning. We stayed at a place on the border which was the strangest hostel I've ever seen. It was like we were trying to play Swiss village, with each hostel room being a separate cabin with its own prancing reindeer on the top. The next morning we crossed the border back into Egypt with no trouble, and while eating breakfast at the bus stop, watched a middle-aged American couple's first encounter with the flies, stray cats, sketchy food stands and Egyptian men that we had become so accustomed too. We caught our bus back to Cairo and did less homework on the bus than was planned (and needed, but isn't that always the case?) and were back in our beds in clean clothes (at last!) by night time.

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Photos

Kitty
An adorable kitty at the bus station who, after eating some of my Doritos, fell asleep on its own belly.

Me and juice box
Breakfast at the bus station

Camel!
Camels on the road in Taba.

Andy
Welcome to Israel.

Corina
Lunch in Eilat

Marketplace
This was in the Muslim Quarter of Old Jerusalem

Chelsea and Andy
Somehow I always manage to catch him making funny chewing faces.

Rainy Tel Aviv
This was taken from under the awning of the cafe in which we took refuge.