Blogs from Israel, Middle East - page 188

I left Chicago very early on Sunday morning and flew out of O'Hare for Newark. There I met nearly everyone from my particular group of overseas students and we then traveled together on a long flight to Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. By the end of our flight, I felt like I knew the other 13 people on Carmel surprisingly well. Everyone seems very nice. My roommates from the overseas department are three girls named Jessica, Dina, and Ilana. We will also have two Israelis living in our suite, but they are yet to have arrived. From the airport we took a chartered bus to the University of Haifa, where our year really began. Our first day was filled with unpacking, settling in, and welcomes from a lot of different people we will be working ... read more

Hello everybody.... here I finally am after a long trip from amman to Jerusalem. The trip was so tiring and like chewing gum. I left Amman at 8.30 in the morning and it took exactly 7 hours to get to Jerusalem which is not far at all (without borders it would be a one hour drive) I caught a service taxi to the Jordanian-palestinian border, after passing the jordanian controls (loong queues and waiting times) everybody had to get on a bus that would bring everybody over the king hussein bridge to the israeli border controls, from there right into the luggage check and passport control. It was so ridiculous!!! They treated everybody as a potential state enemy. We were 2 big bus loads of palestinians and a hand full of tourists and diplomats, we went ... read more

Hi,It’s after 0100 am and I’m waiting for 17 people group from Holland and you can guess how tired I’m… Never the less it was a very good day. Yesterday I had 3 walk-in guests from Israel. 3 youngsters that heard about me from 3 French guys that stayed last week. There isn’t like the “Word a Mouth” system. They stayed just 1 night but this morning the 14 people group got bigger to 17 so I had to move a way from my room and I’ll sleep at my neighbor (Ramzi) hose tonight. I also got an Israeli couple that came in the after noon and they are also staying at my neighbor’s, so as Margaret, a French girl that came for only 1 night about a week ago… The big group is staying for ... read more

Hej pa er alla! Antligen har jag hittat en internetdator igen, och ryktet sager att den ar gratis! Befinner oss alltsa i Tel Aviv, Israels huvudstad och ett av de javligaste stallena pa jorden. Enda skillnaden mot EIlat ar att det ar en storre stad och att Medelhavet svalkar mer an Roda havet. Maken till ogastvanlig nation far man leta efter! Star man med en guidebok eller en karta och ser bortkommen ut, sa ska ni inte tro att nagon kommer och vill hjalpa en, nej da. Man kan ju vara terrorist eller nagot. Om man fragar ngn om vagen, sa ska man forst vara glad om de fattar engelska, sedan vara javligt tacksam om de vet vad man fragar efter och annu gladare om de talar om vagen. Jisses. Sedan har de ju sakerhetskontroll overallt, ... read more

Another early morning loading into the bus. But this time we were headed South. All the way South, to Elat, to be exact. On the way, we would be making a few stops. Where? I have no idea, so as I write we can be suprised together. Our 1st stop was at Tel Beer Sheva (or Bersheeba). Bersheeba ("well of the oath") dates back to Genesis. It's believed to be the place were Abraham made an oath with Abimelech (Genesis 21:22-32). Bersheeba also marked the southernmost point of ancient Israel (2 Samuel 24, 1 Chronicles 21). We were able to walk down into an ancient cistern and then around the remains of the city itself. It was amazing to see how all the rooms were laid out. One other little known fact about Bersheeba is that ... read more