I arrived in Madrid yesterday, hazy from staying up all night and relieved that I could get around with my 6 years of classroom spanish that seem to amount to very little when in an actual spanish speaking country. My plane trip from Tel Aviv-Athens-Madrid is a blur as I slept through all of it and only woke up to stupidly shove the airplane food into my mouth before passing out again. I do remember, however, that the the airport in Athens was beautiful and surrounded by mountains so I look forward to going back. All I know is that people smirked when I told them I was taking Olympic Airlines, but I had two flights with empty seats next to me to stretch into and they were no different from any other flight that I´ve taken in my 22 years of flying. So ya, viva la olympic airlines.
The hostel in Madrid is remarkably trendy for its lower than average price and I was amazed to see leather couches, flatscreen TVs and crisp clean sheets-- ammenities that make this place Europe and not the Middle East. The facilities are overflowing with all types of students from all over the world and you could probably detail each one of their social circles by just observing the group dynamics for no more than five minutes. My first step was to take a shower, and when I entered the shower of my 10 bed all female dorm room, I was excited to see the variety of shampoos, conditioners, body washes, and lotions that I had to choose from. I´ve been getting very sick of my stolen-from-hotels supplies that are running low and it was as if I was showering in a CVS shampoo aisle. Still, I left my pathetic little travel-size bottles in the shower to spread the love should someone want to experiment with my shampoos because that´s what traveling´s all about.
I decided to just stay motivated and have an afternoon of siteseeing (despite my weariness) and just go to sleep early. I started roaming around the city, ate a kebab for lunch, and then stumbled upon El Museo del Sofia Reina-- Spain´s prominent modern art museum that houses important works of Picasso, Dali, Miro, Gris, Tanguy, and many other artists that have defined a unique school of twentieth century cubic art. I was amazed to find how grim Spanish art was and how much of it related back to the violence during the Spanish Civil War. It´s funny, you learn about all of this stuff in Spanish class, but none of it sticks. It only comes back when you´re seeing it on your own with fresh eyes.
Guernica was unlike anything I had expected. I´ve seen it so many times in art books, postcards and Spanish class textbooks, but when I entered that room and saw that it nearly took up the entire wall, I was blown away. I could´ve stayed in that room all day looking at the different sections of it, and it looked like the guards sitting equidistant on either sides of the painting were added strategically for effect in demonstrating the painting´s magnitude.
The museum was beautifully designed and each room had some kind of video addition that either put you in a room with an artist or contextualized the themes of the art-- many had historical footage of Franco, Hitler or waving troops. I fell asleep for nearly 15 minutes in one of the dark rooms with a movie and that gave me the energy to last for the rest of the day-- mainly though just from the the adrenaline I got from realizing that I had fallen asleep for 15 minutes in a museum. By the time I got out of the museum it was 730 (I had spent nearly 4 hours in there)and I stopped at a cafe for coffee and churros before heading back to the hostel. It was a successful first day of being tired in Madrid.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Note to self: Don’t accept coffee from old Arab men
I’m starting to understand why people think I’m crazy when I tell them that I’m traveling alone. Or maybe I should just stop accepting coffee from random old men who offer it to me (they just always happen to offer me coffee when I feel like I most need it... and they´re over 50 so I consider them not sketchy). In three days, I’ve had three free cups of coffee from men over fifty: in Nazareth, Akko and on the top of Mt Tabor. I’ve had to ward a conversation about sex ("there are only three things in life: eat, drink and sex...When I was your age, I had a lot of sex") and bat down persistent invitations to dinner. Turns out, it doesn´t work to be "polite" (some might call my approach "awkward")in Israel. Instead, you have be blunt and rude-- it´s the Israeli way. And in most cases, they´re really just trying to be hospitable hosts. Usually I get free Baklava or something with the coffee, so it's debateably a good deal-maybe even worth the awkward broken conversation. But for now I think I've made my decision: no more coffee with old Arab men.
The day after the inauguration, Matt and I headed south to Jordan to explore Petra. It was a long day of traveling—from Jerusalem to BerSheba to Eilat to Petra—but it was definitely worth it. Petra was amazing and Matt and I hiked around from 845am until 7pm with an hour for lunch and collapsed that night exhausted but completely satisfied. The difference between Israel and Jordan was amazing. As we crossed the border from Israel into Jordan, each time we stopped at security, customs, the border tax station, passport control, and the final gate, the guards would look at our passports, look at us, smirk and say… “so, Obama.” In Petra, it continued as we walked around the small touristy town and people would smile and yell “OBAMA!” from their storefronts (looks like we scream “Americans”). In Israel, the attitude toward Obama has been skeptical at best. At the inauguration party in Jerusalem, nearly half the bar had perma-grins while the other half was ambivalent. Some might call Israelis and some international Jews "single issue voters," and much of the time, I spent trying to convince the skeptics amongst us that Obama was good for the Middle East and Israel. Still, everyone joined in a hearty round of “nananana…nananana… hey hey hey… goodbye” as Bush boarded his helicopter and took off.
I rented a car for my final three days in Israel which allowed me a lot more mobility, and while a little expensive (I tried to counter it by only eating apples and hummus and sleeping in a tent), it was completely worth it. In Haifa, I spent time with a friend, Naamah, and we explored the Mt. Carmel National Park, the Baha’i Gardens, and Zichron Ya’acov, a cute little winery town south of Haifa. Naamah described how the town looks as if “everyone was on vacation all the time.” And she was right: cute little restaurants, ice cream shops, and artist studios lined the cobblestone street that only allowed pedestrians. During my time in Haifa, I ventured on a day trip to Nazareth, which was alright, but the ‘Basilica de la Annunciacion’—where Mary found out she was going to have a virgin birth—was a little anti-climatic and everything was closed because it was a Sunday. The city, though, was interesting because it is made up of nearly all Arabs and Christians, maybe the only place in Israel like it.
My final night, I camped out on the Northern edge of the Sea of Galilee. I woke up to a spectacular view of the Golan Heights and after a quick hike to a waterfall to eat my budgeted breakfast (apple and hummus), I hopped along the religious sites that were once hopped along by a miracle-performing, fish multiplying Jesus—Capernaceam, Tabgha, and Tiberias. In both Capernaceam and Tabgha, I ended up spending a lot of time at the wrong sites-- turns out Capernaceam is also a nature reserve that is separate from the actual historical site (a town where Jesus is said to have established himself) and Tabgha is the name of two churches side by side (maybe Jesus made five fish feed five hundred in two places?)—and by the time I realized I was at the wrong sites, I had too short of an attention span for the real sites. Woops. The nature reserve was nice nonetheless, but I got a parking ticket outside of the fake Tabgha site and when I cut into my apple (for lunch) it was rotted through, so I was in a grumpy mood as I sped to Tiberias. As I approached Tiberias, ugly high rise hotels and touristy restaurants began to sprout up all around me, so I veered right and decided to just head back along a scenic route to Tel Aviv. I didn’t need to see the graves Maimonides or the great Rabbi Akiva, right?
The drive was beautiful, and I stopped at Mt. Tabor—supposedly the place Jesus talked with the other prophets (Moses and Elijah) and the site of other things that happened in the Old Testament that I don´t know about (ironic?)—and arrived at the top just as the sun was setting and the sky was golden. I had my third free cup of coffee with a cab driver, declined another invitation to dinner, and moved along to Tel Aviv, where I am now waiting for my flight to Madrid tomorrow morning at 6am. I just did my first laundry of the trip (don’t judge) and I think that when my internet café time ends, I’ll head to the airport and spend the rest of the night there. No need to find a hostel when it´s already 12am and I have to leave at 4am to catch a flight, right? I´m gonna be miserable tomorrow though.
I´ve only just got my first taste of traveling by myself in the past couple of days on my drive around the Galilee, but otherwise, I’ve had the chance to stay with friends around Israel. Tonight I fly to Madrid to meet up with Marisa (sister) and Jennie (cousin) and we’ll hopefully be exploring Spain and Morocco.
The day after the inauguration, Matt and I headed south to Jordan to explore Petra. It was a long day of traveling—from Jerusalem to BerSheba to Eilat to Petra—but it was definitely worth it. Petra was amazing and Matt and I hiked around from 845am until 7pm with an hour for lunch and collapsed that night exhausted but completely satisfied. The difference between Israel and Jordan was amazing. As we crossed the border from Israel into Jordan, each time we stopped at security, customs, the border tax station, passport control, and the final gate, the guards would look at our passports, look at us, smirk and say… “so, Obama.” In Petra, it continued as we walked around the small touristy town and people would smile and yell “OBAMA!” from their storefronts (looks like we scream “Americans”). In Israel, the attitude toward Obama has been skeptical at best. At the inauguration party in Jerusalem, nearly half the bar had perma-grins while the other half was ambivalent. Some might call Israelis and some international Jews "single issue voters," and much of the time, I spent trying to convince the skeptics amongst us that Obama was good for the Middle East and Israel. Still, everyone joined in a hearty round of “nananana…nananana… hey hey hey… goodbye” as Bush boarded his helicopter and took off.
I rented a car for my final three days in Israel which allowed me a lot more mobility, and while a little expensive (I tried to counter it by only eating apples and hummus and sleeping in a tent), it was completely worth it. In Haifa, I spent time with a friend, Naamah, and we explored the Mt. Carmel National Park, the Baha’i Gardens, and Zichron Ya’acov, a cute little winery town south of Haifa. Naamah described how the town looks as if “everyone was on vacation all the time.” And she was right: cute little restaurants, ice cream shops, and artist studios lined the cobblestone street that only allowed pedestrians. During my time in Haifa, I ventured on a day trip to Nazareth, which was alright, but the ‘Basilica de la Annunciacion’—where Mary found out she was going to have a virgin birth—was a little anti-climatic and everything was closed because it was a Sunday. The city, though, was interesting because it is made up of nearly all Arabs and Christians, maybe the only place in Israel like it.
My final night, I camped out on the Northern edge of the Sea of Galilee. I woke up to a spectacular view of the Golan Heights and after a quick hike to a waterfall to eat my budgeted breakfast (apple and hummus), I hopped along the religious sites that were once hopped along by a miracle-performing, fish multiplying Jesus—Capernaceam, Tabgha, and Tiberias. In both Capernaceam and Tabgha, I ended up spending a lot of time at the wrong sites-- turns out Capernaceam is also a nature reserve that is separate from the actual historical site (a town where Jesus is said to have established himself) and Tabgha is the name of two churches side by side (maybe Jesus made five fish feed five hundred in two places?)—and by the time I realized I was at the wrong sites, I had too short of an attention span for the real sites. Woops. The nature reserve was nice nonetheless, but I got a parking ticket outside of the fake Tabgha site and when I cut into my apple (for lunch) it was rotted through, so I was in a grumpy mood as I sped to Tiberias. As I approached Tiberias, ugly high rise hotels and touristy restaurants began to sprout up all around me, so I veered right and decided to just head back along a scenic route to Tel Aviv. I didn’t need to see the graves Maimonides or the great Rabbi Akiva, right?
The drive was beautiful, and I stopped at Mt. Tabor—supposedly the place Jesus talked with the other prophets (Moses and Elijah) and the site of other things that happened in the Old Testament that I don´t know about (ironic?)—and arrived at the top just as the sun was setting and the sky was golden. I had my third free cup of coffee with a cab driver, declined another invitation to dinner, and moved along to Tel Aviv, where I am now waiting for my flight to Madrid tomorrow morning at 6am. I just did my first laundry of the trip (don’t judge) and I think that when my internet café time ends, I’ll head to the airport and spend the rest of the night there. No need to find a hostel when it´s already 12am and I have to leave at 4am to catch a flight, right? I´m gonna be miserable tomorrow though.
I´ve only just got my first taste of traveling by myself in the past couple of days on my drive around the Galilee, but otherwise, I’ve had the chance to stay with friends around Israel. Tonight I fly to Madrid to meet up with Marisa (sister) and Jennie (cousin) and we’ll hopefully be exploring Spain and Morocco.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Shhhh... Sorry mom and dad... but i went to the West Bank.
I wasn't supposed to let my parents know this (so stay hush if you talk to them), but I figure it was okay to blog about it... they'll get over it. I went to Ramallah the other day in the West Bank and explored the forbidden side of Israel. Ramallah is considered the current capital of Palestine and is the home to Arafat's grave. During the 2nd Intifada it was considered very dangerous, but now, they're the good guys in this whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict and I think the most striking part for the four of us traveling together was how normal life seemed east of the concrete wall separating Jerusalem from Palestine. I don't want to depict their lifestyle as easy-- it certainly was not the same standard of living that Israel enjoys-- but it was not destitute either. We realized that should Palestine become its own state, it would still have tons of tourist attractions in Bethleham, Hebron and Jericho to keep their economy going. But for now, I think that many tourists feel unable to see those sites because of the political situation.
We arrived by bus, driving through East Jerusalem (the poorer side of town) and the checkpoints with the help of our new photojournalist friend, Youssef, who we met at the hostel. He took us to Arafat's grave first. The compound was built recently and includes a courtyard, a mosque and a shrine. From far away, the compound looks sharp and is built in white stone, but when you get up close, you begin to notice small flaws-- no glass in the windows or fake tiles. Apparently, they ran out of money towards the end of the construction. Surrounding the site is rubble and empty buildings. Of course, on our first stop in the West bank, we could only think of the worst things happening in those sites... and they probably did. I guess the place where Arafat's tomb lays is the same place he was surrounded by the Israeli army until he died. Still, a parade of men in kefiahs and women in long robes and veils paid their respects as we, clearly the only Americans, stood there with butterflies in our stomachs. To them, it seemed as if it was no big deal that we were Americans. But to us, this place was so loaded and I kept on thinking of all the times my parents called Arafat a 'criminal' or 'murderer.' Youssef then took us back to the center of the town to see the rally that was going on in opposition to Israel's campaign in Gaza. The city was packed with people waving flags, dancing and singing, but unlike the news that could probably depict this rally as angry and agressive, it was really just like any other demonstration that I've been to.... on the boundary between serious and fun with vendors selling food and teenagers taking pictures. Interestingly enough, all of the flags were yellow-- the color for Fatah-- because the West Bank guard had banned Hamas flags at the protest. I took some great pictures!
Afterwards, Youssef pointed us in the right direction and he headed to meet a friend while we explored Ramallah on our own. we stumbled on this modern building that we discovered was a music conservatory that was funded by Sweden, Danish and German philanthropists. This little musical oasis hosted an international community as its staff and volunteers from all over the world. Their mission was to bring music lessons to Ramallah's poorest children and sponsor concerts and festivals throughout the West Bank. They also taught music lessons in the refuge campus twice a week. As any non-profit, it seemed to be understaffed and underfunded, but the facilities were great and everyone who worked there was very welcoming.
We sat down to lunch in Angelo's, the 'Budget' restaurant recommended in the lonely planet guidebook which was sandwiched in between a Mexican restaurant and a chinese seafood restaurant. The four of us recent graduates sat in that little restaurant in the West Bank and epitomized the faux intellectual ex college student American liberal that has been written about in so many beatnick stories throughout the past century. Laura-- graduate from Yale-- wore a colorful scarf draped around her all-black outfit and thick rimmed tortoise shell glasses giving her the sort of Lois Lane/Investigative type look. Matt -- a graduate from Harvard-- wore his jeans, flannel shirt and overgrown scruff. Jaime and I weren't as 'artsy' but were definitely shmata. Jaime and Laura smoked cigarettes as we sat there that day eating french fries and shwarma in the west bank, discussing things ranging from the philosophy of art (will contemporary art be remembered in the same way as some of the masterpieces of the past? is modern art art?) to sweatshops (we had already exhausted the Israel-Palestine debate). I honestly felt like I was a vignette out of a Jack Kerouac or JD Salinger book... but I totally ate it up.
Eventually, it was time to leave. And we jumped on the next bus back to Jerusalem after taking a quick trip through the fruit market. It was everything Aladdin had already prepared me for. Getting back through the check point was a bit more difficult on the way into Israel, but we as Americans were waved right through. At one point they made all the Palestinians our age get off the bus and get patted down as we sat looking out the windows. It was routine for most of them, but that didn't detract from the shamefulness of always being suspect. To be honest, while we felt completely safe throughout the day, when we arrived home we all admitted to being relieved. That was when we decided to not tell mom or dad about our gallavant to the West Bank.
I have so much more to write, but for now, I'm gonna go to bed. At some point I'll update y'all about the rest of my time in Jerusalem, and my trip down to Petra. I'm now in Tel Aviv staying at a friend's house and tomorrow I head up to Haifa and the Galilee to do some Jesus siteseeing. Of course, I have to wait until tomorrow night as all the bus services are closed due to Shabbat. It's amazing how this country shuts down on Friday nights and Saturdays.
We arrived by bus, driving through East Jerusalem (the poorer side of town) and the checkpoints with the help of our new photojournalist friend, Youssef, who we met at the hostel. He took us to Arafat's grave first. The compound was built recently and includes a courtyard, a mosque and a shrine. From far away, the compound looks sharp and is built in white stone, but when you get up close, you begin to notice small flaws-- no glass in the windows or fake tiles. Apparently, they ran out of money towards the end of the construction. Surrounding the site is rubble and empty buildings. Of course, on our first stop in the West bank, we could only think of the worst things happening in those sites... and they probably did. I guess the place where Arafat's tomb lays is the same place he was surrounded by the Israeli army until he died. Still, a parade of men in kefiahs and women in long robes and veils paid their respects as we, clearly the only Americans, stood there with butterflies in our stomachs. To them, it seemed as if it was no big deal that we were Americans. But to us, this place was so loaded and I kept on thinking of all the times my parents called Arafat a 'criminal' or 'murderer.' Youssef then took us back to the center of the town to see the rally that was going on in opposition to Israel's campaign in Gaza. The city was packed with people waving flags, dancing and singing, but unlike the news that could probably depict this rally as angry and agressive, it was really just like any other demonstration that I've been to.... on the boundary between serious and fun with vendors selling food and teenagers taking pictures. Interestingly enough, all of the flags were yellow-- the color for Fatah-- because the West Bank guard had banned Hamas flags at the protest. I took some great pictures!
Afterwards, Youssef pointed us in the right direction and he headed to meet a friend while we explored Ramallah on our own. we stumbled on this modern building that we discovered was a music conservatory that was funded by Sweden, Danish and German philanthropists. This little musical oasis hosted an international community as its staff and volunteers from all over the world. Their mission was to bring music lessons to Ramallah's poorest children and sponsor concerts and festivals throughout the West Bank. They also taught music lessons in the refuge campus twice a week. As any non-profit, it seemed to be understaffed and underfunded, but the facilities were great and everyone who worked there was very welcoming.
We sat down to lunch in Angelo's, the 'Budget' restaurant recommended in the lonely planet guidebook which was sandwiched in between a Mexican restaurant and a chinese seafood restaurant. The four of us recent graduates sat in that little restaurant in the West Bank and epitomized the faux intellectual ex college student American liberal that has been written about in so many beatnick stories throughout the past century. Laura-- graduate from Yale-- wore a colorful scarf draped around her all-black outfit and thick rimmed tortoise shell glasses giving her the sort of Lois Lane/Investigative type look. Matt -- a graduate from Harvard-- wore his jeans, flannel shirt and overgrown scruff. Jaime and I weren't as 'artsy' but were definitely shmata. Jaime and Laura smoked cigarettes as we sat there that day eating french fries and shwarma in the west bank, discussing things ranging from the philosophy of art (will contemporary art be remembered in the same way as some of the masterpieces of the past? is modern art art?) to sweatshops (we had already exhausted the Israel-Palestine debate). I honestly felt like I was a vignette out of a Jack Kerouac or JD Salinger book... but I totally ate it up.
Eventually, it was time to leave. And we jumped on the next bus back to Jerusalem after taking a quick trip through the fruit market. It was everything Aladdin had already prepared me for. Getting back through the check point was a bit more difficult on the way into Israel, but we as Americans were waved right through. At one point they made all the Palestinians our age get off the bus and get patted down as we sat looking out the windows. It was routine for most of them, but that didn't detract from the shamefulness of always being suspect. To be honest, while we felt completely safe throughout the day, when we arrived home we all admitted to being relieved. That was when we decided to not tell mom or dad about our gallavant to the West Bank.
I have so much more to write, but for now, I'm gonna go to bed. At some point I'll update y'all about the rest of my time in Jerusalem, and my trip down to Petra. I'm now in Tel Aviv staying at a friend's house and tomorrow I head up to Haifa and the Galilee to do some Jesus siteseeing. Of course, I have to wait until tomorrow night as all the bus services are closed due to Shabbat. It's amazing how this country shuts down on Friday nights and Saturdays.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
First post, eh?
Well, I guess now is a good time to start this blog. I didn't have any time before while on the trip, but now I'm in day three of being independent and I can determine my own schedule and leave time for this kind of stuff.
I just had my first solo 'thoughtful' time at dusk at the wailing wall. I've already been there three times so far on this trip (twice with the group). But this time, I walked through the Muslim quarter of the Old City to get there. Very different from the Jewish quarter. Perhaps tomorrow I'll venture into the Christian quarter. See what all these people are fighting about.
The trip was a great success and afterward, I spent some time in Tel Aviv with one of the Israeli students who joined us on our trip. Also saw a handful of other friends who I happen to know in Israel, including an old friend who I bumped into while eating lunch. He basically heard me speaking English, asked me where I was from and we found out that he is the father of someone I grew up with and haven't seen for 15 years since third grade.
So far I've loved Israel, its cities, the people, etc. though it's weird to be here when I know that nearly the whole world is angry at it. While staying updated by reading angry emails, political petitions, and NYTimes editorials, nearly every Israelis I've talked with is supportive of Israel's actions in Gaza and is weary of the pending cease fire. They're worried that this whole campaign will be for not and Hamas will return even stronger than before unless they finish out what they started. This is different than Israel's war with Lebanon two years ago when the country was split. (I wrote an article trying to explain an Israeli perspective and that's where most of my writing energy has gone up until now--I'll let y'all know what happens with it).
I was really proud of myself for finding my way around Jerusalem to my hostel. When I first got here, I took a wrong turn and ended up with my huge backpack walking through the narrow Jerusalem-stone passageways of the Muslim quarter in the old city filled with fruit stands, tzatskes, spice markets, hallal meats and guesthouses. I got plenty of wrong directions to my hostel before finally being turned around and directed in the right direction by a British couple. I retraced my steps past the following eyes, spices and fighting kids, exited Damascus gate and arrived at my hostel- Palestinian owned with a smoky lobby, dusty tapestries, and revolutionary posters lining the walls. As of now, I'm trying to get in touch with the girls I'm supposed to meet here (we were planning on going to Petra together), but if I can't find them, this hostel has a "healthy traveler vibe" as my travel guide coined, and I've already met other solo travelers from Japan and Norway.
I'll try to recount some of the important parts of my trip up until now. For one, as we stood on the Golan Heights over looking the borders of Syria and Lebanon, we got word that three rockets had been fired from the Lebanese border. While of course, this has now blown over, many were scared at the time of a new front being opened in this war. Our tour of the army base was cancelled and instead, we headed down to Tel Aviv. Other than the classically touristy things-- floating in the Dead Sea, climbing Masada, riding a camel in the Negev-- the most powerful day was our final day when we went to Yad Vashem, Israel's holocaust memorial, and Mt Herzl, the Israel equivalent of Arlington Cemetery. Unlike Arlington, each grave at Mt Herzl is a headstone and a bed covered with rosemary where each dead soldier lies. We walked by the grave of Mikey Levin, the Philadelphia-born boy who made aliyah in 2006 to join the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and was killed in the 2nd Lebanese war. We learned about the Israeli hero who jumped on a granade two years ago to save the lives of his friend's around him, leaving behind his wife and new born daughter. But the most grounding part, were the three freshly dug graves adorned with photographs and memorabilia, of those boys killed last week in Gaza-- all three born in 1987. Not one person in the group was left with dry eyes. All the soldiers disbursed and found their friends to remember. They all came back and recounted their stories about their friends either killed in conflict or by suicide-- many just can't take the pressures of the army. Every one of the ten Israelis on our trip had a story. Of course, the whole time, I was thinking about all those trivial reasons that a 20-year-old American might die: overdosing on drugs or drunk driving. Yet here we were sitting with Israelis completely comitted to serving their country (there was no question for the,), while knowing first hand all of the casualties prodcued from their precarious geo-political circumstances. It was a humbling day. The soldiers then led us in a ceremony. We concluded our tour of Mt. Herzl by walking by the graves of Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin and a memorial to Theodore Herzl. It was a draining afternoon, but we were already sober-faced from the Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, that we went to in the morning. THe museum itself, in my mind, was not spectacular, but it was beautifully design. It was packed and our tour guide was, at best, mediocre. We listened to a survivor speak afterwards-- she had been friends with Anne Frank and had spent time in Bergen Belson. Both her and her ister survived. About midway through her presentation, sirens sounded throughout Jerusalem. Soldiers in the audience got up to report ot their bases and 10 minutes later they resettled into the audience. The alarms, we learned, were a cmistake and sounded in four major cities, but there are no words to describe that pit in my stomach that added so much gravity to the day and our morning at Yad Vashem. If ther was anything that brought together the history of Israel for me, it was that feeling of sitting there listening to a holocaust survivor speak at the Israeli Holocaust memorial and hearing sirens overhead. Or, as a friend said later, "Somebody just got fired."
I'm spending too much time on this communal computer. Forgive the cheesiness of this post. Until later, hasta luego.
I just had my first solo 'thoughtful' time at dusk at the wailing wall. I've already been there three times so far on this trip (twice with the group). But this time, I walked through the Muslim quarter of the Old City to get there. Very different from the Jewish quarter. Perhaps tomorrow I'll venture into the Christian quarter. See what all these people are fighting about.
The trip was a great success and afterward, I spent some time in Tel Aviv with one of the Israeli students who joined us on our trip. Also saw a handful of other friends who I happen to know in Israel, including an old friend who I bumped into while eating lunch. He basically heard me speaking English, asked me where I was from and we found out that he is the father of someone I grew up with and haven't seen for 15 years since third grade.
So far I've loved Israel, its cities, the people, etc. though it's weird to be here when I know that nearly the whole world is angry at it. While staying updated by reading angry emails, political petitions, and NYTimes editorials, nearly every Israelis I've talked with is supportive of Israel's actions in Gaza and is weary of the pending cease fire. They're worried that this whole campaign will be for not and Hamas will return even stronger than before unless they finish out what they started. This is different than Israel's war with Lebanon two years ago when the country was split. (I wrote an article trying to explain an Israeli perspective and that's where most of my writing energy has gone up until now--I'll let y'all know what happens with it).
I was really proud of myself for finding my way around Jerusalem to my hostel. When I first got here, I took a wrong turn and ended up with my huge backpack walking through the narrow Jerusalem-stone passageways of the Muslim quarter in the old city filled with fruit stands, tzatskes, spice markets, hallal meats and guesthouses. I got plenty of wrong directions to my hostel before finally being turned around and directed in the right direction by a British couple. I retraced my steps past the following eyes, spices and fighting kids, exited Damascus gate and arrived at my hostel- Palestinian owned with a smoky lobby, dusty tapestries, and revolutionary posters lining the walls. As of now, I'm trying to get in touch with the girls I'm supposed to meet here (we were planning on going to Petra together), but if I can't find them, this hostel has a "healthy traveler vibe" as my travel guide coined, and I've already met other solo travelers from Japan and Norway.
I'll try to recount some of the important parts of my trip up until now. For one, as we stood on the Golan Heights over looking the borders of Syria and Lebanon, we got word that three rockets had been fired from the Lebanese border. While of course, this has now blown over, many were scared at the time of a new front being opened in this war. Our tour of the army base was cancelled and instead, we headed down to Tel Aviv. Other than the classically touristy things-- floating in the Dead Sea, climbing Masada, riding a camel in the Negev-- the most powerful day was our final day when we went to Yad Vashem, Israel's holocaust memorial, and Mt Herzl, the Israel equivalent of Arlington Cemetery. Unlike Arlington, each grave at Mt Herzl is a headstone and a bed covered with rosemary where each dead soldier lies. We walked by the grave of Mikey Levin, the Philadelphia-born boy who made aliyah in 2006 to join the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and was killed in the 2nd Lebanese war. We learned about the Israeli hero who jumped on a granade two years ago to save the lives of his friend's around him, leaving behind his wife and new born daughter. But the most grounding part, were the three freshly dug graves adorned with photographs and memorabilia, of those boys killed last week in Gaza-- all three born in 1987. Not one person in the group was left with dry eyes. All the soldiers disbursed and found their friends to remember. They all came back and recounted their stories about their friends either killed in conflict or by suicide-- many just can't take the pressures of the army. Every one of the ten Israelis on our trip had a story. Of course, the whole time, I was thinking about all those trivial reasons that a 20-year-old American might die: overdosing on drugs or drunk driving. Yet here we were sitting with Israelis completely comitted to serving their country (there was no question for the,), while knowing first hand all of the casualties prodcued from their precarious geo-political circumstances. It was a humbling day. The soldiers then led us in a ceremony. We concluded our tour of Mt. Herzl by walking by the graves of Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin and a memorial to Theodore Herzl. It was a draining afternoon, but we were already sober-faced from the Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, that we went to in the morning. THe museum itself, in my mind, was not spectacular, but it was beautifully design. It was packed and our tour guide was, at best, mediocre. We listened to a survivor speak afterwards-- she had been friends with Anne Frank and had spent time in Bergen Belson. Both her and her ister survived. About midway through her presentation, sirens sounded throughout Jerusalem. Soldiers in the audience got up to report ot their bases and 10 minutes later they resettled into the audience. The alarms, we learned, were a cmistake and sounded in four major cities, but there are no words to describe that pit in my stomach that added so much gravity to the day and our morning at Yad Vashem. If ther was anything that brought together the history of Israel for me, it was that feeling of sitting there listening to a holocaust survivor speak at the Israeli Holocaust memorial and hearing sirens overhead. Or, as a friend said later, "Somebody just got fired."
I'm spending too much time on this communal computer. Forgive the cheesiness of this post. Until later, hasta luego.
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