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.