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.