epilogue

I was going to write this in the airport before I left, but then Ben Gurion security happened.
Then jet lag hit.
Then I went to Michigan.
Then there was that little wedding thing.
Then there was RA training.
Now, a month later, I guess I'll bring my story to its full conclusion.

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All in all, I had a pretty good last day in the Promised Land.

Sleeping on the roof turned out to be pretty nice, except I woke up freezing when the sun rose at 5:30 am. Oh well. Part of the deal with being on the roof meant you had to be out of bed by 8am, so I had an early start to the day. Had a smoothie for breakfast and walked around a bit of the Old Jaffa sea wall, then headed to the beach.

First off, I think the Mediterranean might be my new favorite body of water. It is the absolute perfect temperature, and the waves are awesome. I also had the great and hilarious privilege of watching a group of preteens attempting to learn how to surf, which was really entertaining. The only downside of the whole experience involved getting very awkwardly hit on by a 30-something year old Israeli in a Speedo, but that's another story. After lying out/swimming for a while, I headed up the street to grab lunch. I figured as my last real meal in Israel I should actually go to a restaurant, since (other than the night with the Ethiopian food) I had yet to actually eat a sit down meal. Ate an amazing caprese sandwich at a place called CaFEZ, and then wandered off to the shuk. Around this time I started to get a pretty bad headache, probably due to the heat, but I kept pushing through. Bought a pretty sweet rug for 20 shekels, a couple of dresses from a guy who was a major creeper (but he did give me a good deal), and this really crazy pair of tie dyed pants I couldn’t resist. By this point my head was really throbbing, so I went back to the hostel and fell asleep on their couch for a few hours. Got up, head was still hurting. Went for some gelato and back to the couch, still hurting. Finally gave up on feeling better before my flight and decided to start making the journey to the airport for my 12:40am flight. At about 6:30pm, I set out with all my stuff.

I did pretty well at navigating the bus this time around, and managed to make it to the train station all right. Trains are the easy part. I can do trains. Took one to the airport and got there around 8pm.

And this is where the insanity begins.

First of all, nobody told me that at Ben-Gurion, you cannot check in until 3 hours before your flight. Given my experience in this airport, I think this is totally stupid. Had I gotten there only 3 hours before and been put through everything I was, I would never in a million years have made my flight to JFK. Luckily, because a group of about 20 Americans on an archaeological dig had been told that they could check in four hours before and were all standing around waiting, they started the process early.

Second, the Israeli equivalent of TSA apparently thinks I am a terrorist. AWESOME.

Step One: Brief interrogation. Why are you in Israel? Where have you been? What did you do? Has anyone given you a gift while here? Where has your luggage been? Who packed your luggage? Are you carrying any sharp objects? Etc, etc, etc. Not too harsh or forward, just a slight annoyance.

Step Two: Bags are x-rayed. In my case, x-rayed twice. I apparently have some sketchy looking clothing.

Step Three: Bags are searched and swabbed for anthrax/explosives. Most everything is removed, and has to be repacked. Again, a pain, but whatever. More questions are asked, about the contents of the luggage.

Step Four: Waiting in line to check bags. Takes forever. Then, when you finally get to the front of the line, FREAKING DELTA WOMAN DECIDES TO TAKE HER BREAK leaving you and a line of twenty people behind you to scurry into another line. Urrrrrrghhhh. You get to the front of the line again, and the woman tells you you have to take your bag to another location “because it has straps”. WHAT THE HELL?!

Step Five: You walk your strappy bag down to an elevator, where you are asked more questions about your luggage.

Step Six: You go to the post office and mail in your rental phone. Easiest part of the whole airport experience!

Step Seven: Security checkpoint #2. Your carryons are x-rayed and searched. You are told all your electronics will have to be checked, “just because”. Never mind that the person in front of you just got through with her laptop. You are asked more questions. Why did you come to Israel? BECAUSE IT’S A PRETTY BALLER PLACE. Why are you alone? BECAUSE I’M A FREAKING ADULT. Who do you know in Israel? Who did you work for? Who else lives in Nimrod? Do you have any proof of you being there? Why did you go to Nazareth? Security man then reads your entire journal and asks you questions about its contents. Then you are told you are going to have to go back to the outer security checkpoint to have your bags searched again and check electronics through to JFK.

Step Eight: Back at bag search, every item is removed from your carryons, xrayed, and swabbed. Every. Single. Item. Each individual thing from your wallet, every bandaid, all of it. Highlights: "What is this?" "...a rape whistle (compliments of Lydia)." "Why do you have it?" (.....how do you explain to them your friend thought you would need a rape whistle in their country without offending them? They're like, the most patriotic people in the world!) My personal favorite, however: "What do you keep in this?" (shakes item) ".......um......that's a tampon."

Step Nine: I have to leave my stuff to be searched and am taken to a side room where I am swabbed all over and questioned some more.

Step Ten: Back to bag search, where they are going through all the photos on my camera and the songs on my Ipod. Can you tell a terrorist by his music, I wonder? They then proceed to pack everything except my wallet and a book into the box to be checked. Apparently I am not allowed ANY carryon items at all.

Step Eleven: Checking the box. Takes forever even with cutting the line.

Step Twelve: Back to security checkpoint #2. I make it through this time.

Step Thirteen: Passport Control. I caused a bit of a fuss because I thought I didn't have a visa (stamp) in my passport from when I entered the country (I thought they had stamped a piece of paper that I then had to give it to someone when I went to baggage claim). Turns out it was there all along, near the back. Looks like I won't be going to Lebanon or Syria anytime soon unless I invest in new travel documents :(

FINALLY, I made it to the actual terminal around 11:45. I was starving, so I grabbed a pizza and managed to scarf it down before boarding. Then ended up sitting in the middle of a large orthodox family for the duration of the flight. Seriously, HUGE. Every time I thought I'd seen all of their kids, another random child would be like "ABBA! ABBA!". (I think they were reproducing on the plane!) They also did not have individual screens for the inflight movies, so I ended up watching most of Dear John and then falling asleep. God, I really hate Nicholas Sparks movies.

Twelve hours later I landed in New York, and spent most of my time there in customs.

Four hours later I landed in Atlanta, and went all the way to Concourse A to get me some Chic-fil-a breakfast.

Three hours after that, around twenty four hours after getting on the bus in Jaffa, I landed in Huntsville.

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Now, back in the country a month and relatively settled in Miami, I have some time to reflect.

First, the entire experience was everything I hoped for and yet nothing like I expected all at the same time. I grew a lot, and I was pretty far out of my comfort zone for a good bit of it, but it didn't stretch me as far as last summer did - probably because I had already had that trip to rip me apart and rebuild me in all of the crazy ways it did. From a spiritual standpoint, yes, it was REALLY FREAKING COOL to walk where Jesus and Abraham and Mohammed lived and died, but I was surprised to realize that I felt less of a, well, presence of God there in the holy sites than I did hiking in the shadows of the Alaska Range or wandering among the Headlands overlooking the Pacific. I guess that shouldn't be a surprise, but to me it speaks volumes.

Second, I think I am ready to travel with someone, rather than alone. Honestly, I think everyone should experience traveling alone, because you gain so much and learn a ton about yourself. These last few forays into the world have been really important to me in that I really do know now that I can survive on my own in environments and situations that are completely unlike anything I've ever known. I've done so in wilderness and urban settings, with foreign and not so foreign languages, in cultures and lifestyles that span the spectrum. It's been about independence, having my fate in my own hands, and being able to only lean on myself and God. But now that I know I can do that, it would be nice to have someone to share the experience with. Someone who's already done their own independent tour and found what they need to find in themselves.

Third, Israel is important no matter who you are or what you think about it. Jew or Arab, believer or nonbeliever, black or white, this place matters. If you look to the past, it is where history literally begins. If you look to the future, it could either become the site of the next world war or the greatest peace of all time. And in the present, it is an important part of foreign policy in nearly all developed nations around the world, holds major cultural and religious significance for people around the globe, and is a lone oasis of modernization and democracy in the greater Middle East. It is one of those places that everyone needs to see before they die.

Last, this country is much more than what it is portrayed as in the media. It is not a land where politicians make perfect decisions and can do no wrong simply because they are democratically elected, as Bush often to be the case, nor is it a land where there are two clear sides and no exceptions. Not all Israelis hate Palestinians, or vice versa. There are many on both sides who are willing to sacrifice for peace, and who strive to look beyond the centuries of violence.

Maybe part of it has to do with spending the last three years at the most diverse school in the country, but more and more I have come to realize that we are truly ONE race and see beyond our immediate classifications. We are not black, white, latino, asian, or native. We are not Jew, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist. We are not the rich, or the poor, or the middle class.

We are only human.

And on that note, I leave you with a song.

I traveled the banks of the River of Jordan
to find where it flows to the sea
I looked in the eyes of the cold and the hungry
and I saw I was looking at me
I wanted to know if life had a purpose
and what it all means in the end
In the silence I listened to voices inside me
and they told me again and again....

The is only one river, there is only one sea,
and it flows through you, and it flows through me
There is only one people, we are one and the same
We are all one spirit, we are all one name
We are the father, mother, daughter and son.
From the dawn of creation, we are one
We are one

Every blade of grass on the mountain
Every drop in the sea
Every cry of a newborn baby
Every prayer to be free
Every hope at the end of a rainbow
Every song ever sung
Is a part of the family of woman and man
and that means everyone

The is only one river, there is only one sea,
and it flows through you, and it flows through me
There is only one people, we are one and the same
We are all one spirit, we are all one name
We are the father, mother, daughter and son.
From the dawn of creation, we are one
WE ARE ONE

soul food and saying goodbye

It would seem, my friends, that we have reached a parting of the ways.

My last day of work (yesterday) wasn't too bad. Spent the morning weeding in the camping area and the hanging gardens, and the afternoon ironing and changing cabin linens. Then, in the late afternoon, Lilach had a brilliant idea.

She was like "JANE! You are leaving tomorrow!" and I'm like, "......yeah," and she says "WE SHOULD HAVE A FAREWELL DINNER FOR YOU!" "....okay....." Anyway, she decides we should cook something that is my "native food" so to speak. "What do you eat in Alabama?" "........uh....." "I KNOW I KNOW! WE WILL MAKE FRIED CHICKEN! Do you know how to make fried chicken?" ".........uh, no....." "WELL THEN GOOGLE IT!"

So I did.

In the 18 plus years I have lived in Alabama, I have never made fried chicken. I go to Israel for six weeks and I end up cooking it. Go figure. It was surprisingly pretty easy. I guess I could succeed as a Southern housewife after all. We also had mashed potatoes with it, per my recommendation. Stephen was like, "Isn't this what black people eat?" Oh, Stephen. That would involve greens. Instead we had Israeli couscous.....we'll call it a blended meal. Also enjoyed some of the house wine for the first time, which was excellent, and some leftover birthday cake. All in all a very nice last meal.

Meanwhile, Magdal was rioting.

Magdal Shams is the Druze village about a half a mile from us. I still don't know exactly what was going on except that it involved taxes and some guy who was dealing drugs in France. Kind of crazy. But, as per Lilach's prediction, at 930pm the rioting stopped.

The Mundial was on.

I didn't watch, I went to pack (and by pack I mean spend several hours distracting myself from packing). If you like Spain, congrats; if you like the Netherlands, my apologies.

Eventually went to bed, and eventually finished packing in the morning.

Ended up taking a much later bus than I expected, but it turned out alright. Got into Tel Aviv around 4pm and was planning to take a bus to the hostel. However, I never found the intra-city buses. Remember the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station? The giant one that's like an airport? Yeah, I got lost. Finally I gave up and asked a taxi how much it would be, and the price was reasonable so I opted for that instead. Then the taxi driver got lost, and I had to pull out my map and help him figure out where we were in broken Hebrew. Turns out we were basically driving in a circle around the street the hostel was on. When I got to the hostel I hadn't made a reservation, so I asked what they had available. I was expecting a dorm bed, since I haven't encountered a single full hostel since I got here (and I have now stayed in a grand total of about 10 different ones). Then she says the cursed words to me - "NONE AVAILABLE". I'm about to flip, since I'm tired of carrying all this crap and getting lost in taxis, whens she's like "......but you can have a rooftop mattress for 60 shekels. You just have to be gone by 8 o'clock." I'm like......what did you just say?"

Basically, this hostel is awesome. Not only is it in Jaffa, which is a really cool and nice and not so touristy part of Tel Aviv, it has a flippin sweet roof. Its partially covered, with mattresses for sleeping and lots of tables and chairs and couches, plus a fountain, full bathrooms/showers, a full kitchen, and laundry. No AC necessary, the breeze off the sea is perfect and the view of the city skyline is beautiful. Its also in the thick of the shuk, which is the best shuk I have been in in this country, and five minutes from a gorgeous beach. I'm lovin it :)

After getting settled I went to find food, since I pretty much hadn't eaten all day. I just wanted a pita with any of the staples in it (falafel, schawarma, schnitzel, or kabab), I didn't care which one. I thought there would be a stand near the hostel once I started in the direction of the beach, but I didn't see anything. I kept walking up the promenade into the rest of Tel Aviv, and finally, once I got all the way to the street I stayed on my last time in the city (roughly a mile), I found a place and got some schnitzel (Sidenote: Every time I eat schnitzel I find myself involuntarily humming "My Favorite Things" and I'm starting to annoy myself with it. Damn you, Rodgers & Hammerstein). One of my favorite (and by favorite I mean least favorite) things about Israel is how everyone assumes you want hummus on everything. I didn't really want hummus with my schnitzel, since hummus melts basically the instant it hits the pita, resulting in soggy schnitzel, which I didn't particularly want, but the man literally asked me "Do you want hummus?" as he was putting it in my pita. Urgh.....national foods. I then walked the mile back to the hostel to eat my schnitzel in a less hot environment, and of course, it was soggy. Sigh. Oh, and then I realized there were like, 5 pita stands in a ten foot radius about six steps in the other direction from the one I walked. Jane Fail.

Afterward I went out to the shuk, which was pretty much all closed. Picked up a couple things for different people at the places that were open, and then wandered back to the hostel.

In other news, been on a very folksy kick musically the last few days and I'm having the renewed urge to learn how to play guitar. I just found possibly the best song I've heard in the last decade and it turned out to have been written for Hanukkah several decades ago. Go YouTube it, Peter Paul & Mary singing "Light One Candle". Watch the holiday concert from the 80's and you can get a laugh out of whatever the hell Mary's wearing. Is it a trash bag? A solar panel? We just don't know.

My last night in Israel (for a while). Crazy to think. But, as the padre taught me to always say, I'll be back.

this year in Jerusalem

I've seen the Holy City. My trip is complete.

The tour didn't start til 11, so I spent a couple hours wandering around outside. Around 930 I'm walking along outside then southern wall when I suddenly hear "JANE?!!" and see Marissa Orenstein running at me! Then Mike Gohari shows up, and is all like "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE??".....yeah, of all the people to run into in Jerusalem, I ran into the UM Birthright group. Again, my world is shrinking, but finding people you know on the other side of the world is pretty entertaining.

I then walked through this open air mall to kill some time, and had the best fresh squeezed orange juice I've ever had. It came out of this totally sick juicer machine that I really want to find on ebay and get Scott for his birthday.

The tour = TOTALLY WORTH IT. I learned a ridiculous amount, and got so much more out of everything than I would have had I gone alone.

First stop: Church of the Holy Sepluchre. Built over Golgotha, the site of the crucifixion. Also contains the site where the supposed true cross was found by Helena, mother of Constantine, what is believed to be the site of Jesus' tomb, and where he was prepared for burial. Obviously, nothing looks anything like it did 2000 years ago and the church is very ornate in places, which kind of annoys me, but when you take a moment to remove yourself mentally and touch the actual stone of the hill where it happened and stand where Mary stood as she watched her son die....it's powerful. Regardless of what you believe about Jesus, it's incredible to be there and think how one man, here, in his death, changed the course of human history. And if you believe he was more than a man, well, then its another thing entirely. I won't go into details, but.....it's moving.
[**Interesting things I never knew: (1) According to oral tradition, Golgotha (the Place of the Skull) was called so because it was believed that the skeleton of Adam lay deep below it. When Jesus died, and the earth cracked below him, his blood was thus said to drip down to cleanse the original sin of mankind. (2) Kalif Omar, the second (I believe) leader of Islam after Mohammed, toured the church at one point and while he was doing so the time came to pray. Instead of stopping exactly where he was to pray, which he always did, he walked outside. When his followers asked him why he did this, he said he knew that if he had prayed inside the church, within twenty years they would have torn it down and built a mosque in its place. He recognized how important the site was to Christians and didn't want this to happen, so he left it before praying...and now there is a mosque built in honor of him across from the church.]

We then walked the Via Dolorosa, the route of the crucifxion, in reverse (which was kind of weird, but oh well). Along the way the stations of the cross are marked (Jesus saying goodbye to Mary, Simon being given the cross to carry, etc), which although the historical accuracy probably isn't exactly very good, is pretty cool. Again, this is now in the middle of the market so you have to mentally remove yourself from what's going on around you.

We ate lunch as a tour group at this falafel bar place, which was very tasty and half the price of the lunch I ate in Ein Gedi. Also fun to sit down and actually talk to the people I was spending the day with.

Next was HaKotel, the Wailing Wall. Really impactful; security was ridiculous but I guess you can't blame them. Then we got in line to go on the Temple Mount. Apparently they let non-Muslims up at 730 am and 130pm, and its only a certain number so you have to line up early (again - things I would not have known had I gone by myself). This is the part where all the people who didn't dress appropriately end up wearing random articles of clothing provided by the tour guide to cover up. Very entertaining. Example: two guys about my age wearing hot pink wrap skirts. Guess ya shoulda worn longer shorts, boys. Luckily I came prepared. It was interesting to learn about the history of the Temple Mount, the building and destruction of the temples, and how the Dome of the Rock came to be. We weren't allowed in the Dome of the Rock; since Ariel Sharon's 2000 speech in front of it (which sparked the Second Intifada, if you don't know your Israel history then Google it) non-Muslims haven't been allowed in.
[**Interesting tidbit: Most orthodox Jews do not go on the Temple Mount, ever. Because the temple no longer stands, there is no way to know where the "holiest of holy" is/was and by not going up there, they avoid walking somewhere that is beyond their level of holiness, so to speak.]

We also went to the room of the Last Supper (again, questionable accuracy but oh well), King David's tomb (not questionable accuracy, cause his body's chillin there), and Dormition Abbey, where Mary died. And a lot of other places a long the way, but I can't remember all of them and I learned more than I could possibly take in. The point our tour guide (who was totally nuts, by the way) kept making at each site was how closely related the three faiths were in their holy sites (not just like, all these things happened on the same place, but things that were similar) and that what causes the conflicts isn't that they are so different, but that they are so alike. All in all, very, very good tour and I highly recommend it.

Thoughts:
-Given the climate of today, and for that matter that of millenia past, this city is important no matter what you believe. Of all the places in this world you can travel, this is one place everyone should see before they die.
-If you are or have ever been a follower of Christ, whether you just found your faith or you're losing your religion, you need to go to Jerusalem. There is so much to be gained, to be found within yourself by walking where he walked and seeing where he lived and died. Incredible. Seriously.

On my last evening in the city Aliza showed back up and invited me out with some of her newfound friends at Hebrew U. It was nice to meet some new people and go out for a change, but two things: (1) I sat next to three of the biggest, most bigoted jerks I have ever heard speak in my life. Seriously, if you listened to them talk too long you would give up all hope in humanity/the world ever becoming a better place. (2) Beer and Ethiopian food is a terrible taste combination. Avoid it at all costs.

Got up early yesterday morning and took the bus back to meet Alla and Tomer at Makhanayim. Pretty pleasant ride, and I actually managed to get the bus to stop at the right stop. The ride from that point through the mountains was, however, again spent trying not to throw up. (Sidenote: I just now realized the bottle of phenagrin I have with me was prescribed to SCOTT PRYJMAK in JANUARY 2007. Oops. No wonder it hasn't been working. Jane Fail.)

Last night Kifa (the housekeeper) and her family came over and we had a traditional Druze bbq. Wow, such good food. We cooked out by the pool and then all of us sat on blankets and ate on the deck, and it was really fun. It was a good thing we put down plastic over the blankets, tho, because food ended up everywhere. Well, we all kinda gave up on being neat after Guy dropped the bottle of Fanta in the bowl of red cabbage and we all got splattered with it. There was a lot of laughter and a lot of vodka involved, which may or may not have been related. All in all a good time, and a very nice Shabbat dinner.

The season has picked up, and last night we had five cabins full of people, so this meant a lot of breakfast this morning. I felt like I was slicing cheeses for hours. Afterward we cleared and re-linened all the cabins since Kifa wasn't feeling well, and then it was time for the birthday celebration.

Oh yes, that's right. Ziv is four today. It was a spectacle.

No, actually it was really fun. I've never seen this kid smile so much. Some of the family's friends came over and the fun part was that everybody got to help her open presents. It was nuts. Basically Lilach gets a ton of inexpensive gifts so that there's a lot to open, and once it starts its like a barrage of small children and paper. I even got to assist. Got some great pictures too.

Hard to believe that tomorrow is my last day in Nimrod. Where has the time gone?

adventures with Egged

So yesterday morning Aliza and I got up and rode in with Tomer and Alla to Akko to take the train to Jerusalem (yeh-ROO-suh-LIE-em, if anyone's wondering how to really pronounce the name of the Holy City). Suffice it to say I have been really looking forward to this trip, and have purposefully been saving it for the end of my time here. Anyway, per usual, Golan Heights driving circa 7am is no good for Jane's stomach. However, I actually made it all the way to the train station before throwing up in the flower bed. Really, this blog should would be more appropriately titled "Places Jane Barfs in Israel". At least I got the front seat tho. Poor Aliza ended up stuck in the back between the two autistic boys.

The train ride was nice, especially the part between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem which goes through the mountains. It reminded a good bit of riding the Alaska Railroad, except with less green and fewer moose. The part that was a pain, tho, was the bus from the train to the hostel. I had looked it up before, and saw that I needed to take bus 6. So I get off the train, and find bus 6. I ask the driver if it goes to zion square and he's like, no, you need to take bus 18. So I wait for bus 18, it finally comes, and I'm like, "Kifar Zion?" No, take bus 24. Bus 24 comes, "Kifar Zion?", no, you need to take BUS 6. I'm like, imma beat somebody up if the next damn bus doesn't take me to Kifar Zion. Luckily, he said it would. So I get on the bus.

Now usually bus drivers here, if they know you don't know where you're going, are good enough to tell you where to get off. As we were driving along, I started to get the feeling this wasn't going to happen. I knew we had already turned on to Jaffa (Yafo) street, which was where the hostel was, so I was getting anxious. Also, the bus was getting really crowded. So I decided I was going to get off at the next stop, figure out where I was, and walk the rest of the way. I get ready to jump off the bus. The door opens, and this mob of people come rushing on and I get trampled. (Sidenote: Oh my god, the orthodox are pushy. Who knew?) Finally I manage to get off the bus, and start walking down the street. Unfortunately I was going in the wrong direction, and didn't realize this for about 10 minutes. Then I got turned around, and finally found the hostel. Its pretty nice, except for the fact that the dorm room is really cramped. There are eight girls and their stuff sharing a room slightly smaller than the freshman dorms at UM, if you can imagine. Also, there is this really crazy African woman in the room who thinks she is like, dorm police, and its starting to get annoying.

After getting settled, I wandered out to the market, which was nuts. People shouting at each other and you and trying to sell you spices by telling you you look like J.Lo...its crazy. I bought some fruit and bread and cheese for lunch, then headed back to the hostel to eat. Then I took an amazing nap, which was very needed, while I waited for Aliza (she had stopped in Bet Shemesh to drop her stuff off at her cousin's). Once she got there we went to find dinner, and ended up meeting several people at the hostel. One was a Gator, who I did my best to be nice to when she started talking about Tim Tebow.......I may or may not have been successful at that. Eventually Aliza went out with some of the girls we met, and I stayed in and went to sleep.

This morning we miraculously managed to make our 9am bus to Ein Gedi, despite Aliza coming in at 430am. We went to the beach first when we got there, and I got to float!!!! OMG, the Dead Sea is flippin sweet. First off, in normal water, I don't float. I sink. This place, you can't even swim because you can't keep your feet in the water. It's awesome. The downside was the water was really warm, and the salt kinda burns a little bit, and you come out feeling disgusting....but it was worth it. Afterward we showered and ate a horrendously overpriced lunch at this restaurant on the beach (I'm pretty sure we were just paying for the AC), then napped under a palm tree. A bit later we got up and walked down to the Ein Gedi Nature Preserve to hike. This has possibly been my favorite part of my travels so far. The hike we did was pretty short, but up along all these waterfalls and pools so you could intersperse your hiking with swimming, which we did. It was like a more desert-like, Israeli version of Fall Creek Falls in Tennessee. Afterward we got slushies, which were not as good as Tiberias slushies but still good, and headed to catch the bus back to Jerusalem.

One thing about transportation in Israel: For all the effort they put into checking to make sure you don't have a bomb or a weapon with you, they really don't give a crap about safety on the bus itself. Case in point: Bus pulls up to Ein Gedi. There are approximately 8 people waiting to board. Bus driver lets all on. There are NO available seats on the bus, and already 3 people sitting in the aisle. 8 boarding people proceed to sit/stand in the aisle for the entirety of the 1 1/2 hour bus ride. Yes, this was an adventure. Especially since the ride around the Dead Sea is essentially a roller coaster. Anyway, we finally made it back to Jerusalem, took showers, and grabbed dinner on Ben Yehuda, which is sort of the Jerusalem version of Lincoln Road.

Tomorrow I'm taking the Holy City tour, which I'm really excited for. I haven't been on an organized tour at all this trip, but I figure this one would be worth the 70 shekels. We'll see what happens.....

ARGH!

Ok, I'm pissed.

I just had this beautiful blog entry I'd been working on and Google freaking deleted it. Looks like you're just getting highlights, cause I need to catch up on life since the hike.

Wednesday - New volunteer. Stephen. He's 60 years old and nice but pretty annoying. He's very well traveled and wants you to know all the negative things about the world. Except for Hungary. He's Hungarian and he loves Hungary. He never stops talking about it and sometimes I want to punch him in the face. He's not staying in our cabin, which is good since he is anal about cleanliness and we basically live in filth.

Thursday - Guri (the dog) eats a kitten. Ok, he didn't exactly eat it. He broke its back. It was really traumatizing and our neighbor Avi had to come over and drown it.

Friday - I cleaned the travelers lounge of all its cobwebs and dog hair, and organized the brochures. Ziv helped and I was actually able to communicate with her, which was cool. The cleanliness lasted about an afternoon, until Guri moved back in and now there is dog hair everywhere again. Sigh.

Saturday - Strawberry gutters fall down. We spend a lot of time putting them back up so that we can plant on Sunday.

Sunday - Everybody goes to plant the 4000 strawberries at 6 am. Everyone except me. I have a short stomach virus and stay upstairs puking my guts out all morning. On the up side I got to sleep in, on the down side......you get the picture.

Monday - Planting continues. I participate this time. I also do laundry for the first time since Haifa. Clean underwear is wonderful, and well worth the pain in the butt that doing laundry here is. I swear, with four kids and a lodge full of linens, its worse than trying to do laundry at school.

Now I am in Jerusalem til Friday, and its awesome. More on that to come soon.

three days of fruit and pita

Time for some journey updates. This is going to be long. I'll start at the beginning.

Saturday night I took the bus to Nazareth. I managed to change buses alright, and get off the bus at the right stop (in general, I am now on better terms with Egged and their website), however, once I got to Nazareth I was completely lost. Googlemaps totally failed me on this one, and I literally ended up wandering around the square in front of the Church of the Annunciation for like 20 minutes while trying to get the hostel and/or Lilach on the phone to tell me where to go. Finally, the hostel answered and they sent one of the volunteers (this hostel is also a GoEco site) down to get me. Apparently the volunteers here do a lot of ferrying people to and from the center of town, and now I understand why - trying to find the Fauzi Azar Inn even in daylight is like trying to find the Island without the Lampost, and I was doing it in the dark. It is in the thick of the shuk (the market) down a tiny alley with a little door in the wall. No seriously, the door looked like it belonged in Wonderland. However, once I got there, it turned out to be one of the coolest hostels I have stayed in. It is actually a 200 year old Arab mansion, and the people there were incredibly nice. There was none of this paying for linens or internet crap, and there were even shampoo dispensers in the shower!! It was pretty awesome. Granted, I could have stayed with the Sisters of Nazareth for even cheaper (and that would have been fun, to say I slept in a convent), but for 75 shekels it was a still great deal so I can't complain.

In the morning I decided to see a little of the city before I took off on the trail. The funny and ironic thing about Nazareth is that 2000 years ago they tried to throw Jesus off a cliff and now there is practically a church on every corner. It's like the Bible Belt of Israel. So first I headed to the Basilica, which is supposedly built where Mary received the vision that she would give birth to Jesus. Its kind of a cool church, and around the outside they have mosaics from all over the world depicting her. I wandered inside, and while I was kneeling to pray this priest walks up to me and asks me which Miami I go to (I had on a UM shirt) --but side note here, people need to learn that while there are two Miami's, there is ONLY one U....which was clearly indicated on the shirt....anyway, he then invites me to join them for mass in the chapel in a few minutes. I'm thinking to myself, I am definitely not dressed for church, and I really should start hiking, but then I said what the hell, its Sunday and I'm in the Holy Land. Let's go. So I go to mass, and end up the only independent traveler in the church with what appears to be a big mother/daughter tour group. Things that happened during this mass that I have never seen in a mass before: (1) Evolution was mentioned, (2) Mary's womb was called a uterus, and (3) someone threw up the peace sign to me during the passing of the peace (this one made me chuckle). Anyway, afterward this motherly-looking woman behind me invites me to join them for their continuing tour, so I decided to delay my hike a little longer. First we went down into the grotto where Mary and Joseph's house was, and then to the synagogue which is supposedly built on the site where Jesus first preached. One of the girls who was about my age started asking me about which school I went to, and when I asked her the same question, she told me she was a "consecrated woman." Apparently this is what they are calling nuns these days - yeah, who knew. (Sidenote: For like, two days after this I kept thinking that was a really bizarre thing to call a nun until I realized I was confusing consecrated with consummated....big difference.) After the synagogue I was getting ready to peace out when the motherly woman asked me about my plans, if I was traveling alone, etc. She said she would worry about me since my mother wasn't here to, and asked me my name so that she could pray for me. I told her, and asked her hers. She said it was Mary Beth. I smiled. Tell me now that I'm really traveling alone.

After all of this I finally got on my way. The first part was semi miserable because I was just walking up flights and flights of stairs through the Old City, and really wishing Jesus could have picked a less hilly place to live. Once I got out of the city it was nicer, although some of the trail markers were tough to spot and I missed a couple of turns and had to double back. Hiked through a lot of farmland, and about midway through made it to Zippori National Park, which houses the ruins of one of the major administrative cities from Jesus' time. Ran into none other than the priest from the morning in the park, who recognized me (I guess not many people go to mass wearing a UM tshirt and a giant red backpack). Went through Mash'had, which is where Jonah (of whale fame) was born, and that night I arrived in Cana, which is where Jesus' first miracle (the turning water into wine) occurred. Here I ran into the same tour group again, which I had to laugh about since I'd been walking all day and they just were on a bus for maybe half an hour. Checked into the hostel, which was very nice, and then went out to find food (I had been traveling with water, a couple pitas, a few pears, and a banana). This is when the madness began.

First of all, everybody here is wayyyyyy into the Mundial (the World Cup, for you non soccer fans). Israel of course has no team, and there does not appear to be any rhyme or reason to the way these people decide who they are supporting. Germany is very, very popular in Cana and I just happened to be there on the night they played (and beat) England. Here is the picture: lots of people, in their cars, flying giant German flags out the windows, constantly honking, driving in circles around the town. It was insane. People were yelling and honking and honking and yelling in the streets for over an hour. After a couple failed attempts at finding something worth buying in a market that was open, I ended up at a little pita shop ordering some beef kabob. The man at the pita shop was one of my favorite people on this trip, sadly I do not know his name, but he was a very round, very bald, very happy Israeli man. He was very happy to talk to me and told me all about how he loved the Mundial, and how he didn't normally open on Sundays because he was a Christian, it was only because of the Mundial, and how he would put his tv outside his shop so people could come and watch the games. Anyway, as he was grilling my kabob we were watching the tv, and the music video for Shakira's new song (the one for the World Cup, where she does the african dancing) comes on. Round, bald, Israeli pita man is like "It's Shakira! You like Shakira? I love Shakira!" and then proceeds to start imitating her african dancing while flipping the kabob on the grill. I about died, it was priceless. Afterward he invited me to come back and watch the Mexico-Argentina game, but I went to the hostel and passed out. Thanks, pita man, for your hospitality, entertainment, and a great beef kabob. I will never be able to look at Shakira the same way again.

After a good nights rest I got on my way around 8:30 am the next morning. On the way out of town I stopped at the market and picked up more pita and a couple of apples. In retrospect, I really should have gotten more food, but that's beside the point. Day two is supposed to take you to Kibbutz Lavi, about a 15 km hike. There isn't much along the way, except a lot of farmland and the Roman Road, which I apparently skipped due to a missing trail marker. There is also basically nowhere to refill water, which is not indicated on the map. About 3/4 of the way in I ran out, and after starting to get very dehydrated, ended up stealing some from a jug I found sitting in an orchard. It was very hot and very stale, but it was water. Then I got to Kibbutz Lavi, and decided (for better or for worse) not to stop. There were two reasons for this: (a) It was only 2:30pm, and (b) the only place to stay there is a hotel with rooms for 400 shekels and up - a lil bit out of my price range. Looking at my map, I knew there was basically nothing between Lavi and Moshav Arbel, which was another 16 km away and supposed to be the stopping point after Day 3. I made the (somewhat terrible) decision to go for it. I figured if worse came to worse, I had a pillow and blanket and could sleep on the trail, and according to the map there were a couple of shortcuts I could take. So I kept going. Along the way there were many, many times I considered stopping to make camp but for some reason, call it blind determination maybe, I just kept walking. Water also kept appearing out of nowhere, which was awesome since this was the longest segment without a place to refill (literally, a guy passed me in a truck and gave me a liter and a half of cold water, god bless him). Anyway, I get to the point where I know I'm close to Arbel and its starting to get dark, so I call to the hostel to make sure they have a bed available. The woman there says that she does, but that I should hurry since its getting dark and that she'll pick me up on the road if I call once I make it there. This is at 8:15 pm. I started to move faster and took out my flashlight, since it was getting harder to see the trail markers, and then it got dark real fast. Also, Arbel is on a hill. The trail leading up to it is in the valley below. Basically, the last 30 minutes of Day Two ended up being me pretty much sprinting blindly uphill in the dark. You don't have to tell me, I know it wasn't safe, I know it was stupid, so trust me this isn't something I plan on repeating. I felt like I was doing some sort of crazy Iron Man Hike or some ridiculous crap like that. Suddenly I hear this man shouting at me in Hebrew asking me who I am, but I can't see where he is. I'm exhausted, in pain, hungry, and desperate and I'm freaking out about this other person who's out there, so I can't even begin to put together a sentence that isn't in English. I'm just shouting back that I can't speak Hebrew and I need to find Arbel and a hostel, and we're basically yelling back and forth at each other in different languages as we're running at each other. I was at my wits end at this point, and then suddenly.......there's a street light. I see the man, and I ask him (in Hebrew this time) if he knows where Arbel is. He's like.....this is Arbel. I almost fainted. I called the hostel woman, whose name was Sarah, and she drove out and picked me up. After chastising me for hiking so late, she showed me my room and I basically collapsed. I stopped to look at myself and I was sunburned, caked in mud from my shins down, and my feet were bleeding. I took a shower and limped to bed, where I stayed for 11 hours.

The next morning I could barely walk when I got up (I guess that's what I get for hiking 30+ km in one day), but somehow I managed to get myself out the door and on my way. The minute I stepped outside, I knew it was going to be bad. It was hot. Yeah, I know this is Israel, it's supposed to be hot in the summer, but the first couple days on the trail were actually pretty nice. This one was not. Anyway, I only got 20 minutes in before I had to stop and drink, and that's pretty much how the rest of the day went. Day 4 (or Day 3 in my case) is supposed to be about 17 km. It takes you over the cliffs of Arbel National Park, then through the caves of the Maccabbean revolt, Migdal (the hometown of Mary Magdalene), Tabgha (the site of the feeding of the 5000), and to Capernaum and the Mount of the Beatitudes. While in the park I happened upon a tour group and ended up following them for a bit, since I was a little confused about which way the trail was going. Although they were nice to let me join them, the tour guide was rather nasty about me hiking alone and I kinda just wanted to tell him to shove off. Anyway, the funny part about this is that this segment is actually the most difficult part of the Jesus Trail (you literally climb down a cliff holding on to cables and handholds that are cemented into the rock), yet this was what the tour group of middle aged, not particularly outdoorsy Jewish men and women decided to tackle. Being the first one down I got to watch them attempt this feat, and got a pretty good chuckle out of some of them and their reactions. After making my way down the rest of the mountain I stopped and rested with them for a while, and then continued on my way.

This was the point where I started coming to the realization that I was not going to hike the entire trail. I had essentially no food, very little water, basically no cash (since Sarah at the hostel said that she could accept credit cards then proceeded to demand I pay her my last 100 shekel note instead since it was "only 100 shekels!"), it was approximately 95 degrees, and my body was still exhausted from the day before. I was approaching a place where the trail intersected with a main road, so I decided I would either have to catch a bus to a hostel in Tabgha and walk to Capernaum or bus to Tiberias for the night and then take the bus back to Capernaum in the morning. Because of the cash situation and the fact that the nearest ATM was in Tiberias, I decided on the latter. This was probably the best decision I made all week. I got to the hostel in Tiberias, and although they didn't accept credit cards either, they were super nice and told me to rest and just pay when I had a chance to get cash. I was put in a room with a nice 50 year old man named Al, whose response to getting laid off after 23 years was to rent out his house and travel the world for six months [There's an idea, Dad! :)], and a guy my age named Jack who (no joke) lives in Coral Gables, rides his bike to Mark Light Stadium, likes to do yoga at Green Monkey in Sunset, and goes to UCF. (Sidenote: Why is it that when I travel my world seems to shrink?) I rested for a bit then went to find an ATM and food. I found the ATM, but it was too hot to look for food.

There are great and terrible things about Tiberias. One of the great things is that you can find almost anything you want there, including a reasonably priced new digital camera and about twenty different flavors of slushies. I took advantage of both of these, particularly the slushies, which are awesome. They sort of help with the terrible part of Tiberias, which is that it being there is basically like being in Hell this time of year. In the 24 hour period I was there, I had three of them. Anyway, I returned to the hostel until the sun had gone down, and then went back out at dusk. Explored the promenade, ate some pizza, and took some pictures on my nice new Canon PowerShot A480, which I am NOT going to lose OR break anytime soon. (I should also mention that I unfortunately have no pictures from the trail on day 2 or 3 since the battery reader on Lilach's camera apparently decided to stop working. I have like, the worst luck ever.) Afterward it was back to the hostel, where we ended up moving rooms because Al discovered ours was infested with little mini roaches. Yuck. Took a shower, then met this kid named Alex from Austin and had an awesome conversation about life, God, traveling, and Donald Miller. Can I say again that I love the people I meet in hostels?

In the morning I got up and walked to the bus station to attempt to take the bus to Capernaum. This was highly unsuccessful and I ended up taking a taxi, which was unfortunate but I got him to give me a pretty good deal on it. Sadly, he got confused and dropped me off at the junction and not actually the town, so I had to walk for a ways. First I went to Tabgha, then I stopped at a park along the way and jumped in the Sea of Galilee (which really doesn't deserve the title of Sea, but whatever) in my underwear because I was really hot. Continued on to Capernaum and stayed there for a little while, saw the ruins of the synagogue and the church that was built over Peter's house, which looks like a UFO. I'm so serious, this has to be the weirdest looking church I have ever seen. After a very long walk back to the junction I got on the bus to Tiberias, where I promptly changed into my swimsuit, bought a slushie, and sat in the Sea of Galilee drinking it for the last hour and a half before my bus ride back. (Honestly, it was like one of those days in Miami in August where its so hot you can't even stand to be on the sand, you just have to be submerged in the water in order to survive.) Ate some falafel for the first time on my way out, since Jon has been demanding I do so, and headed for my temporary home.

All in all, I'm glad I decided to do the trail. I am also glad I decided to skip the last 8 km of it. I have a new appreciation for Jesus walking all that way, as well as the verse about not taking any food or water or extra clothing with you when you travel. If you are interested in doing it someday I would recommend that you take your time and not do it in summer, and if you're not feeling hardcore just hike maybe a day or two of it, because a lot of it is very similar. And maybe pack something to eat besides pita and fruit.

magical mangoes; somebody shut up the shofar

Life for the past few days has included weeding, transplanting vegetables into hostile soil, and hanging strawberry gutters. I call them strawberry gutters because that's what they are, rain gutters that have been repurposed for planting hanging strawberry gardens. Kinda cool, yes. Trying to do this in gale-force winds, no.

Other events of note:

• I think this is stemming from my recent LOST marathon, but I have been dreaming about mangoes. Like, craaaaaaaving them. There has also not been ANY fruit around the house as of late, which is mildly annoying. Anyway, today, out of nowhere, this man shows up in a giant truck full of produce. Aliza and I both thought this was super random and kind of sketchy but apparently he comes every week and Lilach buys what she wants for vegetables and fruit. Well, then he just starts pulling out various items "for our house" and giving them to us, for free. We got grapes, a cantaloupe, bananas, pears, and some Druze coffee that he produced out of the front (the sketchyness continues), and then is like, "oh, do you have these in America?" AND HE PULLS OUT TWO MANGOES. I kinda flipped out. Thank you, sketchy produce man, for making my dreams come true.

• Someone on this mountain has been randomly tooting his shofar (or what sounds like a shofar, we're not really sure) at odd hours of the day and night for the last several days and its starting to get irritating. Its Israel, we know already, we get the point. PIPE DOWN.

• Yesterday we started making stews that will be reheated for the guests during the busy season (which, I should mention, starts right as I leave the country....brilliant timing!). Things that go into each of these "stews": pan fried beef (aka, Aliza getting splattered with hot oil repeatedly for hours on end), potatoes and carrots (Jane peeling everything in sight for hours on end), onions (both of us crying our eyes out for the entire process), garlic (which my hands STILL smell like), flaming brandy, and an entire bottle of the house wine (what?!). Sadly, I doubt I will ever get to taste the fruits of my labor.

• This morning I met Lilach's friend Gersham, who is our neighbor. He is also, incidentally, the commanding IDF general for the military colleges here and a good friend of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the (probably about to be former) US commanding general in Afganistan. Talking to him, as with everyone else I have met here, has only made me more set on the fact that (a) I want/need to travel more in this region, and (b) any American who wants to tout their "expert" opinion on happenings in the Middle East needs to get their butt over here and learn about it on the ground first.

• As soon as Shabbat is over tonight, I will be taking the bus to Nazareth, where I will start on the Jesus Trail in the morning. If you're not familiar, this is a four day hike from Nazareth down to Capernaum and Tiberias that goes through various holy sites and locations of Jesus' early ministry. I thought about going to Jerusalem first, but decided to save that for next week seeing as I'd rather go where he lived then to where he died rather than vice versa. I'll be back Wednesday night, so that will probably be my next update.

• The camera situation has been resolved, at least temporarily. We didn't have time to go to Kiryat Shmona yesterday to look for a new one, and apparently everything they had in Masadeh (the Druze village) was over $1000 shekels - to which I said HELL NO. I was getting really stressed about it, because I don't want to travel without a camera, but then Lilach was like, "Why don't you just use ours?" Brilliant!
  

That's all for this lovely Shabbat.

tossing felines

Happy summer, everyone. Yes, I know I'm a day late. I have pretty much completely lost track of the date, someone please remind me when its July 13.

Yesterday was basically another Shabbat for me. I woke up and went downstairs at my usual time and NOBODY was home. There was nothing for me to do. I went back upstairs and went back to sleep.

The rest of the day was a nice montage of eating, sleeping, reading, watching LOST, and laying out by the pool. I finished the first of the three books I brought, The Hopeful Skeptic, a very good read if anyone is interested in a very nontraditional look at Christian theology, and am trying to decide which of the remaining two to read next. I will probably read these two faster than I read the last one, seeing as I am on the final episode of Season 3 and I have no desire to rewatch that pathetic 13-episode excuse for a fourth season. Sidenote: I also only took 3 books last year when I went to Alaska. Guess which ones they were and you win a prize. Guess the other two I have this year and you win another one. And no, I am not counting the Bible.

Two other things of particular interest occurred yesterday. One, my new roommate arrived. Her name is Aliza and she is from Brooklyn and has been working at a lodge in the desert down south for the last two weeks. She's pretty chill and its nice to have some company after being alone for a week and a half. Two, LILACH BOUGHT GROCERIES. Ok, let me back up and give you some context here: We have been out of like, everything, since before Shabbat. Milk, bread, eggs, cheese, meat, you name it, I have been scrounging around and stretching out the remains of my travel food for the last few days since I got back. So anyway, she comes back from town with a carful of bags, and it was like Christmas (or Hanukkah, since this is Israel). Ahhh, so much glorious food! I have been dining very well for the last day and a half.

Other food things to mention, I have been getting more creative and independent with my cooking recently and some of it has worked and some of it hasn't. Let me explain: I don't have a stove. I do, however, have a closet full of old appliances, including about 9 hot plates, most of which do not work. The other night i decided to make pasta. Obviously, I need one hot plate to make the sauce (a lovely mix of tomatoes, a mystery cheese, zatar, and cayenne pepper.......don't ask me, I was making it up as I went along), and one hot plate to cook the noodles. Well, I found one hot plate that really worked, and a second one that maybe sort of worked. I started cooking the sauce on the one that really worked, and kept waiting and waiting and waiting for the water to boil on the other one. It wasn't happening. Finally I said, screw this, I'm cooking the noodles in my hot water pot. This was definitely successful, but my next cup of tea may or may not have tasted slightly of spaghetti. Tonight I attempted to make an omelet, which was another semi-failure since I didn't have a spatula or a flat frying pan......much less a nonstick frying pan. So, I had scrambled eggs for dinner. I have, however, been having much more luck with sandwiches and have made two excellent tuna melts recently.

Today we went to weed in the hanging gardens for the morning, which wasn't too bad. It was nice to have someone to talk to (instead of myself) while I worked, and it was somewhat cooler and breezier today. Sidenote: It is suddenly really cool here, and Guy says it is going to be colder during the day tomorrow. Whaaaaat? Perhaps I will actually need my sweatshirt for once. In the afternoon Lilach and Guy went to Akko for Tomer's end of the year party and left me in charge. Oh, crap. Ok, well, it wasn't that bad. I did manage to get four rooms ready and get the right people to the right rooms. I just couldn't answer any of the 9 billion questions they all asked me. By the time Lilach and Guy got back I was in desperate need of some Jane time, so I disappeared upstairs for a shower. And this is where the damn cat comes in.

There are a lot of very cute stray cats everywhere here. The great cat lady, Meghan Ewing Phleiderer, would be beside herself if she visited, because Israel is basically a poster child for having animals spayed or neutered. Anyway, there was this cat that was loitering around outside and nuzzling up to Aliza looking for food, and it was super skinny so she decided to feed it. She gave it a piece of cheese. Then it moved onto our porch. I felt bad so I gave it the empty tuna can from lunch for it to get the leftovers from. Neither of these were good ideas. Now the cat thinks it belongs in our house, and worse any door that opens (including those of guest cabins). I left the door open for a minute this afternoon and it walked right in, and I had to lure it outside using another tuna can. I didn't really want to pick it up because I thought it might scratch me, but I later gave up on this plan. Then tonight, I was coming back and I didn't even see the cat on the porch, opened the door for half a second to walk inside, and the cat was in the house before I was. It ran all over everything, the beds, the staircase, the table, the counter, and after trying very unsuccessfully to lure it outside with the trashcan and a cucumber (don't ask, it was what I had on hand), I finally picked the thing up and literally tossed it out the door. Ok, this was kind of mean, but I was getting really annoyed and its not even my house to begin with, so I couldn't really give it the idea that it was ok to come inside and chill with us. It ran in again when Aliza came in and she tossed it back out, and it has been periodically meowing and rubbing itself against the door ever since. Sigh.

In other news, I realized that by the time I return to the States I will have been gone exactly 40 days. I think this is kind of cool given why I came here in the first place and the fact that I didn't plan it at all.

one foot in front of the other

Time for an update on my recent excursions!

So, Wednesday I rode in to Akko with Tomer and his driver (he goes to a private school there). Akko is about an hour and a half from here, on the coast, and about a half hour north of Haifa. It is apparently the oldest port city in the world. I figured it was a good place to start since it was relatively close, and I could hitch a ride and not have to figure out bus schedules using Egged's website. Egged, the bus company here, is apparently super well organized and extensive and used by everyone. However, their website is a large load of crap. I tried to use it to figure out getting around Tel Aviv and just gave up, so now I'm putting it off as long as possible by using the trains and other various modes of transportation.

So I got to Akko around 9 and went to the hostel first to drop my stuff. The woman there, Zipi, was extremely helpful in navigating the city and gave me this awesome map that basically saved my life. Ok, it would have been a little more awesome had it been in english instead of french, but I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. She pointed out some things to check out around the city, and I struck out on foot.

The first place I went was the Baha'i shrine and gardens, which I had heard were beautiful. Northern Israel, Haifa actually, is the world capital for the Baha'i faith (if you don't know what it is, go wikipedia it). I thought that the gardens in Akko were like, THE gardens, but actually there are also gardens in Haifa. I apparently went to the less outstanding of the two. They were nice, but (a) most of them are blocked off, so you only get to walk around for about 20 minutes (b) I forgot about the whole modesty rule in holy sites and was given a very thick sweater to wear over my tank top (which would not have been an issue had it not been about 90 degrees....or whatever the Celsius equivalent is) , (c) the tour I was tagging along behind was given entirely in Hebrew, and (d) I walked roughly 45 minutes there and back and it was totally not worth it. Oh well....

I then went to explore the Old City, which was a long walk but nice. I checked out this citadel that is a continuing archaeological site which was kind of cool, but then I went down the wrong alley and ended up getting a bit lost in an Arab neighborhood. Found my way out of that eventually and walked to the beach, where I spent a couple hours. Then walked to the promenade along the sea which was nice, and back in to a different part of the old city. I was looking to see some old churches but didn't have much luck there, apparently they must not want you to come to church because the doors are impossible to find. Apparently the old city is also a popular spot to get married, I thought I had seen the same bride and groom in about six different places until I realized there were actually two couples and the girls just happened to be wearing the same dress. It would seem there is a shortage of atrocious TLC wedding shows on this side of the globe.

By the time I made it back to the hostel I was exhausted, so I took a shower and got in bed around 6pm. I also had a horrible blister on my toe from my flip flops, the first blister I have ever gotten from my tevas, and greatly regretted deciding not to bring tennis shoes OR the first aid kit with me. So I had to tough it out and make do with wrapping a piece of toilet paper around my toe until I could find a place to buy bandaids.

The next day I got up and walked to the train station, where I took the train to Haifa. I did manage to get off at the right stop and found my way to the next hostel. They were also very helpful about where to go and how to get there, but unfortunately did not give you free wifi, which made me extremely unhappy since the internet hadn't worked the night before either. Spent the rest of the day exploring the city/lying on the beach, which I have to say is the nicest beach I have ever been to. I am loving the Mediterranean. I also rode the Carmelit, which is Israel's only subway, and if you can believe it is even more useless than Miami's Metrorail. It was built in the 1960's and despite being renovated in the 80's it is still pretty retro. It has two trains and six stops and that's about it. However, it did prevent me from walking up and down Mt. Carmel, which was nice. The major detriment of the day was the fact that on my last bus ride of the evening, my camera fell out of my pocket. Sigh. I really do have the worst luck when it comes to cameras. Despite making an early morning trek to the central bus station the next day to see if they had it, I still have not managed to recover the camera. I am currently working on a solution, aka finding a new one here. Anyway, other than the internet situation, the hostel was very nice. I met a slew of Christian motorcyclists who were riding from Finland to Jerusalem, and a variety of American jews around my age who invited me out to join them in that night's revelry. I declined, but did hear the results of "All you can drink for 8 shekels after 2am" in the bathroom on the other side of my wall three separate times in the early hours of the morning. Not sure if that was one person throwing up three times or three different people, but sounds like they had a pretty epic night.

Took the train back to Akko in the morning to catch a ride back to Nimrod with Tomer and his driver. Ended up getting on the wrong train and arrived way early, so I got to look super sketchy sitting on my backpack outside the train station for an hour.

Traveling was fun but it takes a lot out of you doing it on your own, so it's nice to be back for a few days. You'll be happy to know I cleaned up the house and a weeks worth of dirty dishes in preparation for my new roomies coming tomorrow.

Also, a very happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there. They don't have Father's Day here; apparently they used to have Mother's Day but changed it to Family Day to make it more fair. Sonny Lemmons, I hope for your sake your kid doesn't celebrate today like he did Mother's Day.

bags, bruises, and bovine

So the last two days have been spent with Gilad and the tutzim. This isn't so bad, the work is easy and I have plenty of time to think, which is always nice. The strawberry plant total is now over 4,000....kind of insane. Thats like, two tons of actual strawberries. Eat your heart out, boys.

Nothing of real significance has happened of late, so time for a few randoms.

• I keep forgetting to mention it, but for all you Pearsonians, Lilach SERIOUSLY reminds me of Jan Nijman. Personality and wisdom for one thing, and looks for another. Fo real, this woman could pass for his sister. Then it was REALLY funny to me when she said people told her she looked Dutch and not Israeli.....I was like, well, I only know two Dutch people, but you look EXTREMELY like one of them.

• Have you ever seen milk sold in a BAG? I was very confused when Lilach first pulled one out of the fridge, but apparently that is normal here. You cut off a little corner, then stick the whole thing in a pitcher and pour away. The problem, my friends, is that I really suck at the whole cutting off the corner thing. I have yet to find scissors in this house, and when trying to accomplish this task with a steak knife, I have on more than one occasion ripped open half the bag. This is really terrible, because inevitably I seem to always the one who gets stuck with the empty milk bag. Sigh.

• Another weird Israel thing (or maybe just international thing): two different flush buttons on the toilet. Whaaaaaaaat?! Half flush for pee, full flush for poop. Both if your name is Laura Searcy and you just had your daily elimination.
  

• Today when putting on my shoes, I somehow managed to slip, and slammed the side of my elbow into the staircase. I almost cried, it hurt so bad. Now I have a lovely bruise there to match the ones on my fingers from the damn tutz scissors and the one on my head from standing up into the ceiling of the loft. Apparently I am a disaster waiting to happen. Thanks, Israel, for trying to make me match your flag.

• There is a herd of cows that roams outside the greenhouse where I've been planting, and they are very, very loud. They are not, as Giselle would say, wild cattle, like the ones we have seen meandering along the road here and they want you to know it. Sometimes when Gilad talks to me I can't hear him over the cattle. I could, however, hear the angry farmer who shares the greenhouse when he came in today while Gilad was out and was yelling at me in Hebrew for apparently planting strawberries on the blueberry side of the greenhouse. Let's chill out, people, its not that serious.
  

• I am taking a few days off and going to Haifa tomorrow to explore/go to the beach. This is provided that my Israel cell phone arrives today. Oh, in case you want to spend an atrocious amount and call me without using Skype, the number is 011972503175855 (from the US). I realize it's a lot of effort to dial that many digits, but whatever floats your boat.....it's free on my end :)

• I realized last night that I have a George Foreman grill in my little kitchen, and it is AWESOME. I made a very non-kosher panini for dinner and it was excellent. Time to hit up Asia Davis for some very-illegal-in-my-dorm-room-but-who-really-cares College Cooker recipes!! (see www.thecollegecooker.com)
  

• Roommate update: Catherine is apparently in Scotland now, trying to find her runaway schizophrenic brother (I swear I'm not making this up) but is coming back in two weeks, according to Lilach. Another american named Melissa is arriving on Monday, and someone named Stephen is coming the same time as Catherine. Looks like it'll be a full house soon!

All for now, more for later.

dreaming of green plants

So yesterday I felt the most useful that I have since I got here, which was nice. Not that I haven't been useful per se, but this was the first time I had something to do that was unique to my skill set. I wrote a grant proposal!! Quick background: A more recent project of Lilach & Guy is Tomer's Farm, an eco-resort that will be staffed by local disabled individuals, offering them educational as well as employment opportunities since in Israel, they have no support (governmental or NGO) post-age 21. (I may or may not have mentioned this earlier, but all of the profits from Chalet Nimrod Castle go to fund better education programs for autistic people in the Golan). Construction will hopefully begin next June, but right now they are fundraising and getting final approvals and all that. So anyway, when applying for grants from US based foundations, there's a lot of specific lingo and things that need to be included, plus its difficult to write anyway if english isn't your first language. So, I'm working on stuff like that and trying to figure out what the Israeli version of 501(c)3 status is and how to apply for it. Once again, Simon's POL 524 proves to be the most useful class I've ever taken :). I'm also going through UNEP's Sustainable Tourism criteria to (a)put them in more understandable language for Lilach, (b)see which ones they already meet, and (c)come up with ways to meet the ones they don't. So this is all very good, and I feel very useful. I'm also answering Lilach's english emails for her, since she claims her grammar sucks and she doesn't get the american way of being polite....lol.

I spent the afternoon reading and sunning myself (it was actually HOT for the first time) and watching LOST. I am currently rewatching the second season, and having the strange desire to create a parody leadership series based on these characters (Jack vs. Locke vs. Ana Lucia vs. Ben vs. Jacob, etc). ANYWAY....I watched like, five episodes yesterday. This is what happens when I don't have roommates. I need to get out more.

Today I went to work with Gilad to do strawberry transplanting, which turned out to not be so bad. I didn't end up having to go to the field at all, which meant NO bending or squatting for hours on end, so Gilad would go and get the cuttings, then bring them to me to be trimmed/separated, then we would plant them all in the greenhouse. It was actually quite therapeutic No joke, I planted the beginnings over over 1000 strawberry plants today. Gilad says the green plants are going to haunt my dreams. Maybe, but I'm more haunted by the use of child scissors for hours at a time today....its insane how bruised my thumb and first two fingers are.

Picked up Rez and Ziv from preschool and ran some errands in town. Met a guy who Lilach described as "the Crocodile Dundee of Israel". Came back, and have been watching more LOST.....I seriously need to stop.

In other news, a year ago today I left for Alaska. Well, I guess that's old news. Those of you that know everything else that means will recognize how blessed I am to be where I am, how I am, and with whom I am a year later. Hence the phoenix; God is good.

Shabba tov l'at, v'at v'at v'at

Let's see. Where to begin?

Yesterday I did a lot of random things, including but not limited to: serving breakfast, transplanting various plants, making jam, and helping build these giant arches for a new construction project. So I guess I should begin by telling you about breakfast.

First of all, HOLY COW, Israeli breakfast (or at least in this lodge) is HUGE. Let me see if I can list everything these people get to eat:
-fresh baked bread
-4 or 5 kinds of cheese
-jam
-omelets
-quiche
-bruskas
-stuffed eggplant rolls
-two different vegetable salads
-tuna salad
-juice
-unidentified veggie dish

it is mildly ridiculous, but surprisingly appetizing to one who doesn't normally like breakfast such as myself. Anyway, Lila prepares all of this every morning, which I think is insane. And woe is me, I am there at 7 am with her. Sigh. Today I had the job of prepping the cheeses and making the salads, which, be as it may, required a lot of chopping onions. I was not happy. This was also not my only onion encounter of the day, but more on that later.

We then prepped like, several hundred strawberries for the jam. My hands are now so stained, it looks I killed someone.

Part of the transplanting went fine, as we were just putting them into window boxes full of nice, happy soil. But then Lila wanted us to plant some on this ridge by the road, with not quite so happy soil. Not trying to be a pessimist, but I am pretty sure that those plants are going to die.

Making the arches is kindof an interesting process, and requires an obscene amount of glue and staples. We worked on this with Guy and Daniel, who works here. Daniel's pretty nice and is very tolerant of me, given that I'm afraid of staple guns and I may or may not have gotten glue in his hair.

Today Giselle left for Eilat, where she will be spending the rest of her time in Israel. This means that I now have the house to myself, since the mysterious Katherine still has yet to appear. We secretly think that she is not coming back, but Lila keeps saying "eh, probably tomorrow" when I ask her about it.

After breakfast, some more jam making, and watering of plants, Lila invited me to go hiking with her and Rez and Ziv through the ruins of Nimrod Fortress, which is this fortification dating back to the Crusades. This was interesting experience with a 3 and a 5 year old, as it involved a lot of steep rock steps, but it was fun and had a lot of nice views of the Golan, the Galilee,and Lebanon. About five minutes into it Rez and Ziv decided they'd had enough and wanted to go back for ice cream ("IIIIIMMMAAAA! RATZITI GLIDA!") but they surprisingly managed to make it through most of it.

Afterward we went to McDonalds, which I found hysterical. Can you imagine a kosher McDonalds? Apparently they exist! I did make the mistake of trying to order a cheeseburger, and the woman at the window looked at me like I had grown a third head. So I ordered a plain hamburger with ketchup, and then guess what was on it? LOTS AND LOTS OF ONIONS. How does that even happen?! I would like to point out, however, that their hamburgers were like, three times the diameter of a McDonald's hamburger in the US. I thought we were the supersized ones! I proceeded to eat about half of it, and then on the very, very windy drive back I threw it all up. Lovely. Golan Heights: 1, Jane: 0

I have also concluded that I am never going to adjust to this time zone, because of my inherent weakness for napping. Remember that time I hated napping? Like, until I lived with Marissa Zerbo? I have been sleeping, on average, three hours during the daytime and six at night. Right amount of sleep yes, timing, no. Le sigh.

I also apparently need to eat more for dinner, because last night I went to bed hungry and dreamt I was pigging out on junk food. So weird.

Tut sadeh, not tut etz

First of all, I need to stop being such a narcoleptic. I took a nap yesterday intending to sleep for an hour and ended up going catatonic for four. Last night I slept for six hours. Hopefully, since I only slept for about two today, I will sleep the full night tonight. But I've been having ridiculous nap dreams, so when I sort of wake up I just want to go back to sleep to pick up the rest of the dream. This is not helping my jet lag case, but oh well.

Yesterday the only real work we did was picking cherries, which was obviously pretty easy aside from the fact that the wind was basically blowing us out of the trees. I won't lie, I probably ate more good ones than I collected, but that's life, eh? (Sidenote: Giselle says "eh" all the time and I find it hilarious. Wooo Canadians!)The afternoon held my insane nap, and in the evening several of their friends visited and we barbecued these amazing chicken wings. I don't know what they were seasoned with, but I want some of it. Incidentally, I also met the apparently infamous son of their former prime minister Ariel Sharon, which is kind of interesting. I also met all of the kids, who are fun. There is their daughter Amit, who is 16 and speaks english almost fluently, their son Tomer, who is 13 and autistic and doesn't speak much to us at all, and their daughters Rez, 5, and Ziv, 3, who like to speak to us A LOT but in very, very fast hebrew and I think I understand about 5% of everything they say. Rez has a little tude when it comes to helping me with the language (which her ima told her to do), but she's so cute she makes up for it.

Today we got up early and went to work with their partner, Gilad, who lives about 20 minutes away. We picked strawberries for like, four hours. My knees and back were dying, and so was my stomach since I ate so many of them. But we had some good conversations, and I'm quickly learning how much of a conundrum I am to people in the fact that (a) I am in israel, (b) I know some hebrew, but (c) I am not jewish. I also learned that the word for strawberry is "tut", but it refers to two fruits. One, "tut sadeh" or strawberry of the field, is what we picked, and the other is "tut etz" or strawberry of the tree. I still don't know what this refers to, since nobody seems to know the english word for it. Afterward, we had lunch and stopped in Masadeh, which is a Druze village in the valley below us. I still don't understand exactly what the Druze are, except that they aren't Jews and they aren't Muslims and some of them think they still live in Syria. More on that later. Anyway, we stopped to buy some zatar, which is basically the best spice ever, and also ended up buying pickles. Which, I might add, came in a plastic coke bottle. I found this mildly amusing.

Came back and folded and ironed about 9 zillion sheets and towels while watching Bob the Builder and Thomas the Tank Engine.......in hebrew. Now that, that is a weird experience.

Israelis are amazing! ...and other revelations

So, after my last post, I was skyping with Jon when my laptop charger suddenly started shooting out sparks. I was like, ok, not good. Part of the adapter cord was melted and the wires were frayed, and of course my battery was near dead. Sigh. After having a minor freakout about having NO connection with the world outside Israel, I went to sleep.

Well, sort of. Tel Aviv apparently doesn't stop moving til around 4 am, and I could hear every minute of it...including many, many hebrew pop songs and one very loud blaring of "I Gotta Feeling". Owing to this, the heat, and the fact that I was still on EST, I think I woke up about every hour and finally around 6 I just gave up and got out of bed. Packed up, wandered downstairs and gave my sheets to the hostel guy. Paid 5 shekels to use the computer so that I could send a 'help, my charger is fried' email to the padre, and then asked the guy if he knew of a place nearby where I could find a new adapter. He was like.....hmm, let me see that. So I give him the charger and he proceeds to dissect (yes, dissect) the adapter and reconnect the wiring. Anyway, long story short, through the use of pliers, a razor blade, and a lot of electrical tape, he fixed it!!! I am forever indebted to the men of Mugraby Hostel.

Afterward I headed outside to try and catch the bus, and ended up taking a sherut, which is sort of a cross between a taxi and a bus. the basic meaning is "shared taxi", but it operates like a bus and runs the same routes. Arrived at the bus station about an hour early for my meeting with the group, so I wandered around a little. First of all, the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station is HUGE. It is like an airport, only with buses, slightly less security (fyi....their security hates backpackers. just be aware), and more soldiers. Apparently it the largest bus station in the world, and it has seven levels and basically a mall inside. I tried to find a phone rental place, but still no luck. Sigh. Met Jonathan and Jenny from GoEco for orientation, as well as Giselle, who is from Toronto (and a korean jew, go figure) and is also working at Chalet Nimrod Castle. Another girl, Katherine, is from Scotland and has been here for a week but is traveling at the moment. We got on the bus and headed for Kiriat Shmona, which is (i think) the northernmost point the bus serves.

So i know everybody who visits here says it, and I've heard it, but it really is true: the IDF is EVERYWHERE. I think 75% of the people I have seen so far in this country have been in uniform. Its interesting, because everyone goes into the military at 18, all of the soldiers I've seen are my age or younger, but anyway, they all ride the same buses as the general public. Legit, I have never ridden on a bus with so many guns.

The bus ride was long and I sort of slept, almost threw up twice, and got in trouble with the bus driver for attempting to curl up in two seats to nap (my bad). Got picked up at the bus stop by Lila, who is one of the owners of the eco lodge. She is super chill and really interesting. Basically she and her husband, Guy, had the life in Tel Aviv, she did PR for the prime minister and all sorts of stuff, and then ten years ago they decided they wanted to do something more, something significant with their life so they moved to the Golan and started building this place. And its beautiful, but more on that later. Its also like, less than a mile from the Syria and Lebanon borders and very close to the demilitarized zone that lies between. No joke, I drove by old minefields on the way here.

By the time we got to the lodge itself i was so tired I was about to fall over, so we took a brief tour and then slept for about four hours. Best nap i've ever had, fo real. Unpacked, had a little dinner, and later went to bed. Got about six hours of sleep before I woke up again, but hopefully now I'm closer to being on the right time zone.

the phoenix has landed!

yep, that's right. After 20 hours in transit, 7000 miles, and three mysterious airplane meals, Jane has made it to Israel!

The flight was excruciatingly long, but I did manage to sleep quite a bit. I also watched Valentine's Day on my little screen, which sadly turned out to be pretty disappointing. Listened to all the PAs in hebrew, didn't understand much. Played a game with myself which involved guessing how many of the people around me were Jewish. Took a phenagrin to help me sleep/not throw up, and woke up with a crick in my neck and a terrible taste in my mouth.

We landed about a half an hour early in Tel Aviv, which was nice and made everything transpire with a bit less stress for me. However, I still do not have a phone. Yes, Jane/Jon plan FAIL. Apparently there are only two places in the airport involve phone rentals, and only one of them actually rents phones (the other, sim cards.....CURSE YOU VERIZON!). Pelaphone, as this is called, was going to charge me upwards of $150 to rent for the summer.....to which I said HELL NO. so, I'm working on non-airport phone rentals and we'll see how that pans out. For now, i'll be using skype to make calls. So Skype me! I think this is pretty much the coolest thing ever invented, but more on that later.

I decided to take a taxi to the hostel, which was way more expensive than taking the bus (about 120 NIS vs like, 30) but it was still cheap by US standards and I was pretty much exhausted and SO not in the mood to figure out buses. The hostel is your basic hostel, but nice because its like a block and a half from the beach. After dumping my stuff and calling dad and Jon, I went for a wander.

Stuck my toes in the Mediterranean. Met a random man named Gabi who guessed that I was from Germany. Um, wrong. Overheard some teenagers arguing about whether or not to take the bus because of the cost (I actually understood this one) Walked in a market and bought some food for dinner. Took a picture of sign that said MIAMI HOTEL in orange and green hebrew. Figured out what bus I need to take in the boker (morning).

Came back and ate, took a shower, and am now about to sleep the night away - hopefully afixing myself to my new time zone.

Which, FYI, is 7 hours ahead of EST and 8 hours ahead of CDT.

Skype me @ jpryjmak!

The countdown's begun....

T-minus 26 days!

I'm totally doing this instead of studying right now, because lets be real, this is way more fun than my civil engineering class. Sigh......three days until exams are over, and then I can REALLY think about this trip. And yes, I will be using this as a way to postpone cleaning and packing up my room :)

I never realized how much you have to think about when prepping for a trip abroad, especially going independently and when it involves travel in the Middle East. It seems like every time I mark one task off the list, another one mysteriously appears on it.

The To-Do List:
- Find the internship/place to stay [DONE as of March]
- Book flights [DONE....finally]
- Register my trip with the State Department [DONE. For all of you concerned, yes, the US government will now know to notify me if someone starts launching rockets in my direction. And yes, I also know not to attempt travel to Lebanon or Syria.]
- Book hostel for pre/post travel nights [DONE. Now does anyone have any advice on how to find your way around Tel Aviv via bus?]
- Find adapter for my electronics [DONE - thank god for my Dad's former business travels]
- Figure out phone situation
- Set up webcam & register for Skype
- Get travelers insurance
- Find my camera!!!! :(
- Let the bank know I'll be abroad
- Pay fall tuition before leaving the country
- Freshen up on my Hebrew [I'm starting to regret not taking it this semester....]
- Pack


It's gonna be a fun few weeks :)

Shalom for now,
Jane