As I mentioned in my last post, it has been a very long time
since I’ve made any updates. This week happens to the be one year anniversary of the first time I stepped foot onto a
plane headed for Israel, so I thought it appropriate to revive this blog by recounting my experience.
I booked my flight with the help of a jetsetter and he found
me an amazing deal. Roundtrip
ticket to Israel from Los Angeles for less than $600, all I had to do was book
a flight from Las Vegas to LA (which I only paid taxes on since I had a
Southwest Voucher). It was
a really long wait from the time I booked my ticket in September to April.
In previous blog entries, from my time in Las Vegas (October 2011-January 2012), I made mention of two Israeli friends I had met. We stayed in touch, thanks to Facebook, all these years. One of them, Horev, kindly offered to let me stay with him and show me around his country.
Monday, April 14, 2014
I got up around 3am and had to be at the airport by 4:30am for my 6am flight to LAX where I began playing my favorite game of "Hurry Up & Wait." I arrived in Los Angeles around 7am and my
flight to Philadelphia wasn’t until 11am. Once in Philly, I
didn’t have much time to wait. I
heard the announcement that the gate security for Tel Aviv would be closing
soon. What? I got some McDonalds and headed to my
gate. It was the only gate that
required you to go through another security like TSA. Blew my mind, well, sort of. The 10.5 hour flight to Tel Aviv wasn't so bad. I
was by the window and managed to have the seat beside me empty, that is, until
this kid asked to sit with me because his TV wasn’t working. To pass some time, I watched The Book Thief while waiting for dinner service and after that
I went to sleep. Around breakfast
time, I had already decided to be awake and watched Frozen for probably the hundredth time.
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
I arrived in Tel Aviv around 3pm. I went through customs without much hassle (I had
been warned they can be very ridged and intimidating). I spotted Horev pretty quickly and off we went to his apartment in Florentine- a hip, artsy neighborhood in Tel Aviv.
We ate and took
some time to let me gather myself before we went out. One of the first things I noticed was that there are so many stray cats
everywhere. I've been told that there used to be a rat
problem, so to solve that, cats were brought in to let nature take it’s course. I am not a cat person so it kind of
grossed me out to see them everywhere.
We walked to the beach and I got my feet wet at the Mediterranean
Sea. I saw this huge thing laying
in the sand and asked Horev what it was. To my disbelief, he told me it was a jellyfish. I didn’t believe him, but that’s what
it was! I’d never seen one so big
before. We sat on the beach for a
while and had a drink before we took off for more walking. As we walked around, it seemed like
everything he pointed out was famous.
I joked that maybe it would be easier to point out the things that
weren’t famous. We went by so many
places that at the time I couldn't possibly remember everything.
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| Just to give an idea... |
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| The jellyfish in question *oyvey* |
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Even though we went to sleep around 4am, I was wide awake by
8. We eventually got up and had
breakfast before heading to Haifa.
Horev was still tired so he let me drive there. Now, let me take this time to explain
the driving situation. I’ve never
driven in another country, but thankfully Israel drives on the same side as the
US. But I have never experienced
such aggressiveness. The traffic
lights turn yellow before they turn green and if you haven’t started moving by
the time the green shows up, you can expect the have a car honk at you. Sometimes you get the short “move it!”
honk, and other times the other drivers will lay on the horn. It’s slightly obnoxious. My nerves were on edge, but I managed
to drive there and to the Baha’i Garden successfully. Israeli drivers are expert parallel parkers, so I let Horev
take over when it came time to park.
The view of the sea from the road was amazing; the water was a beautiful blue-green mix. We went to the Baha’i Garden and it was
incredible. It’s so well kept and
it can make you speechless. After
we spent some time there, we went to Nazareth. By the time we got there, all the touristy things were
closed so we drove around for a bit. The city is so hilly that I nearly had a panic attack going down the narrow, steep streets. Thankfully, I wasn’t
driving! We stopped and took a few
pictures and left. We headed
towards Tiberias next. Horev’s dad is a tour guide and set
up a reservation at a restaurant for us where he takes tour groups. I was some what hesitant, even though I’ve had
Mediterranean food, probably because I’m sometimes afraid to try something
new. They served us all these
salads, hummus, and pita before ever bringing out the main dishes. I had the chicken, and it was the best I’ve ever eaten. Actually, everything was delicious! After stuffing our
faces, we drove to his friend’s house where the couple that lived there were
watching a basketball game, and very enthusiastically I might add. After a couple of hours of chatting and
watching the game (read: me drifting off a few times), I finally called it a
night and went to bed.
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| Got those hands at 9 and 3 ;) |
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| My photos really doesn't serve this beautiful place much justice. |
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| A brief view of Nazareth |
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| Saw a cemetery on our drive so I had to stop to take a look around. |
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| The restaurant where we ate. |
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Horev’s friend gave us a tour of his family's farm, Ilania, and farm
equipment. He told us how his
family produces olives for olive oil and many other produce. Horev got some fresh olive oil before
we said our good-byes and headed to the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Kinneret. I was sort of
disappointed with no real reason.
I should’ve known it was basically just a lake, but I had never given it
any thought. We drove around for a
bit trying to find a good spot to possibly get in, but after putting my feet in
the water, I decided there was no way I would be getting all the way in…WAY too
cold. As the sun started to set,
we started our drive towards Jerusalem.
We arrived at Horev's parents's beautiful home in Har Gilo (an Israeli settlement that is technically in the West Bank) late in the evening after driving around in
Jerusalem for a little bit. It was
so exciting to see so many Jews everywhere! Seeing what I fondly call Black Hats and Fuzzy Hats that I’d never seen before
in real life was especially exciting.
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| Tour of the farm |
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| The Sea of Galilee |
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| We crossed over the Jordan River, which looked more like a stream... |
Friday, April 18, 2014
We went to the Old City of Jerusalem where we met up with
Asaf. It was so good to see him
again too! We went to the Kotel (the Western Wall) first. I’m sad to say that, for
me, it was an underwhelming experience.
I didn’t have that spiritual moment I thought I might have. I felt out of place being around so
many people who were crying and praying that I just stuck the note a friend
gave me in the Wall before heading back to find the tzedakah (charity) box to put money
another friend had given me in it and then found my guys. The area by the Wall is separated, men and women, for religious reasons and there were a lot of people there (Passover was that week and Easter was that weekend).
I noticed when people were leaving, they were walking backwards away
from the Wall, so I asked Horev about that. He told me it’s because you’re not supposed to turn your
back to the Wall…there’s more to it I'm sure, but that’s just to sum it up. We went to a couple more sites before
heading to lunch. As the three of us were walking
through the shuk and all I could think about was how crowded it was and how much
of a fire hazard it was. So much
activity! The guys suggested going
to eat hummus and I objected because to me that was like having chips and salsa
for lunch and I was starving so I wanted “real” food. Looking back, I wish I would've just gone with their suggestion because that's actually a good mid-day snack. After lunch, Asaf left us and Horev and I went to the Holy
Sepulchre. If I thought the shuk
was crazy, people trying to get into this church was crazy. People all around shoving and almost on
the brink of fighting to get in it. I felt like Jesus himself might actually be in there. Again, it was kind of underwhelming but
I wasn’t expecting a religious experience or anything as I am Jewish and it is
a Christian site. We went back to
Horev’s parent’s house to have Shabbat dinner with his family and some of his
family friends from New Jersey. Super
nice people and lots of great food.
I’ve learned that you will never leave a Jewish home hungry and to not fill up on the first thing that is served because there's at least 5 other courses waiting to be eaten.
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| Our meeting spot |
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| So excited to see this in person! |
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| See how it's divided? |
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| A boy was having his Bar Mitzvah, men on one side with him and women on the other side looking on. |
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| Mazel tov! You're a man now :) |
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Asaf, me, and Horev
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| Orthodox in full force. |
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| Asaf and me in a quiet spot near the shuk. |
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| My lunch dates. |
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| It felt like dangerous business trying to get into this site with all the people pushing and shoving. |
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| A sea of people. |
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| Stone of Anointing, where Jesus' body is said to have been anointed before burial. |
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| The Aedicule, which contains the Holy Sepulchre itself. |
Saturday, April 19, 2014
We spent most of the day lounging around the house since it
was Shabbat. After noon,
we went for a walk around the neighborhood with some American friends of his
that were there for school and Masa, respectively. As we walked around, we came to a place where you could look
over into the West Bank and another place where you can see Jerusalem.
We all ate dinner together and later went into Jerusalem to hang out with some of his friends.
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| A view into Jerusalem |
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| A view into the West Bank. |
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| This is not an uncommon sight to see while in Israel. If you are issued a gun in the military, you are always in charge of it. Because there is so much responsibility, the soldiers always carry it with them. Don't worry, they're not loaded...I think. |
Sunday, April 20, 2014
We went to the Dead Sea. On our way, we saw camels on the side of the road and I nearly died of excitement. Sure, I’ve seen them at zoos and whatnot, but never like this. So, Horev pulled over for me to take pictures. I didn’t want to get on it because I didn’t want to pay; and in less than a month, I was going to be on Birthright and could do it then for free. We went to a really nice spot at the sea, floated, and put mud all over ourselves. I knew you could float there, but I didn’t realize it was going to be that cool. I thought it was an exaggeration, but it's not. It's truly amazing that with zero effort you just float. The water coats your skin with this oily feeling and the mud makes your skin feel refreshed. There were all types of people there. The ones that fascinated me the most were muslim and jewish women who stayed completely dressed, even though they got in the water. One woman even had on a coat. I must mention that it was at least 75-80 degrees fahrenheit and the sun was beaming making it feel even hotter. After a few hours there, we took the time to get ready and start our drive back to Jerusalem where we were to have dinner at his aunt's house. He kept telling me they are “religious” but not orthodox so I needed to dress appropriately. I chatted with his cousins as best as I could, but their accents made it hard for me to understand everything they said and I'm sure it was the same for them as well. Once again, we had another delicious dinner. We were supposed to go back to Tel Aviv that night, but ended up staying in Har Gilo. It was this night I learned a very important word…yalla (come on, lets go).
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| Woo-hoo! Dead Sea time! |
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| This is what got me acting like a child. |
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| I mean, look at him! |
Monday, April 21, 2014
This was a very emotional day for me; however, once I was
able to pull myself together, we went to where Horev’s brother worked, a
delicious pizza place, where we had pizza and pasta. Before we left to go back to Tel Aviv, I wanted to go to the
Kotel so I could see it at night.
Not so many tourists this time, but there were a lot of religious people
there celebrating the last night of Passover. It was interesting to watch the activity. As we drove back to Tel Aviv, I shared
my love for my favorite band, mewithoutYou. After we got back to Horev's apartment, we left and went to Yafo
to meet his roommate and his roommate's girlfriend.
It was then that I got to discuss Masa with someone who was currently in the program. I had looked into doing something like
that for roughly two years, but it was either not the right time or I hadn't converted officially to Judaism. Hearing
about her experience made me excited to go home and research it again seriously
for myself. We walked around the
area for a bit before going back to the apartment.
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Admiring the activity at the Kotel
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| A view of Tel Aviv from Yafo. |
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| A girl I follow on Instagram took a picture like this and I wanted to do the same. |
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
We went to Yafo shuk and I bought some souvenirs to take back
home for family and friends. I got
my first falafel, not ever, just in Israel. Horev took me back to his apartment while he went to school
and I got in touch with a friend, Dan, from Tel Aviv that I had met on Instagram and
met in person a year and a half ago in Florida (I’ll write about this in
another entry). We went to the
beach and had a snack and chatted before going to meet his fiancé and Horev for
dessert. That night Horev and I went out with the
family that came to Shabbat dinner to eat at a place called Vong. Later that night, I had another emotional meltdown because I knew my trip was
ending and I hated to leave. We
tried staying up and hanging out because I would soon be going to the airport.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
I had to be at the airport way before the butt-crack of dawn. When it came time to leave, we couldn’t
find the car because Horev couldn't remember where he parked it. Oops! I would’ve been okay
if we hadn’t since I was not at all ready to leave. Eventually we found it and headed to the airport. Cue another emotional breakdown. It was one of the hardest good-byes
I’ve ever had. Flew from Tel Aviv
to Rome to Charlotte to Los Angeles to Las Vegas and it took well over 24 hours
to get home.
Going to Israel was life-changing. I experienced love in a way I had forgotten and came back
with a refreshed sense of adventure.
The thing that got me through the next couple of months was knowing in a very short while I’d be back in a country I admired and would be able to see
and do so much more thanks to Birthright.
It also made me so excited to apply for Masa when I got home because I
knew I wanted more than these combined 18 days (from this trip and Birthright) to be in Israel.
And so, my next adventure awaited…
