Tel Aviv and the Beginnings of Jerusalem

Tel Aviv

Em and I have been traveling alone in Israel for the last week and it's been great. We said good byes to our friends from the Brithright trip and left them at the airport in order to continue on our adventures.

After deciding that saving a few shekels at the price of waiting two hours at the airport for a train only to get to into Tel Aviv at midnight and then have to pay for a taxi anyways to get from the train station to the place we were staying at, we decided to take the taxi from the start and get to our destination 2 hours earlier. It was worth it I think. Our home for the next five days was the Amy and Tzafi flat, which boast very nice accommodations consisting of a blow up mattress on the floor and a 6 month old puppy with the bladder to fit that loved to tear apart his doggy bone by my head at 3 in the morning and then look at me with the eyes that said, "Aren't I a good puppy?" (Courtney...if you're reading this you know exactly what I'm talking about and are probably agreeing with the puppy, who is named PoPo by the way). Actually, it was not a bad deal. Amy and Tzafi were extremely nice to let us stay for the price of walking the puppy, which turned out to be the laziest puppy we'd ever met...he wouldn't walk unless there was another dog or interesting person that he wanted to chase. Other than that he had a fascination with cars and would stop and stare forever. The longer we were there, the more active he got, which in some ways was nice and in other ways reminds me why I don't have a dog.

So other than the puppy, Em and I explored the entire city. The first day that in Tel Aviv we decided to met up with some of the other Birthrighters that had stayed behind and were also in Tel Aviv. We left the house with the intention of walking to met them, but bad instructions from a denizen and heat induced lethargy lead us a mile in the wrong direction from the get go and we hailed a cap that took us to our destination. We ended up hailing a cap home in the evening too cause we wandered everywhere through the market area that we'd visited with Birthright and past there to the point where we were lost and therefore it was easier to just shell out the shekels and get back to the air-conditioned flat.

Day two was better cause Amy didn't have to work till three pm so she was nice enough to escort us to Yafo (Jaffa, if you use the American pronunciation) and taught us a bus line that pretty much got us everywhere that we needed to go for the rest of the time that we spent in Tel Aviv.

Yafo is a very interesting city in that it was conquered by so many different groups of people, all of whom pretty much destroyed it in their urge to claim it as their own. The Jews, the Romans, the Christians, the Muslims, and the Greeks all claimed the town at only point and it was always considered to be a Holy Place. The outlying parts of the city were in many ways dirty and decrepit and I felt bad for the people that lived there. But Amy told me that even though the outside looks as if it's going to cave in at any moment, the inside could be magnificent. I still wonder why the citizens (not just there, but in all of Israel, don't care enough to clean up the streets, even just a little bit).

The city center has been renovated and looks entirely different than the outlying portions. In order to increase tourism, the city and a contract company got together and gave the city center a make-over. Now it's a mini-metropolis of artist studios, history, religious centers, restaurants, and galleries. Em and I visited the Visitors' Center that was built around an archaeological site that encompassed three different occupation periods. It was pretty neat to see.

Day three was random wandering and window shopping and I don't remember much else about it. Basically a lot of walking and drinking of the Israeli version of a Frappaccino (called an Ice Coffee).

Day four was the Tel Aviv art museum which had some amazing work and some more of that Modern/Contemporary stuff that I looked at and question the sanity of the curators in including it in the exhibition. There was one exhibit that I really enjoyed that actually turned out to be a modern work of art. It involved taking video of people walking or moving in normal fashions and then having the feed shrunk and then played in a continuous loop across a variety of mediums so that they appeared from far away to be lines of text on a page or stationary lines on a rock. But when you looked closer you could see that they were moving and they were silhouettes of people. It was really fascinating.

Day five and the last real day that we spent in Tel Aviv, started out with what should have been a nice 2 mile walk to the Eratz Israel Museum, but turned into a 3 1/2 mile walk and a lot of confusion. Heat delirium and our mother's bad sense of direction making a rare appearance, led us to miss the street that we wanted and then walk the wrong direction and subsequently miss the next few streets as well and the go the wrong direction on the streets that we actually did in counter. It was like that movie (I can't remember the name of it) where the guy wants to make it too his home, but there's a hex on him and he can't find it even though he knows exactly where it is. So exhausted and annoyed at ourselves, we finally made it to our original destination. This museum is a combination inside-outside museum that contains ten distinct sections from Archaeology (the first archaeological dig in Israel that started in 1949 and took about 15 or 20 years to complete) to the History of the Postal Service to Coinage to Wine Making and so forth.

Jerusalem

Day six, we said goodbye to Amy and Tzafi and hitched a bus to Jerusalem to visit with Cousins that we have never met before. We had lunch, did the whole get to know you game and said ov-vous for the time being (it was Shabbot and they had to prepare for dinner and we needed to find our Hostel). We're going to meet up with them again later in the week.

We are currently staying at the Heritage House, which is a free Hostel run by the Aish ah Torah which is a group that believes in teaching Jewish youth about the religion, but without pressure. It's nice because you can take what you want and ignore everything else and they don't care. The people here though are amazing for the most part. They are all supper nice and full of stories and helpful hints and arguments on Torah if you're so inclined.

We arrived on Friday night at the Heritage House, which was the beginning of Shabbot, which is the day of rest in the Jewish religion. For the more orthodox, this is a time when no work is done and the family spends the next 24 hours praying, eating, spending quality time together. To introduce boarders to this experience, the Heritage House places those that want to in different families for both the Friday evening and Saturday morning meals. The ironic thing was that we ended up running into one of the Rabbis that we'd met that first week on Birthright during the "Shabbot Experience" and through a series of wired conquences we ended up at his home on Friday night. They are a great family and they had amazing food.

Saturday we ended up at an Israeli home and it was a different experience, but also a nice one.

Its unbelievable to think that random citizens are willing to take complete strangers into their homes, feed them, answer asinine questions, and all around be good sports. On Friday after the meal it was about 12:45 in the morning and we were walking back to the hostel (with two Yeshiva students that were at dinner and were kind enough to escort us back seeing as we were a mile or so from the hostel and had no idea where to go) through this really Hassidic area. And everywhere there are families with kids of all ages walking around silently or talking in lowered voices or playing. There were also little kids walking around unaccompanied everywhere. Five years olds caring for three years olds. Apparently this is normal, especially considering that most families have children in the double digits. This was so at odds with American life, at least the American life that I'm used too, but endearing in a way. These people feel completely content to let their children roam free and Shabbot is a day to spend with the family and form close bonds, so it's normal to be out all night.

Sunday, we and two other people took a trip to Neve, which is a school for Jewish women that wish to explore more about the Religion. We attended three different classes and talked to the Head Rabbi. I was attending because Rabbi K that I met two weeks ago set me up there for the month of September and I wanted to check it out to see if it's really a place that I want to spend three or four weeks. I think that it's a great experience for those that are open to learning and wish to know more about their Heritage. They don't pressure anyone and they are open to arguments, which I gave throughout the weekend. I just don't know whether that's really what I want to do. I don't know if I'm quite at the point in my life where I want to contemplate on God and religion, I don't know whether I'll ever be there, but I have a few weeks to think about it and a few other options that I'm going to check out.

So I think that this edition of the apparent book that I'm writing is at an end. Em is kicking me oh the computer and I'm sure I lost half of my readers two pages ago. I hope all is well and till the next addition...

Birthright...the Second Half

To those readers out there....assume that there are some of you although my comments sections seems to suggest otherwise...here's the second installment to the Birthright adventure. Hopefully this one will be a little more coherent seeing as I'm not on a computer that will log me off after a proscribed time.

Just a warning to some. I was asked to add more thoughts on my trip here and as so have added some lengthy diatribes on certain issues. Some may not agree with my views or opinions, and that is fine. Read what you will...take from it what you want...and leave what you choose. Also, this entry is quite long and there are no pictures to break up the text. So feel free to skim or stop when you've had enough.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The second half of the Birthright trip I enjoyed more than the first half because we spent more time looking into the history of Israel and visiting sites of historic value. Many of this lead to thought provoking conversations.

Monday was a very emotional day for many, if not all, of the participants on our trip. The morning began with a visit to the Mount Herzl Cementary. This is were all of the soldiers, diplomats, ministers, presidents, and other members of the elite and patriotic are laid to rest. Chen, our trip guide showed us many of the different tombs and related the stories that made up the lives and deaths of certain individuals. There are many National heroes that no one outside the country has even heard of before. We went and visited a memorial to sailors that were lost at sea, Polish Jews that were killed fighting wars for Israel and during WWII and culminated the morning at the resting spot of Theodor Herzl.

Herzl was the father of the Zionist movement. He wrote a book in 1895 called The Jewish State in which he wrote his reasons for the need for a National state for Jews. A state were they could be safe from persecution and live peacefully and free from oppression. He was instrumental in creating the state of Israel itself, being the one to broker the land deal and determine where to purchase that land. The Israeli citizens pay homage to Herzl every year by ending their Independence day parade in front of his final resting spot.

The cemeteries in Israel, or at least this one and the other one that we visited the day before have a different feel to them than American cemeteries. At Mt. Herzl all of the soldiers receive an above ground counterpart to their grave that is a rectangle about 6 by 3 feet. The tops of each are equipped with hoses that allow plants or flowers to grow on each particular tomb itself. The respective family members for each decease member can added flowers, plants, pictures, candles, etc...whatever they want to adorn the site. Each is its own enclosed memorandum to a lost one.

There are two traditions that I liked that I saw in both cemeteries. The first is that there are always a few stones or bricks that stick out from all the sides of any tomb and the second is that to honor a departed person you put a rock or stone on their tomb instead of flowers. The reasoning behind the first is that is shows that that tomb is not definite. It is not complete or perfect and therefore the death is not a complete ending...not a finality. The second, the stones, are laid on the tomb instead of flowers, because stones do not die. They will remain forever and therefore the thoughts/homage that those stones represent will forever remain.

The morning was incredibly solemn and provided a lot of food for thought. To compound the feeling and make the tears flow more freely or the thoughts muse a little more, we visited Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in the afternoon. Yad Vashem was created as a project determined to uncovered the names and lives of the 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. So far they have reached the half way point. In approximately 60 years, the identities and lives of only half of the victims have been been unearthed. But that leaves another 3 million lost souls. The projects will continue until every names is accounted for, but with the number of Holocaust survivors and other living members of that time period passing away in mass, the resources are being depleted.

The Memorial is itself a museum that is dedicated to the Victims and displays the horrors that were forced upon them. This museum was very powerful, portraying an image of a once happy group of people that were first ostracized from their communities, then rounded up, enslaved, tortured, and eventually exterminated. The museum does a great job of visualizing these horrors, but I was disappointed that it only glancingly paid tribute to the other million or two people that were exterminated that weren't Jewish. Being Jewish myself, I understand the impact of the Holocaust on the Jewish race and that they, above all, were victimized, but that doesn't mean that the lives and deaths of the other victims: the Gypsies, Political prisoners, Homosexuals, etc...were any less meaningful.

Tuesday was the start of our and the Israeli soldiers' Mifgash experience. This is where active soldiers that are currently on tour take a short leave to spend time with us. We acquired 8 officers that were all between the ages of 19 and 22. Its weird to think that an entire army is being commanded primarily by those many would consider to be adolescents. In this country it is mandatory for all (with a few exceptions) citizens to go to the army after they graduate High School. Girls are required to serve two years and boys, three. This enhanced/forced growing up makes the Youth of Israel more mature than their American cohorts. Even though some of the soldiers that were on our trip were 5 or 6 years younger than some of the Birthright participants, you couldn't tell. They were in some ways more mature than we were. Is it a good thing to force your children to lose their innocence and naivete so early in life? At 18, 19, 20...in the US students are leaving home for the first time. They are going to college, drinking, partying, doing stupid shit. But here, here they are training, learning to fire weapons and to kill. It puts a different spin on life lessons, doesn't it?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I felt that I line was in order to separate such a heavy section from some not so heavy content.

With soldiers in tow, we headed to Old Jerusalem. This city is amazing. It is divided into four different sections by people: the Jewish Quarter, the Muslim Quarter, the Christian Quarter, and the Armenian Quarter. We only visited the Jewish Quarter as we were short on time and that prejudice that I'd been seeing all week paid another visit as we strongly urged not to venture into the other sectors. Em and I are going to go back later in the week and explore more fully. There are some many alleyways and little shops, homes, schools crammed into nooks and below street level apartments. The group visited the Western Wall and we put our own prayers into the cracks of this monument to faith.

Old Jerusalem is interesting in that is it claimed as a Holy Place by the Jewish, the Christians, and the Muslims. All three find this city to be sacred and as such you end up with a hodge-podge of symbolism and activity. From the roof tops you can see Mosks, Churches and synagogues. Some inhabitants wear black clothing, some have head coverings, some dress as you and I would, some are accepting of others, some are not. It to live in this city must be both amazing and tenacious at the same time.

Wednesday was the day that I had been looking forward to for the whole week. This was "Dig for a Day." I had been eagerly anticipating what it would be like to participate in an archaeological endeavor in another country. As it turned out, the experience was lacking. We were 45 minutes late for the dig and everything that we did was rushed and not explained well. I think that if we had been able to spend and entire day at the site instead of just and hour and a half, it would have been more meaningful and the other participants might have gotten more out of the experience, but I am in the minority on this. Many students had their fill of dirt and dust.

When we first arrived we were lead on a merrily tour down the rabbit hole into the subterranean homes of the dwellers that lived in this area 2500 years ago. To build their homes above ground they carved the bricks from the earth, therefore creating caverns and tunnels systems under the city. These spaces they them occupied or utilized in addition to the homes built above ground.

The actual digging that we got to do consisted of 10 minutes of collecting soft clay-like dirt and 10 minutes of screening it. Many of the Birthrighters thought that the whole thing was staged because they were finding a lot of pottery and even a few almost complete vessels. Apparently the site have been graverobbed the night before and the archaeologists were trying to acquire as much materials as they could that day before they could be robbed again the next night. It seemed like there wasn't much structure to the dig. I'm so used to everything being orderly...you need to make precise measurements and go down level, check the strata, PD artifacts, separate different types of artifacts, etc. Here, the entire chamber is on single stratum, all artifacts are thrown together, no pictures in situ are taking, and whatever isn't deemed valuable is either given or thrown away. It's like the complete anti-thesis to American Archaeological method.

After the dig, we rounded ourselves back up and headed for the south and the desert. We visited the grave site of David Ben-Gurion who was essentially the father of agriculture in the southern wasteland part of Israel and the father of Kibbutzimism. He was the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister of Israel for many years.

From this monument, we headed to the Bedouin tent, which was to be our home for that evening. The Bedouins lead us on a short camel ride, which turned out to be long enough. Those things are not comfortable to sit on at all and many of us were walking a little bow-legged for the next day. Dima and I named our camel Meshuganah which basically means crazy. It kind of did what it wanted including standing up and sitting down when it felt like it. That and it kept trying to kiss the girl in front of us's butt. That was funny.

The Bedouins told us a very condensed version of their history and culture and provided us with sweetened tea and sludge black coffee (Em loved that) before presenting a traditional dinner. It was probably one of the best dinners that we had the whole time even though the food really wasn't that different than what we'd been having all week. I think it was the atmosphere, eating on pillows on the floor, surrounded by 100s of Birthrighters, that made it better.

This was the night that many people didn't sleep at all. We had to wake up at three in the morning to go to Masada to see the sun rise and therefore many of the participants decided it wasn't worth it to go to bed at all. The Bedouins helped them stay up be providing entertainment in the form of stories, juggling, magic and music. I watched a bit, but unlike my counterparts I gave into the pull of Morpheus.

Three AM wake up, four AM on the bus, 5 AM hike, 5:45 AM sunrise. We hiked to the top of Masada (going up the easy side) to watch the sun break free of the horizon and light up the morning. Masada is another Holy place in Israel. It is the site where 960 some Jews committed suicide rather than be enslaved by the Romans. Masada was a Roman fort that was captured by a few surviving members of a Jewish Knife gild. They lived there for 200 years and succeeded in keeping the Romans from re-acquring the ruins back and in making the Romans think that their were more people and more powerful people living there than there really were. In the end, Rome sent 15,000 soldiers to reclaim the land and when the Jews realized there were outnumbered they martyred themselves so that the Romans would not be victorious.

The hike down from this historic site involved a mile trek and 700 stairs. By the end non of us every wanted to see a stair again .

We spent the rest of the day at the beach. But not just any beach. This was the Dead Sea, the saltiest body of water in the world, and oily as hell to boot. It was so weird to float, because it was so viscous and felt like warm oil. But it combined with the mud bath that I had has made my skin nice and soft the last few days.

Friday was our last real day of programming. We spent the day viewing different sites in Tel Aviv (which means Old and New/Modern). Tel Aviv was the first completely Jewish city to be built. 60 Family purchased some desert sand dunes from the Arabs that were living there at the time, assigned lots, and the city was born. The city expanded rapidly after the Holocaust when millions flooded the area looking for refuge.

We visited Independence Hall and learned how the Israeli Declaration of Independence was created in less than 24 hours and how the ceremony to announce it was only 32 minutes long. This took place at 4:00 PM May 14th, 1948, right before the beginning of Shabbot. Israel is the only boarderless country in the world.

From the Independence Hall we moved over to Rabbi Yitzhak Rabin Square. This is the Square where Rabbi Rabin gave his final speech on Peace before he was assassinated in what many consider to have been a conspiracy to prevent the loss of Jewish land and the peace between Israel and its neighbors.

Friday night began our second Shabbot in Israel and Saturday was a day of rest and goodbyes. Three quarters of our groups said farewell and headed back to their lives in the States, and a few of us remained to begin further explorations.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A little more diatribe and thoughts on the trip as a whole.

Never have I been to an area where people are so accepting of others and at the same time so racist and prejudice towards themselves and outsiders at the same time. The People of Israel welcome all Jews from around the world and consider every Jewish person to be a member of their country, but at the same time, the country is ripe with racism. And it's not just racism or prejudice towards other races or religions, it's towards their own people. Highly religious Jews don't understand or appreciate the secular Jews and think that everyone should have more faith and belief in the Torah. Secular Jews grudgingly tolerate the Orthodox. Ashkenazic Jews and Sephardic Jews differ on most of their opinions and have the belief that they are each better than the other. Certain Jews look down on other types of Jews...Is Russian better than Arab better than American better than European? How can a country accept every Jew as one of their own if it is constantly defining one type as better than another? And once that question has been settled, there is the question of how a group of people that were victimized because of their religion and systematically destroyed, not be able to tolerate all people, regardless of there creed? Most of the people that I meet here, were lovely and wonderful people, but the all believed that one needed to marry a Jewish person, that they needed to continue to study Judaism and to pass their heritage and knowledge on to their children. In some ways I feel that some of the more Orthodox forms of thinking will eventually lead to their own blantant belief that they are the Superior race and that all others should perish. I know that this is extremist thinking and that their are people that have strong feelings about their race and/or religion in many different cultures, but that are the thoughts I have. I mean look at what happened to Rabbi Rabin. His mission in later life was to establish peace in Israel so that the citizens would not have to constantly have to be looking over their shoulder and the 1/3 of the population that was more zealous assassinated him. All because he was willing to give up some land for peace and the Torah states that land is sacred and should never be relinquished. A group of people that are willing to prevent peace in order to save land are eventually doomed.

In talking to the soldiers and to other Jews that I met on the street everyone has this view that the people in the surrounding countries are sub-par to them and that that they only want to hurt Jews and Israelis and that they are willing to hurt themselves and their own people to do so. I wonder what the story will be when I talked to people from those countries about Israelis? Hearing only one side of the story make one feel for the people that tell you their woes, but how do those woes compare to the other side? Both sides paint an equally ugly picture of their counterparts and I find it hard to understand why people can't just except everyone for who they are and as they are. Why must people always try to make others change to fit their molds instead of accepting that there are more than one mold out there?

The Birthright experience was a wonderful experience that I believe that ever person, Jewish or non-Jewish should experience sometime in their lives. It's important to understand your culture, your roots, your heritage. In the 10 days that I was part of this group I and my fellows travelers saw quite a lot of the State of Israel and visited many of the historic sites, touristy site, meaningful sites, and sites of propaganda. All in all I got a taste of this country that many only know about from the CNN reports that portray it as a war-torn country were people fear daily for their lives. But that's not the complete picture. Yes Israel is a war torn country. Yes there have been 25,000 terrorist attacks since the year 2000. Yes there is a tenuous peace with two of Israel's neighbors and a wire thin tolerance with it's other neighbors, but that's not everything. People still live their lives. If you sit on a front porch stoop and people watch, you'll see children laughing as they run around in the park, women gossip on park benches, old men and collegates wait together at the bus stop, cafes are filled with glisterning conversation...life goes on. People don't live their lives in fear. They know that an attack could come at any time and they might not come home in the evening, but to be constantly afraid is to never live. I admire that and I think that others need to realize that as well and if they ever have other friends or family that tell them they are going to Israel, send them with Best Wishes and not warnings or dire prophesies.

Although many of the things that Chen said during our trip annoyed me and made me think that he was praying on everyone's emotions and trying to nudge us to think as he thinks, he did say one thing that I find true, that is that whatever we do now that the trip over and now that we will be returning to our lives elsewhere, we will for years to come, and maybe forever, be mulling over and contemplating the information that we have acquire during this trip.

Israel, the First Days

Never fear, the twins are safe and have made it to Israel where we've begun to assimilate into the culture.

Passport in a tightly grasped hand, we meet at JFK 4 hours before our appointed flight and meet some of our 40 traveling buddies. An hour and a half delay due to a "malfunctioning light on the wing" (how comforting) and a 10 hour flight later, we had safely arrived in the Holy Land. Going on almost no sleep, we and the other 38 participants groggily began our grand adventure.

We headed first to the North of Israel, which became our home for the next four days. The first stop was to some place that no one can remember currently due to lack of sleep on that day. We ended up in Safed towards the end of the day though. Safed is one of the Holiest cities in Israel. Many famous writings and songs/prays and people originated or were created in this town. It was a cute little town at the top of a hill that afforded a fantastic view of a body of water. We went on a little tour with our guide Chem (pronounced Ha-em, with a hard "Ch" sound at that beginning that sounds like you're hacking up a fur ball), and then were free to wander around and explore.

By the time we got to Safed everyone had been up for about 36 hours and we were ready to go to the hotel and sleep so our explorations weren't that long. Our base of operations for this part of the trip was the Shalom Plaza Hotel, which is like a glorified hotel. We were three to a room which had one bed and one cot, the shower flooded every time anyone used it and the walls were paper thin, but compared to some places that I've been, it was pretty decent. The neat thing is that every meal is a buffet where there are about 15 different types of salads, 3-4 hot entrees, and watermelon for dessert. It's good, but I've realized that the staple of the diet here is bread and hummus or sharwma.

The second morning we woke up at 6:30am to begin on a full day of adventures. The first stop was to an un-activated military base (if need be, it can be activated within 7 minutes of the reserves getting there and parking)that acts as a lookout/tourist attraction currently. It is in Golan Heights which is an area of Israel that was won be the Israeli people in 1967 during the Six Day War. Golan Heights was actually won in 1 1/2 days and the other fours days we spent convincing the armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, that they had been destroyed by the sneak attack from Israel (apparently this was the only war where Israel made a preemptive strike - which was due to the fact that they had no choice...either attack first or wait to be taken over). The war provided Israel with a large increase in land going from I believe 7,000 sq miles to 95,000 sq miles. With the acquisition of Golan Heights, they also acquired l large quantity of fertile farmland.

From Golan Heights we traveled to a some theater where we watched a documentary film on the Yom Kippur War that came about 6 years later and was in retaliation for the Six Day Way. All three armies that had been defeated by Israel 6 years previously attacked simultaneously on the Holiest Day of the Year for the Jewish people. 2/3s of the Army were home celebrating the holiday and the country was not prepared for the sudden onslaught of armies. Many people died. This war was short as well. I believed it only lasted about a week and Israel came out mostly victorious.

I think to lighten the mood after a heavy morning, the tour moved on to the Golan Heights winery for a tour and tasting in the afternoon. Golan Heights Winery in only in its teenage years, but has won many awards for it many different products. Because it's a Kosher company, all of the employees must be Jewish and if they are male, the must wear a Yomikah (not sure about the spelling there), which is the little cap that sits on the head. They also take ever seventh year off. It is called the Sabbatical year and they can make wine, but they aren't allowed to harvest. Seven is a sacred number in the Jewish culture. Sabbatical derives from Sabbath and its derivatives (don't remember what they are), which is the seventh day of the week (Saturday) and the day of rest and reflection.

After the winery we went on a nature walk through a National Park that boarders on the Lebanon/Israeli border. This park was amazing and I was disappointed that we only got to spend 45 minutes there.

Our last stop for the day was to the Noat factory. This is shoe factory where many of the participants got to purchase sandals (similar to Birkenstocks or Mephestos). I personally thought we could have skipped this stopped and stayed in the park longer.

Day three involved a water creek hike in the morning that was hilarious. We walked in a creek were we couldn't see the bottom and kept falling for about 3 hours. It was great. I was laughing so much cause I kept falling over and all the boys were complaining about shrinkage from the cold water.

The afternoon brought more water fun, with a Kayak ride down a branch of the Jordan river. I went with one of the people on my trip, Michael, who didn't have a clue what he was doing. He wanted to go faster than everyone else and didn't realize tell the end that he liked to just enjoy floating on the river. There was one point were he wanted to get in the river and float and I said go for it (partly cause it looked like fun and partly so that he'd get out and I could correctly pilot the kayak). He ended up falling in the water and then freaking out cause he thought the river was going to pull him toward some great rapid or something. This had me cracking up seeing as the biggest rapid on the course was about two rocks and 15 inches deep. He was more likely to hit shallow water than a waterfall. All in all, it was fun.

Friday night, began the Sabbath. A newly formed group called the Sabbath Experience, came and started a series of lectures. For Friday night and Saturday you had the option of going to a variety of talks on different subjects related to Judaism and Israel. I attended a Q and A session and got into a debate about perceived truth versus absolute truth and religion. It was fun. The Rabbi, Rabbi K, was a very charismatic person that had a lot of wisdom to impart, but I feel he skipped over the answers to many questions in order to belay a thought provoking story.

On Saturday I spent most of the day talking to the different Rabbis and learning the Hebrew alphabet (which I still don't know completely after 2 and a half hours). The nice thing to come out of this is that Rabbi K said that he can get me into a Hebrew programs for three weeks in Jerusalem in September.

Okay folks, I've run out of minutes at this internet cafe, so I need to sign off. Shalom for now.

Heading Out and Extending Dates

First off, I'd like to let everyone know that I am in fact going to be able to make my flight after all. After freaking out by spending the whole weekend wondering weather it really was possible to get a passport in one day, my fears turned out to be unfounded. Although, the company that I went through did not instill confidence in frustrated travelers. I showed up at 8am to have the secretary tell me there was no list and they had no idea what I was talking about. Then the "head secretary" told me that there's no way anyone could guarantee a one day passport cause you don't know what the passport office does. Finally the guy I'd talked to on Friday showed up (45 minutes after I got there) and told me not to worry...that it'd be done between 4 and 5pm. So I showed up at 4:30 and they told me that I would have to wait about an hour cause they didn't have it yet. So I waited for an hour and watched the "hoodlum courier" service bring random documents. Seriously the couriers were these teens that wore sideways hats, sagged, strutted and looked like they were more likely to sell your passport to the highest bidder on the street than to deliver it to you. So tomorrow at 2:30 pm EST, Em and I fly away.

On another note, I am not returning to the states until at least December. I contacted a professor at UC San Diego and asked whether I could work on his excavation project in Jordan that's from October to December. He looked over my resume and decided to allow me a spot in his Field School. So I will be staying in the Middle East for about 6 months. It should a great experience and allows me the opportunity to see whether I'd really like to do field archaeology for the next 5 or 20 years.

So cau to all for now...I will update when I can....hope all is going well for everyone who reads this.

End Act One, Begin Act Two

Sorry to all that have been coming here the last few weeks only to find that nothing new has been added nor any wonderful events or pictures uploaded.

My internship at Crow Canyon has come to an end. It was a great experience. I meet a bunch of fantastic people, taught some munchkins from all over the country, learned a little extra about the Ancestral Puebloans, and determined that I'm enjoying the nomadic lifestyle for the time being. But, as with everything else in this world, all good thing must come to an end....so that other, possibly better, things can begin.

In approximately 4 hours I'm headed on a plane to New York where I'll begin the next leg of my journey to discover what I want to do in life and how I want to live my life. That is if I get a new passport in time. I discovered to my dismay that my passport had taken a hike some time in the last 5 months and could not be found regardless of the tearing apart of my dad's new place. Thus after a ton of freaking out, some swearing, a few discretely placed calls, and sky rocketing blood pressure, I found a place in NY, that for a hefty sum, assures me that if I drop off all this paperwork to them on Monday morning at 8am, they'll hand me a shiny new passport at 5pm on the same day. Keep your fingers crossed that all goes according to plan.

Stage two of this Exploration to Find Self begins at 10:30am on Tuesday morning (6/6/06...anyone else find that a tad hilarious) when Em and I head to the airport to meet the Birthright folks for the first time. Updates might be sporadic due to the nature of time on frequency of internet cafes so don't freak out if you only see a posting once every week or so. But few free to leave comments or send emails.

If you'd like to read the more sarcastic version of our wild adventures, check out my sister's blog at esinick.blogspot.com

That's all for now folks!