What do you get when you combine the laziness of stressful work completed with the stress of lugging heavy bags across countries, the heat and humidity of a beach city, the sparse availability of internet connections and..oh.. a couple other less than awesome things?
No posts.. for a long time it seems.
Meaning that there's just oh so much I've done since posting..so really any post I make may be too long and complicated to be readable/entertaining.
BUT let's see what we can do!
1st off RAMALLAH
Andie and I took the bus there on our last day in Jerusalem to meet up with Dr Salem Thawaba, a professor at Birzeit University who happens to be an Arkansas Alum and one of Tom Paradise's old students! Small world eh? It gets even smaller..
The bus into the city was nothing really, a little traffic when crossing over, but no real security or checks. and then we saw the wall and I've gotta say.. as infuriating as the thought of it was in theory, it was even worse in reality. It was like seeing a prison that everyone was just supposed to be okay with- act like it was the norm.. no big deal.
but it WAS a big deal
It kind of put me in a foul mood for the day, but there were definite positive notes, like getting to meet Dr Thawaba, and finding a man from Arkansas on campus serving food! He gave me extra- arkansas have to stick together :)
On the way back we met some really lovely people who took us under their wing and helped us through the whole checkpoint/security process..which we really needed because it was one of the more complicated and frustrating things i've ever experienced.
People are not cattle. And NO ONE has the right to treat them as such, regardless of how in the right they feel, what they think their god says, who their political allies are or ANYTHING else. This world can be a shitty place and as long as we keep treating each other like that it will NEVER get any better.
coincidentally, the Israeli government doesn't allow photographs of the 'checkpoint'. Makes sense considering they wouldn't look so good if people could see it.
in any case. we made it back through the checkpoint thanks to some very kind Palestinians (a trend, i found.) and the next day we checked out and headed to Haifa.
HAIFA--
We were in Haifa for the weekend, and we got to hang out with Pavel's brother Max and his fiance Jenya. They were great hosts, and we had so much fun. It was some of the most fun we'd had on the entire trip in fact.
Though i'd say the best part was being in a city where I felt comfortable walking around again. Don't get me wrong, practice whatever religion you want, believe what you want..but it gets very uncomfortable for the secular people out there when they're constantly being stared down, looked over, judged, etc.
Didn't happen in Haifa- and it was wonderful.
TEL AVIV--
next on our farewell tour we headed back to Tel Aviv! Well..first to Kfar Malal for one more night with Svetlana and Johni, who were once again wondrous, gracious hosts :)
Then it was time to check into our hostel in Jaffa (the old city) and hang out for a few days.
Lots of time was spent at the beach...lots of sleepless nights (our 'mixed' dorm was us and 6 very smelly men with 1 fan) on the roof watching the sun rise over Tel Aviv.
Then came a bit of a change of plans..we decided not to go to Turkey. I think we were both so burnt out on the thought of traveling more, going back and forth through Israeli security again, finding couchsurfers, navigating with all our bags..see..even talking about it now is making me nauseated.
SO we opted for a little more time in Tel Aviv and a little more time in Jordan :)
we stayed with Taylor for several days and just hung out, saw a movie, etc. etc. (Batman was awesome..maybe my favorite of the trilogy?) 1 of those days also might have been because we were a tad late catchign the bus to Eilat and it was all full.. so thanks to Taylor for hosting us another night!
theeennn it was a 5 hour bus ride to Eilat! and consequently?
AQABA--
Here..since we'd missed our bus from Tel Aviv, we were planning on spending an afternoon before heading to Wadi Rum but our couchsurfing host Tarek convinced us to stay a full day/night. which was great because the Red Sea was AWESOME! definitely the best.. cold water, beautiful color, nice beach. It was a fun day! We played beach volleyball with his friends and then hung out with some of his other friends at his house until around 4am.
phew..ok tired of writing.. i'll finish it all up tomorroooooow! :)
No posts.. for a long time it seems.
Meaning that there's just oh so much I've done since posting..so really any post I make may be too long and complicated to be readable/entertaining.
BUT let's see what we can do!
1st off RAMALLAH
Andie and I took the bus there on our last day in Jerusalem to meet up with Dr Salem Thawaba, a professor at Birzeit University who happens to be an Arkansas Alum and one of Tom Paradise's old students! Small world eh? It gets even smaller..
The bus into the city was nothing really, a little traffic when crossing over, but no real security or checks. and then we saw the wall and I've gotta say.. as infuriating as the thought of it was in theory, it was even worse in reality. It was like seeing a prison that everyone was just supposed to be okay with- act like it was the norm.. no big deal.
but it WAS a big deal
 |
| artwork on the Palestinian side |
On the way back we met some really lovely people who took us under their wing and helped us through the whole checkpoint/security process..which we really needed because it was one of the more complicated and frustrating things i've ever experienced.
People are not cattle. And NO ONE has the right to treat them as such, regardless of how in the right they feel, what they think their god says, who their political allies are or ANYTHING else. This world can be a shitty place and as long as we keep treating each other like that it will NEVER get any better.
coincidentally, the Israeli government doesn't allow photographs of the 'checkpoint'. Makes sense considering they wouldn't look so good if people could see it.
in any case. we made it back through the checkpoint thanks to some very kind Palestinians (a trend, i found.) and the next day we checked out and headed to Haifa.
HAIFA--
We were in Haifa for the weekend, and we got to hang out with Pavel's brother Max and his fiance Jenya. They were great hosts, and we had so much fun. It was some of the most fun we'd had on the entire trip in fact.
Though i'd say the best part was being in a city where I felt comfortable walking around again. Don't get me wrong, practice whatever religion you want, believe what you want..but it gets very uncomfortable for the secular people out there when they're constantly being stared down, looked over, judged, etc.
Didn't happen in Haifa- and it was wonderful.
 |
| Bahai Gardens! |
TEL AVIV--
next on our farewell tour we headed back to Tel Aviv! Well..first to Kfar Malal for one more night with Svetlana and Johni, who were once again wondrous, gracious hosts :)
Then it was time to check into our hostel in Jaffa (the old city) and hang out for a few days.
Lots of time was spent at the beach...lots of sleepless nights (our 'mixed' dorm was us and 6 very smelly men with 1 fan) on the roof watching the sun rise over Tel Aviv.
Then came a bit of a change of plans..we decided not to go to Turkey. I think we were both so burnt out on the thought of traveling more, going back and forth through Israeli security again, finding couchsurfers, navigating with all our bags..see..even talking about it now is making me nauseated.
SO we opted for a little more time in Tel Aviv and a little more time in Jordan :)
we stayed with Taylor for several days and just hung out, saw a movie, etc. etc. (Batman was awesome..maybe my favorite of the trilogy?) 1 of those days also might have been because we were a tad late catchign the bus to Eilat and it was all full.. so thanks to Taylor for hosting us another night!
 |
| Curse you Chris Angel for getting me attached to ANOTHER series! |
theeennn it was a 5 hour bus ride to Eilat! and consequently?
AQABA--
Here..since we'd missed our bus from Tel Aviv, we were planning on spending an afternoon before heading to Wadi Rum but our couchsurfing host Tarek convinced us to stay a full day/night. which was great because the Red Sea was AWESOME! definitely the best.. cold water, beautiful color, nice beach. It was a fun day! We played beach volleyball with his friends and then hung out with some of his other friends at his house until around 4am.
 |
| Our couchsurfing host Tarek |
phew..ok tired of writing.. i'll finish it all up tomorroooooow! :)
