Dolphins, Petra, and Hairy Russians- OH MY!

Last weekend I did something most Israelis don’t do, in fact, many Israeli’s also gave me looks of utter shock when I said I was about to do this: I crossed the Southern border of Israel to it’s neighboring country, Jordan. I should probably start at the beginning with this one, because there was a lot leading up to this that is definitely worth mentioning. When myself and five other friends of mine, all girls, decided that we wanted a vacation, we all decided that we would go to Eilat and Jordan to visit Petra for the day. Getting to this decision involved about 150 emails back and forth, two ice cream meetings and many many phone calls. Nobody ever said that 6 girls making one decision was an easy thing. First, some wanted to go to Sinai in Egypt for an uninterrupted beach vacation while some others were a little uneasy about this idea of a “relaxing” vacation in Sinai. Finally, we agreed that Eilat, basically the Atlantic City of Israel, was going to be the safest and easiest to get to with the three days of vacation time we had.
SO, this is kind of what our weekend looked like:

12:30 am, Thursday night: The fun begins on our five hour bus ride south (YUCK!). We arrived to Eilat to find the owner of the apartment that we were renting for the weekend waiting to pick us up from the bus in his 5 seater car, prepared to squish 7 plus bags in- no problem. The apartment we stayed in was perfect for all 6 of us, close to the beach and the fun and couldn’t really have been any better. In the morning, we ventured to a place called Dolphin Reef. “DOLPHIN REEF EILAT, on the shores of the Red Sea, is an ecological site unique in Israel and throughout the world where visitors can enjoy a natural atmosphere, magical views, secluded beach, together with the unusual opportunity of meeting and observing dolphins in their natural habitat.” While some of the girls opted to snorkel and dive to get closer to the dolphins, I spent the entire morning and early afternoon relaxing on one of the floating piers watching the dolphins and being literally one or two feet from them at all times with my feet dangling in the water, definitely an amazing experience.
Once our feet were sufficiently pruned, it was time to return home to cook Shabbat dinner and head out for the birthday celebrations of my French friend, Iona. The next day was another relaxing day on the Eilat beach, complete with old hairy Russians and tacky music- again, no problem. We made it an early night after dinner, sending three of the other girls back to Tel Aviv and searching for places to store our bags for our day trip to Jordan.


5:45am, Sunday Morning: Wake up call to get going so we could beat all of the tour groups at the border and passport control. The border was a 15 minute taxi ride from our apartment and all in all, took about half an hour to get through, definitely not what we were expecting, which seemed to be a theme for the day.
Everything went extremely smoothly and we were welcomed on the other side with none other than a herd of taxi drivers trying to sell themselves to us for the day. We choose one we could bargain with the most and jumped in. After a two hour drive through Akaba, one of Jordan’s main cities (complete with Burger King and Popeye’s) and through desert and country side, we arrived in Petra. Our taxi driver was amazing, he spoke really good English and told us tons stories, and made sure to stop on the way at some great photo op sites and even took us to a bank and spoke to the banker to let us exchange money. So Petra was really an awesome experience, but I don’t think I could have handled more than one day there as we were urged to do. Petra is an entire city carved out of the red rock mountains from the early 1st century, and is now one of the New Wonders of the World. All of the rock formations and colors, along with the beautiful hikes and walks through 265 foot tall gorges were absolutely amazing.
All day, we were bombarded with young Bedouin men trying to sell us their camel or donkey rides, cleverly with rhymes and songs like “no worries, no hurries, no chickens wit h curry” or another offering the use of his camel Daisy claiming that we could “use Daisy if we’re lazy, but miss HIM if we’re crazy”. I think some of the things that these guys said were actually the highlight of my day, asking how many camels they would have to pay our fathers to keep us, telling us they liked our lips (from 8 year olds), asking us to come back to their caves (aka home) but don’t worry, being the smart girls we are, we happily ignored all offers above :) After a looong day of walking and exploring we rushed back to catch a 7pm bus back to Tel Aviv and made it home safely just in time for quick nap and work the next morning.

Now that this post is about 3 miles long, I’m sure you’re happily and definitely completely filled in with our vacation details. Thanksgiving in Israel was kind of just like Shabbat but with Turkey. We went to Jerusalem for a potluck dinner, again with about 70 people from all over the world, some who were celebrating their first Thanksgivings and others who really just missed home and needed a piece of it somewhere here, which they did a really great job of doing for us. I have less than three weeks left here so I still have lots of places to go, people to see, and things to do.

As always, miss you all. See you SO soon, and Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

Shalom v’ Ahava (peace and love :))

things.

I realize that you cannot all read my mental blog that I’ve been keeping recently, with it’s “pages” filled to the margins with things I’ve been thinking about lately. Things I’ve realized only since I’ve been here, things that have made me say “only in Israel” so many times, things I will never have the chance to do again that I am so lucky to have been able to do once, things that bug me about this place and things that keep bringing me back begging for more.

Thing I’ve been wondering about the most/ want to invent:
How much happier and more peaceful would this world be if we all had subtitles constantly running underneath our chins while talking to people who speak different languages, and for that matter, people who speak the same language. Communication would not be an issue (language wise) and getting lost in translation would be a whole lot harder to do, and my work day would be so much more efficient without having to check the Hebrew-Russian-English dictionary every time I wanted to have a decent conversation with someone. Genius right? Watch out world, I think I might have just spilled the beans on my most brilliant plan yet. Who needs online translators anyways?

Priceless things:
Being a part of this …..
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1225910067293
Speaking of lost in translation, I may not have understood most of the speeches by the Prime Ministers, Presidents, daughters, friends, politicians, etc but being one of 100,000 people packed into one (large-ish) city block in Rabin Square singing, drumming, and remembering a man who was one of this nation's greatest builders was an experience never to be forgotten, just like the man himself. Rabin, who was murdered 13 years ago, served Israel well, with devotion and wisdom, as a soldier and as a politician and you could tell from the feeling in the crowd that night. It was truly a once in a lifetime experience, only made better by the impromptu drum circle I jumped into after, priceless. And any man who’s famous motto was 'yes to peace and no to violence.' Is alright with me.

Things that bug me:
Israeli doctors…. “emmm, I sink you chev stuffy nose. Chere’s prescript. Go get entibeeotics” 140 shekels and about 5 minutes later…

Things that I will beg for after being back at home for probably less than 24 hours, maybe even on the plane ride home:
Smelly outdoor markets with old Israeli men calling out “I love you, Motek” because apparently I am not as Israeli looking as I thought I was, multicultural Shabbats in Jerusalem that always feel like I am in another world for 24 hours, Israeli attitude that I hate so much but love at the same time, these people (obviously), not a SINGLE Starbucks in the entire country, tea with mint- real mint, israeli hospitality, everything is always “beseder” (alright, ok, good), the really horrible and definitely not kosher styles in wedding dresses, having something/someone in common with almost everyone, Asians speaking Hebrew everywhere instead of “engrish”, kosher McDonalds meat (that I still refuse to eat but love the principle anyway), and being wished a “B’tayavon” (Bon Apetite) even if I am only putting a piece of gum into my mouth, and so so much more. 5 more weeks to enjoy it and I plan to do just that.

For as long as I have long bus rides and work days to ponder random thoughts, more “things” to come…

B’Ahava