I know it’s what’s inside that counts, but
The Israelis are a beautiful people! Both men and women in Tel Aviv are generally gorgeous. They have finely-formed facial features (somewhat like a more Mediterranean version of the Norwegians), great eyebrows (yes I know it’s strange that I know about the aesthetics of eyebrows, but it’s too late to go back), and are in really good shape. Like, wow, almost all of these people have athletic builds. No place in the USA, or even Europe, has so few overweight people in its population. I don’t know if this holds true for the rest of the country, but I’m curious to find out. Is it genetic? Is it cultural? Is the food too expensive? (that didn’t stop the Norwegians heheh)
The other great thing, hehe, is that the men here tend to be furrier than back home, and they have no problem showing it off. Where in the USA I’m self-conscious about too much rug sprouting from my shirt collar, in Israel I just undo my top button and sport that stuff with pride. Some days it just feels good to be a man. Thanks, Israel, for a totally obscure source of satisfaction!
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| Roomie Josh B reminding some IDF soldiers that it's not just the Israelis who have the looks |
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Speaking of beauty
Within my first couple of days in Israel, I couldn’t help pondering, “How can anyone hate these lovely people and want to bomb such a beautiful place?” It is all so insane. The power of human stupidity knows no bounds and will always set new records.
Sleepless in Tel Aviv
The locals are proud of calling home “The City That Never Sleeps”. It’s a cliché, but it is an appropriate label. People really are out at all hours, and unlike at home, it’s not just the revelers who are up late. Of course I saw late night partiers in cocktail attire, and deep lines of people awaiting entry into various club venues. But I also saw families picnicking at the beach at 9 and 10 in the evening. I even saw that the playground was populated – with kids – at 11:30pm on a Sunday evening!
Part of this, I’m sure, is because many people wait until the heat of the day is well past before coming out. But that fails to completely explain it; there’s more to it. I sense instead that Tel Aviv is alive. It’s like the population has yet to fall prey to the toxic charms of the American-style TV-addict lifestyle. It so refreshes me to see this. I can’t stand the couch potato life. Consider me impressed.
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| Hanging out with Josh at "Red Cones" (Actual name "La Mer" -- french for "The Sea" -- and it was on the beach on the Mediterranean, so . . .), late at night. 80 degrees. |
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| Kicking it late night, having some grub. At a totally cool place in a cool, youthful, central neighborhood (Just a block up from King George and Bograshov, in case you were wondering) |
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| Even some of our classes were at night. We met our professor at restaurants for informal lectures on Lawyering Skills and Professional Responsibility, and other mouthwatering subjects like that. |
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| These guys were so funny! Very religious looking Jews drove around in a sketchy looking van pumping the loudest possible Hebrew dance / techno music. Then they'd set up on the sidewalk and play the same music on big speakers while dancing to it. I assumed they were proselytizing, but as to what sect, I do not know. |
Calendar Concerns
You know why western culture has a 7-day week, right? Well, me neither, but the evidence does point to the Ten Commandments, which mandates a rest day every seventh. One thing I simply couldn’t get used to was the work and school week starting on Sunday, not Monday. It sounds simple enough: Sunday is Monday, and Thursday is Friday. But a lifetime of Monday to Friday living has programmed my brain in subtly unshakeable ways. For example, even after a 2-day weekend, I would find myself thinking, “Today’s Saturday. Tomorrow I’ll take a trip.” This, of course, would have caused me some problems with class attendance (and missing person reports?) if I had not snapped out of it. Moreover, I would make little mistakes even talking to people. Saying on the end of the first day of the week, “See you on Wednesday” to a classmate who was in my three-days-a-week class caused some confusion because the class was on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, not M-W-F like a thrice weekly class would be back home. It was a small thing, but it confounded me repeatedly. As I am sure I have done just now by trying to explain it.
Moving right along, there was also the matter of what year it was. Is it 2011 AD ("Anno Domini: year of our Lord" . . . but what about a people who never gave Jesus “Lord” status?)? 2011 CE (similar problem but without the Latin)? Or is it not 2011 but 5771? I knew about all this stuff before coming but it was pretty wild to see it firsthand among a people for whom it really matters.
Finally, let’s talk one more time about Shabbat (Sabbath). What is a weekend? It’s Friday night until Monday morning, right? You get two full 24-hour days off plus a little extra. Not so in Israel. First, the weekend starts (and ends) one day earlier. But: the day doesn’t start at midnight, it starts roughly at sundown. So the weekend is from Thursday afternoon until Sunday Morning. Except Shabbat starts Friday evening and ends Saturday evening. So what you get is Thursday night parties, Friday night everything closes, then Saturday night stuff reopens. Picture an American weekend where you spend Saturday chilling on the beach, then go to church in the evening, then awake Sunday to more churchiness, then resume partying Sunday night. That’s Israel for ya.
So what did I actually DO?
Aside from class (yawn . . . you really don’t need me to tell you about my classes in Israel), I managed to have a fairly busy yet not too stressful experience. Like I had been craving, I was happy to stay in one place the whole time. It’s good to have a predictable bed each night. I saw much of the country by car, plenty by foot, and, well, several square feet of it by swimming. And don’t forget the tunnels. Read on.
Road Trip of Awesomeness (The Holy Land Version)
Having learned my lesson in Norway (rent a car! live life! see stuff! have fun! avoid soul-crushing guided tours!) and the rest of Europe (stay away from trains! evil! bad!), I wasted no time getting on the road again. My first free weekend, I went with Josh, Josh, and Heath on a superb road trip! We rented a car (about $30 a day including insurance, rather sweet) and pursued our dreams. A control freak, and the one with the credit card, I drove most of the way. But huge applause goes to my roomie Josh Brown, who is one of the few people I’ve met whose chauffeuring skills allowed me to relax in the passenger seat, even on windy roads in a strange land. A strange land where we wondered if people with rocket launchers were taking any interest in us.
Our neon green Hyundai was a real treat. We were the first people to rent it (peel-off plastic still covered most of its interior) and it performed flawlessly, providing us with many fond memories. Heading east from Tel Aviv on Saturday morning (arg!! I mean Friday morning!! See what I mean???) we set our sights for the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is the stuff of legend. Every boy who’s ever read about it in elementary school science books has wanted to float in it . . . and taste how salty it is. On the way there, we passed a few road blocks, but security seemed unconcerned about two Asian-looking dudes with a white, large-nosed Americanadian behind the wheel. I always removed my sunglasses to look them in the eye, just in case.
The Sea of Death
Arriving at the Sea of Death (imagine if they called it that haha), it was time to go for a dip, especially as it was 40 degrees out (um, about 100?) with no hint of wind. The water was 1) awesome 2) as floaty as they say 3) fouler than you can imagine, and 4) not the slightest bit refreshing. Allow me to explain:
1. How can it be anything but awesome to be frolicking about in one of the wonders of the world – and at the lowest place on the surface of the Earth – while there with good company?
2. The water made me so buoyant, it was actually hard to hold a pose. Trying to tread water upright brought my legs floating up to horizontal. Staying still in a momentary upright pose left my head and shoulders still poking out of the water. It is impossible to be conscious and drown in the Dead Sea.
3. Forget salty. The water was beyond salty. I got a drop in my mouth by accident, and it was incredible. Picture the saltiest water you can imagine. Okay, now wipe that smug grin off of your face, because the Dead Sea water is nothing like that. The flavor you are imagining is far too clean of a taste. First, add more salt. Then add a ton of crushed Aspirin (or something as bitter). Throw in several doses of ashes. Dung ashes. Finally, splash a liberal dollop of sulfuric acid into the mix, just to give it some bite. That’s Dead Sea water. You don’t try to taste it. You don’t even try to wipe the sweat from your brow, because you don’t want any of it dripping into your eyes. You simply respect it.
4. Finally, I was amused to find that the water was almost as warm as the air. Normally, you bake in the sun for a while, then dip in the lake to cool off. Here, you bake, then you dip, and any cooling is merely a placebo effect. The other wild thing: even getting out of the lake failed to cool you off. Instead of a cooling effect from the water evaporating, you just start sweating again. The best part is, even when the water dried, you are still glistening with moisture, because there are so many mineral oils in the water that you are covered with them. Your skin feels “silky smooth”, though, which is amusing.
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| Dead Sea -- roadside edition. Stay tuned for hilltop version |
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| Isn't that cool? The rocks on the shore are just covered with salt, inches thick. It's moist and crumbly, presumably because of the mineral oils abounding. |
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| You thought I was kidding, didn't you? This is a piece of Dead Sea beach from six feet high. |
Masada
Not to be confused with the Israeli secret service (that’s Mossad), Masada is a fascinating and tragic landmark. Off the southwest edge of the Dead Sea, it’s an amazing monument to Israeli awesomeness and Roman might. I’ll spare you the story (please, look it up yourself, it's worth knowing). Suffice it to say that some Israelis, over two millennia ago, built a super cool fortress atop a giant hill. Rebels fighting the Roman occupation holed up there and survived quite tidily for some time. The Romans beat them. Sort of.
The point is, it was an amazing visit. It was my first glimpse of a truly, truly OLD archaeological site. And the Dead Sea vistas bookended the experience fantastically. Highly recommended.
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| Trust me. It looks better from the top. |
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| Awesome Dead Sea panorama abound |
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| Remnants from a Roman Governor's posh Masada-top weekend residence. This stuff really is 2000 years old! |
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| A ceremonial bath from the Jewish settlement on Masada. So cool! |
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| This is actually a DOVE-raising building! All the little boxes in the walls are birdie homes. How resourceful. |
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| Mosaic floor and toppled columns from another posh Roman building. |
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| This pic scammed from online. Just so you know what Masada looks like when you get most of it in one shot. |
Hebron and Bethlehem. Ish.
We didn’t visit Hebron or Bethlehem. Those are Palestinian controlled cities, and we were too unfamiliar with the thresholds of how welcome we were to consider visiting. We did, however, drive through a corridor of sorts, a valley between hills of Palestinian towns (and some Israeli towns in their midst). Not much to say, other than that it was often a beautiful landscape, and that the towns themselves were frequently very pretty. Claims of oppressed refugee status aside, many of these Palestinians are living a good life in Israel.
The Most Important City in the World
We cruised into Jerusalem right at the commencement of Shabbat. If there’s a city that shuts down on the Sabbath, it’s Jerusalem. The streets were very quiet, and if you saw a pedestrian, they were likely on their way to a religious service. Or they were tourists like us.
We walked around the Old City (gosh how historic!) of Jerusalem and saw many wonderful sights. Rather than describing them all, I’ll just try to add some pictures and let you see for yourself. Without a guide, I’m sure I missed a thousand significant things I was looking at, but it didn’t matter. It was just so good to finally be in Jerusalem, which is in so many ways virtually the center of the universe.
We also escaped the walls of the Old City and explored more modern Jerusalem. We were on a whirlwind tour, all breadth and no depth, but it was awesome to see as much as possible in a few hours. We headed home happy, ready for another day of epic travel.
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| Praying at the Western Wall...how about that?!? The best part: the guy next to me. Look what's in his hand. |
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| It looks like just any cool corner of Jerusalem, but tucked into the corner on the right is a really notable Catholic church (The "Holy Sepulcher"), which is something of a pilgrimage site. It saddened me that so few visitors seemed happy to be there. But that topic is outside the scope of this blog. |
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| Inside said church. Just loved the lighting an architecture in this spot |
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| And in this spot |
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| No idea what this was, but it was in Jerusalem and it looked beautiful |
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| For sale in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem. You really know what cut you're getting this way! |
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| Just outside the Sheep Gate. Or was it the Dung Gate? Regardless, behind me was the Old City. |
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| Normally a bustling throughway, this street got very quiet on Friday evening (Shabbat), with most traffic looking like it was on its way to worship. |
Another Day of Epic Travel
Well, guess what? I ran out of time again. It will be fun to continue here the next time I get a-typing. Until then, Shalom!
