Today is my last day living in Tel Aviv. I'm going to the Dead Sea tomorrow with my friend Avi whom I met in Hebrew language class here and who, crazily enough, happens to be from Canton. He graduated Canton High School 2 years before I got there, knows my sister, acted in all the plays, played in the band, etc. etc. Talk about a small world! He, his wife Heidi, and I will drive down to Ein Gedi tomorrow morning, spend the day at the Dead Sea, and stay the night at the Masada Guest House. Friday morning we're waking up early to hike Masada and will possibly catch the sunrise. It should be a great time.
From there I plan on taking a bus to Ashkelon, 10 miles from Gaza, to spend Shabbat with my cousins there. Saturday night I'll take a car to the airport, and then fly to the Netherlands to spend a week in Amsterdam. My college friends Doug, Mike, Ben, and Gaurav will all be there that week so it's shaping up to be an amazing time. I have another cousin who lives about an hour or two from Amsterdam and will be spending Tuesday and Wednesday night with his family. He plans on showing me the sights outside of Amsterdam and and taking me into Germany for an afternoon as well. I'm really looking forward to it. So I'm staying two days at a hotel with Doug and Mike, two days with my cousin, one night on my own at the Flying Pig hostel, and two nights with Gaurav at the Truelove Guesthouse. The first two nights I'll be alone in a double so if anybody feels like joining me, then by all means go with that feeling.
I'll return to Tel Aviv next Monday, March 15th, early in the morning. I'm renting a car that Tuesday and have tentative plans to explore the north of Israel including Haifa, Carmiel Forests, Tiberius and the Sea of Gallilee, Tsfat, Naharia, Rosh Hanikra, and Yehudiya. That will take me close to the end of March, and I'm not sure what I'll do from there. I want to spend Passover here, most likely with family in Jerusalem, so I'll most likely have about 2 and a half weeks to fill. I've grown really attached to Tel Aviv and the friends I've made here so I'm sure I'll spend about half of that time here couch surfing and hanging out with friends sans Ulpan. After Passover I'll head south to spend a day in Eilat, a resort on the southern most tip of Israel, cross into Jordan and visit Petra (where Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade took place), then head up to Amman, the capital, in order to fly to Delhi, India. Tickets from Jordan are literally half the price of those from Israel. It's an exciting time folks.
I'm only now starting to plan my trip to India, and just picked up a used Lonely Planet guide this afternoon. I have two friends there currently, Rahil and Rebekah, and I plan on going to Jaipur with Rahil the weekend of April 25th then staying at his place in Delhi the week after. The question now is what date I'll arrive before then and where I'll stay -all to be worked out over the next couple of weeks.
Looking at a map, I'll most likely go from India up to Nepal, over to Burma/Myanmar, down to Thailand, cross into Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, then fly to Guangzhou to vist Andrew and all the other Yalies in China. Andrew and I will do a weekend trip to Hong Kong, and I'll have to check out Taiwan and Japan as well. From there I could head south to the Philippines, Bali, Papua New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji. I'll probably come home at that point, but who knows? I could visit Yana in Hawaii from there and then friends in California. There's also the whole rest of the continental US to explore, not to mention all of South America, but I'm getting ahead of myself. For now I'm focusing on Amsterdam and India.
If this seems like a fairly superficial entry considering this is my last night in Tel Aviv, that's because it is. I'm working on a more detailed piece covering the time I spent here, the things I've learned, and my observations of Tel Aviv and Israeli culture in general. However I wanted to get all of the logistical items out of the way first. Stay tuned.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Transitions to Solitude
I chose Israel as the first stop on my partial world tour for a number of reasons. I didn't want to have to work again for awhile so I planned on spending most of my adventure in South East Asia, where the dollar still packs a punch. At the same time, I definitely wanted to spend a couple months in Israel, visiting my family here, learning the language, connecting with my roots, and seeing what it would be like to possibly live here one day. That said, the obvious reason for starting here is a logistical one: it's on the way.
But beyond that, Israel as a starting point serves as an ideal transitional period to the open ended adventure ahead of me. It's a western country bordering the eastern world, a gateway to the east; you might even call it a middle east (Ha). I'm far from home, but have plenty of family here. I have to approach a lot of strangers in order to make friends, but I already had two very close friends waiting for me here when I arrived and am in a country who's people have a reputation for their approachability. The locals all speak a foreign language here that I've determined myself to learn, but nearly everybody speaks English as well and it was easy to sign up for a month worth of Hebrew language classes. I have to get used to sleeping on an uncomfortable bed, in a noisy environment, with no way to block the sun at dawn, but it's my own apartment in a nice part of town. I have to learn my way around a major world city I know nothing about, including a robust bus system, but I have widespread support from everybody around me as well as parents who are Tel Aviv experts just a phone call away. I've lost all track of the dates, forgetting one friend's birthday, Valentine's Day, and the Superbowl so far, and have to get accustomed to being disconnected in general, but my brother, Tomer, has lent me his laptop and my apartment has Internet access, so I've been able to stay in regular touch with a lot of people back home. (NOTE: Download Skype to video chat with me anytime I'm online. I'm 7 hours ahead and usually up late.) In short, from day one I've had to face many of the obstacles and challenges that I'll encounter throughout this trip, but within a much easier context. I took this into account when planning the trip and I'm happy to see how well it's worked out thus far.
There's another transitional aspect to my stay here that I haven't yet touched upon. I'm finding myself increasingly more accustomed to being by myself most of the time. This path towards comfortable solitude and tangible independence actually started back in New York, when my job ended in early November. I spent most of November and all of December roaming around Manhattan, exploring all the sites, galleries, museums, and shows that I never had the time to visit before because I was always working; And, for the most part, I did it by myself. That path has continued here, along 13+ hours of flight time, and countless hours looking at bus maps, sitting in cafes, lying by the beach, bike riding down the Yarkon River, and a whole lot of walking, all without anyone to keep me company. I've been able to spend time with my brother, cousins, friends, and students at the Ulpan, and they have all been a wonderful help in this transitional period, but a very and increasingly large majority of my time is spent alone. And it's getting easier.
When describing my plans for 2009, many of my friends would immediately jump to this aspect, "you're going by yourself? Wow, I couldn't do that." I said that I wasn't too worried. Every year of my life I've gotten better at introducing myself to strangers and every person I talked to that had done such a trip stressed the importance of going it alone.
"You'll meet people everywhere you go," was the general sentiment, "and you won't want to be tied down to the plans and preferences of someone else. This is YOUR trip." Besides, who else could I convince to quit their job to go to Israel with me as a conflict tore on in Gaza? But I never really considered trying to convince anyone either. In retrospect, however, I can tell you that I was really scared about this concept. I talk a lot; I love to share new experiences and create memories with people I care about; I like having someone to regularly sanity check my decisions; and I hate to eat alone. I considered myself a pretty independent person, but knew that this was just a relative measure, and that on an absolute scale I was a ways away from the degree of self-sufficiency I wanted.
Tomorrow will mark the one month point since my departure and three months since the true start to this lesson in autonomy when my employment ended. What have I learned? One. Audiobooks are amazing. Walking and reading at the same time?? The future is now! Stephen Fry delivers Harry Potter better than any film version ever could, the BBC's production of the His Dark Materials Trilogy (aka The Golden Compass) is beyond cinematic, and David Sedaris is just plain hysterical. Two. I still very much love to read the old fashioned way. Hours spent at a cafe alternating between cups of cappuccino and glasses of wine while pouring through David Quammen's fascinating essays, the Picture of Dorian Gray, and an interesting book Phillip gave me that takes a modern and broad approach to surveying philosophical thought entitled "This Is Not A Book" make one happy not to have someone expecting conversation. Three. Writing in a journal has been easy, therapeutic and hard to stop. Once I fully grasped the concept that no one but me will read the Moleskine that Phil bought me, I stopped focusing on presentation and outside critique and started to just write for the sake of writing. It was tough to find the right balance. While I don't want to feel someone else's eyes over my shoulder I do want to improve my writing and not to end up with a babbling stream of consciousness. I think I've started to find the rhythm but am still adjusting. Four. I've missed piano terribly and have been worried that I'll lose a lot of the newer songs in my head. To try and amend this I bought a harmonica the other day and have been teaching myself via YouTube. The theory is that if I can bang out a tune and corresponding harmony on harmonica, I can write down the corresponding notes to avoid losing any fleeting muse.
Five. Finally, and most importantly, I'm trying not to always immerse myself in outside stimulation. I'm trying to spend a good amount of time without a book, headphones, Internet, random conversations with strangers, or harmonica and to just think quietly, or not at all. This is the area of Independence that I have the most room to improve on. On some level, independence is contentment with yourself and your surroundings. Growing up with the Internet and living in an environment like NYC has made me more addicted to material things and constant stimulation than I'd like to admit. Not surprisingly I had a rather hard time getting over leaving my Treo behind. Instant answers, unlimited information, and a constant connection to everyone all in my pocket is a tough thing to give up once you take it for granted. I bought a new Nokia here for 200 shekels (about $50) from a kiosk and love it! It's small, light, simple, with a black and green screen, lasts a week on a single charge, has a built in flashlight and a few games, and never freezes, crashes, or drops calls. What more do you really need?
But beyond that, Israel as a starting point serves as an ideal transitional period to the open ended adventure ahead of me. It's a western country bordering the eastern world, a gateway to the east; you might even call it a middle east (Ha). I'm far from home, but have plenty of family here. I have to approach a lot of strangers in order to make friends, but I already had two very close friends waiting for me here when I arrived and am in a country who's people have a reputation for their approachability. The locals all speak a foreign language here that I've determined myself to learn, but nearly everybody speaks English as well and it was easy to sign up for a month worth of Hebrew language classes. I have to get used to sleeping on an uncomfortable bed, in a noisy environment, with no way to block the sun at dawn, but it's my own apartment in a nice part of town. I have to learn my way around a major world city I know nothing about, including a robust bus system, but I have widespread support from everybody around me as well as parents who are Tel Aviv experts just a phone call away. I've lost all track of the dates, forgetting one friend's birthday, Valentine's Day, and the Superbowl so far, and have to get accustomed to being disconnected in general, but my brother, Tomer, has lent me his laptop and my apartment has Internet access, so I've been able to stay in regular touch with a lot of people back home. (NOTE: Download Skype to video chat with me anytime I'm online. I'm 7 hours ahead and usually up late.) In short, from day one I've had to face many of the obstacles and challenges that I'll encounter throughout this trip, but within a much easier context. I took this into account when planning the trip and I'm happy to see how well it's worked out thus far.
There's another transitional aspect to my stay here that I haven't yet touched upon. I'm finding myself increasingly more accustomed to being by myself most of the time. This path towards comfortable solitude and tangible independence actually started back in New York, when my job ended in early November. I spent most of November and all of December roaming around Manhattan, exploring all the sites, galleries, museums, and shows that I never had the time to visit before because I was always working; And, for the most part, I did it by myself. That path has continued here, along 13+ hours of flight time, and countless hours looking at bus maps, sitting in cafes, lying by the beach, bike riding down the Yarkon River, and a whole lot of walking, all without anyone to keep me company. I've been able to spend time with my brother, cousins, friends, and students at the Ulpan, and they have all been a wonderful help in this transitional period, but a very and increasingly large majority of my time is spent alone. And it's getting easier.
When describing my plans for 2009, many of my friends would immediately jump to this aspect, "you're going by yourself? Wow, I couldn't do that." I said that I wasn't too worried. Every year of my life I've gotten better at introducing myself to strangers and every person I talked to that had done such a trip stressed the importance of going it alone.
"You'll meet people everywhere you go," was the general sentiment, "and you won't want to be tied down to the plans and preferences of someone else. This is YOUR trip." Besides, who else could I convince to quit their job to go to Israel with me as a conflict tore on in Gaza? But I never really considered trying to convince anyone either. In retrospect, however, I can tell you that I was really scared about this concept. I talk a lot; I love to share new experiences and create memories with people I care about; I like having someone to regularly sanity check my decisions; and I hate to eat alone. I considered myself a pretty independent person, but knew that this was just a relative measure, and that on an absolute scale I was a ways away from the degree of self-sufficiency I wanted.
Tomorrow will mark the one month point since my departure and three months since the true start to this lesson in autonomy when my employment ended. What have I learned? One. Audiobooks are amazing. Walking and reading at the same time?? The future is now! Stephen Fry delivers Harry Potter better than any film version ever could, the BBC's production of the His Dark Materials Trilogy (aka The Golden Compass) is beyond cinematic, and David Sedaris is just plain hysterical. Two. I still very much love to read the old fashioned way. Hours spent at a cafe alternating between cups of cappuccino and glasses of wine while pouring through David Quammen's fascinating essays, the Picture of Dorian Gray, and an interesting book Phillip gave me that takes a modern and broad approach to surveying philosophical thought entitled "This Is Not A Book" make one happy not to have someone expecting conversation. Three. Writing in a journal has been easy, therapeutic and hard to stop. Once I fully grasped the concept that no one but me will read the Moleskine that Phil bought me, I stopped focusing on presentation and outside critique and started to just write for the sake of writing. It was tough to find the right balance. While I don't want to feel someone else's eyes over my shoulder I do want to improve my writing and not to end up with a babbling stream of consciousness. I think I've started to find the rhythm but am still adjusting. Four. I've missed piano terribly and have been worried that I'll lose a lot of the newer songs in my head. To try and amend this I bought a harmonica the other day and have been teaching myself via YouTube. The theory is that if I can bang out a tune and corresponding harmony on harmonica, I can write down the corresponding notes to avoid losing any fleeting muse.
Five. Finally, and most importantly, I'm trying not to always immerse myself in outside stimulation. I'm trying to spend a good amount of time without a book, headphones, Internet, random conversations with strangers, or harmonica and to just think quietly, or not at all. This is the area of Independence that I have the most room to improve on. On some level, independence is contentment with yourself and your surroundings. Growing up with the Internet and living in an environment like NYC has made me more addicted to material things and constant stimulation than I'd like to admit. Not surprisingly I had a rather hard time getting over leaving my Treo behind. Instant answers, unlimited information, and a constant connection to everyone all in my pocket is a tough thing to give up once you take it for granted. I bought a new Nokia here for 200 shekels (about $50) from a kiosk and love it! It's small, light, simple, with a black and green screen, lasts a week on a single charge, has a built in flashlight and a few games, and never freezes, crashes, or drops calls. What more do you really need?
Monday, February 2, 2009
New Apartment, Polics, Ulpan, and Photos
This past Thursday I moved into my new apartment on Dizengoff. It's a beautiful studio apartment with a small kitchen and bathroom and is furnished with a large couch, big screen TV with satellite, hammock chair, and a couple of tables and chairs. The decor is a bit...out there (and feminine) but pleasant all the same. It has a great view of the Mediterranean Sea and is located near a lot of popular bars and clubs of Tel Aviv. After rearranging the furniture with Assaf we investigated the satellite TV to find it had 500 channels, of which about 450 are Arabic with the remaining 50 being Italian, French, and Polish. There are also a few Christian church stations and at one point I was able to get BBC News and Bloomberg International, but both have since vanished. There are no Hebrew stations. The running theory is that the owner isn't actually paying for a service but just picks up whatever stations are freely broadcasted, something Israel and America aren't really big on. But whatever, it's not's like I came to Israel to sit on the couch all day. Tomer lent me his laptop and I've been able to download Lost, Flight of the Conchords, and 30 Rock which I can then watch on the TV via some cables I picked up today, so the big screen certainly isn't going to waste.
A slightly more pressing setback turned out to be the street noise. I'm right above a very big and busy intersection and the window does extremely little to block out the noise of engines and the horns of passing (angry) motorists. With Israelis' well deserved reputation of being amongst the worst and rudest drivers in the western world, my room has been filled with what seems to be a near constant horn that no fan or TV white noise has been able to block out. Sara was quick to point out that, having lived in NYC the past 3 years, I should be used to this. Cars driving by, yes, constant horns, no. Fortunately the ear plugs I picked up before leaving do a great job of blocking out sounds. Unfortunately, so far I've had a rather talented knack for pulling them out of my ears in my sleep, only to wake up shortly there after. Oh well, better to get used to sleeping with ear plugs in the comfort of my own apartment then above a snorer in a hostel somewhere in South East Asia.
My neighbor is a girl from Ashdod who's house was hit by a rocket shot from Gaza. The Israeli government is paying for her to stay here in Tel Aviv while they rebuild her house. You don't go very far here without some reminder of the conflict going on less than 100 miles away. It's been interesting to hear the perspectives from those who live here. I've found a common theme of futility and bitterness towards the outside world.
"Hamas has been shooting rockets into this country every single day for EIGHT YEARS," one friend exclaims, "I'd like to see how long any other country puts up with that." Others want to know why the world media expect the IDF to operate flawlessly without causing any collateral damage or civillian casualty whereas they never highlight the fact that the IDF do both telephone call blasts and drop pamphlets over intended strike areas warning civilians to get out before hitting a target. There's been a lot of talk from those involved that the actual number of deaths from the Gaza offensive is 600, not the 1,300 the media is reporting, and that only around 50 were civilians. A few people I've talked to are planning on voting for the relatively unknown Avigdor Leiberman, leader of the extreme nationalist party Israeli Beitaynu, in the upcoming election for prime minister. His campaign slogan is "No Loyalty, No Citizenship" and is claiming that all citizens be required to take an oath of loyalty to the country. In a world where most anti Israel advocates are merely uninformed I respond that what Israel needs is better PR, not a leader who comedy programs compare to Stalin. But again, the sentiment I pick up is that this is futile, "people will always come up with a reason to hate the Jews. No PR will change that."
In less depressing news, I took the Ulpan Hebrew placement exam yesterday and start classes tomorrow morning. After taking the written exam I had an oral exam with an instructor who was confused by my results. She said most students are able to converse in Hebrew but have horrible written and grammar skills. I'm just the opposite, but I already knew that. I can conjugate like it's my job but put me on the street and I'm constantly saying "Ach omrim bih ivrit..." ("how does one say in Hebrew..."). She's putting me in a lower class than the exam would dictate in order for me to improve my conversational skills and told me to switch up if I got bored. The class meets Monday through Thursday from 9am to 12:30pm and I signed up for one month. Because I'm an Israeli citizen, there was some talk about getting me some paperwork from the Absorption Ministry that would make the lessons free until someone else in the class pointed out that, "there's this small issue of required Army service" that would make free Hebrew classes not really worth the savings. I haven't been in a class room in three years so I'm a little nervous but also looking forward to having a reason to get up early, a place to meet new people, and, you know, learning Hebrew.
And finally, I've posted a lot of pictures on Facebook of my first two weeks in Ramat Gan and Tel Aviv, as well as my weekend visits to family in Tiberius and Nahariya. They're visible to friends only. I'm in the process of uploading the complete set in full resolution to Picasa Web Albums and will share those out to family and friends as requested as soon as they finish (it's been taking HOURS). Here's a preview for you:
Looking through these photos reminds me of something Jenna told me about how when stressed out she reminds herself that she lives in a land of palm trees and a tropical climate, with a beach blocks away, and then whatever was on her mind doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore...
A slightly more pressing setback turned out to be the street noise. I'm right above a very big and busy intersection and the window does extremely little to block out the noise of engines and the horns of passing (angry) motorists. With Israelis' well deserved reputation of being amongst the worst and rudest drivers in the western world, my room has been filled with what seems to be a near constant horn that no fan or TV white noise has been able to block out. Sara was quick to point out that, having lived in NYC the past 3 years, I should be used to this. Cars driving by, yes, constant horns, no. Fortunately the ear plugs I picked up before leaving do a great job of blocking out sounds. Unfortunately, so far I've had a rather talented knack for pulling them out of my ears in my sleep, only to wake up shortly there after. Oh well, better to get used to sleeping with ear plugs in the comfort of my own apartment then above a snorer in a hostel somewhere in South East Asia.
My neighbor is a girl from Ashdod who's house was hit by a rocket shot from Gaza. The Israeli government is paying for her to stay here in Tel Aviv while they rebuild her house. You don't go very far here without some reminder of the conflict going on less than 100 miles away. It's been interesting to hear the perspectives from those who live here. I've found a common theme of futility and bitterness towards the outside world.
"Hamas has been shooting rockets into this country every single day for EIGHT YEARS," one friend exclaims, "I'd like to see how long any other country puts up with that." Others want to know why the world media expect the IDF to operate flawlessly without causing any collateral damage or civillian casualty whereas they never highlight the fact that the IDF do both telephone call blasts and drop pamphlets over intended strike areas warning civilians to get out before hitting a target. There's been a lot of talk from those involved that the actual number of deaths from the Gaza offensive is 600, not the 1,300 the media is reporting, and that only around 50 were civilians. A few people I've talked to are planning on voting for the relatively unknown Avigdor Leiberman, leader of the extreme nationalist party Israeli Beitaynu, in the upcoming election for prime minister. His campaign slogan is "No Loyalty, No Citizenship" and is claiming that all citizens be required to take an oath of loyalty to the country. In a world where most anti Israel advocates are merely uninformed I respond that what Israel needs is better PR, not a leader who comedy programs compare to Stalin. But again, the sentiment I pick up is that this is futile, "people will always come up with a reason to hate the Jews. No PR will change that."
In less depressing news, I took the Ulpan Hebrew placement exam yesterday and start classes tomorrow morning. After taking the written exam I had an oral exam with an instructor who was confused by my results. She said most students are able to converse in Hebrew but have horrible written and grammar skills. I'm just the opposite, but I already knew that. I can conjugate like it's my job but put me on the street and I'm constantly saying "Ach omrim bih ivrit..." ("how does one say in Hebrew..."). She's putting me in a lower class than the exam would dictate in order for me to improve my conversational skills and told me to switch up if I got bored. The class meets Monday through Thursday from 9am to 12:30pm and I signed up for one month. Because I'm an Israeli citizen, there was some talk about getting me some paperwork from the Absorption Ministry that would make the lessons free until someone else in the class pointed out that, "there's this small issue of required Army service" that would make free Hebrew classes not really worth the savings. I haven't been in a class room in three years so I'm a little nervous but also looking forward to having a reason to get up early, a place to meet new people, and, you know, learning Hebrew.
And finally, I've posted a lot of pictures on Facebook of my first two weeks in Ramat Gan and Tel Aviv, as well as my weekend visits to family in Tiberius and Nahariya. They're visible to friends only. I'm in the process of uploading the complete set in full resolution to Picasa Web Albums and will share those out to family and friends as requested as soon as they finish (it's been taking HOURS). Here's a preview for you:
Looking through these photos reminds me of something Jenna told me about how when stressed out she reminds herself that she lives in a land of palm trees and a tropical climate, with a beach blocks away, and then whatever was on her mind doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore...
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