Beyond Tel Aviv...

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.