Life had been so damn difficult that it seemed prudent to take a vacation from all the sleeping, sunning, and clubbing I’d been doing with a trip to Eilat, the Red Sea resort on the southernmost tip of Israel, with my friend Jon whom I met at Ulpan. But before we set off I had to witness and take part in the extravaganza of Tel Aviv’s Centennial Birthday Celebration. The city of Tel Aviv was founded April 4th, 1909 and, 100 years later, it ranks among the world’s most cosmopolitan cities, and the second biggest city economy in the Middle East (also the 14th most expensive city in the world). The city pulled out all the stops for the celebration, accept for the security ones of course; the whole city was on lockdown with security checkpoints on every corner. Hundreds of thousands of people poured into Rabin Square Saturday night for a concert, dance party, fireworks, and light show. The nearly 20 million dollar show included Israel’s Philharmonic Orchestra, various rock and singers and bands, and a trance dance party that spanned 5 blocks. A friend of mine lives right next to the square and she held a roof party that night giving us all one of the best views of the festivities. It was incredible: hundreds of thousands of people covering every inch of ground in all directions. It was a really great time. The festival ended surprisingly abruptly at 10:30 (Saturday night is a work night in Israel) without any finale, or closing remarks. The music just stopped and people lingered for about 20 minutes waiting for something else to start. Still, it was an incredible time.
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| From Tel Aviv Centennial |
The next morning Jon and I set off for Eilat via a 5 hour bus ride through the desert. Just by glancing at a map, Israel appears to be about the size of New Jersey. On closer inspection, however, you see that the West Bank takes up a pretty sizeable chunk and that the entire southern half is nothing but empty desert. So the country is even smaller than most realize, with most of the habitable places no more than a couple of hours apart. I’ve heard a lot of hype about Eilat and it didn’t really live up to my expectations. While the Red Sea is one of the clearest and bluest bodies of water I’ve seen, there’s no actual beach around it, just a 20 foot wide strip of gravel and rock. The club and bar scene was okay, but nowhere near what you’d find in Tel Aviv, and the city in general is somewhat trashy. The real highlight of the stay in Eilat was snorkeling in the Red Sea (around Passover no less) and seeing all sorts of beautiful fish and coral.
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| From 04-07 Eilat |
This, however, paled in comparison with the highlight of the whole trip south: our daytrip over the border to visit the historical, archeological, anthropological, and geological wonder of Petra. Getting to Petra was half of the fun. We took a cab to the border, handed over our passports, went through security and customs, paid the border tax, and walked across no-man’s land between Israel and Jordan. In between we hid our Israeli passports and took out our American ones, reminding each other not to speak any Hebrew once we got there. Once in Jordan, we negotiated a fare with a taxi driver for a round trip to Petra that including him waiting for us once we got there. The Jordanian Dinar is loosely pegged to the British pound and we got the price down to 110 Dinars ($155 USD) for the trip, which we of course split.
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| From 04-06 Petra |
We hit the taxi jackpot as the driver to which we were assigned had lived in America for 15 years, spoke perfect English, was extremely nice, and talked to us the entire 2 hour drive to Petra about life in Jordan versus the rest of the Arab world, Israel, and the United States. It was a really interesting and beautiful drive through desert, planes, and the hills of Jordan.
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| From 04-06 Petra |
Built around 100 BCE by the Nabateans, Petra is breathtaking. The pictures really don’t do it justice. The level of intricacy and detail that was carved into the rock was staggering and I had to repeatedly remind myself that this wasn’t built, but rather was carved out of the cliff face. The red stone was gorgeous and seemed to flow as if liquid. Take a few minutes and skim the Wikipedia article on the city, as it’s a fascinating find. The site had a large number of Arabic teenage girls wearing head dresses who, surprisingly, weren’t at all shy, and all wanted to talk to the Americans. There were also dozens of donkeys, camels, and horses, all with owners insisting we ride. We spent 4 hours walking around the site, me singing the Indiana Jones theme song more often than I’d like to admit, and only saw about half of it before having to turn back. The Israeli border closed at 8 and we really didn’t want to get stranded there.
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| From 04-06 Petra |
On the way back we stopped for an all you can eat home cooked Jordanian buffet that was amazing. And Petra Beer isn’t half bad either.
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| From 04-06 Petra |
I returned to Tel Aviv for less than 24 hours before hopping a train up north to Nahariya to spend Passover at the house of my dad’s sister and her family. We were joined by my dad’s brother from Tiveria , his brother from Toronto, Canada, and his other sister from Hatzor, along with all of their families. It was a huge turnout and made for an amazing first Pesach in Israel. I was overjoyed to see that, just like my family in America, my Israeli family all argues over how to do the Seder. Someone interrupts a prayer to sing it to a tune only she knows, before someone else tries to correct her with a different tune, before a few others join in half heartedly only for everyone to trail off as they all eventually forget how it goes. Best of all, as I hoped, there was a good hour of singing and banging on the table after the Seder concluded. It was glorious. After the singing thinned out, I hooked up my brother’s laptop to the big screen TV and called up the various family members around the world for video conferencing over Skype. It was really, really nice.
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| From 04-08 Pesach |
As I write this, it’s my last day in Israel. Tomorrow morning I head to the northern border with Jordan, no easy task as the entire public bus system is shutdown until late afternoon for the last day of Passover. I’ll take a service taxi (private mix between a bus and taxi) to Afula, and another one to Beit She’an, where I’ll cross the border by bus. Once in Jordan I’ll take a taxi to Amman where, at 8pm, I fly to Delhi, India. I’m excited, anxious, pumped, and very nervous. More than anything, though, I’m really sad to be leaving Israel. I had an amazing 3 months here and made some incredible friends. I’ve gotten in the habit of referring to any return trip to Tel Aviv, as “coming home” and it really has felt that way. I don’t think I could move here full time, at least not anytime soon. It’s just too far from my family and friends back home. Like everyone else, ideally I’d want to work out a way where I could spend 3 to 6 months out of the year here. Hopefully whatever sort of tech company I end up starting once this trip is over will facilitate that sort of lifestyle, but it’s getting ahead of myself to really think too deeply about it. For now, I’m just assuming it will be a long time before I’m back here, and am trying to wrap my head around the experience I just had. I really wanted to write a high level piece on this experience while still here, but with the clock ticking down towards the last night of Passover (with family plans in Tel Aviv), my bag still unpacked, and me needing to return this computer to my brother, that article will have to wait until I get a hold of a computer in India. Maybe that’s a good thing as it’ll give me time to process what it is I want to say exactly. We’ll see. Until then, Shalom Yisrael, it’s been epic. Wish me luck on my journey to India.
