Half of us ended up going back home, but as for the other half that stayed... well... most of us ended up trying to go to a Tel Aviv disco. We had hopped from one bar/club to another and no one seemed to want to stay put at any of them. After about an hour of hopping around we finally made it to some fancy club that seemed to close shortly after we got there. Even though it was only a brief time, it was fun times. Some of the Israpals ended up sneaking into the hostel and sleeping on the floor of the other guys's room only to get chased out by the management in the early morning.. I wish I was around to see that.
I met up with my cousin Tom around noon and he took me to a really nice, tiny, Yemen resturaunt where we had some sort of beefy soup with pita and hummous. It was soo very delicious and new to me. Then we strolled down the market and to a coffee shop where we enjoyed our beverages while we talked for a while. From there he took me to Moshav Ein Vered where I met up with the rest of the familiy and had a massive BBQ dinner. It was soo good, but theres only so much I can eat in one sitting. *drool*
The next day I joined Tom and his friends on a hike up Mt. Karmel. It was one of the more challenging of the hikes that I've done since I got here. We ate some Melowa (a VERY GOOD yemenite dish) and enjoyed some funky coffee on the peak of the mountain. On our way down we came across a cave. Armed with only cell phones , lighters and a single headlamp we ventured into the darkness that was before us. It was a really eerie feeling crawling our way through a cave when you cant even see your own hand in front of your face. After about 5 minutes in the darkness with only a single candle burning I was able to make out the shape of the cavern. I'll just say it was bigger than I had thought... pictures to come. After the cave we went wine tasting and got very drunk. Also, the wine diddn't taste that bad at all. From there we went to his friends where we ate some couscous with other homemade things from morocco (i have no idea what they were but it was damn tasty!).
The following day I went to the mall with Metzada. It was a MADHOSE. The kids had the day off school so EVERYONE was at the mall. I shopped a bit, ate some high quality Burger Kings (its actually good here!) I also bought a syringe full of fountain chocolate which I injected into my face throughout the day...mmmm.... Later that night we went to a Yemen Henna party, some sort of pre wedding ceramony with Henna and more great food, funky clothes and borderline irritating music. In all though, it was really neat and I would surly love to go see more.
Yesterday was laundry day.
And now that brings us to today... I'm getting ready to go to Eilat to meet some more of us Canadians where we will attempt to spend our new years in style on the beach. Hopefully it wont be too cold there and I hope that finding my hotel wont pose any problems. The person at the front desk said that he will hide a key for my room for me to find since they will be closed once I arrive.
Its going to be tough leaving behind my sweet digs that I got here, thanks to my cousin Dor who is in Thailand right now. Eventually I shall return and maybe sleep on his couch.
shalom (goodbye)
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Isreal, Still in
I've been here in Israel for about 2 weeks or so and theres so much to write about, I don't even know where to begin... so I'll just start at the begining.
Instead of going into detail about the birthright trip I will briefly go over the events.
We land at Ben Gurion airport after a very long, bumpy flight and were greeted by an organizer that immedietly made us feel welcome and somewhat proud to be jewish. From then we went to a nice Mexican? resturant in Tiberias and then to our nice little kibbutz where we stayed for 3 nights, right on the coast of the Sea of Gallelie (kineret). Over the next few days we hiked up and down a few mountains whos names escape me right now. We also wandered through the mystical city if Tzfat, which was pretty amazing. Thats the first 3 days in a nutshell, and I'm definetly forgetting ALOT.
Later on we headed off to Jerusalem and met up with our new Isreali friends on the street. We played a few icebreaking games in the middle of the road and occasionally had to break for groups of people to walk through and the odd car or two. After that we headed into the old city, where we were rushed around and diddn't really get much info on what we were seeing but it was still nice to look at. At one point we were told to blindfold our eyes and hold hands with each other. I had no idea what was going on at this point, but being blindfolded is usually a good time so I went along with it. As we stubmled blindfolded up and down stairs, around blind corners and into walls, I was told to remove the blindfold. And low and behold, right in front of us was a spectacular view of the Western Wall (kotel). There were people praying all over the place and sacraficing lambs and chickens as far as the eye can see... well, maybe not sacraficing lambs and chickens, but they were preying. I thought the whole blindfold thing was a really neat way of introducing us to the Kotel, especially those of us who have never seen it before.
The next day we went to the holocaust memorial museam, which was one of the nicer of the holocaust museams that I've been to. They really put alot of thought behind everything they do. Even the arcitecture is a symbol of the jewish people and our future. Sometime after the holocaust museam we went back to the Kotel for Shabbat services, which was pretty wild in terms of more people running all over the place and sacraficing bigger animals like elephants and dragons (okay, I lied about that again too). From there we walked back to the Hotel, it was a nice, but VERY slow walk. Later that night we ventured around the kibbutz compound and got word that there was a local bar nearby. We eventually found what was a bomb shelter with loud beats blasting out of it. After a few drinks we attempted to stumble back to the hotel only to be cut off by fences everywhere we turned. Luckily we found some more sober birthrighters heading back to the hotel and they seemed to know the way, so we followed.
Eventually, somehow, we made it to the bedouin tents where we learned about their history, culture, heard their music and ate their food. They have some neat set of rules that they use when someone comes to stay, for example you must cough 3 times before entering a tent and if you overstay your welcome they won't directly ask you to leave, they simply fill up your next cup of tea to the top (as a sign that one should leave). We took part in fake military drills and I may have broken Emma's shoulder.. sorry emma :( Then we drank, smoked narghilla and had fun by the fire all night long.
Next stop was... uhh.... the dead sea I think. After hiking a few moutains earlier that day (cant remember the names, but they sure were beautiful) we finally make it to the dead sea. As we raced the sun to the beach we barely made it just in time. We only had a few minutes of salting before the sun had dissapeared behind the mountains. It was tons of fun to float around and pretend to defy gravity before we were quickly rushed out. On a sadder note, just before heading into the Sea we had to say goodbye to our new Israeli friends. I had tons of fun hanging out with them and learned lots of new things. It was also interesting to get a different perspective on life in Israel from someone closer to my own age. It was also fun listening to them talk openly about us canadians and them forgetting that I mostly understand what they are saying... but at least they didd't say anything too bad.
Whith the soldiers now gone, we headed to tel aviv on our own. Tel Aviv was mostly raining and there isn't much to see there. So we just had a good time on our own, going to some local pub and attempting to check out other scenes while avoiding the rain. We also got a very brief and soggy glimpse of Jaffa, but then retreated to the dry cover of some mall where I tried McDonalds here for the fist time (since I was last here)... it wasn't so good.
So theres the very vuage, rushed, and broken synopsis of the Birthright trip. I know I'm definetly missing out on alot and there are some great details that are too much to recall right now. Maybe someone can fill me in if i missed something big and important.
oh yes, and we went up Mt Arbel.
END
Instead of going into detail about the birthright trip I will briefly go over the events.
We land at Ben Gurion airport after a very long, bumpy flight and were greeted by an organizer that immedietly made us feel welcome and somewhat proud to be jewish. From then we went to a nice Mexican? resturant in Tiberias and then to our nice little kibbutz where we stayed for 3 nights, right on the coast of the Sea of Gallelie (kineret). Over the next few days we hiked up and down a few mountains whos names escape me right now. We also wandered through the mystical city if Tzfat, which was pretty amazing. Thats the first 3 days in a nutshell, and I'm definetly forgetting ALOT.
Later on we headed off to Jerusalem and met up with our new Isreali friends on the street. We played a few icebreaking games in the middle of the road and occasionally had to break for groups of people to walk through and the odd car or two. After that we headed into the old city, where we were rushed around and diddn't really get much info on what we were seeing but it was still nice to look at. At one point we were told to blindfold our eyes and hold hands with each other. I had no idea what was going on at this point, but being blindfolded is usually a good time so I went along with it. As we stubmled blindfolded up and down stairs, around blind corners and into walls, I was told to remove the blindfold. And low and behold, right in front of us was a spectacular view of the Western Wall (kotel). There were people praying all over the place and sacraficing lambs and chickens as far as the eye can see... well, maybe not sacraficing lambs and chickens, but they were preying. I thought the whole blindfold thing was a really neat way of introducing us to the Kotel, especially those of us who have never seen it before.
The next day we went to the holocaust memorial museam, which was one of the nicer of the holocaust museams that I've been to. They really put alot of thought behind everything they do. Even the arcitecture is a symbol of the jewish people and our future. Sometime after the holocaust museam we went back to the Kotel for Shabbat services, which was pretty wild in terms of more people running all over the place and sacraficing bigger animals like elephants and dragons (okay, I lied about that again too). From there we walked back to the Hotel, it was a nice, but VERY slow walk. Later that night we ventured around the kibbutz compound and got word that there was a local bar nearby. We eventually found what was a bomb shelter with loud beats blasting out of it. After a few drinks we attempted to stumble back to the hotel only to be cut off by fences everywhere we turned. Luckily we found some more sober birthrighters heading back to the hotel and they seemed to know the way, so we followed.
Eventually, somehow, we made it to the bedouin tents where we learned about their history, culture, heard their music and ate their food. They have some neat set of rules that they use when someone comes to stay, for example you must cough 3 times before entering a tent and if you overstay your welcome they won't directly ask you to leave, they simply fill up your next cup of tea to the top (as a sign that one should leave). We took part in fake military drills and I may have broken Emma's shoulder.. sorry emma :( Then we drank, smoked narghilla and had fun by the fire all night long.
Next stop was... uhh.... the dead sea I think. After hiking a few moutains earlier that day (cant remember the names, but they sure were beautiful) we finally make it to the dead sea. As we raced the sun to the beach we barely made it just in time. We only had a few minutes of salting before the sun had dissapeared behind the mountains. It was tons of fun to float around and pretend to defy gravity before we were quickly rushed out. On a sadder note, just before heading into the Sea we had to say goodbye to our new Israeli friends. I had tons of fun hanging out with them and learned lots of new things. It was also interesting to get a different perspective on life in Israel from someone closer to my own age. It was also fun listening to them talk openly about us canadians and them forgetting that I mostly understand what they are saying... but at least they didd't say anything too bad.
Whith the soldiers now gone, we headed to tel aviv on our own. Tel Aviv was mostly raining and there isn't much to see there. So we just had a good time on our own, going to some local pub and attempting to check out other scenes while avoiding the rain. We also got a very brief and soggy glimpse of Jaffa, but then retreated to the dry cover of some mall where I tried McDonalds here for the fist time (since I was last here)... it wasn't so good.
So theres the very vuage, rushed, and broken synopsis of the Birthright trip. I know I'm definetly missing out on alot and there are some great details that are too much to recall right now. Maybe someone can fill me in if i missed something big and important.
oh yes, and we went up Mt Arbel.
END
Sunday, December 28, 2008
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