The Traveler Times

Nearing the end of my journey I have become a traveler who longs for the taste of home.  I have spent the last year either in Ohio or traveling through the middle east and I am ready for it to come to an end.  There is a phenomenon that takes place after one has left home after the age of 19.  Up until the age of 19 a person longs to leave home and wants to break free from the parental rule and figure out life on their own.

But there is a change that takes place at 20 or so.  Note, this theory is not for everyone, but it works for me and probably at least a few other humans that graze this earth.  At 20 a person will be away from home, either at school or some other place and they will long for home.  They will want to be around their parents because they finally realize that the sole purpose of parents was not to stop the good times from rolling, but to raise a child that needs rules and discipline.

Now at 22, I think that I could actually see myself living in Chicago somewhat near my parents.  This is quite a drastic change from my previous plan, which was to live in some crazy country, not a particular one, just one that it far away.

In addition to family another aspect that deters me from living abroad is the language barrier.  Learning an entire new language is hard work that I really don’t feel like putting all my energy toward.  There are many more noble causes that I run after.

Lastly is the good of US of A.  Living in any other country would be sacrificing tremendously.  Things just work better in the US and it is true that each person is free and has the ability to pretty much do whatever they set their heart to.  Plus, we dominate in the olympics.

Buses, Taxis and pick up trucks

This is kind of my rendition of getting to Dahab.  Traveling in Egypt has been quite an experience and I have learned so much that it will take me months to unwind and really understand all that went on.  I would say a huge percentage of the thinking and experience that took place was during the 19 hour bus ride of Luxor to Dahab.  First, this bus ride could have been done in at least half the time in any other country, but with a combination of smoke breaks, picking up hitch hikers, security checkpoints, gas fill ups and fights we were a little delayed.

Traveling in Egypt has given me a deep deep appreciation for the good ol US of A.  where I can get from point A to point B in a reasonable amount of time.  Anyways, on my long and arduous bus ride I was able to contemplate a few things.

The first thing I thought about was how I missed my travel buddy Gabe.  We had traveled Egypt for a week together and had an incredible time and I wish that he could have joined me to Dahab.  In general things are just loads more fun when you can experience them with someone else and he was a solid traveler.

Another thing I thought about was child labor.  Pretty related, I know.  As I was on the bus I looked out the window to see that a majority of the crops in Egypt are still harvested by hand, and by the hands of children.  The children are most likely the sons of the Egyptian man who owns the field.  For the most part, men in Egypt it around and smoke hookah, unless of course they are trying to make me ride in a taxi, take a camel ride or buy something I don’t want. 

Back to the children.  I don’t think that it is necessary bad that they are working in the field as much as my 7th grade english teacher hyped it up to me.  She made me think that child labor was possibly the worst thing that man kind could have ever done.  I think it is good that these kids are working, that is instead of just sitting around.  The real blame for child labor rests of the country that it is taking place in.  The low wages are actually helpful to these people because it can put food on the table, but if they were to be paid the same amount that people are paid in the states than they would be making more money than very respected jobs in these countries.  Instead of people pointing fingers directed at these businesses that are employing child labor they need to also realize it is a problem of the government who is too corrupt to provide for the children.

I can explain this better when I don’t have a ticker counting down the minutes I have left in the internet cafe.

You Know Your Israeli If…

If you have never spend adequate time with Israelis or spend a significant amount of time in Israel then there are a few things that you don’t know about Israelis.

The first area of life where you could consider yourself Israeli would be concerning cleaning, that is, if cleaning is the proper word to use.  Israelis don’t necessarily ‘clean’ as much as they push off to the side.  The mandatory implement that allows Israelis to complete this action is the squeegee.  The squeegee is absolutely essential to the Israeli and can be used in almost any setting.  The preferred usage is after a bucket of water is poured out upon a floor.

Lets say that the floor in your apartment is dirty, well no problem in Israel, the solution is to pour out a bucket of water and then squeegee all of the filthy water into the hallway or in front of your neighbors door and then leave it to dry.  Or, if you are one of the university employees a method could be to dump a bucket of water in the hallway and then squeegee the nasty water right outside the entrance so that every person entering the building must walk through it.

This experience can best be summed up by a simple statement.  Hey roommate, “where is the mop?” Response, “What’s a maup”

Secondly, you know you are Israeli if you drink Nescafe.  A normal coffee drinker will take coffee beans, grind them up and then have hot water run through them.  But in Israel, that is way too much work and will only be done at a cafe.  The single option to drink coffee at home is by getting a spoonful of brown mystery powder from your jar of Nescafe and dropping it into a cup of hot water.  So if you are coming to Israel and thinking that you will experience amazing middle eastern coffee, you have come to the wrong country.  My suggestion is to hit up the local starbucks so it doesn’t go out of business.

Oil

I think that I am finally coming to a realization of the true problem that is taking place when it comes to Oil.

Recently, we have found out that there are billions upon billions of barrels of untapped oil that are just laying out in the depths of the ocean which surrounds the US.  Also, we have the technology to drill for this oil without causing destruction of the ocean. So the question is,  “why aren’t we drilling?”

One reason is because house democrats turned down a bill regarding this matter and I have a theory regarding the other.

A group of Americans led by Al Gore want to ruin America.

They scream about stopping our dependence on foreign oil and at the same time they will not allow us to drill domestically.  It puts anyone who wants to come up with a logical solution into a hole.

I have figured out the way that most politicans work.  They point out a problem, point fingers and make people get scared and then do nothing about it.  It is always the easiest to point out what is going wrong, but the most difficult to fix it.  Thinking about Obama’s platform, I think that it gathers most of its energy (renewable of course) from pointing fingers and turning American’s against their own government.

I would enjoy if each time a politician pointed a finger at Bush or our government they would have to come up with at least a small idea on how to fix the problem.

Photographer?

No, I’m really not a photographer.  As much as I would like to have high megapixel pictures to remind me of how cool I am, it just doesn’t happen.

I’m thinking about hiring my brother to follow me around for a year to document my life. I wonder what the price is for a personal photographer?

Jordan

Not the Micheal Jordan that played for the Bulls, but Jordan the country. 

Last weekend I was planning on heading to Eilot, which is a city in the south of Israel that sits on the Red Sea and my plan was to take the midnight bus on Thursday night and then hang out there for a couple of days. Well, the bus filled up and I was unable to get a seat.

Instead of taking a taxi back home for 30 shekels I planned on sleeping at the bus station.  I stated talking with 3 American Christians who had also missed that bus.  While we were sitting there and talking one of the employees at the bus station told us we had to leave and could not wait at the bus station any longer.  Since these guys didn’t have a place to stay, I invited them to stay at my apartment for the night and then we could head out tomorrow.

So the 4 of us crashed at my apartment for the night.  They also invited me to go to Petra with them.  Why not, I have wanted to go to Petra anyway, why not with some other Christian guys.

After taking a few buses, taxis and crossing the border we ended up in Petra.  Pretty desolate.  It is dessert and mountains, nothing more.  On our journey to Petra I found out that they are hardcore Pro-Palestinian and work for a newspaper in the west bank.  Needless to say we had some heated conversation all throughout our time in Jordan and I did not associate with them when crossing the border back into Israel.

These guys had been working for the newspaper for about 2 and half months and were very adament about their position.  They had become so devoted to their cause that they felt like God had ordained them to spread news about the occupation to the world.  Not only that but they had become anti-Israel to the point of being angered whenever they would see an Israeli soldier.

I will write another blog in a little bit about the Palestinian issue.  Sorry to only give a teaser now, but I have already written more than enough.

Anyways, while in Petra we slept outside under the stars one night and in a hostel the next.  That first night we went hiking through some canyons until dusk when we finally found a spot that was beautiful and gave an amazing view of the starry sky.  We then woke up the next morning, hiked all of Petra which was about 10 miles in all and then stayed at Valentines.  It was a hostel that cost less than $3 dollars per night and we watched Indiana Jones.

A Traveler

The life of a traveler can be seen from many different angles.  And right now I am seeing it from a more relational aspect that has caused me to think more about frienship in general.

As a traveler you meet people who will be in your life for a short amount of time and then they are gone.  It is very unusual for a relationship to be more than just a quick time of getting close and then one or the other leaves.  Here in Jerusalem I have met some pretty amazing people, but I know that it is only going to be short term.  I will have a few great memories with them and then it will be over.

At first I was thinking of this as bad.  But while I was talking with my mother she explained that the locals enjoy entertaining guests from other countries and it is just how it works. I agreed because I like entertaining people from other countries as well.

On a friendship note, one must have more than just traveler relationships.  I have noticed that bad home I sometimes have travel relationships with friends.

An Aqueduct

Today we went on a ‘tee-ouwel’ (excursion in Hebrew) to the old Aqueducts that brought water from Mt. Hebron to the temple.  The aqueduct was cut right through the rock and was at a very small decline until it reached the temple.  The engineering is pretty amazing and the aqueducts were used for a long time, until around 1900 when the Turks tried to improve it, but really ended up destroying it.  So now, there is no water flowing, just a tunnel cut through the rock that is just big enough to walk through. 

There is so much here in Jerusalem that it is almost daunting to try and conquer it all in only a month. I really need to get a book that tells me all of the places that I should visit because right now it seems impossible to check out all that I would like to see.

Last weekend I went to Tel-Aviv.  Much different from Jerusalem, but it is still Israel.  I ended up sleeping on the beach for one of the nights, because that is what people do here in Israel when they don’t want to pay for a hostel.  The cool thing is that it worked fine and it was one of the best nights I have had in Israel.  My guess is that is because the night before I didn’t sleep.

Well, how could one sleep with Liela Lavon going on?  That means white night and all of the shops stay open all night and there are free concerts up and down the beach.  Pretty neat stuff.  Needless to say, I had a good experience with that and met some cool Israelies.  The girls we met didn’t speak much English, so it was just the moment for my Hebrew to shine.  Shine is probably not the right word, but I had about the equivalent to a 4th grade conversation.

Sorry about the lack of pictures, but I am working on it.  I have taken about 10 pictures so far of the trip and I need to find a computer that I can load them onto.  What I really need is a woman who likes taking pictures.  I do not take pictures, not that I am opposed to it, but it just never crosses my mind to get out there and do it.  So I need someone else to do it for me.

The Honeymoon Is Over

My first week in Jerusalem is now over and I can official say that the honeymoon feel has worn off.  I don’t want to make it seem like I don’t enjoy being here, but I am beginning to see the city for the city it actually is.

Probably the best way that I could explain Jerusalem, outside of all the amazing historical sites, is that it is sketchy and expensive. 

First, Sketchy.  Walking in Jerusalem from one side of the city to another should not be done.  That is because the city is sketchy.  For example, a few days ago I was at a friends house and after hanging out I decided to walk home.  They lived on the south side of Jerusalem, while the student dorms are on the north side.  The walk was a little more than an hour, but was quite stressful.  After walking around the old city, which was not a big deal, I then entered into a Palestinian nieghborhood.  Probably not the best place to be wandering around and hoping that it leads to the university dorms.  Well, while I was walking through the prayer call went off.  Usually the prayer call kinda freaks me out because it is some guy just reading stuff off in arabic.  This time I surprisingly felt much safer when the prayer call went off because I figured that the Palestinians would be much less likely to mess with me during a prayer time.

Thank the Lord that they didn’t mess with me.  There is one great thing about being in Israel, and my friend Funny (yeah, thats her name, shes Swedish) said it.  “God really protects his children here in Jerusalem, it’s his city.” 

Second, Money.  One would think that coming to Israel (the middle east) would mean that everything is cheap.  Like I could go to the shook (market) and buy food for an entire week for like 5 dollars.  Yeah, not so much.  Every little thing here is expensive, and it has totally blown me away.  I have spent more money in the last week than I have spent in a long time.  My advice for anyone planning on traveling to Israel is this: Bring everything you can from the US.  I thought it would make life much easier by just bringing a backpack.  Possibly if my only time here would have been traveling.

The Old City

Yesterday I had the afternoon free so I decided that it would be a good idea to head to the old city.  I apologize ahead of time for not taking any pictures, but I am hoping to visit the old city many more times, during which I will try to take some pictures.  From where I live on top of Mt. Scopus I can see the Old City, as in the walled city with the Dome of the Rock, the Jewish quarter, Christian quarter and so on.  It doesn’t really look too far away, so I decided that it would be a good idea to try and walk there.  The only map that I had did not have many details and did not really help me out at all.  So I got lost on the way.  I didn’t end up wandering through any sketchy Arab neighborhoods, but I did end up on the Mt. of Olives.  I thought that it would be a shortcut to walk through the Mt. of Olives, but as I got to the end of the trail I realized that it totally stopped at the edge of a steep ravine.

I think that the real problem was that I was wearing sandals and forgot to bring water.  I wore out pretty quick.  I tried to forge my own path through the Mt. of Olives, but the dried up grass would poke my feet and I would step on burrs.  After about an hour of this, I finally made it back to the Hebrew University.

But I still wanted to go to the Old City.

So I hopped on the first bus that came by my dorm room.  I figured that because in the old days all roads led to Rome, the road outside my dorm would have to lead to the center of the city.  The bus didn’t take me exactly where I wanted to go, but I was fortunate to have met a couple of girls who showed me how to get to the Old City.

So I walked in the Jaffa Gate, which is probably the biggest one, and it is in the Christian quarter.  I walked around for a while amidst all of the vendors trying to get me to enter their little shops.  My mission was to buy a bag so I could put my books in it. 

A little sidenote: whenever going to Israel, don’t try to buy things in Israel, they are NOT cheap, bring them. 

So I was wandering around and found this guy who was selling leather bags.  I’m pretty sure the bag is made out of leather, although I can’t be completely sure.  I wanted to see how much I could pay for the bag.  At the beginning the guy wanted 250 sheckles.  I know, a rip-off.  I told him I wouldn’t pay that much, so he said, ”Ok, special price, just for you…200 sheckles.”  That is about 60 dollars, but still way too much.  He did the same thing again, about making me a special deal.  Well after a few times of that I finally got the bag for 110 sheckles.  That is like 33 bucks.  I’m not completely stoked about the deal, but the bag is great and it really does a great job holding my books and helping me look cool for the Hebrew ladies.

After buying the bag I continued to walk around the Old City.  I went to the western wall, which is where the Jews go and pray, and also the Damascus gate and stuff.  Well, I was wandering through this one area, which I should have known probably wasn’t the greatest idea because there weren’t any American tourists, when one of the Israeli Policemen told me I had to turn around and go back because I wasn’t Muslim.  True, I am not Muslim, so without any protesting I walked back to the non-Mulsim part of Jerusalem.

I finally made it out of the Old City, just to get lost again.  I came out of a different gate than I first came in so my directions where all off.  After wandering around for about 30 minutes a nice Jewish guy, who I think was orthodox helped me out.  First, just a little note, for Jewish men it is obligatory to give money to a person who is begging on the street corner, so if you need a little money, go hang out in the Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem.  Anyways, he pointed me to where the bus stop was that would take me to the University.  Well, I found it and made it back to the dorms.

More adventures later.  And I will try to take some pictures, even though I forgot to bring that cable that hooks the camera to the computer.  Whatever.