The Massive Trip, Part II: Israel

Friday, November 17^th – On the Road Again

I didn’t sleep last night. Maybe it’s just a little anxiety prior to traveling, but more likely it’s paranoia. So far, something not so great has happened every day of the trip. If there was a way for my alarm not to go off at 4:30, it would happen.

Of course, my alarm went off just fine. I considered resetting it for 5, but I didn’t want to push my luck. And a half hour of sleep wouldn’t do me a whole lot of good anyway. I’ll just try to sleep on the bus ride from Cairo to Taba, the border town to Israel.

The bus left at 6:30 as scheduled. And I passed out for most of the trip (thank to the Swiss girl for taking this picture without telling me). I don’t remember anything from the ride. I had five seats in the back row going across. So far, I’ve been really lucky when it comes to being able to sleep on transport.

The bus arrived at 12:30, two hours earlier than I expected. I bought my return ticket to Cairo for Monday so I wouldn’t have to deal with it later. From the bus station, it’s a kilometer or two to the border. The Egyptian side had just a few issues, namely my malaria meds, my Pepto-Bismol (which I take with me everywhere I travel) and my cameras. They destroyed my bag, but everything got restored for the most part.

The Israeli side was a completely different story. Right at the front, I was asked why I was going to Israel. I told them I was visiting a friend at one of the universities, and the first person let me through. They checked my bag for explosives and anything else dangerous, which was fine. Then I came to Shelly. Shelly asked me about thirty questions, ranging from why I had all these stamps in my passport to where my family was from to my two personal favorites: “Do you have an Israeli passport?” and “Are you sure you’re not Israeli?”

After the line of questions, I made my way through to Israel. The view into Israel when crossing the border is just amazing – a great welcome into the country.

There were two times I realized on this trip how important it was for me to come to Israel. The first was when I lost my Visa card and I had to reassess my trip. With such a small budget, my trip to Israel was the first thing to be scratched off the agenda. But once the money came via Western Union, I was elated because I knew I could make it to Israel.

The second realization came as I crossed the border. Surrounded by the azure blue sea, a smile so wide filled my face when I saw the sign “Baruchim HaBaim” – Welcome to Israel. I knew I was welcomed.

I walked a short distance to try to catch a bus to the station, but the buses had stopped coming because Shabbat was approaching. Brien, a man who also was waiting for the bus, and I decided to split a cab to Eilat.

Brien is a man from Holland who has been traveling around Kenya and Tanzania for some time. We exchanged “war stories” from Africa and bonded pretty well, despite the eighteen years that separated us. We each wanted to go to Jerusalem, but buses to Jerusalem were finished for the day. So we put together a game-plan: bus to Tel Aviv, split a room in Tel Aviv, then head to Jerusalem the next night. We bought our tickets to Tel Aviv, mine at the student rate of 58 and a half Shekels (about 14 dollars – 4.1 Shekels = 1 USD), grabbed a slice a pizza, and we were on the road again.

The ride to Tel Aviv through the desert is beautiful. About half way through, we made a quick stop for snacks and drinks. I got myself some Doritos and soda, just enough to keep me going until I could fall asleep in Tel Aviv. I told Brien, as the bus was loading, that it was time to go, but he was in the back of the line. The driver got on, and said something in Hebrew, of which I only understood one word: Kulam – “everyone.” I knew exactly what he was saying – “Is everyone on board?” which is such a stupid question, because what are the people not on board going to say? I could have told him no, but quite frankly, unless you’re family or a good friend of mine, I am not responsible for you getting back on board.

The bus, which left at 3 in the afternoon, arrived in Tel Aviv 7:35, pretty good time. My first mission was to find an internet café, so I could tell my parents I was okay. I had about an hour online, where I was able to get some information about how to get to Jerusalem.

From the café, I wandered around Tel Aviv for about an hour, trying to find a hostel. Some guy offered to take me to one, for 250 Shekels; I told him maybe, and walked away. Instead, I just asked around, and nice people pointed me to Momo’s, which was just a block away from the Mediterranean. I got myself a dorm-style room for about 60 Shekels.

I decided that it would be best to knock out some reading, get a shower, and go to bed. I took a hot shower for the first time in 4 months, which was just amazing, and got my reading done. But instead of falling asleep, I stayed up talking to hostel-mates: Ben, an agnostic German; Eli, a Costa Rican Jew; and Luis, a Mexican Catholic. Despite being exhausted, I stayed up talking with them until 1:30AM, discussing just about everything, including all of our excitement over the new Democratic face of the American Congress. After a night cap – a delicious Stella Artois – it was time for sleep.

Saturday, November 18^th – Tel Aviv and Jerusalem

Up around 9, I got myself a bit of free breakfast that the Hostel provided and a blazing hot shower. I took a couple minutes to check my email and figure out exactly how to get to the Yitzhak Rabin Memorial in Tel Aviv. I remember when Rabin was assassinated. I was still in Yavneh Day School, and the mood of the school was just black around that time. It is one of those events from my youth that still resonates with me.

The memorial is simple – 16 black stones that appear to be thrown by an earthquake. It is supposed to represent how his killing was an earthquake to the Middle East Peace Process, to Israeli politics and to Israel as a whole. There is also a good bit of the graffiti that was written around where he was shot.

When a tourist bus full of Danish people drove up, I made my way out toward the bus station. No buses run to the bus station in Jerusalem because of Shabbat, but Eli and Luis told me that I could catch a monit sherut to Jerusalem. A monit sherut is the closest thing that Israel will ever get to a tro-tro. It is a shared taxi – a van – which, like a tro-tro, will not leave until it is filled. A van this size in Ghana would take between 22 and 30 people; this van took 10. I paid my 25 shekels and by 12:30, we were out of Tel Aviv.

The ride to Jerusalem was short – just 45 minutes. A couple of idiot taxi drivers couldn’t get me to Jaffa Gate Hostel. There are few things that bother me more than a taxi driver who doesn’t know the city in which they work. I ended up walking to the hostel, which was just fine. The hostel is in the Old City, very close to the Armenian Quarter.

I had one goal for the day: get down to the Western Wall. It is a truly beautiful site, with the Dome of the Rock sitting right behind it. I took about 15 pictures, including one with me in it. I could have taken a million shots – this scene is what postcards are made of.

By the time the sun went down, it was cold. I don’t mean cold by West African standards – I mean see-your-breath cold. I got a couple hot chocolates and an amazing kosher hot dog and did some reading at a restaurant near by. After eating, I jumped on the internet, to talk to my parents and my sister. The power of the internet is an amazing thing.

After one last hot chocolate, I returned to the hostel and had a brief conversation with Steve. A sixty-year-old man from Boston who has lived in Asia for most of his life, Steve and I actually found a common love – American football. Despite not being in the States for a while, he still keeps up with his favorite team, the New England Patriots. Sitting around the television, “Collateral Damage,” starring my governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, came on. A couple minutes into the movie, none other but Brien walks in the door – craziness. I asked him what happened to him. He told me that he had to stay in Ashdod for the night and made his way up to Jerusalem that day. What are the chances that we’d end up in the same hostel?

Brien fell asleep pretty quickly, but Steve, another guy and I stayed and enjoyed what was actually not a half-bad movie. Around 11:30, it was time for sleep – another travel day tomorrow.

Sunday, November 19^th – Yad VaShem

There were two things I came to see in Jerusalem: one was the Wall. The other was Yad VaShem, the Holocaust Museum. This was the third Holocaust museum I have visited, and it never gets any easier.

I slept until 10, and from the Old City, I caught the 25 bus to the museum, which is in the opposite side of the city. I could have gone for free, but decided that it would be well worth the 30 Shekels to go on a guided tour.

The tour was just amazing. It’s a brand new building. The building is constructed such that it gets narrower in the middle, which makes you feel constricted and uncomfortable. The museum starts with a blended video, which makes its way across towns in Europe and shows what life was like before and during the Holocaust. The museum runs through every stage of the Holocaust, from the Nazi rise to power, to the Nuremburg Laws, through the Warsaw Ghetto (the cobblestones, bench, lamppost and cart for bodies are all authentic), into the extermination camps like Treblinka, ending with the Allied victory.

There were three things that really stood out to me. The first was a propaganda video from Latvia. The video, like most of the pictures and video, was shot by Nazi soldiers. It showed Latvian Jews digging the ditches that would be graves, and being shot in the back of the head. One after the other. It is a staggering piece of video.

The second was the display of shoes. There is something similar to this in the museum in Washington, D.C. It’s one of those reminders that for every pair of shoes there, there was a body that walked in them.

The third was a family picture from Jewish wedding taken from 1937, prior to the Holocaust. Of the 64 people pictured in the photo, 54 of them were killed during the Holocaust. Just unbelievable.

I wasn’t supposed to take any pictures, but here are a few more

One Nation...
Jude
Tools to measure Jews' facial features
A torah recovered from Kristallnacht

The last bit of the museum is a memorial cemetery, dedicated to the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust. It is made of two domes: one toward the roof filled with 600 pictures, the other below filled with murky water and reflections. The entire room is surrounded by books of files with names and profiles of people killed. They said that they had 3 million profiles and hoped that the empty shelves would fill out soon.

After walking through the Avenue of the Righteous – a pathway lined with trees dedicated to non-Jews who helped Jews during the Holocaust – I went to the Children’s Memorial. One and a half million children were killed during the Holocaust. It is beautifully and darkly represented with pictures of children as well as a room filled with candles and mirrors, creating the illusion of thousands upon thousands of lights, representing their lives. Over a speaker system, the names, ages and cities of the children are read. After many years of being open, the list has yet to be read through completely once.

After sipping on a hot chocolate, I took the city bus to the bus station. I got some more shekels, bought my ticket to Eilat and a slice of pizza, and I was back in a bus. It was possibly the safest ride I’ve ever taken. 14 members of the military/police were on my bus – myself not among them, although it sure looks like it.

The trip took 4.5 hours through the beautiful desert. I got a hostel room for 20 dollars, dropped off my stuff and went on the hunt for an internet café, which was surprisingly hard to find. I ended up in a massive mall, which just felt kind of weird. It was just a bit of culture shock, but I came around quickly. I checked my email, talked with my parents for a few minutes and then time ran out.

I headed back to the hostel and got a delicious chocolate pastry, some sliced chicken and some bread for dinner. I planned on showering, watching the Real Madrid game, and then going to bed. But then I found American football – the Bears and the Jets – on TV. Woo! I stayed up until about 3 watching the game. I’d have to be up at 7:30, but I didn’t care. It was football!

Monday, November 20^th – The Israeli Side

I got up at 7:30 as scheduled, took my last hot shower until I get home to California, packed and got out by 8. I walked to the bus station and caught a city bus to the border. Everything went smoothly at the border. I got asked, again, if I had an Israeli passport, and if I was sure of it. Uhh, ya. I’m sure.