Thursday morning, I woke up a few extra minutes early to finish packing for the weekend. What I don't understand is that no matter what time I get up, it still takes me until the hour (8 or 10 depending on the day) to get dressed. So I had to stuff last minute food and toiletries into my suitcase. I carried my suitcase to class, actually some nice Israeli did, I put in a locker, and went to class. I have no idea what we talked about because the whole class I was like "I'm going to Jordan...wait I need to pay attention...But I'm going to Jordan". Nevertheless, I made it through class and left 15 minutes early to catch the bus down to Hof HaCarmel. We weren't doing anything important anyway, unless you count two lies and a truth necessary to the learning process. Leaving at noon on a Thursday is just not a good idea. It's when everyone goes home for the weekend so we stopped at pretty much every stop. Luckily, we had a few minutes to spare before we took our first bus to Tel Aviv and so gathered some pastries at the pastry shop at the bus station. The ride to Tel Aviv was one full of giggles. This should not be surprising as we were six girls. There has to be giggling. It was only an hour and a half ride there and we had an hour before our next bus to Eilat so we bought tickets and ate lunch. I had falafel. It was seven shekels for a take-as-much-as-you-want buffet. That's different than an all-you-can-eat. I "stole" extra falafel and fries for everyone. We then hurried to the bus for a six hour ride South. Past Jerusalem. Past Masada. Past Ramon Crater. Past the Negev. We literally went from tip to tip in a day.
Once in Eilat, we had to find our hostel, so creatively named, Eilat Youth Hostel. Not knowing where we were, we asked our safe person (aka random guy with a kippah) for directions and he told us where to go. We eventually got to the hostel, unpacked, and went to sleep...after talking for an two hours. Friday morning the four of us (two went diving with dolphins at an earlier time) got up at 830 went to a delicious breakfast of eggs, bread, tuna, veggies, and random other food. In Israel, no one eats fruit in the morning. It's just an odd concept. Instead they have peppers and carrots and cucumbers. To me, that's a salad, which I like to have in the afternoon. After breakfast, we packed up for the day and walked around North Beach for the morning. If you want to call it a beach with the amount of sand there is. It was like being on a Tropical Island, though. There are stands that line the beach. Funky music playing. Men in bathing suits that should never be worn. The only difference is that Eilat is one of the cheapest places to buy almost anything. After lunch a lunch of PB and Pita (and buying a skirt), we caught up with the other girls and went on a glass-bottomed boat tour. It was a preview of what we were going to see the next day. We saw the borders of Egypt and Jordan and corals and dolphins. There were a few, um, interesting people on board and I don't think the bar was to blame.
Anyway, by the time we got back on land, the sun was setting, ie Shabbat was starting, but we had to make one more stop before out hotel. Ice Cream. One of my friends is worse than my mom when it comes to ice cream. And that's saying something. At the hostel, we napped, showered, dressed, and went to the Red Sea Star restaurant. We had reservations at 7. That was a joke. There were ten people there. We were six of them. The restaurant itself was under water, which was cool, but there were very few fish. And no I didn't have fish for dinner. It was the experience that counted. And it was definitely an experience. When paying the bill, we had too much money. This phenomenon always happens. Everyone pays the bill maybe a few shekels (or dollars) over but despite that, there is always a big tip left. As compromise, we took the extra money and bought cookies with it for dessert.
After talking and giggling for an hour, we set the alarm for 6:15 and went to sleep only to wake up to "Holy Crap! It's 6:30!" We sat up from bed, rushed with getting dressed and packing, grabbed breakfast from the fridge and waited outside in front of the hostel for the next ten minutes. Because we had time to spare, I started eating my yogurt, which a) I stole from breakfast the previous day and b) wasn't actually yogurt. It was Levan which is a cheese type yogurt. But basically it tasted gross and as I was saying how bad it was it slipped out of my hand and fell to the ground. Right side up. This was just the beginning of things to come and it was only 7am. The jeep eventually came and the six of us climbed in. There were two other people in the Jeep. One of which everyone somehow knew. She knew two of the kids on our program and I "knew" her because of Hebrew School. I didn't actually remember her, but we figured out that we both went to Prozdor. It was a seven minute ride to the border and by the time we got there, our hair which we had so neatly combed earlier was now a mess. It was a windowless jeep. We got to the border and waited for an hour for it to open (at 8am) and once it did we made our way to Jordan.
Not without troubles, of course. I never got my Student Visa so they yelled at me to get one. They asked me why I didn't have one and there's no good reason but they kept asking me and I was just like "I don't know". Anway, it was a big ordeal. We eventually made it onto the tour bus with Ali (pronounced with stress on the A), our tour guide. We got a short tour of Aqaba, which was like 10 seconds from the border. It is physically a big town, but the concentrated area is only a few square miles and I swear that we were in the middle of nowhere until we got to Petra. Once in Petra, we walked towards the treasury learning about the rock formations and the Nabateans. When we got the the treasury, there were little kids asking us if we wanted to by postcards (1 for 1 dinar, about $1.50) or if we wanted a camel/donkey/horse ride. "It's either me or my camel...or both." "No women, you cry. No camel, you die. Which is it?" After trying to avoid the heckling, we made it to the end of one of the ancient town and ate lunch. It was included in the price of the tour so it was almost like it was free. And it was a GOOD lunch of real hummus (aka not the cheap stuff that is still good, but not as good) and pita and rice and israeli-style salads. But they had gross desserts. The tour guide let us walk back by ourselves so we booked it back up the mountain so that we could have time to shop. Hey, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. At the Indiana Jones Shop (It's not actually random. One of the scenes from The Last Crusade was filmed in Petra) One of my friends bought sand art that had camels on it. It was pretty cool and just as she and another girl were talking about getting it back to America, it slipped out of her hand and she dropped it. My reaction "At least when I drop things, they're not valuable" the owner of the stand was very nice though and gave her another one. No sooner after we had bough some magnets (3 for 5 dinars), another one of my friends dropped her magnet and it broke. It's expected to be cheap because, well, Jordan is a poor country, but we hadn't even left the stand. Again, the owner was very nice and let her take another magnet. He'll remember us as the those American girls who broke everything. Before destroying anymore property, we got onto the bus for our ride back with a short stop for the best baklava I have ever had. We got back to Israel around 730 and went through security and routine questioning and a hard time about my student visa. I was given exactly one month to get it. Perfect. I leave in exactly a month from the stamped date.
pictures will be up next post. I have real work for the rest of the semester. I actually have to write two papers...the first two of the semester. Here's a picture of the six of us, as a preview.
Once in Eilat, we had to find our hostel, so creatively named, Eilat Youth Hostel. Not knowing where we were, we asked our safe person (aka random guy with a kippah) for directions and he told us where to go. We eventually got to the hostel, unpacked, and went to sleep...after talking for an two hours. Friday morning the four of us (two went diving with dolphins at an earlier time) got up at 830 went to a delicious breakfast of eggs, bread, tuna, veggies, and random other food. In Israel, no one eats fruit in the morning. It's just an odd concept. Instead they have peppers and carrots and cucumbers. To me, that's a salad, which I like to have in the afternoon. After breakfast, we packed up for the day and walked around North Beach for the morning. If you want to call it a beach with the amount of sand there is. It was like being on a Tropical Island, though. There are stands that line the beach. Funky music playing. Men in bathing suits that should never be worn. The only difference is that Eilat is one of the cheapest places to buy almost anything. After lunch a lunch of PB and Pita (and buying a skirt), we caught up with the other girls and went on a glass-bottomed boat tour. It was a preview of what we were going to see the next day. We saw the borders of Egypt and Jordan and corals and dolphins. There were a few, um, interesting people on board and I don't think the bar was to blame.
Anyway, by the time we got back on land, the sun was setting, ie Shabbat was starting, but we had to make one more stop before out hotel. Ice Cream. One of my friends is worse than my mom when it comes to ice cream. And that's saying something. At the hostel, we napped, showered, dressed, and went to the Red Sea Star restaurant. We had reservations at 7. That was a joke. There were ten people there. We were six of them. The restaurant itself was under water, which was cool, but there were very few fish. And no I didn't have fish for dinner. It was the experience that counted. And it was definitely an experience. When paying the bill, we had too much money. This phenomenon always happens. Everyone pays the bill maybe a few shekels (or dollars) over but despite that, there is always a big tip left. As compromise, we took the extra money and bought cookies with it for dessert.
After talking and giggling for an hour, we set the alarm for 6:15 and went to sleep only to wake up to "Holy Crap! It's 6:30!" We sat up from bed, rushed with getting dressed and packing, grabbed breakfast from the fridge and waited outside in front of the hostel for the next ten minutes. Because we had time to spare, I started eating my yogurt, which a) I stole from breakfast the previous day and b) wasn't actually yogurt. It was Levan which is a cheese type yogurt. But basically it tasted gross and as I was saying how bad it was it slipped out of my hand and fell to the ground. Right side up. This was just the beginning of things to come and it was only 7am. The jeep eventually came and the six of us climbed in. There were two other people in the Jeep. One of which everyone somehow knew. She knew two of the kids on our program and I "knew" her because of Hebrew School. I didn't actually remember her, but we figured out that we both went to Prozdor. It was a seven minute ride to the border and by the time we got there, our hair which we had so neatly combed earlier was now a mess. It was a windowless jeep. We got to the border and waited for an hour for it to open (at 8am) and once it did we made our way to Jordan.
Not without troubles, of course. I never got my Student Visa so they yelled at me to get one. They asked me why I didn't have one and there's no good reason but they kept asking me and I was just like "I don't know". Anway, it was a big ordeal. We eventually made it onto the tour bus with Ali (pronounced with stress on the A), our tour guide. We got a short tour of Aqaba, which was like 10 seconds from the border. It is physically a big town, but the concentrated area is only a few square miles and I swear that we were in the middle of nowhere until we got to Petra. Once in Petra, we walked towards the treasury learning about the rock formations and the Nabateans. When we got the the treasury, there were little kids asking us if we wanted to by postcards (1 for 1 dinar, about $1.50) or if we wanted a camel/donkey/horse ride. "It's either me or my camel...or both." "No women, you cry. No camel, you die. Which is it?" After trying to avoid the heckling, we made it to the end of one of the ancient town and ate lunch. It was included in the price of the tour so it was almost like it was free. And it was a GOOD lunch of real hummus (aka not the cheap stuff that is still good, but not as good) and pita and rice and israeli-style salads. But they had gross desserts. The tour guide let us walk back by ourselves so we booked it back up the mountain so that we could have time to shop. Hey, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. At the Indiana Jones Shop (It's not actually random. One of the scenes from The Last Crusade was filmed in Petra) One of my friends bought sand art that had camels on it. It was pretty cool and just as she and another girl were talking about getting it back to America, it slipped out of her hand and she dropped it. My reaction "At least when I drop things, they're not valuable" the owner of the stand was very nice though and gave her another one. No sooner after we had bough some magnets (3 for 5 dinars), another one of my friends dropped her magnet and it broke. It's expected to be cheap because, well, Jordan is a poor country, but we hadn't even left the stand. Again, the owner was very nice and let her take another magnet. He'll remember us as the those American girls who broke everything. Before destroying anymore property, we got onto the bus for our ride back with a short stop for the best baklava I have ever had. We got back to Israel around 730 and went through security and routine questioning and a hard time about my student visa. I was given exactly one month to get it. Perfect. I leave in exactly a month from the stamped date.
pictures will be up next post. I have real work for the rest of the semester. I actually have to write two papers...the first two of the semester. Here's a picture of the six of us, as a preview.
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