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bironicA little more than a year later, we finally finish the recap....
(Continued from here)
Days 15-20: Adventures with Roga! Tel Aviv, Herzliya, Jaffa, Jerusalem and more.
Now, where were we? Ah, right—most of the group went home from the airport at three in the morning, and I hung around with a few people who were staying, along with the soldiers who'd been assigned to our group as well as my secret Israeli boyfriend. Happily for me, most of them were going to the same station I was in Tel Aviv; even more happily for me, a lot of them fell asleep and so I ended up traveling with my secret Israeli boyfriend, who I really need to stop referring to as such, but it doesn't matter because this was the last time I saw him and the last time I'll mention him.
ANYWAY. Made my way to the part of town where![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
roga lived, and had a cup of very early morning tea at a coffee shop down the street while waiting for her to wake up. Shortly we were joyfully reunited, bare minutes after which I collapsed into sleep in her bed and she went to class. Oh, the miracle of rest.
When I woke up, or possibly the next day, I got to see Tel Aviv University proper in the brilliant afternoon sun.
As I recall,roga cooked us her tasty local specialties, and we watched something on her laptop. Oh—A Dog's Breakfast and the SGA season premiere. Good times. And then the next day, so that must have been the first, I went to the Eretz Israel history and culture museum, which was mostly empty of visitors but had several interesting exhibits, including pottery and wall fragments dating back 4,000 years, blown glass from Muslim traditions, reconstructed dwellings from the Biblical era, Roman mosaic floors, and this map of ancient coinage:
The next morning before class,roga and roommate and I headed to the beach for breakfast and a swim. Since the Birthright trip had only stopped in Tel Aviv for less than 24 hours, we hadn't made it to the Mediterranean—except briefly in the dark from a boardwalk—so this was lovely.
And in the afternoon, my kooky 80-something-year-old aunt-or-something-by-marriage, whom I'd never met but heard stories about from my grandparents, picked me up in her little car and took us through Tel Aviv's beachfront—
—to the neighboring ancient port city of Jaffa. (Emphasis on the first syllable, unlike in SG-1, which is why I first thought the aliens were pronounced the other way around and now my brain's all screwed up and I hesitate every time I say the city.)
The stone walls had beautiful pitted textures, smoothed over time, with startlingly green plants growing at intervals.
Napoleon welcomes you to Jaffa!
A glance down at the ancient port.
In the visitor's center beneath the main square, there was a big collection of walls that had been excavated one on top of the other from settlements in Turkish, Roman, Greek, Biblical times, others I'm forgetting. Like so many other timeless places, Israel has a rich history of being taken over by empire after empire.
From the top of the main hill you could see across to the Tel Aviv beach/hotel strip.
That night,roga led the way to an outdoor performance of La Traviata, where we had a small picnic and she translated the Hebrew subtitles for me on the fly with impressive ease. We could tell it was popular, but it wasn't until the lights came up afterwards that we got an idea of exactly how many people had shown up.
Then there were fireworks next to us. A lovely surprise.
After the few days in Tel Aviv, we headed toroga's house further out in the country, where I met her lovely family and then also extended family, confirmed that her dad had in fact attended the same New York college as my mom within a few years of each other, and had no idea what most of the conversation was about at dinner because it was in Hebrew, but enjoyed myself anyway. roga showed me amazing pictures from her amazing road trip across America several years ago, and took me to a hilltop in a neighboring town which those of you who know her are probably familiar with and on which we saw some cacti and ruins and the beginning of the sunset and these thistly things that she doubtless knows the name of:
Saturday—my last full day—we took a day trip to Jerusalem to meet up withkassrachel and lomedet and see some of the sights the Birthright students had been prohibited from visiting.
Taking the scenic route, we headed first to the plain where David and Goliath's battle supposedly took place, but we got sidetracked by signs for a stalactite cave and ended up there instead, after many turns around the sides of mountains.roga put up much better pictures, but here's one of mine:
And one of the almost-but-not-quite-touching pair called Romeo & Juliet, but which we might call UST. The tragedy of it is, since the cave was discovered, mineral-rich liquid no longer drips in that area, so they will be forever reaching.
Next came a stop at the little amusement site known as Mini-Israel, sort of the equivalent of England's Legoland, full of miniature replicas of national cities and landmarks (and a few sponsored buildings). Many of them were sites we'd hit on our trip, including the foot-tall Haifa and the ramp leading up to Masada with bitty Roman soldiers. I totally climbed Masada a second time that day. In one step.
Then to Jerusalem! It was such a pleasure to finally meetkassrachel—it's been so long now, it seems like forever ago that I hadn't known what she's like in person—and lomedet was lovely. I was a mess by then, sweaty and sunburnt and with a silly hat and my ratty trip clothes dirty and sunscreen-stained, but thankfully no one has held it against me.
One of the places I hadn't been allowed to venture into was the Muslim Quarter. And the Christian and Armenian quarters, too, but this is where we first went that day. Wonderful bustling markets nestled in narrow streets between the buildings.
The church we visited was I think the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but anyone's welcome to correct me. I don't know where all my trip notes are. This place just kept going on and on and deeper and deeper, domes above, nooks around each corner, a wonderful wandering nested layout that looked utterly unlike the carefully, symmetrically planned cathedrals of the Middle Ages and after, and was just crammed with decoration.
We went to the top of the Austrian hostel, where we heard the mid-afternoon call to prayer, hoarse and tinny and haunting from temple tower speakers, as we gazed out over the rooftops at gleaming domes and laundry line-strung alleys, a sea of crosses, stars and half-moons. I wish I could share the video I took up there with you, but it's got LJers' faces in it. Here is a still photo instead:
On the way, we crossed the Via Dolorosa. Even though my religious education is lacking in multiple areas, the place felt thick with history, even more so than the whole city itself. There walked a man who has had arguably the greatest influence in human history than any other.
On the ground floor of the hostel was a very European café, where the four of us sat and had streudel. One of the city's—the country's—bazillion stray cats watched us lazily from the sidelines.
After the afternoon in Jerusalem, we trekked (by car, whatever) to what was promised to be one of the area's best falafel joints. And indeed, it was delicious, with fresh hummus and pickles and pita and kebabs and I don't even remember what else. A true feast, and excellent conversation, if saddened by the close of my trip and the nearing end ofkassrachel's summer stay as well. We dropped them back in the city after dinner and headed to roga's house to pack and mourn the end of our time together.
The end!
Well, not quite. She graciously drove me to the airport in the middle of the night, and then there were the two flights home, for a total of about 13 hours in the air or about 19 hours from Ben Gurion to Warsaw to JFK. Plane ride fun included napping, reading most of Stiff, snacking, and talking with one of the girls on the flight who'd been on the trip too (there were four of us altogether).
And then I was home, recovering from jet lag, back to work, metdeelaundry at the end of the week for the first time—how times have changed!—and getting ready to annouce my departure for graduate school. And one summer later, we come to the end of the journey.
I suppose now would be the time to speak about what this trip meant to me, its good points and bad, the people I've stayed in touch with and the moments that have stuck with me for twelve months. But I think it's all embedded along the way and in the asides I've made in the last year. But certainly if anyone wants to talk about anything specific, I'm happy to.
(Continued from here)
Days 15-20: Adventures with Roga! Tel Aviv, Herzliya, Jaffa, Jerusalem and more.
Now, where were we? Ah, right—most of the group went home from the airport at three in the morning, and I hung around with a few people who were staying, along with the soldiers who'd been assigned to our group as well as my secret Israeli boyfriend. Happily for me, most of them were going to the same station I was in Tel Aviv; even more happily for me, a lot of them fell asleep and so I ended up traveling with my secret Israeli boyfriend, who I really need to stop referring to as such, but it doesn't matter because this was the last time I saw him and the last time I'll mention him.
ANYWAY. Made my way to the part of town where
roga lived, and had a cup of very early morning tea at a coffee shop down the street while waiting for her to wake up. Shortly we were joyfully reunited, bare minutes after which I collapsed into sleep in her bed and she went to class. Oh, the miracle of rest.When I woke up, or possibly the next day, I got to see Tel Aviv University proper in the brilliant afternoon sun.
As I recall,
roga cooked us her tasty local specialties, and we watched something on her laptop. Oh—A Dog's Breakfast and the SGA season premiere. Good times. And then the next day, so that must have been the first, I went to the Eretz Israel history and culture museum, which was mostly empty of visitors but had several interesting exhibits, including pottery and wall fragments dating back 4,000 years, blown glass from Muslim traditions, reconstructed dwellings from the Biblical era, Roman mosaic floors, and this map of ancient coinage:The next morning before class,
roga and roommate and I headed to the beach for breakfast and a swim. Since the Birthright trip had only stopped in Tel Aviv for less than 24 hours, we hadn't made it to the Mediterranean—except briefly in the dark from a boardwalk—so this was lovely.And in the afternoon, my kooky 80-something-year-old aunt-or-something-by-marriage, whom I'd never met but heard stories about from my grandparents, picked me up in her little car and took us through Tel Aviv's beachfront—
—to the neighboring ancient port city of Jaffa. (Emphasis on the first syllable, unlike in SG-1, which is why I first thought the aliens were pronounced the other way around and now my brain's all screwed up and I hesitate every time I say the city.)
The stone walls had beautiful pitted textures, smoothed over time, with startlingly green plants growing at intervals.
Napoleon welcomes you to Jaffa!
A glance down at the ancient port.
In the visitor's center beneath the main square, there was a big collection of walls that had been excavated one on top of the other from settlements in Turkish, Roman, Greek, Biblical times, others I'm forgetting. Like so many other timeless places, Israel has a rich history of being taken over by empire after empire.
From the top of the main hill you could see across to the Tel Aviv beach/hotel strip.
That night,
roga led the way to an outdoor performance of La Traviata, where we had a small picnic and she translated the Hebrew subtitles for me on the fly with impressive ease. We could tell it was popular, but it wasn't until the lights came up afterwards that we got an idea of exactly how many people had shown up.Then there were fireworks next to us. A lovely surprise.
After the few days in Tel Aviv, we headed to
roga's house further out in the country, where I met her lovely family and then also extended family, confirmed that her dad had in fact attended the same New York college as my mom within a few years of each other, and had no idea what most of the conversation was about at dinner because it was in Hebrew, but enjoyed myself anyway. roga showed me amazing pictures from her amazing road trip across America several years ago, and took me to a hilltop in a neighboring town which those of you who know her are probably familiar with and on which we saw some cacti and ruins and the beginning of the sunset and these thistly things that she doubtless knows the name of:Saturday—my last full day—we took a day trip to Jerusalem to meet up with
kassrachel and lomedet and see some of the sights the Birthright students had been prohibited from visiting. Taking the scenic route, we headed first to the plain where David and Goliath's battle supposedly took place, but we got sidetracked by signs for a stalactite cave and ended up there instead, after many turns around the sides of mountains.
roga put up much better pictures, but here's one of mine:And one of the almost-but-not-quite-touching pair called Romeo & Juliet, but which we might call UST. The tragedy of it is, since the cave was discovered, mineral-rich liquid no longer drips in that area, so they will be forever reaching.
Next came a stop at the little amusement site known as Mini-Israel, sort of the equivalent of England's Legoland, full of miniature replicas of national cities and landmarks (and a few sponsored buildings). Many of them were sites we'd hit on our trip, including the foot-tall Haifa and the ramp leading up to Masada with bitty Roman soldiers. I totally climbed Masada a second time that day. In one step.
Then to Jerusalem! It was such a pleasure to finally meet
kassrachel—it's been so long now, it seems like forever ago that I hadn't known what she's like in person—and lomedet was lovely. I was a mess by then, sweaty and sunburnt and with a silly hat and my ratty trip clothes dirty and sunscreen-stained, but thankfully no one has held it against me.One of the places I hadn't been allowed to venture into was the Muslim Quarter. And the Christian and Armenian quarters, too, but this is where we first went that day. Wonderful bustling markets nestled in narrow streets between the buildings.
The church we visited was I think the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but anyone's welcome to correct me. I don't know where all my trip notes are. This place just kept going on and on and deeper and deeper, domes above, nooks around each corner, a wonderful wandering nested layout that looked utterly unlike the carefully, symmetrically planned cathedrals of the Middle Ages and after, and was just crammed with decoration.
We went to the top of the Austrian hostel, where we heard the mid-afternoon call to prayer, hoarse and tinny and haunting from temple tower speakers, as we gazed out over the rooftops at gleaming domes and laundry line-strung alleys, a sea of crosses, stars and half-moons. I wish I could share the video I took up there with you, but it's got LJers' faces in it. Here is a still photo instead:
On the way, we crossed the Via Dolorosa. Even though my religious education is lacking in multiple areas, the place felt thick with history, even more so than the whole city itself. There walked a man who has had arguably the greatest influence in human history than any other.
On the ground floor of the hostel was a very European café, where the four of us sat and had streudel. One of the city's—the country's—bazillion stray cats watched us lazily from the sidelines.
After the afternoon in Jerusalem, we trekked (by car, whatever) to what was promised to be one of the area's best falafel joints. And indeed, it was delicious, with fresh hummus and pickles and pita and kebabs and I don't even remember what else. A true feast, and excellent conversation, if saddened by the close of my trip and the nearing end of
kassrachel's summer stay as well. We dropped them back in the city after dinner and headed to roga's house to pack and mourn the end of our time together.The end!
Well, not quite. She graciously drove me to the airport in the middle of the night, and then there were the two flights home, for a total of about 13 hours in the air or about 19 hours from Ben Gurion to Warsaw to JFK. Plane ride fun included napping, reading most of Stiff, snacking, and talking with one of the girls on the flight who'd been on the trip too (there were four of us altogether).
And then I was home, recovering from jet lag, back to work, met
deelaundry at the end of the week for the first time—how times have changed!—and getting ready to annouce my departure for graduate school. And one summer later, we come to the end of the journey.I suppose now would be the time to speak about what this trip meant to me, its good points and bad, the people I've stayed in touch with and the moments that have stuck with me for twelve months. But I think it's all embedded along the way and in the asides I've made in the last year. But certainly if anyone wants to talk about anything specific, I'm happy to.
no subject
Date: Jul. 26th, 2009 12:27 am (UTC)(And eee! I love that photo of us exploring the Muslim quarter. Where I bought my Club Vivid outfit, in fact. \o/)
no subject
Date: Jul. 26th, 2009 08:32 am (UTC)And it was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that we visited which, now that I think about it, was an amazing visual contrast/balance to the roof of the Austrian hostel. The Old City, it contains multitudes and extremes.
no subject
Date: Jul. 26th, 2009 12:28 pm (UTC)Your photos are so great -- I wish the ocean looked like it does in your photos every day, and not like smog and heat. (Also I wish I'd actully followed up on the tradition and gone to the ocean this year; roomy and I only went once, alas.)
these thistly things that she doubtless knows the name of:
LOL, I call them "thorns" :/ I am actually far more clueless than I appear online.
And yup, it was the Church of the Holy I-will-never-be-able-to-spell-this-on-my-own-Sepulchre, and you described it beautifully.
On the ground floor of the hostel was a very European café, where the four of us sat and had streudel.
And for the first time, sat down and breathed and talked about fandom, not just about Jerusalem and Israel and trips! It was so fun. The place still reminds me of you guys.
Man, I can't believe it's already been a year. Where does the time go.