City of Stone

I don't even know where to begin. Right now I'm in an internet cafe in Petra, Jordan, but what lead up to this moment has seemed to take place over a week insteade of less then 24 hours. And the night isn't even over yet. I had one of those great traveling days which makes it worth it to travel.


Me and Annie started off on the midnight bus to Eliat. I thought this took 5-6 hours but it only took 4.

On the bus ride up there a 15 year old continuously puked ON the bus. Not because he was carsick, but because he was drunk.

I was just trying desperately to sleep since I haven't slept properly in forever since Ive been living at hostels.

I even told the boy behind be to "Sheket Bevakesha" but then i found out he spoke English.

ISraelis are soo inconsiderate! On normal buses in normal countries everybody shuts the fuck up. On this bus people were chatting in the middle of the night, puking and playing their cell phone rings.

Annie was talking a lot to the guys beside us, one short and one tall guy and then decided when we landed at 4 am to ask them if we could sleep in the their hotel room.

Not with them-but in their hotel.

But they hadn't booked a hotel so we trapaised around with them in a cab from hotel to hotel until finally I gave up and forced Annie to sleep on a beach.

In these hotels though everybody was up and they all looked about 10 years old.

Its Eilat I guess..? How are these people going to be defending the country in a few years??

So we went down to the beach, dragged 2 loose loungers down the beach, slightly away from the 24 hour blaring hip hop and passed out.

We awoke to a beautiful sunset over the mountains of Jordan, across the sea. OKay well actually I was kind of grumpy and didn't really appreciate it, but it was pretty!

Then we hopped on a bus and asked the driver 'border' and he said yes so we got on.

Then Annie reminded me that I didn't ask him WHICH border and this bus actually only went to the Egypt border.

Comforting that no buses go to Jordan border.

So we hopped into a cab and went through Jordianian customs. Annie got a tiny bit questioned but they barley look at me.

Or maybe they looked at me and was like "hmm nice Jewish Girl" then looked at my passport and thought "ah..nice jewish Canadian girl". and decided that was more then enough.

We thought Jordan was so cheap but it really isnt! Or at least with the xchange rate that we got it wasn't/

A taxi to Petra was about 75 USD.

But we didn't give up and got a taxi to Aquba (11 USD) and then found out their was an Arabic bus going to Petra that was only 7.50 USD.


Oh we are such good, ghetto, budget travelers.

So on this Arabic bus we sat beside two very nice Jordinain men (THEY ARE ALL SOOOOO NICE!!!!!!!!!-not even a litle bit of sarcasm) and they gave us a biscuit that basically was a large mundle broid.

Near the end of the ride the guy beside me started taking pics of us with his cell phone then slid a ring on my finger.

I kid you not.

I am currently engaged to this man who got off at the next spot.
I think.

It was very nice anyways. Who gives a ring to a strange girl with no mutual language in common?

Then we arrived in Petra and happened across this hostel and checked in a private room for only 12 USD a person (btw, im converting Jordinan Dinar to USD)

Let me just sum up what had happened before noon

1. boy pukes on bus
2. we unsucessfully mooch hotel room
3. sleep on beach
4. take wrong bus in direction of Egypt Border
5. cross Jordan Border
6. take Arabic bus to Petra

right so at noon we got a lift to petra. The man driving us form the hostel invited us to a wedding tonight, which we are going to in an hour.

at petra..they don't fucking accept visa and the exchange rate was shit.
So we decided to walk to an ATM machine, to which we got direction times varying between 6 min- 26 min.

Annie hadn't slept at all, and it was extremely hot and she was getting verrrry tired.;

So we stopped in a shop and the man offered to drive us to the ATM machine.

He was 33 and was getting married next week to a 23 year old women. He was very cleanly dressed and had just opened his new shop. He used to work as a Tourist guide. Annie bought water (one of our like bajillion water bottles bought) and I bouight this not-so-good packaged arabic cake thing.

So his partener came and drove us to the ATM and then drove us back to Petra. He was supposed to drive us back towards the shop but we really just wanted to go to Petra already.

So at Petra we pay our extremely expensive fee (30 USD).

Annie sees that horses are available to take us to the entrance to Petra, about 800 mt. away. I refuse because Im a cheap ass and I like walking and have never ridden a horse. but she wins out and so 5 USD each, we hop on a horse.

The only other horse I have ridden was when I was 4 and its attached to a string around a pole. Maybe that was a donkey though?

Okay so I have to go now..but we are only at 2pm! I will updte later!

Soldier Update

Breaking News

OH MY GOODNESS....

ScruffySoldier from Hebron actually just called me. Through a TRANSLATOR. I had no idea what to say and just kinda giggled.

I was forced to give him my number b/c the other 5 or so soldiers thought the situation was hilarious and put my number in his phone.

and he actually called? umm....

Nope....no matter how scruffy he is, the talking thing is still important.

Hebron

I had my first foray inside the West Bank yesterday in the town of Hebron. With the only buses running in Jerusalem to the West Bank, I decided to take advantage of my boredom and go there with a BritishBlonde I met at my hostel.

She is a small, polite girl but extremely adventorous and has traveled to Africa alone and stayed there even when she was held up with a knife. I'm not quite at that point yet.

In Hebron the Patriarchs are buried, but the town has become a ghost town because of the Settlers. The settlers there are apparantly the crazy kind, the kind that whack 6 year old Palestinan girls with glass bottles and belive in the phrase 'an eye for an eye'.

We took the bus from East Jerusalem, got dropped off in Bethlehem, then took a shared taxi. The driver almost ran off the road as he tried to adjust his mini TV screen, showcasing dancing and singing Arabic girls.

BritishBlonde is a toughy and refused to pay an extra shekel (even though we may have actually owed it) and pushed me out of the taxi to the sounds of the drivers insistent honking.

We walked through the market to the tombs and everyone was friendly. No one seemed especially poor, but the town was dirty (the fact that littering is bad is a msg that needs to be taken across the world..remember those commercials w/the bunnies on skateboards? Must broadcast them here!)

There was a clean, shiny, bright shopping mall, everyone was nicely dressed and there was very immodest clothing stores; though goodness knows who could buy them since everyone was in a hijab.

The mosque is where that crazy Jew shot a bunch of ppl 2 decades ago so there is a huge IDF presence now.

The catch is, is that, if you are Christian you can go into the mosque and the Jewish side, if you are Jewish you can't go into the mosque and if you're Muslim you can't go into the Jewish side.

The tombs are in the middle of both the sides.

However, you can only go into the Jewish side on Shabbat if you are Jewish.

So what was I do to?

When the soldier asked me if I was Jewish I just stayed silent. It's not as if I can say I'm not Jewish, that seems so wrong to me since there have been much better reasons for lying about one's Judaism then this one.

But of course the officer knew I was Jewish (hellllo so obvious) but feigned innocence and said I could go into the mosque.

I tried to put up a whole 'personal questions..so discrimnatory' speech, but he wasn't buying it and said at religious places different rules apply.

The mosque was pretty boring, not too pretty and the tombs where inside like square fences.

We had to put on these Jedi like robes to walk in. I'll put pics up soon.

Then when we left, we stopped by the bathrooms and pissed in the ground. Big diff btwn Israel right there...Israel actually as toilets. Here just has....a ceramic hole in the ground with a jug of water that you must use to flush. Also, toilet paper was missing.

But..When in Rome.

Then I started talking to the soldiers, basically b/c I have an obsession with Israeli soldiers.

Me and British Blonde spent over an hour talking to them. In between conversations they would check the Muslims entering the mosque and do the whole metal detector test thingi.

I spotted a hot, tall, scruffy soldier 10 metres away by his post and whispered to BritishBlonde that he was hot. She then felt the need to tell the solider we were speaking to. He then told ScrufySoldier, which causes chaos.

It was like a Checkpoint Matchmaking service.

Of course ScruffySolider didn't speak English. "Not that it matters" said another solider.

But again, I'm kinda into the whole talking thing.


The soldier that we were speaking to for most of the time doesn't understand why I don't like America, plans to travel there for 2 months, has been married for 3 months and is a fake rasict. He was making fun of the Black girl soldier the entire time in a shockingly friendly way.

Example "She can wear all the lipstick colours on her huge lips"

But they were best buds based on language that would get you sacked in Canada.

We finally walked back to the taxi stand in Hebron, but it was a great morning.

Also, we got free candy and a free strange prickly fruit from some vendors.

I've never gotten free candy in Israel....


On the bus ride back to Jlem we went through a checkpoint. i don't know why everyone complain about checkpoints. It was a breeze, the soldier was friendly and chatted to the driver. He just looked at the cover of our foriegn passports and waved us away.

Then, (for which I still feel really guilty about) BritishBlonde and me hopped off the bus at Jaffa Gate without paying.

The driver was honking and honking and honking, but he had forgotten to make us pay in the beginning of the ride.

Ugh poor Arab bus driver. We shouldn't have done that.


Then at our hostel we ran into 2 guys staying there, NewZealandSoldier and EvangelicalSoldier, and made a plan to try and sneak into a Hotel Pool.

It was a hot day and we were all reallllly tired and wanted to chill. In a pool. Jlem has no beaches and has no buses to Tel Aviv on Shabbat.

Our first attempt was at the David Citatel, where the pool guy had a list w/room numbers.

We planned better for our next try at the famous King David hotel starting from 500$/night.

I should really work for Mossad.

We walked in and then I went on a scoping mission. NewZelandSoldier found out that if you went around the back entrance to the pool, one could just jump over a hedge to reach the pool.

I went around first and found that if one walked far enough, there wasn't even a hedge to jump over!

I casually walked in the pool area, set my stuff down and surreptiously changed into my bikini under a towel.

Subtle...I know.


Then I waited and NewZealend Soldier came and sat down beside me.

Then we hopped in.


ahhhh cool, cool, chlorination.

But mission obstacle when the other two didn't....

They pretended that they were married and ended up having to spend NIS 150 to swim for the day.

So half the mission was a sucess.

Then I ended up talking to this couple from Toronto who has a son who I apparanlty went to Tamarack with who also knows my cousins. oooobvvviously. damn JGeo.

Then we went to dinner at Mikes Place and when I went back to my hostel was I was tired I just ended up passing out on the couch instead of going out.

The first sex

I seem to only be in contact with interesting men.

For instance,

Yesterday I was walking to the bus stop to catch a bus to the dead sea when a middle aged American kippa-ed man started asking me directions.

How nice! I thought. A religious-ish person is acknowloging my existence.

He was acting all fatherly, telling me to make sure I had enough sunscreen and admonishing me for not wearing a hat.

Then he asked me for cocktails.

Ummm...how do you say...you're an ugly 50 year old old enough to be my father wearing a kippa so ...NO.

But, being brought up a lady I said I had to run to catch my bus and told him to email me.

Then today,

I was innocently sitting on Ben Yehuda reading a book (NIS 8 Bergdorf Blondes found at a 2 storey used bookshop off of Jaffa st.) when a muscled man in a black tank stop approached me and started speaking Hebrew.

I explained to him in Hebrew that I only speak English.

That didn't seem to deter him speaking Hebrew.

He asked me if I would like to take a stoll.

Now, why would I turn down an afternoon date with a muscled man in a black tank top?

See, I have tried the whole language barrier thing and it's cute for about 2 min until you want more romance then Tarzan language.

Plus, he had ugly teeth.

But before he left he made me write down his number for a stroll tomorrow since I told him I don't do anything on Shabbat.

Oy.


But let me tell you about this way more normal but still hilarious Germanw/aGf. I met him in my hostel. He's German, which always makes for interesting conversation. He was lying on a couch reading a giant, hardback German book. I was bored as I so often am and so started to talk to him.

He is German German and secular and wanted to visit Israel because he met a lot of them traveling other places and thought the girls were really hot. I hear this A LOT strangely.

We talked for hours for the next 3 days. TALKED ppl, remember he is Germanw/aGf.

He said he realized the stereotypes he previously belived was just that is actually true and Jews actually do have funny noses.

As well, Jewish girls are short, with big lips, big noses and big boobs.

He is quite astute eh?

Thus, I do believe I am the stereotypical Jewish girl, but this is no revelation and strangers tell me this on a daily basis.

He also told me about a friend of his sex escapes which I feel compelled to share because they are so funny. His friend used to work at a resort in the canary islands, where he used to sleep with all the women there as the husbands took care of the children.

This friend, who is a major slut, had a step by step process to sleeping with these wives.

1. First he would invite them to play volleyball,
2.then hit on them.
3.Then he would invite them out to a club and
4.tell the husband that he would show them around the next night but that night he should take care of the children.

Apparently out of 60 women, only one, ONE, refused to sleep with him.

Strangely, I fully believe this story basically because my faith in monogomy is flawless.

He believed his friends story because he knew how good in bed he was due to the times they had had threesomes together.

hey...I know you guys love hearing about the sex lives on strangers!

But this guy was really funny and cool and German. Thus, extra cool.

Must go get ready for Kotel.

xx

Terror Attack

So Barauch Hashem I have survived the first terroist attack of my time in Jlem.

It happened a few blocks from my work.

An Arab tractor driver at a construction site literally bulldozed cars, flipped over a bus and was apparantly head towards the big market when a police office shot him dead.

Apparantly the police officer was in plain clothes and climbed on top of the tractor and shot the guy in the head.

2 dead, 30 wounded so far.

Im surprisingly okay. Totally okay. The streets are crazy blocked. Cell phone reception only intermediatlly works as I guess everyone is calling their loved ones.

Last time I was in Jlem one 19 year old girl got blown up on her way to work by a knapsack left outside a bus station.

That time I flipped out.

With no warning, a girl only 3 years older then me, on her everyday routine, probably still sleep at 6am, just.....died.

How do you plan around these things?

One could leave Israel. But one can also die anywhere.

So what to do?


Another intern was on the bus behind the bus that got flipped over. He came in pretty shaken.

But I'm so emotionally fine, even though I was taking a bus on that route 2 hours before.


Update

More people are injured. I have to monitor the talkbacks for the newspaper I
m interning at. The truly scary thing is how extreme people are. Incidents like this just reinforce peoples perceptions of Islam and Arabs. All the comment are all about sending the Arabs back to Jordan.

An 18 year old man (boy) shot the terroist. You should check out the video of it. Its insane. He is just in normal clothes, a blue t-shirt and jeans, and he climed on top of the tractor and shot the guy in the head with his tzit tzits flapping.

http://www.jpost.com/

Then look below at Jpost Video for how it all happened

Shabbas in da city

So I just spent my first Shabbat this year in Jlem. Of course, being me, I spent it with Christians. There I was, at the holiest site in the world, the place towards which all Jews pray, sitting on the cool stones with an Singapore-Canadian, who is working for the UN. Relief agency for Palestinians, and a French-Britain, who had just finished writing a book on museums, and a Norwegian, a band member who told me that it broke her heart that Jews were going to hell. (very sweet girl though)

How did I manage to be in Jewish nation and spend Shabbat with non-Jews?

I really don’t know. One Jewish girl was there; she was also working for the UN. Relief agency for Palestinians.

After the Kotel we went to Damascus Gate in the old city which is, as far as I know, part of the Arab quarter. Here everything was still open for business and the others got some coffee while I just sat holding my Siddur pretending to be a good little Jewish girl by not spending money on Shabbat.

I learned a lot from French-Britain, who had just finished writing a book on museums, basically because he is obsessed with museums and told me that the Israel National Museum is the only museum in the world that is privately funded. Therefore, the state can’t use the museum for propaganda. The example that he used was that the Dead Sea Scrolls could be used as establishing that Jews were their first or whatever, but instead it is just used intellectually.

He was also wearing on of those striped headbands that you can turn into different things like a headband, a touque, a scarf. Basically an overpriced stretchy piece of fabric.

Then we went out drinking (but not the good little Jewish girl) and I learnt all about the bad Settlers in the West Bank from Singapore-Canadian, who is working for the UN. Relief agency for Palestinians. I was personally shocked.
I was and still am part of the whole “But all Israel wants is Peace camp” but I have realized its not all that simple. These settlers in the West Bank are extremely right wing and they apparently beat up the Palestinians. Now, a Jew should not beat up anybody. This guy told me he actually saw these settlers beat up a 6 year old Palestinian girl.

I know. Jews? Fighting? Being mean? Apparently so. If you don’t believe me just youtube search Btselem


Thus, I have decided to visit the West Bank. I think its important to see these things for oneself. How can I judge something that I’ve never seen? Most North American Jews see everything in black and white. And its tiresome, and I think we are going to have to face up to the fact that we’re not all so great and we have our crazies too.

Museum guy wants to see a museum not on the holocaust but on how Germany go to the point where they could do what they did. Very interesting… like how did an entire nation get to the point where they ignored or perpetuated Nazi-ism? The same thing today like in the Congo and Sudan, how do people do those things? I mean…we’re also people. People just like us do these terrible things. So yea, I would like to have a museum to understand how and why! Or a book. But this guy is Museum boy, so he wants a museum.

Internship

The reason I came to Jlem was to do this internship at JewTimes*

*Not the real name but you know those ppl you read about who get fired for blogging about their employers? Don't want that to be me!

So I really had no idea what to expect. None at all. I was supposed to go to Hebrew U but that didn't work out. So I walked in in the afternoon on this super super hot day.

I had a mini clothing crisis in the morning because...what do you wear in a religious city, when its 35 degrees, that is also appropriate for an internship?

I settled on Lulus with a white button up with checkered ballet flats and a pink Burberry headband to accessorize.

I didn't even get lost going there: shockers of shockers.

So I walk into this very quiet, but very large, and of course dusty (this is Jlem) office and kind of wander around for a bit until the editor says 'hi' and tells me to go to the intern room.

There are a bunch of other interns sitting around the table with their Macbooks (yay!).

I still had no idea what I was supposed to do, the hours, the dresscode, the beat..nada.

So I got some info of of..wait..wait for this..

Danielle
Who lives 2 blocks away from me
In Toronto
With medium length curly brown hair
who dated the same guy that I hooked up with (though I didn't mention that part to her---please do not read this blog ever, either of you)
who was drinking a diet coke

basically..ummm I asked..myself.

There is no dresscode thank gosh because I swear I hate most of my jobs because they don't let me wear flipflops.

I didn't have my computer on me so I just kind of sat around trying to think of story ideas until the editor gave me a story to write. But then the computer he gave me was ancient and kept fucking up so I told him I would go home and write it.

I raced home, but it still took me FOREVER and I had to listen to this stupid jackhammer for like half an hour waiting for the bus.

Yes I do take the bus here, please pray for me.

So I actually got back to the hostel , typed out the article in an hour (yay deadline I felt so real journalisticy) and then went to Shoppers drugmart.

Of course I have no real idea how to write articles....which I'm sure showed. So I'm going to have to re-do it tmrw. But I'm excited to learn how and I hope he doesn't just fire me because I turn out to be a total retard and incapable of writing a proper newstory.

I'm happy to have structure this summer, but I don't know what I"m going to do to in my spare time. Probably sit in Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, eat falafel, write this blog, try to improve my newswriting skills, travel on weekends, take up jogging, shop, walk aimlessly around Jlem...

any ideas PLEASE let me know!