Where You From? Part 3

Well, I've been in Spain just shy of one week now and, yes, I guess I would look like a Spaniard to people in Israel and Egypt. I'm thinking that there's a lot of people from here going over there because there's a "Visit Eqypt" advertisement in pretty much every subway station. Also, if you want a guy with long curly hair, this is your place.

Once again though, no one is asking if I'm an American. The locals are speaking to me in Spanish right away. Even funnier is that I had an American couple come up to me and ask directions in Spanish. I of course answered in English and had a good laugh.

Nana

While in Israel, I had the opportunity to try Nana, which is simply black tea with fresh mint. Wow it's good. What's even more interesting is, on a recommendation, I tried it without the tea bag and absolutely loved it. Yes, it's just hot water and fresh mint but OMG I like it. Aren't the best things the simplest? Nana now gives me another use for fresh mint besides mojitos.

Here's a photo although you can probably picture it on your own:

Walking The (New Testament) Bible

Monday was spent walking around a rainy old city of Jerusalem. My mom would have been proud that I remembered some of the bible references that my guide showed me. As a friend named Gil pointed out on facebook, this was the tour of the new testament (with a Catholic bias for my benefit). Warning: today's story has tons-o-photos!

We started out on foot from the Montefiore Hotel where I was staying with a quick stop at the local coffee shop Aroma for some go-go juice. Yum; lattes in the rain. The first site we visited was the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock. You'd recognize this building as the one with the big gold (yes, it's real gold) dome on it. This was the location of the temple that was around 2000 years ago.


One of the interesting things about the Dome of the Rock is how the bottom half of is (supposedly) constructed of found building materials. Here's a close up of one of the walls. At the bottom center you can see a carved scrolling-type pattern that might have been part of temple or something.


From here we set out to follow the Via Dolorosa, aka stations of the cross. Here's the overview map I found on the side of one of the buildings:


Some of the station sites looked like this one; just a plaque on a wall and not much else. I'll skip the others that look like this one.


Station 9 had a cross available for photo opportunities I think. This one honestly confused me:


From here, we moved into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The next photo is me at the site where Jesus was nailed to the cross.


Here I am touching the rock where the cross was erected:


And finally, in front of the burial site of Jesus (note that it's inside a small building inside the church):


The church, as you can imagine, is important to lots of people; people with lots of different points of view. My guide told me that they have a book of ground rules to cover every detail of building maintenance, times of day when ceremonies can take place, and so on. Once outside though, he pointed out something that isn't covered. This photo shows a small ladder that has been in place since the 1800s (it's in some of the first photos of the church) and no one knows where it came from and no one knows what should be done with it. I think this is a bit of humor in an otherwise serious place.


After the visit to the Church, we went to a few other sites that I don't have good photos for. On the way back to the hotel we came across this spot that shows some bullet-hole evidence of one battle this wall has seen:


Here's a shot of me on a roof top across from the Wailing Wall with the Dome of the Rock in the background. This is the sort of place you can only get to with a guide since he knew where it was and how to get in (It's on a private building).


Wow. All in all, a great trip to the holy land. If you are religious, it's a must-do trip. If you want my guide's name, send me an email and I'll get you his information.

I'm writing this from Cairo as I left Israel very early today. Let me just say that Cairo is CRAZY!

Bible Sites Around Jerusalem

After getting back from the desert, I got a tour of some religious sites outside the old city of Jerusalem. Here's a view from the Mount of Olives of Kidron Valley (with the old city in the background) where judgment day will take place:


This is a shot of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (where it is believed that Jesus was buried) also taken from the Mount of Olives:


Here I am in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus spent his last night:


Tomorrow, we'll be walking through the old city of Jerusalem. I'm really looking forward to it. Hopefully the rain will hold off...

Masada, the Dead Sea, and Dead Sea Scrolls

I spent today outside of Jerusalem with a professional tour guide visiting Masada, some sights near the dead sea, and a couple of spots near Jerusalem. Here's the desert part of the tour...

My guide Dani picked me up at the hotel at 830 and we drove about an hour or so out to the desert site of Masada. He usually leads large groups so today was a relatively easy day for him I hope. Here's a picture of Masada from the road coming in:


If you remember your history and religion classes, what we now consider Masada was built by the oh-so-pleasant King Herod (the guy who had John the Baptist's head cut off) as his middle-age Ferrari of the time. He used it as a winter house and to impress his buds. Everything about it was done to be ostentatious; the fresh-water baths, the saunas, the Roman style, and so on.

The darker side of Masada was the battle fought between the locals and the Roman Empire back in the first century. As the siege took its toll and it became obvious that they would lose, the townspeople decided it would be better to die than surrender and ended up killing themselves. Almost no one was found alive once the Romans entered the fortress.

To get to the top, you take a cable car up and you can walk all over the top of the mountain. It's a very impressive place. Here's a photo of some of the store rooms with the Dead Sea in the back to the left:


We then drove over to a Dead Sea public swimming beach. The sea is about 1000 feet below sea level. The blue-green color of the water was amazing as was the build up of salt along the shore. From what I was told, it is something like 15-times more salty than the ocean. For the record, here's a photo of me in front of the Dead Sea (no, I didn't swim):


Our next stop was the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. The Rosetta-Stone of religions were hidden in various caves around the area. Here's one of the caves:


It was warm and very, very, very, very, very dry out there. After washing your hands, you don't need to dry them because you can really feel and watch the water evaporate off your skin. I ended up drinking almost two liters of water in about 5 hours. Amazing.

Rosh Hanikra

On Friday we drove up to the northern border of Israel. At the spot where Israel, Lebanon, and the Mediterranean sea meet, there's a park call Rosh Hanikra. This park has a cable car (the steepest in the world according to the brochure) that allows you to descend to sea level and check out railroad tunnels that were built along the shore by the British in the early 1940s. This is the view on the way down:


On this site, there are also a number of sea caves that you can walk into and watch the waves break inside them. The day we visited had very big waves so some of the viewing areas were closed. Here's the inside of one of them:


Finally, there's a cool rock formation that looks like a large white elephant. Here's some white guy in front of the elephant rock:


Oh yeah, almost forgot...here's the mandatory stand-on-both-sides-of-the-border photo:

Ashqelon National Park

Ruma, Nicole, and I went to Ashqelon National Park here in Israel on Thursday. It's mostly a beach park with some old ruins mixed throughout.

There are two somewhat-interesting facts about the park that made me include it here. First, it is the site of the oldest arch in the world. It served as the gate to the Canaanite City and was built in 1850 BC (yes...3500 years ago).

Here's me under the semi-restored arch:


The other item of interest is that is the site where, in the bible, Samson "struck down" 30 Philistines and took their clothes to pay 30 companions who had solved a riddle he proposed at his wedding. To me, it seems like killing 30 people for their clothes is overkill but maybe times have changed. Here's the action shot:

Wedding Day

Thursday was wedding day. Most of the day was spent by the family doing prep work with the wedding event starting around 6pm. The actual marriage ceremony took place around 8pm and was preceded by an amazing spread of appetizers (sorry-no photos again...).

Here's a photo of the bride and groom during the ceremony:


There were three things that were different from any other wedding that I have ever been to. First, the actual marriage ceremony was chaotic in that it took place while the "crowd" gathered around (and didn't really stop talking). I think if you blinked, you could have missed it. It was a very nice ceremony though.

Second, the guys here dance with each other...a lot. It's almost a complete role reversal from what you see in the U.S. In the U.S., the girls feel perfectly fine dancing together, holding hands, and so on. Here, it's the guys who dance together. It was nice to see them enjoying themselves so much. To me, the guys enjoy the wedding way more than the girls do. Here's an action shot of the dance floor:


Third, I got a ride back after the ceremony with the bride and groom. Yes, just me and the two of them in the car back to the hotel. Really, it made sense but it was unusual. I just tried to pretend I wasn't in the car...

One other thing that I should mention. The food at this wedding was amazing. Actually, it was almost a religious experience. Thanks to the family for having me at the wedding. I enjoyed it very much.

KitKat

I went for a walk along the shore of the Mediterranean yesterday in Ashqelon (south of Tel Aviv) Israel after a nice work out at the gym.

While out and about, I stopped by a little store to buy a soda, some water, and a snack of some kind. What I found was a small happiness in the form of a local-made (non-Nestle) banana-flavored KitKat. There were about five other “flavors” as well but if you know me well, you’d know that I have a slight addiction to fake-banana flavoring.

Here’s a photo showing the KitKat I bought today along side of the wasabi-flavored ones I bought last week at the Narita airport in Tokyo.

Here they are "open":

I have to say that the wasabi ones from Japan blow away the banana ones I bought today. I guess putting wasabi in a sweet is the Japanese equivalent of when you’re in Mexico and you get chili pepper and salt on your fruit salad.

I’m starting to wonder if everywhere in the world has a local-flavored version of a KitKat. Maybe I can add looking for them to search for refrigerator magnets…

Pre-Wedding Henna

Last night I went to a reception called a Henna that took place after a pre-wedding event. During the pre-wedding event, the bride is “cleansed” for her husband by being submerged in a pool of water. I did not go to this as it’s for the ladies only.

The Henna reception was a combination of Israeli and Moroccan traditions as both sides of the family have similar roots. The food was delicious, especially some roasted sweetened lamb that I ate. Sorry I didn’t get any pictures of the food…

Here’s the bride and groom during the post-dinner festivities:

The entire extended family gathered around the couple and ceremoniously delivered the tradition-required 41 types of desserts in wrapped plates, danced a little, and generally were feeling festive.

After the desserts were “delivered”, another tradition was done where the henna was placed into the palms of all the guests.

This is done for good luck and is kept on the hand for a while, which results in a brown stain being left behind after washing it off. Here’s a shot of Nicole with the paste in her hand:

All in all, it was a very interesting cultural experience and I thank Ruma’s family for letting me participate.

Falafel Lunch

On Tuesday Ruma, Nicole, me, Ruma’s brother, and two of his three kids went for lunch at a local falafel stand that’s attached to a lottery-ticket store. As with all the places around the world that serve the best food, we parked in a dirt lot and walked over and grabbed some plastic chairs and ordered our meal.

The sandwiches were served in fresh, hand-made pitas and had a variety of veggies, sauces, FRENCH FRIES!, as well as the deep-fried balls of falafel. I opted for the not-so-spicy “spicy” sauce on mine. Here’s Ruma and me enjoying ours.

Yum, yum, yum is all I can say. Good for the whole family!

Tel Aviv Israel - Day 1

After almost 24 hours of travel time, I arrived into Tel Aviv yesterday and Ruma and Nicole met me at the airport.

We immediately drove to downtown Tel Aviv and walked around for about an hour or so. It was cool to see the area with its variety of stores, shops, and markets. It's not home but somehow very familiar. I guess all cities share certain characteristics but there's definitely what I feel is middle-eastern flavor to it.

Later, we met up with an old friend of Ruma for dinner at Cafe Noir, which was very nice. The pork schnitzel was great but what I really ended up liking was the Nana tea, which is basically a hot, mint tea. Simple and delicious.

Here's the only photo I took while walking around. Lame, I know. :-) I'll do better from now on.