FINALLLYYYYY SPRING BREAKKKK!!! This is very much needed especially after dealing with this whole Panhel President issue from 5,600 miles away. What a pain in the ass. SO many phone calls and e-mails and un answered questions. I cant remember what I mentioned in the last post but I called this new greek advisor, sunni, on Monday and things did not go very well. He was SOOOO mean and stubborn and couldnt care less what I had to say. I hung up the phone hysterical. Then I e-mailed the lady from Panhel nationals that he has apparently been discussing this issue with and she was extremely frustrating. Her e-mails consisted of no information or reasoning, she basically just kept saying Sunni and her discussed the issue and he will let me know the final outcome and basically this was all a (in her exact words) "common sense issue" which made me so mad because common sense to me is telling me that this is going on, not letting me find out from other people. So of course now a ton of people are involved. On Wednesday I got an e-mail from Sunni, that he sent out to the entire council and all chapter presidents, about 30 people that new elections will be held on April 12th for my position. He didnt even send me my own email to tell me that that was the definite decision. So Lily, the past president, and I decided to go higher then Sunni. She emailed what we think is his advisor, who she worked with last year, and I e-mailed the Vice President of Student Affairs who has to do with hiring the greek advisor. Binghamton is on break now so I probabaly wont get answers for a little while. Its been a really long and frustrating week with this. Everyone is on my side except for this man and its just so annoying. Thank gd for spring break!!!
I finished my classes Wednesdayyy woooo!!! Ran back and did last minute laundry and packed. Then- Rachel, Lauren, I and the twins got tickets to the Jerusalem VS Tel Aviv Soccer game in Jerusalem. Our first soccer game!! It was so much fun. We didnt know much about it, we just knew soccer was the big sport here and games are crazy. When buying the tickets we had a choice between expensive seats and cheap seats. We felt that just being there would be enough so we just got the cheap seats. Little did we know the cheap seasts were the reject seats where no one is wild and crazy and no one cheers. In every other sections the people go INSANEEEEE!!! Ive never seen anything like it. No American sport compares to these fans. The wholeeee time everyone is up screaming, singing israeli songs and dancing. its the most insane thing!! Everyone is wearing some sort of yellow for the Jerusalem team. We bought yellow Jerusalem soccer tshirts but the "thing" to buy in Israel for the soccer teams is these yellow scarfs. They were selling them everywhere and everyone wears them!! They are jerusalem soccer scarfs. The crowd is just insaneee the whole entire game. EVen the Tel Aviv side which wasnt so big, was soooooo loud and crazy. Our side wasnt that fun but we had fun being there and watching and experiencing it. It was something to definitly see. EVERYONE smokes the whole entire game, its disgusting. You could seee the smoke rising from the top of the stadium, the place reaks of smoke and the entire stadium is just so foggy because of it. The Score at the end of the game was a tie- 1 to 1 so they had shoot outs to break the time. One person from each team would go up and kick the ball into the goal, if one team got it in and the other didnt that team would win. I think there were a total of 9 from each team, so we were there foreverrrrrrrrrrrr!! Finally Jerusalem won :) The crowd went WILDDDDDDDDDDDDD--- singing, dancing hugging the people next to you even if you dont know them, just sooo crazyyy... The game ended sooo late-- around 1230 am and our bus to Eilat was at 7 am the next monring!! We had so much trouble finding cabs because there were so many people. We met up with these 2 german kids from my hebrew class at the game, they were sitting right near us so we took cabs back together but it took soooo long to find cabs! We didnt get home till after 130 am! And we still had to pack and stufff
Woke up Thursday morning at the crack of dawn, around 530 am to go to the bus station for our 7 am bus to Eilat. As we were leaving all the Sea to Sea kids- Yam Le Yam--- (this hike that rothberg does every year over passover break- its a 4 day hike from the 2 seas)-- so they were leaving the same time as us. We were all sooo tiredddd we got like no sleeep last night. We literally all passed out on the bus. Of course the bus had to be assigned seats and I was sitting next to a stranger. We ended up becoming best friends. It was this young israeli guy, 23 years old, he goes to IDC which is a college in Hersyizya and a bunch of his friends and him for going to Eilat, like us, for spring break. SO I got the window seat because we were there early and we had a little brawl about it because he wanted it to but I was there first so I obivously got it. So he finally said fine but I may fall asleep on your shoulder- so I was like soo weird, hes a stranger. He whoops out these oreos and all these snacks and a giant blanket that he insisted I share and we became best firneds-- talked about the army, his school--- it was really cool, one of the first normal israelis I met that werent so fresh and rude. He told me a lot about israel and the people, I learned a lot. Then I passed out and slept for a really long time.
We got to eilat around 12 and had NOOO idea where to go from the bus station. We had nooo idea how far our hostil was from our bus station so we wandered the streets for a reallly long time aimslessly walking. I of course over packed and brought this gianttt suitcase filled to the top while everyone brought duffel bags, so I looked like a complete idiot wheeling my suitcase for an hour on the streets of Eilat. We kept calling to Hostil to get directions and we got closer and closer and finallly found it. I stayed in the same hostil on Pilgrimage and I remembered it so well. It was a nice hostil in a really good location. Our room wasnt ready until late in the afternoon so we stored our luggage in a room and put on beach clothes, got lunch in the mall, and sat at the beach all day. It was a nice relaxing afternoon, we were all soooo tired. The sun went away prety early, at around 330 so we didnt get that much sun but we sat at the bar and had happy hour drinks and some appetizers until about 6. Then we went back and showered for dinner.
We roamed the boardwalk thursday night looking for restaurants but we didnt find that much, everything was alll over the place-- there wasnt like a main restaurant area. We kept finding either really really expensive places or like burgers bar type places. We finally found a really cute cafe-- it was this huge outdoor cafe where instead of chairs it was all big white couches, really nice. So we sat on these giant couches and had a really good dinner. I had a really great salad, it was so good. Then we walked on the boardwalk. Theres like a million stands all over the boardwalk that sell pretty much the same things-- souveniers, cheap jewelery, cheap dresses, bathing suits, all beachy stuff so we went in and out of those places. Then we found this AMAZINGGGG yogurt place called Yogurt Bar-- we fell in love. its similiar to red mango but sooooo much better. You get plain vanilla yogurt and you load it up with all these fruits and sauces, really not bad for you at alll--- we fell in loveee! So we went there. Then we searched for bars and stuff. It was so weird because when I was here on my trip over the summer ALL the beaches were set up as bars and clubs all night so thats where we went, but now none of them were open and it was all indoor places. So we went to this bar called the "beatles bar"--- it was this giant bar alll beatles themed, all beatles music and decorations and drinks-- it was reallly cool. So we all split a bottle of champaigne and just chilled. Nothing crazyyy-- we were sooo tired and we were going swimming with the dolphins tomorrow morning!!!
Woke up friday morning around 9 am to go swimming with the dolphins!!!! Lauren found this site online that does swimming with the dolphins in Eilat at this special place called Dolphin Reef. We ate breakfast at the hostil, which was sooooo gooood--- your typical israeli breakfast with vegetables, cheeses, salads, sooo goood. Then we got ready for the day. We took a cab to dolphin reef and got there really early so we could sit at their private beach. It was reallly reallly reallly nice!! It was a nice small private beach with tons of families. They have a swimming section of the beach where swimmiers swim and then right next to it, just seperated by a bouey is the ocean where all the dolphins are. It was the coolest thing. We thought that this little excursion was like a thing you do in florida where you swim and hold onto the dolphins and make friends with them. This was an ocean filled with wild dolphins that are not trained at all and we were going SCUBA DIVING with them. Not like swimmining and making friends with them, actual scuba diving down 20 feet with wetsuite and oxygen tank and all. We were sooo shocked and nervous!! None of us had ever gone scuba diving before! In America you need a licence to do it. In Israel you need a 20 minute orientaton! SO we were freaking out but eventually got really excited. Our turn was at 1:00. They dressed us in these super super super tight wet suites that we couldnt move in, we were in sooo much pain! Then we were assigned individual instructors. It was really call- we all had our personal teacher!! So they sit down and talk to you about scuba diving, what the equitment is, how to use it, what the dolphins are like, what we'll see, what the signs mean that theyll do to us in the water and how it will work. So bascially the dolphins are not trained at all, you werent allowed to touch them or anything because they will hit you. You were just allowed to watch them and swim side by side with them. My instructor was from France, he was pretty cool. They put on all this weird equipment--- a tank that weighs a million pounds, then all these rock belts so it was sooooo heavyyy-- we were dieing walking to the water. So then they take you into the water, tell you how to breathe and you practice for a while. The slowly they take you down under and they hold your hands the wholeee entire time. Every few minutes they check with you how you were doing by doing different hand movements. Slowly you go further and further down to the bottom, about 20 feet, and there are all these special things you have to do because theres a lot of pressure in your ears. The dolphins swam more towards to top so you on ly really swam with them at the beginning and at the end. But they take you really far down and they take you on a tour of the corals and the fish and there was so much beatiful things down there. All these underwater animals and things that ive nnever seen before-- water snakes, fish, it was crazy. The fish actually came up to you-- they were right in front of you, it was craZY. The whole time the instructor is holding your hands and pointing things out to you and checking to make sure you were ok, it was really great. After about a half hour they bring you back to the top where you swim next to more dolphins. Then you get out of the water. So first they teach you for a haf hour and then your actually in the water at the bottom for about a half hour which is more then enough time because you dont come back to the top at all until the half hour is over. It was a little scary at first because breathing out of an oxygen tank is axctually sort of hard and theres so many things you have to do for the pressure. Once I got used to it it was reallly reallly cool. I was scared at the dolphins at first because they literally swim righttt past you and I was so scared they were going to hit me like they warned us. There was an underwater photographer down there with us and he took lots of pictures of us, I actually bought one. He didnt get me with one of the dolphins because they are too fast but he got a good one. We were all really nervous at first but when we all got back to the top we were sooo excited and we all said that this was by far the coolest thing we've ever done. It was so awesome and such a good way to do it--- this would never be legal in America!! We had such a great time doing it, it was so worth it. We stayed at that beach the rest of the afternoon and got a lot of shots of the dolphins from the boardwalk. At around 230- it suddenly started to rain!! We were soooo suprised because it NEVER rains in Eilat, its a desert. They get rain like 2 times a year, and obviously it had to be today. SO we ran into a cab and ran back to the hotel where we napped and showered. Luckily I was able to still get a nice tan that afternoon I was very happy!!
Friday night I saw andrews cousin, Danielle. SHes on birthirght and she was actually staying in the same hostil as us so it was really nice to see her. She introduced me to her wholeee entire group. Also, Jodi, the girl who im coming to greece with, came friday also with her 2 friends. They stayed at the same hostil also!! SO we went to dinner together friday night. We had such issues finding a restaurant. We called so many places but because its friday night none of them can take us. SO we went to a different cafe and sat outside, it was really nice. I had this giant stir fry salad, it was delicious!!! Then we walked on the board walk, went back to the yogurt place, and just strolled. We didnt want to go out too late because we were all going to Petra the next morning and were leaving at 655 am!!
Saturday morning woke up at the crack of down, 6 am for our Petra tour!! We were soooooo excited. I especially!! I've wanted to go to Petra since 11th grade when I went on Pilgrimage so I could not wait. The 5 of us booked a guided tour through our school during the week. SO at 655 a bus came and picked the 5 of us up. Jodi and her 2 friends booked a petra tour through the hostil and were actually on our tour, they just booked it at the hotel instead-- so it was really nice there were 8 of us!! So they picked us up at 655 and drove us to the border. We were the first ones online at the border, and it didnt open till 8 am so we were really early. The lady in charge of us was great. She collected our passports and entrance money to cross the border, which was $40, and took care of everything which was great. As it got closer to 8- the line got hugeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee--- there were so many people and tour busses!!! All of a sudden the tour guides were getting a call that Petra was closed due to weather conditions!! It was currently cloudy in Eilat and apparently rainy in Petra. Petra is a valley that only has dirt roads, so when it rains there they get all the rain from above and the dirty roads floood. We didnt understand at the time and we were alll having a heart attack. There was no other time we could go!! EVeryone was panicking! Some of the different groups left but we stayed. So they had us wait a while and then the tour guides got calls that it was open so we were able to proceed. We were soooo happpy!!! I could not imagine coming all the way to Eilat and not being able to go to Petra, what ive been waiting for for years!! We were soooo excited. So we went throught the border, and you literally walk from Israel, into "neutral land", then into Jordan. Its actually the coolest thing-One minute your in Israel, then your in no ones land, then you walk into Jordan. You walk from the "vonvage from Israel" sign to the "welcome to Jordan sign". Then we went through Jordanian securuity, which consisted of NOTHING- they didnt even check our bags. Then we waited for about an hour while our passports were handed over to our Jordanian tour guide and he got them stamped and put in order. It took a while because they had to get us visas and stamp everyones passport= but finally we were able to get onto our new bus. There were about 20 people on our tour, the 8 of us and then a bunch of couples-- some of which were spending the night there. Our tour guide was reallly cool, his name was Alli, and we lovedddd him! He took care of EVERYTHINGGG for us, he was so cool. So we got onto the Bus and it started to POURRRR and I mean POURRRRR. It was soooo foggy outside too so we couldnt see a thing and we had a 2 hour bus ride to Petra. The driver could barely see, he was swirving everywhere, it was terrible. You couldnt see out the window or anywhereeee!!! SO we had no idea what Jordan looked like but we knew we were going high up to the mountains. After an hour we stopped at a rest stop, gift shop area for bathrooms and stuff. The arab men in there were very creepy, they kept asking us if we wanted coats. We bought coffee and tea there and studied the people a little bit. I thought it was the coolest thing ever to be in Jordan and I couldnt stop watching and looking at all the people there-- i thought it was so cool. SO then we got back on the bus and it continued to downpour. I was so upset- I wanted to be able to see from my window outside what Jordan looks like and I couldnt see a thing. The whole way on the bus our tour guide spoke about what we were passing and all about Jordan which was very informative-- but still, we couldn’t see a thing! The ride was supposed to take 2 hours but it ended up taking about 3 because we had to go extra extra slow. Finally after 3 hours we arrived in this small little town with a lot of tourist shops. It continued to pour so we all bought these plastic ponchos. Of course they ripped us off because we had no choice, they were like 10 dollars. After we made our purchases our group began our tour of Petra. I didn’t really know what to expect. I really didn’t know much about Petra so I figured it was just a city, but I was completely wrong!! I believe they consider it one of the wonders of the world actually. It’s this city in a valley that is basically made up of giant rocks with tons and tons of carvings in them. It sort of resembles a cave but you aren’t crawling through anything, there is a narrow dirt walkway and you are surrounded by giant rocks and caves on both sides with beautiful roman carvings and things carved into them from thousands of years ago. Every carving has a story so we stopped at almost everyone and Alli told us the history behind it. As you’re walking down, there’s a million camels and horses and carriages that are bringing people up and down the walkway, it was annoying because the walkway is really narrow and every time a horse or camel came by you had to like run to the side and hold on a rock. It continued to rain harder throughout our tour and everyone was miserable. It wasn’t just a drizzle, it was a freezing and pouring rainfall! Everyone dressed for summer in shorts and tshirts, no one was prepared for this weather. It was a disaster. We were all focused on getting out of the rain the whole entire time that I don’t think anyone really paid attention to the tour. It was really cool to see but we were freeeezinggggg and soooo wett and that we couldn’t really focus on anything else but getting back to the bus! The tour lasted about 2 hours, maybe a little bit more. When we finally got to the bottom of the city, there was a huge surprise at the end—The Treasury. It was this hugeeeeeeeeeeeee rock that was carved with all these roman columns. It was beautiful and the coolest thing ever- you keep walking on that narrow dirt road and all of a sudden between the rocks you see this giant building carved into the rocks with these columns!! It was sooo cool. We took pictures there for a while and listened to the history but no one could actually stand there long enough to be in the pictures and our cameras were getting soaked so you had to take pictures fast and you couldn’t be in any. After that we sat in this little gift shop and drank tea and tried to warm up for the walk up. The walk up was even worse. The rain got even heavier and allll the water from the top was flooding to the bottom and we had to walk through it all. The water was almost up to our knees and we just tried to run through it as fast as we could but people kept getting stuck in it and every time a horse came we had to run to the side, it was soo annoying!!! We didn’t stop at all on the way up because we had learned about everything on the way down so it was much quicker. We all had pools of water in our shoes which made it really hard to get back up! It was a disaster. The moment we saw the bus was the best moment of the day!! We ran back on and had the bus driver turn on the heat as high as it could go. It felt soooo good!! We were all dripping. When we were all back they drove us to this hotel where we had a giant Jordanian lunch buffet. It was interesting. Lots of really good salads and humus, like in Israel but then a bunch of hot food that was gross. We were so hungry that we ate it anyway! Then we got back on the bus and drove to the border to go home, this was around 430. The bus ride was silent, everyone passed out. When we woke up about an hour in to stop at a rest stop, the sun came out!!! And I was finally able to see a little bit of what Jordan looked like from driving. It was literally a desert with nothing there other then tents that people lived in. Nothing was on this land. It was completely empty! Really pretty with the mountains in the background, but empty! Finally we got to the border around 700 and already the air felt so warm and dry, as if it had never even rained there!! They took our passports, stamped them again, and we walked to the neutral territory and then to Israel where the bus met us to drive us to our hotels. Such a long day, we were so glad it was over. We came back, passed out for a while then showered.
Saturday night the 8 of us went to this “Mexican” restaurant called Sante Fe. Wasn’t really Mexican at all, had like 3 mexican dishes on it. We were sooo tired!! We got dranks, ate dinner, and walked on the boardwalk. My friend, Jeremy, who I met at the 1 week training camp for my hillel internship at Ramah Durom in Georgia this summer, was in Eilat also. He goes to University of Miami and also did the hillel internship so we met at the training and now he’s studying in Israel somewhere up north for the semester. So met up with him and his friends, walked around and sat on the beach for the night. It was really nice, got to see the big bright lights of Eilat- really pretty. Then we went to sleep!!
Sunday morning, Lauren and Danielle took the 10 am bus back to Jerusalem because their parents were flying in that day so they had to be back. The twins and I stayed and took the 5:00 bus. It was finally 85 degrees and SOOOo sunny in Eilat, the best weather yet! We ate breakfast, packed up our stuff, stored it in the hostil and sat on the beach with Jodi and her friends all day! It was great. We had yogurt bar one last time and walked on the boardwalk again, then left around 415. I got SOOOO sunburnt. Everything hurtsss, it was a very painful bus ride home but luckily I slept the whole time!!
It was a really fun weekend. I was a little bummed out about Petra because I’ve wanted to go there for years and it was such a wash out. We couldn’t really enjoy it as much as we hoped because of the weather. So I’m a little upset but the rest of the weekend was really fun, we had a really great time!!
Rosie and I are going to a conservative Rabbis house for the Seder on Monday night. He was the rabbi of the Shabbton we went to in the Gailee last weekend. He sets people up for Seders so we asked him to set us up and he set us up at his house. It should be pretty interesting. Rosie is leaving for Italy at midnight so we have to be back early .
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment