I've Got Friends in Low Places
Trip Start
Aug 28, 2009
1
12
17
Trip End
Jan 05, 2010
Rehovot, HaMerkaz, Israel
Friday, November 13, 2009
Among all of the amazing things about Israel, the ease with which you can move from city to city by public transport is high on the list. I left Noga and Rehovot on Tuesday on a bus and arrived in Beer Sheba, situated right at the northern tip of the Negev Desert, in two hours. All the buses and trains are packed full of soldiers--kids my age--coming or going, some carry M-16 rifles slung across the shoulder. It makes you feel safe. My friend Ofir picked me and took me to her house in Meytar, close to Beer Sheba. Beer Sheba itself is a University town now, and the hookah bar we went to was authentic, not like the expensive imitation ones we have in the states. There are bedouin villages filling the gaps between the two cities--Arabs, living out in metal huts in surprisingly large communities illegally, without electricity or any public works.
So back to the Dead Sea. Before we went into its salty waters, we went on a short hike down to a spring called Ein Boqeq. It's a beautiful trail, taking you down along the water to the place where it begins to flow. I had two amazing girls--former soldiers of course, we're in Israel, who isn't?--show me the way. And then to relax, we snuck into a Dead Sea Resort where there are as many old people as grains of salt in the sea itself, and hung around the pool. Finally, the dead sea. I walk in slowly, waiting for the burn that every says with come. I'm covered in Dead Sea Mud, looking quite ridiculous, and I lean back and my legs swing out from under me and I'm floating on my back on the water's surface. And it burns just a bit.
Two hours later, I'm on a train to a city farther North of Tel Aviv called Natanya. My skin is more bronzed and has a dead sea glow about it. I step off the train and my mother's old friend from her time in the Kibbutz, Tamar, is waiting for me. The Kibbutz Ma'abarot is a special place. My mother came over when she was seventeen to volunteer, and the families have stayed in touch over the years. I got to see almost the whole family, Naor, the youngest is 23 and we have some beers and play poker--shanti shanti--on the roof of one of the apartment complexes catching up until 3 am. The next day Tamar shows me around the kibbutz, not quite as communal as the original plans for it were as it has become more privitized over the years, but its still a unique community in that every one knows each other and can eat together, learn together, and work together. Like a college campus of sorts in its feel. I drive through the open fields of avocado and fish farms, taking in the sense of open freedom that Europe lacks. Later that night, we hop a train to Tel Aviv to visit Amitai, one of the older brothers, and we sit around playing guitar and chatting for hours. Conversations in Israel flow smoothly from topics of the Palestinian conflict to which is the best pub in town. There's a sense of balance, you can discuss the serious things right next to the light hearted things. Yin and Yang.
It's 12:30, I've missed the last train back to Rehovot and have gotten on a bus to Beer Sheba, hoping it stops some where close to Rehovot along the way so I can get back to Noga. No one speaks English, because its so late. The first time I've felt the language barrier as such an obstacle. I get off at Yavneh, in the middle of no where, and wait for Noga to come. Some girls sit at a supermarket, chilling out, and tell me to come sit with them. They offer me pringles, water, Arak, Vodka, and Hashish. I'm too tired for any of this, but I find them amusing and they seem to find me from Miami fascinating and as foreign as I find them. One of them giggles and tells me I look like Justin Timberlake. I tell her that's the first and only time I'll ever been told that, but Todah Rabah anyway. Noga pulls up, I breathe a sigh of relief. I haven't stopped moving in 3 days. No time to think, no time to worry, just MOVEMENT.
I still have another night in Israel, and its going to be a good one. It's shabbat, the party night. Israelis stay up very late, starting to party at 12:30 and not stopping until 5 or 6 sometimes. I've done this pretty much every night I've been in Israel. It gets exhausting for an American boy. But the culture here is amazing. Since I've stepped off the plane I've had this intangible sense of being home. Not home like American blue jeans and apple pie which is home in its own right surely. But home, with people who understand where I'm coming from. With the freedom to be who I want to be with unobstructed ease. With MY people, who I've been unable to find in Europe. Oh, Israel.
