To all my loyal readers, and you know who you are, I have not posted in a long while because I have not been within internet access. Now I have internet access and I can fill you in on my vacation extraveganza.
Sunday
On Sunday we traveled down to Eilat. We drove through the West Bank and all that jazz and it was a lot of fun. We travelled through the wide expanse of the Machtesh Ramon, and toured the wonderful, and I mean wonderful, city of Yerucham, where I will be spending my second semester here in Israel. A series of interesting things happened on our trip. The first was on our way to Eilat, at a checkpoint somwhere near the Jordanian border, we were stopped by some Israeli soldiers. We were all prepared for the worst but the soldier just asked us in plain aweful Israeli english, "do you have pen?" Now my dad collects pens, he collects fountain pens and was carrying 3 of his favorite pens in his pocket at the time. So he's prepared to give them a pen. He reaches for his pocket and the soldier says, "no, shit pen. Thus we knew he wanted to keep a pen from an innocent tourist family, so we gave him a bright green pen and were on our way.
Monday
On Monday we woke up early to go to Petra. Petra is cool, look it up, I don't feel like explaining. So we woke up and we're ready to go, and my dad suddenly says..."where's the car key?" We had rented a car, stam. We tear the hotel room apart, looking for this key, we don't find it. It's eventually time to leave and we get on jeeps to take us to the border. On our way climbing down from the jeep my mom finds it in her tote bag. Awesome, Joy, Elation, wonderful start to a day. So we do the border stuff en route to Petra. Petra's in Jordan, just in case you didn't catch that Adam Talmud. Petra is incredible, on the outskirts of an Arab village one walks down a stone path to a narrow gorge that one walks through until the Treasury, it's the 2nd man made wonder of the world. After the Great Wall of China. So, there's this Chzek girl on our tour and she's gorgeous, we'll get to that later. So we walk around and then we're on our way up. Now my parents aren't the biggest walkers and they elected to take a horse and carriage back up to the top of the hill. Now picture, a little horse, carrying my parents, for those of you who DON'T know my parents, think of me, but bigger, on a carriage. Now unique to Petra, the Romans decided to "pave" the road with stones. Now these stones are the size of basketballs, and when a carriage rolls over them, it rocks back and forth. Let's just say my parents were a little shaken up. On our way out of Petra we reached our bus, and we're waiting. We're waiting for this Chzek girl, she's missing 2 hours later she shows up. Now, these Asian-Australian people that were on this tour had not eaten breakfast, and pushing on 2 in the afternoon, they were getting antsy. You think jewish mothers kvetch...asians are so much worse....GAHHH! So, you think I'm done with Monday?.......nope sorry. So on our way back across the border we go through security and I run to the restroom. I had given a bag that I was carrying to my mom to hold while I went and rested. Now as paranoid as Israelis were, they went and looked for me in the bathroom. Talk about odd conversations while you're on the toilet, and talking to a man with an Uzi...hmmm. So I get out, no problem, whatever. So we're waiting for the border police to stamp our passports. So we're waiting, and waiting, and we find out that the computers are down. So we're a bunch of tourists, gone to Jordan for the day, and not allowed back in...ummmmm. Eventually we got back in fine fun vinni vitti veggie...we came, we saw, we ate a salad, lobster bisque...yalla onwards and upwards.
More updates to come
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