Israel: It was a Birthright

I took the photo you see above our first day in Israel. We landed at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv at about 3 in the afternoon and immediately hopped a bus to make the 5 hour drive up to the Golan Heights. Note, our group of 35 kids had only met maybe 15 hours earlier.

I had absolutely no idea what to expect from the trip. All I knew going into it was that, a) I don't like group tours, and b) I'd likely be one of the oldest people on the trip.

To my contrary, I ended up being in the mid-age range for the people on the trip. We had a few youngins, 18 and 21, but most of us were between 24 and 26. Worked out quite nicely if you ask me. Like I mentioned earlier, there were 35 of us, from all over the US. Most were from NYC, some from Florida, a few from the LA area and then the rando, from SLC.

The trip started out on a Shabbat weekend in a town called Hispin up in the Golan Heights. If I were the trip organizer, I wouldn't have started it out that way because most of us freaked out when we realiezd there was nothing to do and nothing you could do because of Shabbat. (For those of you that don't know, Shabbat lasts from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday and you're not allowed to use electronics of any kind during that period.) So what were we left to do? Drink. Earlier that Friday we were taken to a winery and some very smart people bought bottles of wine which saved us after dinner. It was definitely a good ice breaker to say the least.

So we spent a few days up in the Golan and then headed south to Jerusalem. We toured the Old City and saw the Western Wall. It's amazing the energy you feel at the Wall, even if you don't believe in what it stands for. So many people in one concentrated area feeling so many emotions. It's nuts. They let us run free for a night on Ben Yehuda St. in Jerusalem. We went to a hookah bar and drank some local beer.

From Jerusalem they took us back north up to Tel Aviv for the day to see the Mediterranean Sea and an outdoor market. It wasn't too exciting, but I blame that on the fact that they took us to the wrong part of town. Next time I suppose. From there we travelled south again to Masada. We woke up super early the next morning, 430 am, in hopes of climbing Masada to watch the sun rise, but alas that did not happen. We only left the hotel in time to see the sun rise. As we drove our way to the starting point we crossed path with a group of soldiers marching on the road and we got out to walk with them for a while. It was a pretty cool experience. Sun coming up over the desert, walking with a group of 40+ soldiers carrying automatic weapons.

We climbed Masada, saw some amazing views. Then we went to the Dead Sea. Let me tell you... If you ever want to feel like a human buoy, go swim in the Dead Sea. It's the most awkward feeling ever. The water is so slimy, but fairly warm. You just have to trust the water. So you get in, turn around and lean back. Next thing you know, you're floating through the sea on your way to Jordan. After the Dead Sea they took us to some strange animal refuge nearby where we hiked for a while. The day was rounded out with a solid 3-minute camel ride. That was a weird experience too, but a good one nonetheless.

Our last two nights were spent in Jerusalem, another Shabbat dinner. We went to the Western Wall again for Friday night prayers. The second time around was a different feeling. It was more happy and enlightened than the first time. 

Overall the experience was a really good one. I met 35 unqiue individuals with interesting stories to tell. I spent 5 days with incredible Israeli soldiers. I learned that being a Jew doesn't mean you have to believe in God. And that being a journalist is one of the most awesome jobs I could've picked for myself.

NYC: Even your ankles get dirty.

I realize it's been almost 2 months since I last updated, but a lot's been going on. So, I'll just start with my trip to NYC on March 14.

I went up to visit my friend Carly for the first time since she's been living there (which is going on like 3 years). I'd been to NYC three times before, but never just to explore. There was always something that had to be done. But this time, I got to explore and had a great friend as my guide.

There wasn't really anything specific that I was dying to see, so instead we just chose a route that would get me through all the neighborhoods I hadn't seen. So we took the train to Times Square and started there. We walked our way down to Greenwich Village moving on to Tribeca and SoHo and finding ourselves in the Financial District at 5 pm. That's a scary place to be at that hour, let me tell you. We also stumbled upon the Fannie Mae bull, which was surrounded by tourists so we did a quick walk-by snapshot of the two of us. It was cute. Then we proceeded to take the Staten Island ferry there and back, and along the way I taught some tourists how to use their camera.

NYC is a pretty interesting place. It's crazy how you can walk from one neighborhood to the other and feel like you're in completely different places. If I were to move there, I'd love to live in the Village. It's so quite and pretty, but everything is still right there at your finger tips. We came across this tiny hole-in-the-wall, soul-food diner called The Pink Tea Cup where we shared some fritters and coffee. It was totally delish. 

I also happened to be in NYC for St. Patty's day. Let me tell you, that was pretty insane. Carly and I decided it'd be a great idea to start the day with Irish Coffees and walk to Central Park (since I still hadn't seen it) and drink beers out of paper bags. So, we packed a backpack with snacks and ventured out back into the city. We were walking around and heard the beats of drums and the sounds of bagpipes from across the park so we followed the sound and found ourselves watching the St. Patty's day parade. It was pretty freaking awesome. Being in NYC on St. Patty's day drinking beer in the park. Awesome. So we watched the parade for a while and decided it was time to get serious and head to the bars. We met up with her BF and all of his buddies from Brooklyn at some bar, somewhere. Probably called O'Reilly's or something... or maybe no, it was McFadden's. There. That's it. Started our party there, where I discovered it's apparently ok for cops to party in uniform if they're from NY. Interesting. We moved on from there to I don't even know where. We'd made the smart decision to smuggle in a small bottle of Jameson's to the bar. Excellent idea when meeting new people on a drunk holiday. We bar hopped from bar to bar stopping to eat slices of NY pizza in between. It was a pretty good night.

All in all NYC was pretty fun. I have no idea if I could actually ever live there or not. Maybe in the nice quiet neighborhoods where it doesn't feel like the sitting is caving in on you. There's defintely never a dull moment though. We'll see... it might be my calling in the near future.

Stay tuned for the next post: 10 days in Israel.