Chadica.com

Well, it’s definitely been a couple of weeks. So here’s the update.

Christmas Eve

The strangest thing about Christmas in Jerusalem is how normal the day felt. Stores were open, people were all around. No Christmas lights, or Silent Night on an endless loop. To be honest, it didn’t feel like Christmas at all.

Since Chinese food is hard to find, and the movie theater is far away, we decided to fore go the usual Christmas Eve festivities.  So what to do instead? Well, Jess and I ended up doing different things, but in the same line of though. So what did we do? Well…we went to Midnight Mass. Ironically, in Jerusalem it seems like a cool thing to go to Midnight Mass and see how Christians celebrate. In the states, I would probably never go to Mass. Figure that out?

Well, Jess went with her friend Nikki (grew up Catholic and converted to Judaism about 4 years ago) to a service in the area, while I went with a few people to Bethlehem to see how Christmas is celebrated in the city where Christ was born.

I’m not sure what I expected in Bethlehem. First off, it’s in the West Bank. We needed to bring our passports and go through a security checkpoint to get in. Once across the fence, the entire landscape changed. We went from nicely paved roads, nicer buildings, and Hebrew signs, to very rundown, dirty, and Arabic signs. It was a bit of culture shock, and it was only about 30 minutes from where I live!

We got there a few hours early and they had this whole concert set-up. The weird part of it was, they had a lot of the groups were singing in Spanish. Huh? They would say all of these pro-Palestinian lines at the end, but again it was in Spanish, so nobody was really listening until they said something like ‘Viva Palestinian!” and then everybody would cheer.

Around midnight, we tried to get into the services, but tickets had been sold out for weeks. This is the service that a lot of the big wigs show up to. Supposedly Abbas was there. Outside of the building were a ton of dignitary limo’s with flags from all different parts of the world represented.

We were able to go into the Church of the Nativity by entering the ‘Door of Humility’. Basically it’s a door that is about 4 feet high, so you have to bow to enter or exit. From there, we were able to go to an alcove and listen in to the services, which we did for a few minutes. Unfortunately, we had no clue what was going on, so it wasn’t that impressive.

The most interesting part was just walking around and watching the people. Palestinians were walking around in Santa outfits handing out pro-Palestinian rhetoric. People were there to celebrate, others were there for the free music and festive atmosphere. It was a cold night, and tons of people were walking around selling two from what looked like the tea kettle from their house.

Jessica on the other hand, went to the entire midnight mass, and probably had a much more interesting experience since she was able to get the play-by-play.

New Year’s Eve

So one of the students organized a New Year’s Eve celebration for any of the students that wanted to join. She rented out a bar, organized the open bar, decorated the place, and bought snacks. The theme? Prom. So you know what this means? In the mighty words of Barney….SUIT UP!  So everyone got all gussied up in the finest clothes that they brought to Israel.

Ever weeks of trying to get up the courage, I finally was able to ask the girl I was interested in if she wanted to go to Prom with me. Thankfully, she hadn’t been asked yet and said yes. So Wednesday night finally came along, and I showed up to pick up my date in my finest suit. There was much dancing and hanging out with friends, and midnight came and went.

Overall, a very fun evening. To top off the evening, we caught up with almost all of Jess’s family on Skype.

Packing and Finals

So this week is Finals for Jess. She has had 2 ten page papers to finish, one oral exam in chanting Torah, and 4 additional tests. Needless to say, she has been a bit stressed. As of right now, she is over half done as she handed in both papers, took both the oral exam, and one of the written exams. I’m just tired thinking about all of the work she is doing. Right now, her and a friend are studying Hebrew in the main room.

We are also leaving for Africa late Thursday night (Jess’s last final is Thursday morning). So this week, I’ve been finishing up work and trying to remember where I placed all of the things that I want to make sure to bring with us to Kenya and Tanzania.

This will probably be the last post for a little bit. If we have the opportunity, we’ll try and post while we are traveling, but if not…there will be a long post when we get back with hopefully a ton of pictures!

The hardest travel entry is always the last. It’s the hardest because I am now comfortably sitting at home. No more Da’s, and Na’s, Kvala (Thanks), etc. So now, the vacation is just a memory more then anything. Ironically, I was so looking forward to coming home, yet home isn’t so different then Croatia. I still don’t speak the language, still need to convert currency, etc. At least I don’t have to pack up my life into a small pack every night and then travel to a new room.

Last time I wrote, we had just finished our time on the island of Vis and were now headed inland.

Mostar, Bosnia

Wahoo, new country. So we’re now in a beautiful valley inside of Bosnia in a city called Mostar. One very noticable part of Mostar is the divide. One side of the river are the Muslims, the other side…Christians. The other very noticable part of Mostar is the damage from the war. Modern buildings sitting next to blown out husks. Very new looking buildings in a medieval design, etc.

There isn’t much to do in the city, except for walk around. It was pretty hard to see the real effects of war on the city. Beggers on the streets missing arms or legs. Cemetary’s full of people that died in between 1991 and 1994. Destroyed buildings everywhere you look. That being said, the city had a life to it. The old town had cobble stone sidewalks, great architecture, friendly people, etc.

A centerpiece of the city is a main bridge that connects the east side with the west side. The bridge was 400+ years old, destroyed in 1993 (?) and rebuilt to resemble the original bridge. Apparently there is a club of divers that will jump off the bridge if you pay them 25 Euro (around $40+). You’ll have to see the pictures (below) to get an idea of how high the bridge is, but needless to say….you wouldn’t jump off of it. Apparently a lot of people pay as we saw 2 divers within about 30 minutes of each other. Part of me wanted to pay, just to be able to say that I paid a man to jump off a bridge.

Mljet, Croatia

Mljet is an island off the coast of Dubovnik. It’s a small 35km long island. Half of the island is a national park, and it is all highly. We got their and rented a car to take us around the island. Let me tell you, this car was the smallest POS that I’ve been in. The car was standard, so Scott had to drive, and I don’t think he was enjoying the experience too much.

Our first few spots that we stopped were these sleepy little coastal villages. Not much to do besides swim, hop in a boat, and talk with your neighbors. We then stopped in the national park where we swam in the salt water lakes and visted an old island Monastary.

Probably the highlight of the island and also of the trip was our hike down to Odysseus’s cave. Why they call the island that, I don’t know. The story goes that Odysseus stayed on this island for 7 years. We hiked down to this very rocky part of the coast. Forget the hills and rocky beaches. THis place just had large rocks jutting out of the water. The cave went in from the ocean about 25meters and then opened up to the sky. The easiest way to get into the cave was to swim. The easiest way to get into the water was to jump off the rocks. You could jump from various heights, from 2-3 feet to probably around 25feet. The area was beautiful. The water was clear and a shade of blue that is just…pure.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

The best part of Dubrovnik is the old city. The worst part is also the old city. Dubrovnik is a stop on all of the Meditterean cruises, and so it is very touristy. I can understand why people want to go there as the old city is amazing. It’s a walled city with Guard towers, parapats, and drawbridge. The streets are too narrow for cars. The whole city just feels old. You could almost picture what it would be like to live there hundreds of years ago.

Again, the main thing we did in the city was walk around and people watch. We did stopped in a few churches and a museum or two.

Zagreb, Croatia

Are lsat day found us back at the capital of Croatia, getting ready to fly home. Spent most of the day just walking around the city, looking at Churches, and all of the old architecture. Apparently, finding a place to eat on a Sunday is a difficult thing to do…at least in the area where we were. It’s a nice city to spend a half day in.

I wish I could say the flight back was uneventful. We left for the airport at 3:30pm. Scott’s flight was at 6pm, mine was at 7pm. The airport is pretty small, and Scott and I hung out until he boarded his late flight. My flight was on time to Budapest. I then had a 3 hour layover that consisted of watching the Olympics. The three hour layover became about a 4:45 minute layover. The strange thing about the 3 hour flight to Israel is they turned off all of the lights for take off. (it’s around 2 in the morning).  So I start to dose. Then they turn all of the lights back on and serve dinner and drinks. Dinner at 2:30am? All I wanted to do was sleep. Everytime I started to dose, the woman would come by and ask me something. Maybe got about 30 minutes of total sleep that night because of that. Eventually got to the airport and by the time I got back home it was 6:45am. So about 14 hours total. Oye. I’m still recovering.

That’s all for now. Here are the pictures:

Ah, island time. Basically, hours and schedules have no meanings. The sign says open from 10am to 12:30pm. Might not be open….just because.

So Scott and I are now on the Island of Vis. It’s a small little island with not much to do besides enjoy the beaches, swim, and go diving. So that is what we’ve done. The first thing I should mention about the beaches is that they are not what you’d expect. They are stony beaches without any sand. Which makes lying on them slightly uncomfortable, and sitting even more so. Forget walking barefoot, because that is just painful. The other thing is that there aren’t any waves. 99% of the time the sea has been perfectly calm. The other 1% of the time, a boat went by and created a few small waves. The water is cool and refreshing and the temperature has been hot.

Most of the people here tend to be Europeans with very few native English speakers that we’ve heard. We met an American girl from Seattle and have been hanging out with her for the last day o two, so that’s been nice. As great as it is to hang out with your brother for 10 days, it’s nice to get a change in conversation too.

This morning, we went SCUBA diving. I haven’t been diving since Thailand, so that was about 3 1/2 years ago. It felt really great to get back in the water. The water was colder then I’m used to, but I still had a nice 45 minute dive. I wouldn’t recommend diving here as there isn’t much to see. Supposedly there are octopus, but we didn’t see any :-(. Just saw some eels, lots of fish, a nudibranch, and a stone fish.

The big problem that we’ve had is finding a place to stay. Apparently, all the private accommodations have been booked. So there has been some stress in knowing where we were going to sleep for the night. Tonight will be our third night, and the third place to stay. As for the last week, we’ve stayed in all different types of accommodation. We’ve had our private room at youth hostel which felt like a small prison with a single window and no fan. We’ve stayed in a hostel where we shared our room with 4 others. We’ve also stayed in a hotel room,  and private accommodations. The private accommodations have been nicer since they are people who have extra room in their building and rent it out. Our place tonight has a small kitchen area, personal shower, and a balcony. So it’s been a mixed bag so far.

We actually went to an outdoor theater last night to watch a movie. The movie was ok, but the theater was pretty cool. I kept looking up to watch the stars. Even saw 3 shooting stars….nice.

Well, that’s all for now. Tomorrow, we’re going to head back to the mainland. Thursday we’ll be heading to a town in Bosnia, and then down to Dubrovnik in southern Croatia.

Later,

Two Slightly Burned Travelers

One thing that I love to do is come up with cryptic titles to my blog posts. I’ll get to the meaning of that in a few minutes. First off, pictures are forth coming…probably in a few weeks when Scott gets back to the States.

So let’s get to the gritty details. First of all, I left for the airport at 1:45am. That is an awfully early time to be waking up for the airport. Especially since I went to bed an hour earlier. It took an hour and a half to get to the airport, and then 45minutes to an hour to get through the incredibly tight security. Taking off shoes may seem really annoying, but it’s a slight inconvenience to getting interrogated before you can leave the country. When I say interrogate, I mean everyone gets asked a ton of questions. Where are you going? How long are you going for? Where did you stay here? Where did you go? Are you jewish? What temple did you grow up at? What city? Have you been to Israel before? When? What is your purpose of coming? Etc. This is then followed by putting my luggage through security. Then followed by checking in for my flight, and putting my luggage through security again. Then followed passport control, and then finally going through security again. (and no…they don’t make you take off your shoes)

The rest of my journey was uneventful. I got there before Scott by a few hours. Well the few hours turned into quite a few hours as Scott’s flights were delayed which caused him to miss a connecting flight. So there went a day in Zagreb.

Thursday and Friday: Plitvice National Park

The following morning, we headed down to Plitvice National Park. We stopped at the campground that we were staying to drop our stuff off, but of course the bungalow was not ready. Then we find out that the shuttles to the park leave at 9am and return at 5pm. It was noon. D’oh. We could either find a ride to the park or wait till the next day. So we just pestered every car that was leaving the campground in the correct direction till someone offered us a ride. My first hitchhiking in Croatia….nice.

We also discovered that we should probably have gone from the highest point of the park to the lowest. Instead we started at the lowest point. The reason why is that the area that we were in was completely full of tour groups. Tour groups walk incredibly slow, the guide always holds an umbrella so the group can see him/her and they bunch up so you can’t get around them. Most of the park is on these narrow wooden platforms so you’re basically stuck. Outside of the annoyance of following the umbrella, the park was gorgeous. Think a beautiful valley with steep walls. Inside the valley is a lake, which turns into a waterfall, which turns into another lake, etc….etc…etc. Each of the lakes is a beautiful aqua blue color because of the limestone around it. All around the valley there are waterfalls of various heights and sizes. Sometimes the water just disappears down a hole in the ground and reappears as a waterfall 50ft away. Damn cool.

So this is where we spent Thursday and Friday morning. On Friday we started at the higher part of the valley and didn’t see a single tour group. Much nicer and we were able to stretch our legs and enjoy the hike more.

Friday - Zadar

Zadar is an old walled city along whatever they call the sea that Croatia is next to. Nice and vague…huh? Many of the cities are on little penisulas and the city completely fills it. Most of the wall is gone now, but the city retains that old city feel. Stone roads through narrow streets. I love it. Reminded me of walking through the Old City of Jerusalem….just less history. The city and all of the other cities along the sea have a very mediterrean feel to them. Very white walls with the reddish tile roofs. It’s a beautiful look that just seems to look perfect when you fit it in with the green trees rocky hills, and gorgeous water.

While the city is touristy, it’s nothing compared to Split (where I am currently). It’s interesting walking through the city that combines the incredibly old ruins with the very modern stores. Heck, they had a cinema showing ‘The Dark Knight’ right next to a bunch of ancient Roman ruins. One of the newest additions to the city was a water organ. The waves push the air through pipes which gives a very ethereal and mournful sound to the waves. Definitely enjoyed that, and pictures will never do that justice.

Saturday - Traveling to Split

Todays bus ride was awful. First we got to the bus station, picked up our ticket and then waited for the bus. We had our tickets, and we got on the bus, but of course there were a people in our seat and everybody said just sit anywhere. This idea sounds great up until you realize that they sold about 65+ tickets for the 53 seats available. Thankfully, we had seats. Then the bus started going and we realized that the air barely worked, and we were on the sunny side of the bus. Much sweating later, we make it the halfway point where we are told we need to switch buses. Scott thinks it was because the bus was having mechanical issues. The problem with switching buses is that they were having us switch to an already mostly full bus, and there were about 20 people waiting in line already for the bus. So we jammed our way onto the bus and spent the next 2 hours standing while they added more and more people onto a warm bus. At one point there were about 75 people on the bus made for 53. A lot of people from our original bus didn’t make it onto this bus and had to take a later bus. So the ride was very uncomfortable, but it force me to look out the window and enjoy the absolutely stunning coastline that Croatia has.

Once we arrived in Split, we got off the bus and now it’s 95 degrees out and we’re walking around with our packs on. Oye. Thankfully, our hostel is reasonably close to the bus station. The rest of the day has been much better. We organized and figured out buses and ferry’s and walked around the old palace that is here. The buildings are beautiful and the area is definitely a ton more touristy then Zadar. A highlight was watching the recessional of a wedding in the church inside the palace. I think there were at least 2 couples, possibly more. They had folk singers singing Croatian folk songs and the guests were all singing along. It was beautiful in just seeing a Croatian customs and hearing Croatian folk songs.

And that brings us to now. So far, I’m definitely enjoying myself. It’s great to spend time with Scott, but miss having Jess around. It’s culturally very weird for me to switch from Israel culture to Croatian culture (+ travel culture). First off all, everyone stopped speaking Hebrew. I kept saying yes/no and excuse me in Hebrew…and getting strange looks. Now I have to remember Da/Ne and Kvala (thanks). It’s also very weird because it is a very summery and very beach friendly area. Everyone was walking around the national park in their bathing suits and skimpy clothing and I’m used to seeing people a bit more conservatively dressed.

Tomorrow afternoon, he head out to explore some of the islands near here. Hopefully, we’ll get a chance to go SCUBA diving and maybe hang out on a beach. Good thing I brought a frisbee.