I was chatting with my friend Kelly yesterday, and she pointed out to me that today is actually the one year anniversary of our road trip to D.C. for President Obama's Inauguration. Time is funny, because in some ways it feels like it was yesterday, and in others it feels like it was so much longer ago than just one year.
It was such an amazing trip for so many reasons - the sense of adventure and excitement, being able to spend a few days out of Chicago, driving halfway across the country and back in a giant purple minivan... President Obama's campaign was the first Presidential campaign that I really involved myself in, and being able to see it come to fruition was so fulfilling. I got to see Pete Seeger (adorable!) and Bruce Springsteen and James Taylor and Steve Carrell and that guy from Harold and Kumar go to White Castle in concert. I had lunch with Jason, and met the D.C. Avodah-niks, and ate the biggest slice of pizza I have ever eaten (Jumbo Slice. check it out). I watched Senator Obama become President Obama, and then departed on one of the longest car trips of my life, where I heard Fear of Sleep for the first time.
More than anything, though, the thing I remember about that trip is that it was the last time I saw Grandma Marilyn - several of my friends spent the morning volunteering, but I hadn't seen Grandma since the August before that, and I wanted to spend some time with her. My Aunt Susan was there as well - she cooked a wonderful breakfast, and the three of us just sat and talked for hours. I told Grandma that I was learning how to knit, and she gave me some of her old knitting needles to take with me. It's one of the best memories I have of her, and it's also one of the hardest, because for the first time I saw how sick she really was. I can't believe that was a year ago.
I am currently in Jerusalem, on vacation. The first semester of classes ended last Thursday, and our next semester starts a week from tomorrow, so we all have a little bit of a break to take some deep breaths and recharge. I have...very few plans for this week. I'm thinking of going to Tel Aviv on Tuesday as long as it's sunny, so I can wander around Nachalat Binyamin and dip my toes in the Mediterranean, and then on Thursday night I'm heading to Arad with my friend Sharon (Sharon from Pardes, not Sharon from N.C.) to stay with her aunt for Shabbat. I'm looking forward to a few days in the desert - it's always so quiet, which is nice, and the stars are so beautiful. Other than that I plan to read and catch up on sleep and watch a few movies. It should be nice and relaxing!
Showing posts with label tea is always the solution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tea is always the solution. Show all posts
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Day 148: Jordan
Let me start by saying this - I found out yesterday that my apartment has heated floors. A lot of other awesome and important things happened this week, and I plan to write about a lot of them, but I feel that if you learn nothing else about what I've been up to lately, you should know that my apartment has heated floors. My apartment in Jerusalem, where most buildings don't even have central heating, has heated floors. This is a geeky reference, but I feel like my apartment is a bit of a TARDIS - it's not necessarily bigger on the inside, but I feel like I'm surprised that I live here every time I open the front door.
My trip to Jordan with Sara was really, really great. We left last Sunday on a bus to Eilat, where we walked through the border crossing (did you know it costs 90.5 NIS to leave Israel if you go through the Rabin crossing?) and caught a cab to what turned out to be a pretty sketchy hostel in Aqaba. We spent Sunday evening wandering around downtown Aqaba, ate dinner at a falafel place and had some of what is now my second favorite dessert food, kanafeh (my favorite dessert is and will always be tiramisu). Kanafeh is two layers of phyllo dough around a filling of sweet cheese, topped with chopped pistachios and drenched in a simple sugar syrup. It sounds a little strange but it tastes amazing, and I plan to learn how to make it sometime this winter.
Monday we broke my only vacation rule (something that happened several times this past week) and woke up early so that we could get a cab out to Wadi Rum, where we were meeting up with our Bedouin guide Radi. Our cab driver, feeling the early hour, decided to stop for coffee before we left Aqaba, and he must have noticed how sleepy we looked because he kept offering us coffee and tea and despite the fact that we both said no several times, he still came back to the car with a cup of tea for each of us.
We met up with Radi at the entrance to Wadi Rum, and he drove us first to his sister's house in Wadi Rum village, where we were served more tea (this became a theme very quickly), and then we headed out into the wadi. Wadi is basically the Arabic word for valley, though it often implies that the valley contains some sort of dried out riverbed. Wadi Rum is the largest wadi in Jordan, and consists mainly of red sandstone mountains that have been carved into beautiful shapes by the wind. We spent the morning hiking and scrambling up to the Burdah Rock Bridge, which looks pretty much exactly like the arches in Arches National Park, but sturdier.
Monday night Radi's cousin joined us for dinner - he brought his oud, and the two of them played and sang for a while. Sara and I also took the opportunity to spend some time stargazing, which was incredibly beautiful - there is zero ambient light in Wadi Rum, so you can see what looks like a million stars. There were a ton of shooting stars, which I now realize was the end of the Geminid meteor shower, and we were in the perfect place to see them. We spent the night in a Bedouin tent in the dessert, curled up under some of the best blankets I've ever used, and then got up early on Tuesday for another climb - this time, we climbed Jabal Umm ad Dami, which is the highest mountain in Jordan. This sounds really impressive, until you learn that it only took an hour to climb, and it's only 1854 meters tall (compare that with the highest mountain in North America, Mt. McKinley, at 6194 meters). Still, it was a beautiful view and well worth the climb.
Tuesday afternoon saw us heading back to Aqaba, where we met up with Sara's friend Sandra, and checked in to the Bedouin Moon Village on the south beach of Aqaba, where we stayed for the rest of our vacation. Tuesday and Wednesday consisted mainly of lounging - in bed, on the beach, by the pool... As Sara puts it, we were growing freckles, and it was wonderful.
Wednesday afternoon contained an attempt at snorkeling. Sandra decided not to go in the water at all - this should have been my first clue that things weren't going to work out well. We walked to the end of a pier, looked out over the water, and our guide told us to jump in. It turns out that diving right in really isn't a good strategy for snorkeling, because my body was not having it - I, having never been snorkeling before, was not really able to adjust to the limited quantity of oxygen I was getting in conjunction with the waves that kept crashing over my head. Sara, being much braver than I, actually swam out to the shipwreck with our guide, only to find that the wind had stirred up the water which had stirred up the dirt which meant that they couldn't actually see anything. All in all, not really a success, but a good attempt.
Thursday was pretty uneventful - we crossed back over the border into Israel, Sara managed to get another three-month tourist visa, and we spent most of the day on the bus from Eilat back to Jerusalem, where it was cold and rainy. Friday morning we returned to Women of the Wall, but I'm saving that for another post, because as always I am processing.
So that's that. Hannukah is over, Rosh Chodesh is over, and tomorrow I am headed back to school. We have four weeks of class left before the semester break, and only one day off, which is pretty strange for us... I guess my time here can't all be spent wandering around the desert. :)
Stay warm!
My trip to Jordan with Sara was really, really great. We left last Sunday on a bus to Eilat, where we walked through the border crossing (did you know it costs 90.5 NIS to leave Israel if you go through the Rabin crossing?) and caught a cab to what turned out to be a pretty sketchy hostel in Aqaba. We spent Sunday evening wandering around downtown Aqaba, ate dinner at a falafel place and had some of what is now my second favorite dessert food, kanafeh (my favorite dessert is and will always be tiramisu). Kanafeh is two layers of phyllo dough around a filling of sweet cheese, topped with chopped pistachios and drenched in a simple sugar syrup. It sounds a little strange but it tastes amazing, and I plan to learn how to make it sometime this winter.
Monday we broke my only vacation rule (something that happened several times this past week) and woke up early so that we could get a cab out to Wadi Rum, where we were meeting up with our Bedouin guide Radi. Our cab driver, feeling the early hour, decided to stop for coffee before we left Aqaba, and he must have noticed how sleepy we looked because he kept offering us coffee and tea and despite the fact that we both said no several times, he still came back to the car with a cup of tea for each of us.
We met up with Radi at the entrance to Wadi Rum, and he drove us first to his sister's house in Wadi Rum village, where we were served more tea (this became a theme very quickly), and then we headed out into the wadi. Wadi is basically the Arabic word for valley, though it often implies that the valley contains some sort of dried out riverbed. Wadi Rum is the largest wadi in Jordan, and consists mainly of red sandstone mountains that have been carved into beautiful shapes by the wind. We spent the morning hiking and scrambling up to the Burdah Rock Bridge, which looks pretty much exactly like the arches in Arches National Park, but sturdier.
Monday night Radi's cousin joined us for dinner - he brought his oud, and the two of them played and sang for a while. Sara and I also took the opportunity to spend some time stargazing, which was incredibly beautiful - there is zero ambient light in Wadi Rum, so you can see what looks like a million stars. There were a ton of shooting stars, which I now realize was the end of the Geminid meteor shower, and we were in the perfect place to see them. We spent the night in a Bedouin tent in the dessert, curled up under some of the best blankets I've ever used, and then got up early on Tuesday for another climb - this time, we climbed Jabal Umm ad Dami, which is the highest mountain in Jordan. This sounds really impressive, until you learn that it only took an hour to climb, and it's only 1854 meters tall (compare that with the highest mountain in North America, Mt. McKinley, at 6194 meters). Still, it was a beautiful view and well worth the climb.
Tuesday afternoon saw us heading back to Aqaba, where we met up with Sara's friend Sandra, and checked in to the Bedouin Moon Village on the south beach of Aqaba, where we stayed for the rest of our vacation. Tuesday and Wednesday consisted mainly of lounging - in bed, on the beach, by the pool... As Sara puts it, we were growing freckles, and it was wonderful.
Wednesday afternoon contained an attempt at snorkeling. Sandra decided not to go in the water at all - this should have been my first clue that things weren't going to work out well. We walked to the end of a pier, looked out over the water, and our guide told us to jump in. It turns out that diving right in really isn't a good strategy for snorkeling, because my body was not having it - I, having never been snorkeling before, was not really able to adjust to the limited quantity of oxygen I was getting in conjunction with the waves that kept crashing over my head. Sara, being much braver than I, actually swam out to the shipwreck with our guide, only to find that the wind had stirred up the water which had stirred up the dirt which meant that they couldn't actually see anything. All in all, not really a success, but a good attempt.
Thursday was pretty uneventful - we crossed back over the border into Israel, Sara managed to get another three-month tourist visa, and we spent most of the day on the bus from Eilat back to Jerusalem, where it was cold and rainy. Friday morning we returned to Women of the Wall, but I'm saving that for another post, because as always I am processing.
So that's that. Hannukah is over, Rosh Chodesh is over, and tomorrow I am headed back to school. We have four weeks of class left before the semester break, and only one day off, which is pretty strange for us... I guess my time here can't all be spent wandering around the desert. :)
Stay warm!
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