A Week in Israel

So I was suppose to stay in Israel a month then fly back to my cousin's in Florida. The plan was to figure out what Im gonna do with my life since I moved from Hawaii and wanted to take on the world. Or I should say the take on the east coast.

However, the one month of intensive arabic lessons were so good, I decided to stay longer in Egypt rather than go back and forth and waste money and time. I do wish I had more time in Israel but the classes were starting so I came back for that.

I landed in Tel Aviv and met some guys at the hostel. I was only there from 1am to 11am and connected up with three guys. It was nice to come together briefly and meet people who were all going in opposite directions than me and talk about whats going on in our lives and the world.

There was this one kid Tim who was traveling with his dad and heading up to Jerusalem. I joined them for the ride up and Tim's dad left so we hung out the rest of my time in Jerusalem. We
stayed in the old city and walked all over the place.

I saw a bunch of historical sites. But the stories of those places really mean more to me than the actual place. Its kinda like reading a book then seeing the movie. The book is always better because you are in that place when you read it and you become so much more a part of it then when you see the movie.

There were a few places that were cool. My favorite was the Garden Tomb. They don't know if that's the actual place but there was a tomb there and there is a skull on the mountain and the place was called golgotha and there were skulls in that area, for some reason, I forget. But all the possibilities added to my image of the garden tomb. It really doesnt matter to me where it was, because what matters is that he rose and isn't there anymore. So it was a good visual and really set the place for me.The other place I really liked was the Dead Sea. It is amazing how the salt builds up. The sea is beautiful and the Jordan mountains across the water are real pretty. There is so much in that area, Ein Gedi, where David hid from Saul, King Herods fortress and so much other places. There is even a waterfall in the mountains. The area is total dry desert. I would like to go back and just spend some time exploring the desert area of Israel.


To top off my trip I took a bus to Eilat and met my friend from Egypt. Gaby was there to deal with some visa details. We spent a day at the beach and then took a bus back to Cairo across the Sinai. It was a 5 hour ride through barren, barren desert. But every now and then the bus would stop and pick up some guy standing in the middle of nowhere. I wondered how he knew what time the bus would come and what he was doing there.

It was typical Egypt. Theres some really funny quirks about Egypt that just boggle the mind. I can't help but love it in a strange way.