I went to a MASA megaevent (MASA is a joint project between the Jewish agency and the Israeli government which has 150 long term programs for Diasopora Jews after high school--Career Israel is one of those programs) last week in Tel Aviv to hear Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, speak. He was actually the first head of state I have ever seen in person, so that in itself was cool. It was very unceremonious. Once we were all sitting in the convention center (after having gone through tight security of course), they announced him, we stood up and clapped, and he was on stage...no ceremonial music, no applause for fifteen minutes--very different than how I imagine it would be to see Obama speak! Immediately he told us all that he was thrilled we all came to Israel from dozens of great countries from around the world, but that "My one message for you all is--Israel is your home! You MUST make aliyah!" And basically all the speakers told us the same thing, very straight-forward. So MASA definitely does not win any points for subtlety!! But I'm not surprised. Bibi also talked about how Israel is a Jewish state, Jerusalem is a Jewish city, and how it will never be divided again. So it is easy to see why he is so decisive and why many people have a problem with him! But I think it is safe to say most people in this audience were moderate to hard core Zionists.
This past week was Shavuot, a major Jewish holiday commemorating the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people at Mt. Sinai after 40 years of wandering in the desert. It is custom to stay up all night studying the Torah. It is also a custom to consume diary foods on Shavuot, so we had an ice cream party in my apartment Thursday night--we ate so much ice cream, it was ridiculous!! In Jerusalem, people congregate at the kotel to pray as the sun rises after studying all night. Rose and I really wanted to be at the kotel on Shavuot, so we woke up at 5:00 am Friday morning and walked there (about a 45 minute walk). By the time we got there, hundreds of people were already leaving (apparently people began to gather at 4:30 am!!!). Yet there were still thousands of people there. So many people were there, that they extended the barrier between the men and women all the way up the pavilion. It was an amazing thing to witness. You just see thousands of men in black hats and wearing talit praying and swaying vigorously. Everyone is praying to themselves beneath their breaths, but with all those people, you just hear a loud humming throughout the area. It's incredible. We then walked home and went back to bed!
One of the things I am looking forward to when I get back home is being able to go to the grocery store 24/7 (Walmart!!). Here in Jerusalem (in other parts of the country it is somewhat different) everything closes for at least 24 hours every week (Shabbat). You need to prepare in advance, because if you need something on a Saturday from the grocery store or whatever, you are basically out of luck. And there are so many Jewish holidays, it seems like everything is always closed another day of the week as well. Because of Shavuot, stores closed at about 3:00 pm Thursday, and were closed all of Friday and Saturday. It can be difficult. I took for granted in the states the fact that grocery stores are only closed one day the entire year!! And of course buses don't run at all on Shabbat or on holidays, which also makes it difficult when you rely on public transportation. But I have made an Israeli friend who owns a car, so that definitely comes in handy!! (So we are actually seeing each other--I guess! It's been a lot of fun dating an Israeli--all part of the experience!)
Other random observances and facts:
*Israel does not have an open container law. It is perfectly legal to drink a beer or any other type of alcoholic beverage in the middle of the street--anywhere! My friends and I have done it a few times here, but it just feels so odd.
*Israeli drivers are crazy! Motorcyclists (and sometimes cars!) often drive on the sidewalk--no joke.
*I live incredibly close to the West Bank and the security fence. I went for a walk this past weekend with a couple friends, and we have an amazing view of the fence. It is a large gray wall that winds around as far as the eye can see. However, there were some areas where there were huge gaps in the wall, which I don't really understand! It's really incredible to live that close though.
*There are quite a few Arabs in my neighborhood. However, they tend to remain very separate. They have their own buses that run through my neighborhood all the time. Aside from a few Arab teenage boys whistling at my friends and I (which is just fantastic), I have never had any real interaction with any. I did walk through an Arab neighborhood right near my own two weeks ago, and I didn't feel in any danger whatsoever (although I did take off my star of david necklace just in case).
*Partying in Jerusalem is really fantastic and interesting. You have such a unique mixture of completely secular people and then you have Yeshiva boys wearing yarmulkas and tsitsit and in suits dancing next to you in the club!
*Israeli pastries (especially the chocolate rugelach) are dangerously delicious.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
Egypt (Cairo and the Pyramids)
I got back this morning from Cairo, Egypt which was definitely the craziest (and most exhausting!) experience of my life. I woke up at 6:45 Saturday morning to go for my run before work per usual. I packed up everything I would need and brought it to work with me. I left work at 3:00 and caught a 5:00 bus ride to Eilat. It was 5 hours, but quite uneventful. Leora and I met up with Rose and Evan (who live in Tel Aviv) in Eilat and got dinner and walked around when we waited for our tour group to pick us up at the bus station at midnight. We paid $230 for a guided tour of Cairo, and I am so glad we did! No matter how cheaper it would have been if we had done it by ourselves, Egypt is so sketchy that this was worth it! An Israeli from the tour company we hired picked us up and drove us to the border (a 10, 15 minute ride). She got us through the Israeli border and instructed us that someone would meet us when we walked to the Egyptian border control. The trip started out interesting immediately, as a drunk Israeli also crossing the border said to me "At yaffa" ("you're beautiful") and kept staring at me and smiling this crazy grin!! Oh, Israel.
An Egyptian, who spoke English, met us at the Egyptian border control--an old, somewhat sketchy, un-airconditioned building-- took our passports, dealt with the Egyptian authorities, we converted some shekels into Egyptian pounds, and then we were in Egypt! The passport guy brought us to a 14 person van, told us to get in, we all hopped in, said it would be about a 6 hour ride, he left, and then 3 random men got in. It was about 1:30 AM at this point. We assumed one of these men was our tour guide but none of the Egyptian men said anything to us, and we very quickly learned that their English capabilities were none to limited. We were pretty much thinking this was going to be a fantastic trip, considering our tour guide didn't speak English and had not even bothered to introduce himself to us. Because it was only the four of us, we each got our own row and settled down to sleep. We soon realized sleep would not come easily. I'm not sure if it was the road, the van, the driving, or more than likely a combination, but this was the bumpiest ride I had ever been on--by far. Sleep was next to impossible. There was nothing but expansive desert out the window (and a gorgeous nighttime sky). We basically put our entire trust in these random Egyptian men--they could have been taking us anywhere and we would have had no idea! Sometime about 5:30, 6:00 AM we stop at a rest stop, and our drivers get out, have some coffee, do whatever else they do, for about 40 minutes while we are all sitting in the van wondering what the hell was going on. We continue on the way for another 2 hours until we come to a city that we assume is Cairo, but since no one has said anything to us, we really have no idea. Some parts of Cairo are actually quite nice, with some beautiful architecture. Most of the women are wearing hijabs (head scarves where the face is in view--come in many colors or designs) or niqabs (dressed entirely in black--only the eyes are visible). The Nile runs right through the city. We pull up to the Egyptian museum, and --at last--we meet our English speaking tour guide!! It turns out that two of the men in the van were our drivers,and one was a security guard. So now we basically have a tour staff of 4 with the 4 of us. The Egyptian museum is a huge museum (people of all nationalities, speaking all languages visiting there)which is pretty much exactly what you would expect. Beautiful artifacts from King Tut and the other ancient Egyptians--jewelry, statues, burial chambers, mummies. It is very similar to what most of us have seen at traveling exhibits of one type or another, except all these were (supposedly!) the genuine thing as opposed to replicas. Following the museum, we went to both an ancient church and an ancient synagogue, both beautiful. The church is still used today, but the synagogue is preserved solely for tourist purposes. The Egyptian who worked there was actually Jewish, and said that there are about 200 Jews in Cairo (out of a population of 20 million). And I thought Jews as a proportion of the population in El Paso was bad!! We were then taken to a very nice restaurant where a buffet was laid out before us. This meal was included in the price we paid for the tour, and we were starving, but we were all quite weary about eating food in Egypt. We had been told by a few people who had previously visited that we should not eat anything at all. But it looked legitimate and we were so hungry that we all ate full meals. It was actually quite good (vegetables, rice, chicken, pasta, jello and rice pudding for dessert), but the entire time we were eating we kept saying that we really hoped we didn't get sick! I think we just had psyched ourselves out and become paranoid, but we were all (thank god) completely fine. We were then taken to a papyrus museum, where we were shown how genuine papyrus paper is made from the plant. According to our tour guide, Egyptians are all very hospitable people who must comfort their guests, so we were bought tea and juice. Then we all basically got suckered into buying papyrus art! I bought a portrait that is supposed to be King Tut and his wife (symbolizing true love and all that beautiful stuff!). While the four of us were trying to figure out what to buy, we kept talking about how many shekels it would be, and who would owe who how many shekels, etc, and the woman working there asked us why we kept talking about shekels. As we had decided it would be wise to downplay the fact that we were living in Israel, we told her we were just "confused."
Then we were finally on to the pyramids! The pyramids look pretty much exactly as you would expect them to from all the pictures we have seen of them. The only thing that might be surprising to many people is that the pyramids are not in the middle of the desert--they are right on the edge of the city. In fact, homes and buildings are actually surrounding the pyramids on some sides. Our tour guide pointed out that the "Mediterranean is over there, Morocco and Tunisia this way, and Palestine this way." We thought it would be wisest to not confront him about that!! It was quite hot at the pyramids--again, not unexpected. There are Egyptian men, women, and children everywhere trying to sell tourists a bunch of random souvenirs (mostly crap!). One man told Leora, Rose, and I that we were beautiful and worth 10 million camels (so that is quite the compliment I gather!) Apparently comparing the worth of women to camels is a favorite past time of Egyptian men. One men came up to me and tried to sell me postcards. Unfortunately for myself I kind of wanted some postcards! He asked me where I was from and I said America and he said "Ah! I love Obama! Here..have more." And he threw more postcards in my hand as well as some pyramid paper weights. I asked him how much, and he said whatever you want to pay. I said well, how much and he said whatever, whatever. I only had a 50 Egyptian pound bill, so I took it out and he grabbed it and I was pretty sure I was out 50 pounds! (About $10, no huge thing, but still!). So I insisted he give me some change, but instead he just threw a cheap head scarf at me. I told him I didn't want this, could he please give me change. So he gave me a 20 pound note. I asked for 10 more pounds but he just gave me some more postcards! So eventually I just grabbed the postcards, the paper weights and the head scarf (what the hell?) and took off. It was worth the 6 or 7 dollars just for the experience!!! But at all three pyramids and at the Sphinx these hustlers are everywhere (including children, which is quite sad). The men (after calling you "sweet sugar", will actually grab your hand and try to grab your camera while telling you they will take a picture of you and your friends!) There are also camels literally everywhere. The sphinx is really cool. It is directly situated between two of the pyramids, so it makes for a great shot. Basically, it just felt surreal the entire time there--I couldn't believe I was actually at one of the great wonders of the world. When you are that close, and you see these massive bricks built one on top of the other you cannot help but wonder how human beings thousands of years ago possibly built these! While the pyramids are amazing, there is honestly only so long you can spend at them. So we went to a "lotus perfume center" where a nice Egyptian man (we were served hibiscus flower juice--delicious!) taught us about Egyptian perfumes and let us try some. They all smelled beautiful. At this point it was about 5:00 PM, so our tour guide left us, and we settled in for another 6 hour bumpy road ahead of us. Again, very little sleep was had by any of us. We reached the Israeli border at 11:00 PM, and got through both the Egyptian and Israeli passport control quite uneventfully. I must say it was a huge relief to be back in Israel. Although I never felt in danger in Egypt, there was a little bit of unease, and I could relax and feel safe back on Israeli soil. Someone from our tour company was waiting for us, and took us back to the bus station. We hung around for a while and caught a 1 AM bus to Tel Aviv (no night buses go to Jerusalem). I slept sporadically for the next five hours, and we we arrived in Tel Aviv about 6 AM. Leora and I caught a bus to Jerusalem (I slept the entire 45 minute ride) and then caught another bus from the Jerusalem bus station to our apartment! So we arrived home at about 7:30, 8:00 and promptly fell into bed! So it was an exhausting 48 hour journey (half of which was spent on buses!), but I am so glad that I went and saw Cairo and the pyramids. Overall, a very interesting, but successful excursion!!
An Egyptian, who spoke English, met us at the Egyptian border control--an old, somewhat sketchy, un-airconditioned building-- took our passports, dealt with the Egyptian authorities, we converted some shekels into Egyptian pounds, and then we were in Egypt! The passport guy brought us to a 14 person van, told us to get in, we all hopped in, said it would be about a 6 hour ride, he left, and then 3 random men got in. It was about 1:30 AM at this point. We assumed one of these men was our tour guide but none of the Egyptian men said anything to us, and we very quickly learned that their English capabilities were none to limited. We were pretty much thinking this was going to be a fantastic trip, considering our tour guide didn't speak English and had not even bothered to introduce himself to us. Because it was only the four of us, we each got our own row and settled down to sleep. We soon realized sleep would not come easily. I'm not sure if it was the road, the van, the driving, or more than likely a combination, but this was the bumpiest ride I had ever been on--by far. Sleep was next to impossible. There was nothing but expansive desert out the window (and a gorgeous nighttime sky). We basically put our entire trust in these random Egyptian men--they could have been taking us anywhere and we would have had no idea! Sometime about 5:30, 6:00 AM we stop at a rest stop, and our drivers get out, have some coffee, do whatever else they do, for about 40 minutes while we are all sitting in the van wondering what the hell was going on. We continue on the way for another 2 hours until we come to a city that we assume is Cairo, but since no one has said anything to us, we really have no idea. Some parts of Cairo are actually quite nice, with some beautiful architecture. Most of the women are wearing hijabs (head scarves where the face is in view--come in many colors or designs) or niqabs (dressed entirely in black--only the eyes are visible). The Nile runs right through the city. We pull up to the Egyptian museum, and --at last--we meet our English speaking tour guide!! It turns out that two of the men in the van were our drivers,and one was a security guard. So now we basically have a tour staff of 4 with the 4 of us. The Egyptian museum is a huge museum (people of all nationalities, speaking all languages visiting there)which is pretty much exactly what you would expect. Beautiful artifacts from King Tut and the other ancient Egyptians--jewelry, statues, burial chambers, mummies. It is very similar to what most of us have seen at traveling exhibits of one type or another, except all these were (supposedly!) the genuine thing as opposed to replicas. Following the museum, we went to both an ancient church and an ancient synagogue, both beautiful. The church is still used today, but the synagogue is preserved solely for tourist purposes. The Egyptian who worked there was actually Jewish, and said that there are about 200 Jews in Cairo (out of a population of 20 million). And I thought Jews as a proportion of the population in El Paso was bad!! We were then taken to a very nice restaurant where a buffet was laid out before us. This meal was included in the price we paid for the tour, and we were starving, but we were all quite weary about eating food in Egypt. We had been told by a few people who had previously visited that we should not eat anything at all. But it looked legitimate and we were so hungry that we all ate full meals. It was actually quite good (vegetables, rice, chicken, pasta, jello and rice pudding for dessert), but the entire time we were eating we kept saying that we really hoped we didn't get sick! I think we just had psyched ourselves out and become paranoid, but we were all (thank god) completely fine. We were then taken to a papyrus museum, where we were shown how genuine papyrus paper is made from the plant. According to our tour guide, Egyptians are all very hospitable people who must comfort their guests, so we were bought tea and juice. Then we all basically got suckered into buying papyrus art! I bought a portrait that is supposed to be King Tut and his wife (symbolizing true love and all that beautiful stuff!). While the four of us were trying to figure out what to buy, we kept talking about how many shekels it would be, and who would owe who how many shekels, etc, and the woman working there asked us why we kept talking about shekels. As we had decided it would be wise to downplay the fact that we were living in Israel, we told her we were just "confused."
Then we were finally on to the pyramids! The pyramids look pretty much exactly as you would expect them to from all the pictures we have seen of them. The only thing that might be surprising to many people is that the pyramids are not in the middle of the desert--they are right on the edge of the city. In fact, homes and buildings are actually surrounding the pyramids on some sides. Our tour guide pointed out that the "Mediterranean is over there, Morocco and Tunisia this way, and Palestine this way." We thought it would be wisest to not confront him about that!! It was quite hot at the pyramids--again, not unexpected. There are Egyptian men, women, and children everywhere trying to sell tourists a bunch of random souvenirs (mostly crap!). One man told Leora, Rose, and I that we were beautiful and worth 10 million camels (so that is quite the compliment I gather!) Apparently comparing the worth of women to camels is a favorite past time of Egyptian men. One men came up to me and tried to sell me postcards. Unfortunately for myself I kind of wanted some postcards! He asked me where I was from and I said America and he said "Ah! I love Obama! Here..have more." And he threw more postcards in my hand as well as some pyramid paper weights. I asked him how much, and he said whatever you want to pay. I said well, how much and he said whatever, whatever. I only had a 50 Egyptian pound bill, so I took it out and he grabbed it and I was pretty sure I was out 50 pounds! (About $10, no huge thing, but still!). So I insisted he give me some change, but instead he just threw a cheap head scarf at me. I told him I didn't want this, could he please give me change. So he gave me a 20 pound note. I asked for 10 more pounds but he just gave me some more postcards! So eventually I just grabbed the postcards, the paper weights and the head scarf (what the hell?) and took off. It was worth the 6 or 7 dollars just for the experience!!! But at all three pyramids and at the Sphinx these hustlers are everywhere (including children, which is quite sad). The men (after calling you "sweet sugar", will actually grab your hand and try to grab your camera while telling you they will take a picture of you and your friends!) There are also camels literally everywhere. The sphinx is really cool. It is directly situated between two of the pyramids, so it makes for a great shot. Basically, it just felt surreal the entire time there--I couldn't believe I was actually at one of the great wonders of the world. When you are that close, and you see these massive bricks built one on top of the other you cannot help but wonder how human beings thousands of years ago possibly built these! While the pyramids are amazing, there is honestly only so long you can spend at them. So we went to a "lotus perfume center" where a nice Egyptian man (we were served hibiscus flower juice--delicious!) taught us about Egyptian perfumes and let us try some. They all smelled beautiful. At this point it was about 5:00 PM, so our tour guide left us, and we settled in for another 6 hour bumpy road ahead of us. Again, very little sleep was had by any of us. We reached the Israeli border at 11:00 PM, and got through both the Egyptian and Israeli passport control quite uneventfully. I must say it was a huge relief to be back in Israel. Although I never felt in danger in Egypt, there was a little bit of unease, and I could relax and feel safe back on Israeli soil. Someone from our tour company was waiting for us, and took us back to the bus station. We hung around for a while and caught a 1 AM bus to Tel Aviv (no night buses go to Jerusalem). I slept sporadically for the next five hours, and we we arrived in Tel Aviv about 6 AM. Leora and I caught a bus to Jerusalem (I slept the entire 45 minute ride) and then caught another bus from the Jerusalem bus station to our apartment! So we arrived home at about 7:30, 8:00 and promptly fell into bed! So it was an exhausting 48 hour journey (half of which was spent on buses!), but I am so glad that I went and saw Cairo and the pyramids. Overall, a very interesting, but successful excursion!!
Sunday, May 10, 2009
My Internship
My internship is just about half over (and my time here in Israel is more than half over, which is hard to believe!), so I figured it was about time to write a little about my experiences in my internship thus far. I work Sunday-Wednesday 9-4. It still feels weird to me that Sunday is a regular workday here! Ruder Finn is a large international public relations firm, with branches all over the world, including five in the U.S. Their office in Jerusalem is quite small. There is the CEO, CFO, receptionist, five full time staff members, and then myself and two interns who only work fifteen hours a week. Compare that to Ruder Finn's New York office, which I think has a couple hundred! They are all American, except for one Israeli (who is in charge of the domestic media). Ruder Finn Israel is the only English based public relations firm in Israel. They do most of their business for Israeli companies that do business in the U.S. Aside from the CEO and CFO, all the staff members are really young--in their 20s and early 30s at the oldest. Three of them have babies at home. So it's pretty cool to work with such a young staff. They are all super nice and provide me with a lot of positive feedback, which is always very encouraging. And I actually do real work--no making coffee or copies! I have been doing a lot of media lists (putting together spreadsheets of relevant journalists' contact information), market intel (what's happening in the news in a particular field), press releases, clipping (finding news articles that have been written about our clients and extrapolating them),social media (yes--sometimes I get to play around on facebook and twitter for work!) and always tons of research. It has definitely been an adjustment for me to sit in front of a computer for seven hours a day, and--I'm not going to lie--sometimes after 7 hours of computer work, I want to kill myself!! And working in that environment, I am afraid I have developed a bit of a coffee habit (this from a girl who would never touch the stuff before I started there!) So it is definitely boring at times, but sometimes it is quite interesting. For instance, one of the clients I have been doing a lot of work for is a very controversial organization that is against radical Islam. There was so much negative press about them before they hired Ruder Finn a few months ago, so it is a very challenging PR job--but that is what makes it so interesting! I have also been able to sit in on a few client meetings, and observe and take notes. I appreciate that my coworkers and boss allow me to do that. I feel like I honestly have learned more about public relations in these past two months than I have learned in four months of school. I still don't know if I want to do public relations or not, but in the meantime I feel like I'm getting so much invaluable experience that will come in handy no matter what I decide to do with my life.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Eilat
I just got back last night from three days in Eilat. I went with Leora and Laura, and met Rose and Dan down there. Eilat is the southern most point of Israel, situated right on the Red Sea. The city has a population of only about 60,000 people, but it is a very touristy city. It is absolutely hopping in the summer. For this reason, it is also very secular. Buses even run here on Shabbat and almost everything is open. We stayed in a really nice hostel close to the beach. One of our roommates was a woman in her 60s though--a little odd! It took us about 4 1/2 hours by bus to drive down to Eilat--through the Negev and along the Dead Sea. The scenery in Eilat is amazing...it is surrounded by desert and mountains, that truly reminded me so much of El Paso. Yet between these mountain ranges is the beautiful Red Sea! The Red Sea is bordered by Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. I was so close to Jordan and Egypt I honestly felt like I could have swam there if I were so inclined! It was incredible. Thursday we hung around on the beach, explored the boardwalk, and went to an Irish bar with a live band playing American rock! On Friday we went on a four hour cruise. They anchored in the middle of the sea and let us jump out and play around in the water, and fed us a delicious lunch (classic Mediterranean..grilled meat, pita, hummus, different vegetable salads, and rice). They had mentioned once we anchored that we could jump off the the tip of the boat..this particular location was surrounded by heavy chains and in very near proximity to the anchor. I really wanted to job into the water, but it didn't seem the safest. So I asked them if I really could job from there, and they said "Of course!" So I did, and it was fun, but it's very funny how there seem to be no regulations here!! That never would have flown in the states. After the cruise we rented a paddle boat for an hour. Friday we went to a dolphin reef, and went snorkeling with dolphins!! The dolphin reef is a big tourist destination--it's a large enclosed area in the sea that is home to 8 dolphins, and there is a beautiful private beach there. So we put on wet suits, flippers, goggles, and snorkels and followed an instructor into the water! Unlike some places in Orlando or Cancun, we weren't allowed to actually touch or grab onto the dolphins (we also paid a lot less than at those places!) But they swam so close to us--it was amazing. It's incredible to say that I swam with dolphins in the Red Sea, where Moses fled to with the Jews after leaving Egypt! We hung out at the beach for a little while longer, and then took the long trip back home.
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