My Day as Indiana Jones

The first day of my Jordan trip should've been a sign as to how the rest of the adventure would go: absolutely not according to plan. We took the 1:30 AM bus from Beer Sheva down to Eilat, arriving at around 5AM. Of course, the 5 of us were split on 2 different buses and didn't all get off at the same stop, meaning Kristof and I had to take a little 5AM hike to get to the rest of the crew so we could cross the border all together. Getting across the border was an adventure in and of itself, as one of the placed Kristof and I had planned to go was essentially off limits unless you had a guide, which we were lacking. But for some reason, I was the only one pulled aside by the tourism police (curse you Israeli passport) and after not believing me when I said I would change my plans and not go to Wadi Chessa (seriously, why would I lie to the Jordanian police? that would be such a bad move!) they made a copy of my passport and wrote down my travel plans for their files.

FINALLY we made it across the border and into Aqaba, where we bought the cheapest falafel I will ever get (less than 1 Dinar, which converts to about $1), and boarded a bus to Petra. As we met other Israelis crossing the border and on the bus to Petra, they all said that because it was International Tourism Day, entrance into Petra was going to be free, woohoo! But why should things be so easy? After we arrived in Petra and dropped our things off at the hostel, we got to the entrance to the actual Petra site and discovered that it was only free for Jordanian residents. Maybe it's just me, but it doesn't make sense that tourists don't get in free on International Tourism day. Regardless we paid the entrance fee and started our trek into Petra. It was hilarious to see how much they attempted to exploit Indiana Jones at the various shops leading towards the main canyon.

I'll spare you all the specific details of Petra and just hit the highlights. At the end of the Siq (canyon in Arabic) we got to the Treasury which is arguably the most famous part of Petra, immortalized by Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, as it is where Indy finds the Holy Grail at the end of the movie. Of course I have seen many pictures of the Treasury before but nothing could compare to actually seeing it in person. I can't even imagine how it was made as the stones are smoothed to perfection and meters above the ground. It was absolutely incredible but it was nothing compared to everything else that we saw.

From the Treasury we went through the next canyon and up what seemed like hundreds of steps to attempt to reach the High Place of Sacrifice up on top of the mountain. On our way up, we met these wonderful Bedouin women that offered us tea, practically forced us to sit and rest while we drank our tea and just chatted. It was a lovely conversation, and a very interesting insight into the lifestyle of Bedouin women. Two of them were only 16, and worked instead of continuing with school. However one of these 16 year olds knew the basics of 7 or 8 languages because of all the tourists she talks to each day on the mountain. She seemed like she would do so well in school, afterwards the crew and I were saying we wished we could send her to a real school in the states and not the Bedouin schools that she was probably attending in Jordan.

From the High Place of Sacrifice we could see everything, the views were absolutely incredible. It if weren't for the heat, we might have stayed up there all day. But alas Petra was closing in a few hours and we still wanted to get down the mountain and see what else there was to see. On our way down the back side of the mountain everything was just indescribable. There were absolutely no people around so we could do all the exploring we wanted through every single ruin we passed. The rocks were brilliant colors, and looked amazing as the sunlight hit them just right. We got down the mountain finally, wandered through one final temple, and hiked our way out through the Siq and returned to the hostel. Overall, a pretty fantastic day, despite the rough start...

Misadventures in Backpacking

Since there are a lot of Jewish holidays in September/October (the new year, day of atonement, feast of tabernacles, etc), we have a lot of days off of school here in Beer Sheva. It is a pretty great opportunity to travel, especially since we're so close to Europe (well, closer than the states anyways). I wasn't organized enough to get a relatively inexpensive trip to Europe put together in time, so instead I decided to backpack with a few of my friends through Jordan since it's something I may never do again. Before I left people kept telling me don't die and (SPOILER ALERT) I survived with only a few blisters, bruises, and scratches, and quite a lot of sore muscles. It was an absolutely crazy and incredible trip, and even those adjectives don't accurately describe Jordan. Since I have a lot of stories to tell, I split the trip up into a few parts so feel free to read all of them, some of them, or none of them if you so desire. It was a ridiculous trip and I'll do my best to share it with y'all in a semi-coherent manner.

סוף האולפן

So I considered writing this post entirely in Hebrew since that's what I should be doing after 6 weeks of intensive Hebrew training (120 hours in 6 weeks... crazy) but I'm a little too lazy to put in that much effort for a blog post that people will just plug into Google Translate anyways (to save y'all some time, the title of the post means The End of Ulpan). The last six weeks have been intense, to say the least. Every Sunday through Thursday, from 9-12:30, I have been sitting in the hardest class of my life. The classes here are not numbered or called Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, etc, but by the first few letters of the Aleph Bet (alphabet). So when I say I was in Kita Dalet (כיתה דלת), that means I was in the most advanced ulpan class, which was just ridiculous. We spoke at most 1 or 2 words of English the entire class and we didn't just learn grammar or read stories, we had discussions about gun control, racism, drugs and prostitution, graffiti, basically anything newsworthy you can think of, we probably discussed it. All in Hebrew. I can barely formulate a coherent argument  about gun control in English, let alone in Hebrew. But now I can, which is kind of crazy!

It has been a psycho 6 weeks, but now I'm extremely stoked to start real classes in a week. But before that... stay tuned for posts about my upcoming trip to the Golan Heights and my first time experiencing Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) in Israel with the fam on the Kibbutz.

Sweet Water, Salt Water

So the last of the planned OSP trips was to Nahal Arugot and the Dead Sea. Nahal Arugot is a waterfall/stream in the Ein Gedi Preserve, and of course the Dead Sea is the Dead Sea (known here as the Yam Hamelach, Salt Sea). For those who don't know, Ein Gedi (meaning Spring of Goats) is thought to be the oasis where King David sought refuge back in biblical times. The area is absolutely breathtaking, and our hike through the stream and rocks was beautiful. 

During the hike we learned how the springs were formed, using Adam as the Jordanian Hills. As it rains in the higher elevation of the plateaus and areas where it actually rains (aka not the middle of the desert) the water travels off the edge of the plateau and through little valleys where streams like Nahal Arugot and Wadi David exist.

(Yes, we did end up pouring water on his back as the "rain" that came down through the valleys formed by Sam's hands)

At the end of the hike was a gorgeous waterfall that we were able to rest at and play in the water a little before hiking back through the rocks. It was the perfect oasis in the middle of nothing-ness, exactly where I would want to seek refuge if I needed to. It definitely got me excited to spend a whole week (at least) hiking through Jordan and I did not want to leave, especially to return to the heat of the Dead Sea.

This trip was certainly not my first time at the Dead Sea. I've been so many times that the floating aspect isn't so novel anymore. Of course it's still something cool and unique, but it's not new. But it's always fun going with friends who have never experienced the odd sensation of floating with absolutely no effort involved. Being in water so concentrated with minerals that it is more difficult to stand up in the water than it is to float. I was able to just sit back (literally), relax, and laugh as Adam, Melanie, and Zoe seemed to have the time of their lives floating and truly understanding what it meant to float in the Dead Sea. We pondered the possibility of swimming to Jordan but realized dehydration would be too big of an issue to actually make it across. We stayed in until the sun got too hot and the salt water started to burn, and quickly ran to change out of our salty suits before climbing back on the bus and crashing on the drive back to Beer Sheva.

As it was, of course, Friday, it was time for Shabbat dinner, and since some people had stayed in Ein Gedi and others went to Tel Aviv for the night, Adam, Kristof, and I were the only ones left. Thus we made an Israeli spin on an American classic, burgers in pitas instead of in buns. Delicious, of course, and hanging out with the guys made me realize that I can definitely spend a week with them hiking, we're gonna have so much fun.

Four in Five

I never thought I'd be more worried about people back home in Colorado than I am worried about living in a city that deals with missile attacks. This summer wasn't great for Colorful Colorado, with the horrible Waldo Canyon fire and the Aurora movie theatre shooting. The last four months also weren't great for the University of Denver, home of the Pioneers, my home sweet home. In the last five months, the University of Denver has lost 4 of our students to various tragedies.

Back in May, Masoud Bahramisharif, an Iranian student doing his masters at DU was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver just a block off campus.

In July, Colorado was rocked by the disastrous and tragic shooting at the midnight screening of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises. One of the victims injured in the shooting was recent DU masters grad Alex Teves. He died soon after the shooting.

In August, we lost Samm Tang, who was working as the GRE for the Apartments on campus, and pursuing his Masters in Education.

And finally, today a DU sophomore in the Daniels College of Business, Tyler Starr, took his own life, leaving his suicide note on his Facebook page.

I didn't know any of the 4 personally, but after hearing about this most recent death, I don't really have the words to express not only how much I miss Colorado and DU, but also how much sorrow I feel that we continue to lose members of the DU community. It has not been a great 5 months for the University of Denver or the state of Colorado, but I know that we will be strong through this and there will be an amazing Colorado comeback. I love CO and DU and I miss being there.

My First Missile

I was woken up at 2 AM last night by a pounding on my door, and what sounded like really strong wind outside. But we don't get strong winds in Beer Sheva, we have missile sirens. I didn't wake up in time to make it down to the shelter, but it was okay because I live in buildings of super extra heavy duty fortified concrete, and the rockets didn't land near a densely populated area, and certainly not near the University. It was quite a way to be woken up, but all 3 of you reading this, don't worry I'm fine. Plus classes might be cancelled today which would make it a pretty awesome continuation of the weekend.

Stop Working, Start Traveling

A fortnight ago (I like the fact that I'm so behind on blogging, it's an excuse to use the word fortnight) I went to Jerusalem with a bunch of my friends for the 8th Annual Jerusalem Beerfest. Immediately after ulpan, 15 of us took the bus to Jerusalem, checked into our really nice hostel, and had dinner in Machane Yehuda (the main market), before heading to the old train station for Beerfest. It was ridiculous, breweries from all over Israel and Europe each having a little stand where you could taste or buy cups of their beer. There were tons of people, and I think I heard more English than I did Hebrew, because of course any American in Israel at the time would come to a beerfest. There were young people, old people, soldiers and civilians. I met people from the States, from Israel, from Russia, from Europe, it was truly quite the experience.

The day after Beerfest, we met up with the rest of the OSP group next to the market for a food tour by a food anthropologist from the University. The tour started out in the neighborhoods surrounding the market, in order to get a better idea of the area and how it has changed over the years. In the past, the neighborhoods were fairly run down, poor, etc, however in the past decade or so young, relatively wealthy Americans (aka hipsters) thought the area was nice and had spirit, and thus gentrified the area and turned it into one of the more expensive neighborhoods in Jerusalem. While the tour was interesting thus far, it got a lot worse. We finally got to go into the market, but didn't actually explore it, we walked. Slowly. Which is not easy to do on a Friday morning when everyone is shopping for Shabbat. Plus, we spent far too long in the market without actually shopping or even attempting to shop. Everything was so tempting and I just couldn't wait until I got the chance to wander the market by myself for a while. Finally we got a chance to shop on our own, and after a while in the market, returned to Beer Sheva.