wow, the past 48 have been a whirlwind. we started out our day on sunday morning in a small town in the south of Jordan called Aqaba. when i was growing up in Israel, I was always in a small town in the south of Israel called Eilat for vacation, and i would always look across the bay at Aqaba, and wonder about it. how big was it? did they have diving as well? how are the views from their side?
well, i'll get to Jordan in another post. this post is about the past 48 hours. (concentrate!).
ok, so, we started the day in Aqaba at a hotel called Hotel Baracuda. i had to repeat that name at least 15 times, since the driver could not - for the life of him - remember it. once we fouind this 4 star hotel, we checked in, and went about our business. we were told there was internet in the rooms (nope, only in lobby, at the end, by the window. yes, i'm not kidding.), and everyone took cold showers besides me. i actually tried (and failed) to get some warm water going through the front desk.
ok, i veered away from the past 48 hours again. i'll try again. (deep breath here).
at around 5:30pm we crossed the border back into Israel from Jordan after a lovely 3 days. we went into Eilat and hung out in a Cafe for almost 4 hours, drinking coffee, eating dinner, chatting with our table neighbors and generally having a good time.
our official pick up time was 11:30 pm from the "Taba side of the border". no further coaxing could convince Mazada Touirs to give us more information as to WHERE in the Taba side we should meet them.
well, a few hickups later in the border, we had crossed Israel into Egypt, and were waiting in front of the passport window, which (as mazada told us several times), we needed them to get a visa through.
11:30 came and went. luckily for us, there was another couple with the world's cutest baby also waiting for the Mazada tour bus, - misery loves company.... well, we all waited. and waited. and waited. at some point, i grabbed an official looking person, and gave him the name given to us by Mazada Tours of the guide we were to meet by the name of Khaled. the guy called. and disappeared. so, we waited some more.
at some point, i got bored, and decided this would be a good time and place to practice my Poi. now, if you're never been in the Taba egyptian border you have to understand - this a really small border crossing. it's really just a long and not to wide corridor, with not that many people crossing - especially not at night. so, i practiced. a couple of minutes later sasha joined me, and before you know it, we are performing not just for our friends and the cute baby, but for the ENTIRE terminal. people came out of their offices, and there was a crowd of people taking pictures and vidoes of us with their phones. we did this for quite a while, and made friends in the terminal. everyone was MUCH nicer to us, which, again, if you've crossed at that border, you should know that they are about as friendly as a pregnant mountain goat when you try to steal her food..
so, i had another person call, and this time i got a real answer. he is on his way from Cairo, will be here in 20 minutes. of course, AFTER the past 48 hours, i know that they meant 20 egyptian minutes (similar to burning man minutes, just... longer). so, an hour later, our guide finally shows up, apologizing. the car broke down from cairo, they had to send another one, etc. we finally left Taba around 2:30 am.
yay! we are on our way! sure, even though we were told it's a bus that picks us up, and it's a crappy little van, we don't mind too much. the plan, btw, was originally to sleep on the comfi overnight bus into Cairo so we can tour around during the day.
so, a word here: if you're reading this blog, you should know by now that we are on a long trip. most of this trip involves south east asia and India. and i'm SURE we'll have worse and longer bus trips than that. BUT... we won't make the mistake of booking ourselves the very next day after the bus without a break. the road from Taba to Israel is in what we discovered to be typical egyptian condition, which is to say that it is not what we, in the western world, would call "good roads".so, the trip was full of pot holes, and slow.
by the time we arrived in Cairo and put our bags down at a hotel to store for us until we pick them back up (i'll get to that), and set on our way, it was 10:30 in the morning, which meant we were 2.5 hours bewhind schedule, and TIRED.
i won't bore you with the details of the day. it was a blur, accompanied by a "tour guide" which in egypt is a fancy word for "someone who will gladly set you up with whatever you need for more than what you could get if you spoke to the natives and also barely speaks english". the end of the day had almost arrived, and we haven't even been to the pyramids. finally, at 3 pm, we got there. please remember that the sun sets at 4:30 here. so, we wasted our day going to a bunch of places trying to make our tour guides money (we failed, i'm happy to say), and only got an hour and a half at the last standing wonder of the world. we were... unhappy. at this point, our helpful "tour guide" tells us "this area is almost 19 kilometers, and you won't be able to see anything. you should rent a camel/donkey/carriage to see it all". well, you ARE the tour guide, you would know, i thought to myself, and negotiated us a carriage price. i'll skip here (sorry about the skipping. it's a bunch of poor horse whipping, taking us to one photo spot, forcing us to drink coke, and finding out that because we did the photo op, it's too late to get in the pyramid. yes, grrr.), and go to the end of the ride. which was at the sphinx. which according to our "tour guide" was "too far to walk to". in reality is was MAYBE half a mile. yes, that's right, half a mile. i was pissed. not only could we have walked around for an hour and half and covered most of the pyramids, but we took a carriage, which will give our tour guide bakshish and screwed us over.
i actually confronted our "tour guide" about this, and she pretended not to understand my english, giving me answers that had nothing to do with what i was telling her. after a while, i (we) decided to let it go. we got in the van, picked up our stuff from the hotel and headed out to the train.
again, i have to pause here. the pyramids were AMAZING. really beautiful. growing up in israel, even though it seems right across the border to Americans, it's NOT so for Israelis. so, actually seeing them was awesome. we got some great shots, and by this point were starting to make fun of how bad this situation is... so, it wasn't all bad. i was determined - and succeeded - in not letting the above circumstances spoil the day for me.
ok, train. nice train, not bad. two sleeper rooms - one for sasha and i, and another for tom and penguin. we were all super tired, and after they brought us our yummy dinner of (only) rice (for us, and meat for the boys), we set up the beds early, since we learned that Mazada lied to us by telling us the train was arriving at 8am. in fact, it was arriving at 5:30am. sigh. so, a pair of ear plugs later, we both sank into our respective beds and sleep, only to be occasionally awakened by the smoke coming from the people smoking the hallway (well, it DOES say no smoking in the rooms, outside of rooms is ok, yes?). the good news is that was all slept MUCH better than the night before, and were actually pretty refreshed and ready to see Luxor when we got off the train. we were told by our friends at the Mazada Tour company to look for someone with a "Hytt Tours" sign. he should be waiting for us when we get off the train. when we asked them in advance for the person's name and number, we were told, in no two words by Muchmud, the guy who picked us in Taba that his boss told him "not to give us the other guy's number, only Muchmuds". well, arriving at 5:30, we understood why. we figured their plan was to lie to us (um, again?), and simply have us waiting at the station until 8 am, or really, until the guy shows up.
thankfully that theory was incorrect. Atef, our new "tour guide" was only 30 minutes late. apparently the train usually comes in at 8am. he doesn't know why it came early today. ah ha.
ok, more good news: Luxor was very interesting, and much better than our previous day in Cairo. the sights were less crowded (especially at 6am, that part was awesome...), and Atef was a much better "tour guide" than the Cairo one. but.. i still us put "" around the words because he also kept trying to take us places that would give him kickback, or when we'd get to a place, he would give us a 5 minute explanation outside of whatever temple we went into, and would "go wait outside under umbrella until we were done.". so, nice guy, not the best tour guide ever.
we had a GREAT lunch, based on a recommendation from the book pegnuin had on India at a restaurant called El Hussain. great vegi stew, and it was nice to actually have food cooked with vegetarian in mind, and not just the side dishes.
several temples, and several hooka smokes with our guide (yes, several. on his insistence every time...), i'm now sitting in an internet cafe near downtown Luxor, typing out this blog.
as i'm writing this, i also realize how angry this sounds. and... we were quite angry. but, although it's been such a rough acclimation for us from the very laid back Jordanian people to the very busy, very dirty, very pushy egyptian travel people, as we call them, we did enjoy aspects of egypt.
i just wish that:
1. Mazada tours would go out of business. they have no business taking people's money.
2. We wouldn't have booked anything with anyone. we could have figured this out on our own just fine.
so, tonight we are catching the train back to Cairo from Luxor, and tomorrow we will be going to the Cairo Museum, and cathedral. THEN, at 11:30 pm, we are getting on our flight to India. we should be arriving at mombai, than wait a few hours and fly to Goa. so, overall, 4 nights with no hotel (or shower!) should put us to sleep like.. well, if you made it all the way down here, you should understand.
i hope to go back and write a lot more about our Egypt experience. but for now, this is it. as they say here in Arabic, Halas.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Wadi Rum and Other Misadventures
Sasha:
We told almost everyone we talked to the even before -Guide Hisham, Driver Hisham, Ibrahim, and Atta our schedule for the next day; 8am-11am hike to the monastary, 11am Machmud pickup at the visitors center for a ride to Little Petra, 12pm head to Wadi Rum, 2-4 jeep ride around Wadi Rum, 6pm arrive in Aquaba at the hotel Barracuda. This is how our day actually went:
7am: Press snooze on the alarm clock
7:45: Head down for breakfast, only to find out breakfast is on the 4th floor
8:30: finish breakfast, head to room to brush teeth
8:50: hotel lobby to wait for a driver, driver tells us the hike to the Monastary is 45 minutes.
9:05 Arrive at the gates to Petra, start sprinting down the hill past all of the other tourists who are stopping to take photos.
9:45: Get to the bottom of the hill where we expected the Monastary to be, only to find out that the Monastary is actually a 45 minute hike from that point up a set of stone steps.
9:46: Pout
9:47: briefly toy with the idea of taking a “taxi” (donkey) up and back, but decide not to.
9:48: start making our way back up the hill to the visitor center.
11:10: arrive at visitors center where we see Penguin and Driver Hisham, but no Machmud.
11:25: Arrive at our hotel, where a different driver, Ramsi is waiting for us with a different car.
11:30: Head to Little Petra with Ramsi, and all of our luggage in the trunk.
11:50: Little Petra! Almost no other tourist, more caves, carvings, and lots of scampering up stairs. The cliffs are like a jungle gym, and a lot of fun to expore. We sit and have tea with a beduin woman.
1:00pm: Get to the car to drive back to Wadi Musa, before getting on the road to Wadi Rum
1:10 Adebe calls, and asks Ramsi to ask Ra for $100. What?
1:15 Adebe is on the phone with Ra, telling him that we have to pay for the guide that we didn't use. Ra is not impressed
1:20 Adebe says he is willing to fogive us, and will accept a ½ price discount, and only wants $50. Ra is not impressed.
1:22 Adebe tells Ramsi to pull over
1:23 Ra tells Ramsi to keep driving
1:29 Adebe calls, Ramsi pulls over again, and says he cannot drive any further unless we hand him the $50
1:30 We hand him the cash.
1:31-2:30 We are all very very quiet in the car ride to Wadi Rum
3:00 We park next to a Toyota pickup truck with bench seats and an awning over the truck bed
3:20 Running around barefoot across the red and yellow desert sand
3:45 Bouldering up a wall to peak into a cistern, obsessing what a great place this would be to go rock climbing.
4:20 Sitting on top of a rock formation drinking beduin coffee as the sun sets. Seriously awesome.
5:00 Back in the car with Ramsi playing kareoke sing along to “lady in red” “everything I do I do it for you” “I will always love you” and other movie hits from 2, 3, and 4 decades ago that he had on his MP3 player
7:00 Aqaba. Does anybody know where the hotel is?
7:05 The police officer does not know.
7:10 The guy at the restaurant does not know
7:12 Call Ibrahim, and he knows where it is, but Ramsi is discouraged by how far out of town it is.
7:15 All of us stop to have our first meal since breakfast, my legs are trembling I'm so tired.
7:20 I discover that the toilet is a hole in the floor with two places to put your feet.
8:20 FINALLY find Hotel Barricuda after driving 18km, and making 3 u-turns
8:21 Ramsi gives back the $50 we gave him earlier in the day for Adebe. We are still mystified.
8:40 Our showers are cold and there is no Wifi
9:00 We ask for glasses so we can drink our bottle of wine
9:40 Hotel staff brings us 2 buckets of ice, and 4 frosty cold mugs. Clearly not wine drinkers.
10:30 Bed faceplant.
* As a side note, I will say that Beduins have an interesting sense of humor. My word of advice is, if one asks you if you want him to put some makeup on you, I would decline unless you want to look like a clown
The Rose Rock of Petra
Sasha:
After a five hour bus ride, a short ride on a taxi, and paying our way out of Israel, we arrived in Jordan. We walked the hundred feet of no-man's land between borders and looked in through the gates on the other side. The welcome sign was missing a “D” so in fact it was welcoming us into “JOR AN.” The most eventful part of our journey was at the xray station on the Jordanian side where Ra and I had to explain the strange objects strapped to our backpacks- Ra got to demonstrate how to use the massage hook he brought to work on his shoulder and hip, while I got to take off the fire staff we inherited from Erez, and did a short routine. The soldier offered to light it on fire for me, but I told him we were lacking in kerosene.
We came out of the passport control at 2:20pm to an almost abandoned parking lot. Soon a white car with the words “southern border” arrives, driven by a man with a thick accent who wants to know if we need a taxi. When we let him know that we already have a car arranged, he wants to know exactly who the driver is. We discuss weather this is an aggressive taxi driver or some kind of border police, but after two taxis show up and he seems to direct them, we figure he's just trying to keep the taxi racket organized. At 2:35 a man in a maroon car arrives, and walks in our general direction. He converses with the taxi guys, then approaches us shyly.
“Runn?” He asks.
“I'm Runn,” Ra replies, “Adebe sent you?”
The man nods, then they shake hands. “I'm Machmud.” We all shake hands with him, and give him our names in return. It would take me nearly 2 ½ days to realize that his name is not in fact Mohamud, but the two syllable synonym.
He takes us past the bristling taxi drivers to his car, and drives us to Aqaba so we can change money, or pull Jordanian Dinars from an ATM. While Tom, Penguin, and Ra attend to that, I stay in the car. After it dies once or twice, Machmud pops the hood of the car and pokes around. The hood is still up when Ra and Tom arrive. Machmud explains that the car is too hot. When everyone gets into the car, Ra encourages him to find somewhere that sells coolant so we don't end up stuck on the side of the road somewhere between Aquaba and Petra. Ra also turns the heat up on full blast to let the heat escape the engine, and blow in our faces instead. This successfully brings the engine temperature to average, but leads to an extremely uncomfortable drive in the desert heat. We stop at a gas station where we all poke around and discover that the fan is out of place, not working, and in fact grinds against the car when pushed. Machmud seems undeterred from our journey now that he has been shown the heating vent trick that has brought the engine temperature down, and for him there is no longer a problem.
The drive across Jordan is stunning. There are baren mountains, deeply carved gorges, and colored expanses of desert. We stop at a vista where looking out makes you feel like you are in an old school hollywood soundstage- the landscape is so painterly, so otherworldly that it looks more like a backdrop than like real life. We took pictures despite knowing that they could never really capture to sheer awe we felt.
Our first hotel in Petra, the Valley Stars Inn, was managed by a man named Ibrahim. A slight man, handsome, perhaps in his mid twenties- he spoke beautiful English, no doubt in part because he was studying to get concurrent degrees in IT and English Lit while also managing the hotel, and trying to open up another resort with his brother. We had an interesting discussion of Jordanian politics- starting out with a village in Jordan who admired Saddam Hossein so much that they wanted to name a street after him. When the national government wouldn't let them, they decided that for one month, and new baby born to the village would be named Saddam Hossein. Ibrahim told us that he too though that Saddam was a good man, and that he was set up by the Western world so that they could get to the oil. To say that open admiration of Saddam Hossein is a bit of a shock would be an understatement. The conversation turned to the bombing of Israel, the extermination of the kurds, the unreliability of the media, and our general dislike of the George Bush's, and finally to Ibrahim's conclusion:
“I don't watch the news anymore, unless it is the local news. I don't hate anybody. In the end, people are the same; whether they are Israeli, or Arab they are the same. They need to eat the same, they live the same. Man or woman, we are all the same. You sitting here with me, talking- that is the most important thing.”
Ibrahim arrange for us to go on the night tour of Petra- what would be our first glimps of the sight. After showering, we took a beat up orange van down the hill to the entrance. We were accompanied by a New Zealander named Geraldine. A septuagenarian who was on a solo trip through England, Egypt and Jordan. She aknowleged to me that this would be her last international trip, and that the people she was staying with in England she would be saying goodby to for the last time. Despite her admission, she was in amazing shape, and we suspected we were holding her back on the hike more than the other way around. After a 15 minute hike, lit with candles in paper bags, we arrived at the Treasury, and epic columned structure carved into the towering sandstone walls. There were rows of carpets on the ground that we were told to sit on. We sat and waited for the hundreds of other people- both independent travelers and tours of people in matching hats- joined us on the desert floor. Eventually we were all told to be silent for the beginning of the show. A beduin man sat in the midst of hundreds of candles in paper bags, and began to play a stringed instrament on his knee with a bow. Behind us were two arab men in their early twenties who talked and laughed through the entire performance despite countless dirty looks, shushes, and requests to be quiet. They were only outdone by the people behind them who were eating something out of the crinkliest bag imaginable.
After the show ended, we hiked up the hill, caught our ride, and were dropped off at a mediocre tourist restaurant, where the waiters hovered nearby and watched us eat our disappointing food. At the end of our first day in Jordan, we collapsed into our beds, and passed out.
Petra
While having breakfast at our hotel in Wadi Musa (the closest village to Petra) our tourguide shows up. His name is Hisham, and he has been sent to us by Adebe, who was in turn recommended to us by Ron, a good friend of Ra's family. We were told that we HAD to have a guide arranged before we got there. As it turns out, at that time of year there were any number of people who would be happy to arrange a guide, a driver, a hookah, or any number of things for us. Hisham tells us what we are going to do while at the hotel, then again in the car when we arrive at the gates at Petra (where he also informs us that we have to go in separately and not mention to any of the officials that he is our guide on our way in.) Once inside, he takes us to where the horses are, tells us that they are included in the price of our tickets, and would we like to ride them for the first 700 metres. We say yes, and each of us takes our turn mounting the Arabian steeds. Penguin takes the first, a reddish one, I take the next- a white arabian with a small cut on his shoulder and a sullen disposition. Ra's is a dappled gray who doesn't care much for being held back and would rather charge down the hill. Tom's brown also had a desire for speed. I watched as all of the other's horses passed mine. Almost at the bottom of the hill, the handler who was leading my horse starts telling me the imporance of tipping, of giving bakheesh. Got it, the ride is “free” but the tip is not. I think that I had one Dinar, and the smallest bill that Tom had was a 5JD. The handlers were not happy to be tipped 6JD. We scampered off before they were able to say anything else.
Petra, also know as the Rose Rocks is a city, a series of tombs and temples, and a geological phenomenon made up of cliffs and canyons of sandstone. They place itself is 45 km2, and one of our guides told us that he has only seen 50% of it in his lifetime. The most photographed feature is the treasury, a great collumned structure with Castor and Polux carved into the stone, along with Isis and other gods. Beyond that there are also the tombs of the less weathy, tombs for the kings, and tombs for a Roman prince? Who decided that he would rather be entombed in Petra rather than carried back to Rome. There are niches containing idols to various gods- Nabotean, Egyptian, Greek alike. Then there is the cardo, the main city where the Nebotean people actually lived, and built their homes from the stones carved out to make the magnificent tombs. The scale of the place puts the ruins of Greece to shame, and predates the Castles of Europe by a thousand years. Truly truly awe inspiring.
In Petra, the soundtrack is one of people in shops saying Happy hour! Good price!
The older boys leading donkeys saying, “Taxi! Ride to the Monastary? Air conditioned!”
And the youngest kids holding packets of postcards and cheap stone necklaces in your face saying, “One Dinar! One JD!” At the end of the day, we even had one little boy pathetically following us with his postcard in the air as he fake-cried as a means to try to get us to buy them from him. Every hundred yards was another shop of postcards and chachkis, with a sign saying Happy Hour! Even way up the winding stair paths would be a beduin woman with kafiyas, water, and necklaces.
Despite ordering a guide for a full day in Petra, Hisham left us at noon. We wandered into a covered area that the Byzantines had turned into a small church to eat lunch. While sitting on the stairs we met another group of people who seemed to know the place extremely well, and greeted the chachki salesman like a brother. Turns out our visitors were Jane Taylor http://www.janetaylorphotos.com/books.html- THE author of books on Petra and Queen Noor's personal photographer when she comes to Petra- and Tom Paradise, a stone restoration artist who spent years working in Petra. Tom also had his wife Gail and daughter Sandy? Samatha? Tom began telling us about restoring the mosaics on the floor, and how the green stones were egyption emeralds, a stone found on Cleopatra's island in Eygpt who name is where we get the word for “gem,” and how this is the only ancient mosaic in the world that utilizes them. Here was a man who so clearly loved his work and was so excited to talk about it. Jane wanted to know if we had bought her book yet. We talked to them about what Adebe had booked for us on the next day- a hike from Little Petra, to the Monistary, and back to the treasury. They tell us that this would be a 12km hike including lots of stairs and narrow ledges. Hmmm.
We finish our day by leaving Penguin at a cafe while Ra, Tom, and I hike up and up and up to the sacraficial altars on the top of a cliff. The stair climbing was challenging, and we lost the trail once, confused by the beduin woman who had decided to fall asleep in the middle of the pathway. Once we got to the top, it was all worth it. It was a stunning aerial view of all that we had seen, and so much more that we hadn't trekked to yet.
Once we were done for the day (and by done I mean exhausted) we taxied back up to our original hotel to sort out our next nights accommodations. The Valley Stars Inn was all booked up, so Ibrahim booked us rooms at his cousins hotel- giving us the same rates as his hotel despite the fact that the second hotel was in fact fancier and newer. He gave us a lift to check out the other hotel, then a ride to an ATM to pull out cash, then a ride back up to the hotel. We were still figuring out whether we wanted to stay one or two more nights in Wadi Musa before heading to the border, so Ibrahim said to give him the answer by 9pm.
Our new hotel gave us a ride down to the restaurant that Jane Taylor had recommended, Qantara. As it turns out, our driver's name was also Hisham, which we joked must be the next most popular name after Mohamed/Machmud/ Achmed which are all the same name. The restaurant was clean, well decorated, and instead of having a menu, we were told that there was a fixed price menu, and alcohol. It also had one host named Mohamed, and another named Hisham(!!) We ordered 2 vegetarian entrees, Mediterranean chicken rolls, a beef dish and a lamb dish, and were also served hommus, tahini, turkish salad, beets, pickles, spicy sauce on request, and an extra bowls of rice. The small plates were fantastic, while the veggie dishes were alright. Our wine was so good, we asked for a bottle to take back with us.
We decided over dinner to spend one more night in town, then see the Monastary the next morning, take a jeep tour of Wadi Rum, and stay our last night in Jordan at the border town Aqaba. We went up to the Valley Stars Inn to settle our bill with Ibrahim. At this point, it was a pleasure to spend time with him. It is not all business with people here- they want to hang out, talk, relax before you bring out the cash or “get to the point.” These are journey people, not destination people. Ibrahim helps us find a hotel in Aqaba, and recommends that instead of making an online reservation, we should haggle in person since it is off season there, and they'd be likely to give us a good offer. After all the time and effort that Ibrahim spent with us, we handed him some money as a tip, but he wouldn't take it. He gives us a ride up to our hotel for the evening, where his brother, Atta, is kicking it in the lobby.
We order a shisha (hookah) and Ibrahim's older brother comes to join us. Atta tells us that he and Ibrahim are two of 20 brothers and sisters who grew up in Wadi Musa. How his father? grandfather? used to be the mayor of Wadi Musa. He talked about how honest and hard working his brother Ibrahim was, how they way they were brought up, honest is the only way to be. Also, how 15 years ago, before the peace agreement with Israel there were 8,000 people living there, and now there are 40,000. Atta talked to us about visiting Syria (where so many of the New Zealanders, Greeks, and other people we met there have also traveled.) He gave me his number and email address in case I'd ever like to visit Syria and wanted help arranging it.
Hisham (the guide) also joined us in the hotel lobby. He was there to settle the bill for our tab with Adebe. We had negotiated with Hisham (the driver) to take us around and back to Aqaba the next day, and to forgo the second tourguide and round trip with Adebe. Ra and Adebe haggle over the phone where Adebe tells him that they had already paid for 2 days with the (overheating/broken) car, and that if we went with a different driver, we would need to give him $50 even if we used somebody else. Fine, Ra agrees to go forgo our trip with Driver Hisham, and to risk the over heating car, along with paying the extra premium for a side trip to little petra, and a couple hours at Wadi Rum. The arrangements are made, Guide Hisham takes the money and says good night. Ra turned to Atta and asked if he thought that Adebe had in fact paid in advance for the car, and Atta wrinkled his nose and shook his head no.
We finished the evening, and our Shisha with an odd taste in our mouths. We were so grateful for the hospitality we received in Jordan, minus a small exception. I came away with an extremely positive opinion of Jordanians- they are warm, open, and even laid back out in Wadi Musa. There were things we didn't get to do in Petra, but I'm pretty sure we will come back.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
What to Wear in Jerusalem
Sasha:
Jerusalem is an interesting mix of people- the Arabs, the orthodox Jews, and pilgrims from all over the world converge in Old Jerusalem, and each has their own fashion challenges. Modesty is (mostly) the name of the game in the Old City- and is interesting to see the contrast of how everybody interprets it. Both the Arab women and the Orthodox women have an imperative to cover their hair. The Jewish women will wear a wig, a fall, a snood, or a scarf around the bulk of their hair, while the arab ones cover every trace of their hair, and their throats with either a scarf that they hold in place with a strait pin, or a special kind of veil. The more conservative Arab women tended to wear a lightweight floor length suit jacket. Some of them were really interesting- with all kinds of asymmetric collars, pleated lapels, pocket detailing- almost matrix meets steampunk. The younger Arab girls could also be seen in everything from jeans to flowing skirts in addition to the head scarves, but with sleeves down to their wrists and not a single ankle showing. While the Jewish girls were still careful not to show any elbows or knees, there seem to be fewer rules for them. The majority of them worked with lots of layers, and frequently wore tights in the 75-80 degree weather. I really appreciated how people made their style their own, whatever the guidelines.
And then there were the tourists. . .
Designer Jackets for Arab women
Tourist at the Western Wall
Military girls mugging for the camera at the Western Wall
I liked the way this girl mixed modest with her own personality. . .
. . .and this one even more so (at a mall just outside of Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem)
Jerusalem is an interesting mix of people- the Arabs, the orthodox Jews, and pilgrims from all over the world converge in Old Jerusalem, and each has their own fashion challenges. Modesty is (mostly) the name of the game in the Old City- and is interesting to see the contrast of how everybody interprets it. Both the Arab women and the Orthodox women have an imperative to cover their hair. The Jewish women will wear a wig, a fall, a snood, or a scarf around the bulk of their hair, while the arab ones cover every trace of their hair, and their throats with either a scarf that they hold in place with a strait pin, or a special kind of veil. The more conservative Arab women tended to wear a lightweight floor length suit jacket. Some of them were really interesting- with all kinds of asymmetric collars, pleated lapels, pocket detailing- almost matrix meets steampunk. The younger Arab girls could also be seen in everything from jeans to flowing skirts in addition to the head scarves, but with sleeves down to their wrists and not a single ankle showing. While the Jewish girls were still careful not to show any elbows or knees, there seem to be fewer rules for them. The majority of them worked with lots of layers, and frequently wore tights in the 75-80 degree weather. I really appreciated how people made their style their own, whatever the guidelines.
And then there were the tourists. . .
Orthodox man at the Western Wall
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Yes, my smartphone is just for managing my vacation. . .
Sasha:
We sat down this morning to map out the rest of our time in Israel, and to book an upcoming hotel or two. I've had a a few people ask us to post our schedule so they have some idea of what our plans are, so here is the next couple weeks, beginning Sunday, Nov. 21
Sunday: Caesaria
Monday: Jerusalem
Tuesday: Dead Sea/ Masada
Wednesday: Last day in Israel
Thursday 11/25: Take a bus, a taxi, then another taxi to get from Tel Aviv to Petra
Friday: Petra
Saturday: Petra
Sunday 11/28: Take taxi, another taxi, then a bus to go from Petra in Jordan to Eilat, then cross the border and head through Egypt
Monday: Cairo/ Giza
Tuesday: Cairo/ Giza
Wednesday: Take the redeye from Cairo to Mumbai
Thursday 12/2: Flight from Mumbai to Goa, and crash in Anjuna
Whew. At that point, I'm pretty sure we'll need a few days sitting on the beach in Goa to recover.
In the meantime, we are having a great time with Tom and Penguin here in Israel. We got to go to the movie theater to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It turns out that there is assigned seating, and intermission for your bathroom/cigarette/popcorn break. Also, the 9pm Friday showing is when all of the 12-14 year old kids in the suburbs go to the movies. Today, we explored Jaffa, a city that predates Tel Aviv by decades, had a beer, then met up with Ra's older sister Nurit, then had coffee with Ra's parents, then had dinner at an arab restaurant, then had sangria with some friends.
In the beginning portion of our trip, we took it easy and let ourselves recuperate from our jetlag. At this point, every afternoon and night is booked until we leave for Petra. Last time we were in Israel, 2 weeks felt like a long enough trip. This time, there have been so many people to visit with it feels like we could stay for an extra two weeks just to fit everything in.
We sat down this morning to map out the rest of our time in Israel, and to book an upcoming hotel or two. I've had a a few people ask us to post our schedule so they have some idea of what our plans are, so here is the next couple weeks, beginning Sunday, Nov. 21
Sunday: Caesaria
Monday: Jerusalem
Tuesday: Dead Sea/ Masada
Wednesday: Last day in Israel
Thursday 11/25: Take a bus, a taxi, then another taxi to get from Tel Aviv to Petra
Friday: Petra
Saturday: Petra
Sunday 11/28: Take taxi, another taxi, then a bus to go from Petra in Jordan to Eilat, then cross the border and head through Egypt
Monday: Cairo/ Giza
Tuesday: Cairo/ Giza
Wednesday: Take the redeye from Cairo to Mumbai
Thursday 12/2: Flight from Mumbai to Goa, and crash in Anjuna
Whew. At that point, I'm pretty sure we'll need a few days sitting on the beach in Goa to recover.
In the meantime, we are having a great time with Tom and Penguin here in Israel. We got to go to the movie theater to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It turns out that there is assigned seating, and intermission for your bathroom/cigarette/popcorn break. Also, the 9pm Friday showing is when all of the 12-14 year old kids in the suburbs go to the movies. Today, we explored Jaffa, a city that predates Tel Aviv by decades, had a beer, then met up with Ra's older sister Nurit, then had coffee with Ra's parents, then had dinner at an arab restaurant, then had sangria with some friends.
In the beginning portion of our trip, we took it easy and let ourselves recuperate from our jetlag. At this point, every afternoon and night is booked until we leave for Petra. Last time we were in Israel, 2 weeks felt like a long enough trip. This time, there have been so many people to visit with it feels like we could stay for an extra two weeks just to fit everything in.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Israel/Tel Aviv/Dead Sea adventures
Ra
Well, we've been to Israel for almost 2 weeks now, and it's all about to change. a few hours ago (6 hours to be exact), Tom and Penguin landed in Israel, and will be joining us for the next (almost 3 weeks) in Jordan, Egypt and Goa in India.
we went to the airport to pick them up (hella early! 4:30 am!), and they are asleep - tom in my Parents' living room, and penguin is happily snoring away in the spare room.
About a week or so we took all the "Americans" that came to Noam's wedding (Jennif, Jrat, Andi, Mel, Emily, Frances and Barney in no particular order) to the Dead Sea. Now, we took them to an awesome wild beach we've gone to before, with a topography that changes every year - this simple fact makes sure that every time we go out there it's an adventure. I think we didn't quite convey that fact to all those guys, and they didn't know what they were getting into. I hope that at least some of it was a positive experience for them - i know that we had a great time.... we found a fresh spring hole that had fresh cold water come in on top and a hot spring from the bottom. we rolled around in mud and had a great time. it was the getting to and from this hole that was problamatic, with lots of mud to wade through...
On the way back from the Dead Sea we stopped at an Arab village called Abu (in arabic, Abu means "father of") Gosh. those of you following the different types of Hummus that Sabre offers in the states might have seen that name as a type of Hummus. Obviously this type of Hummus originated from this village. i've been there a few times, but every time i go, there are all these signs and places claiming to be "the original Hummus place"... and i never know where to go. This time, we ended up stopping at a place called "Mifgash Abu Gosh" (which translates to the "Abu Gosh Meeting place"), and had a great meal, helping everyone to calm down from the (mis)adventures of the day. I was quite happy that the meal was great - we felt a bit guilty about the unintended adventure we put our friends through....
A couple of days later, we met up with our friends Shelly and Shay - which stayed with us about a year ago while they were visiting the states. I have to give a little bit of a background about shelly - she was my next door neighbor - literally - since i was 1 years old to the day I left Israel at 20 years old. She was my first girlfriend at sixth grade, and is generally an awesome person :)
Anyway, we met up with them, and they generously offered up her dad's unused apartment (he's in Uganda until the 22nd) which is placed in a very nice neighborhood in Tel Aviv. we gladly accepted, and spent two days there and had a lovely time, from a great dinner at a nice Italian Restaurant, to walking all over Tel Aviv and Rock Climbing in an outdoor rock climbing wall. we had a great time, but learned a valuable lesson - if you're gonna rock climb outside the U.S. - specifically in Israel - import your own chalk, as the chalk - which costs $1 where we usually climb - costs $8 here. as ironic as it sounds, we've gotten so little alone time so far that every time we are alone (with each other, that is), we enjoy it immensely.
Right now i'm sitting in my mother's workroom, waiting for everyone else to wake up so we can start our day here. but, i know the next few weeks are going to be quite different because of the new company that just arrived. we can't wait! :)
Well, we've been to Israel for almost 2 weeks now, and it's all about to change. a few hours ago (6 hours to be exact), Tom and Penguin landed in Israel, and will be joining us for the next (almost 3 weeks) in Jordan, Egypt and Goa in India.
we went to the airport to pick them up (hella early! 4:30 am!), and they are asleep - tom in my Parents' living room, and penguin is happily snoring away in the spare room.
About a week or so we took all the "Americans" that came to Noam's wedding (Jennif, Jrat, Andi, Mel, Emily, Frances and Barney in no particular order) to the Dead Sea. Now, we took them to an awesome wild beach we've gone to before, with a topography that changes every year - this simple fact makes sure that every time we go out there it's an adventure. I think we didn't quite convey that fact to all those guys, and they didn't know what they were getting into. I hope that at least some of it was a positive experience for them - i know that we had a great time.... we found a fresh spring hole that had fresh cold water come in on top and a hot spring from the bottom. we rolled around in mud and had a great time. it was the getting to and from this hole that was problamatic, with lots of mud to wade through...
On the way back from the Dead Sea we stopped at an Arab village called Abu (in arabic, Abu means "father of") Gosh. those of you following the different types of Hummus that Sabre offers in the states might have seen that name as a type of Hummus. Obviously this type of Hummus originated from this village. i've been there a few times, but every time i go, there are all these signs and places claiming to be "the original Hummus place"... and i never know where to go. This time, we ended up stopping at a place called "Mifgash Abu Gosh" (which translates to the "Abu Gosh Meeting place"), and had a great meal, helping everyone to calm down from the (mis)adventures of the day. I was quite happy that the meal was great - we felt a bit guilty about the unintended adventure we put our friends through....
A couple of days later, we met up with our friends Shelly and Shay - which stayed with us about a year ago while they were visiting the states. I have to give a little bit of a background about shelly - she was my next door neighbor - literally - since i was 1 years old to the day I left Israel at 20 years old. She was my first girlfriend at sixth grade, and is generally an awesome person :)
Anyway, we met up with them, and they generously offered up her dad's unused apartment (he's in Uganda until the 22nd) which is placed in a very nice neighborhood in Tel Aviv. we gladly accepted, and spent two days there and had a lovely time, from a great dinner at a nice Italian Restaurant, to walking all over Tel Aviv and Rock Climbing in an outdoor rock climbing wall. we had a great time, but learned a valuable lesson - if you're gonna rock climb outside the U.S. - specifically in Israel - import your own chalk, as the chalk - which costs $1 where we usually climb - costs $8 here. as ironic as it sounds, we've gotten so little alone time so far that every time we are alone (with each other, that is), we enjoy it immensely.
Right now i'm sitting in my mother's workroom, waiting for everyone else to wake up so we can start our day here. but, i know the next few weeks are going to be quite different because of the new company that just arrived. we can't wait! :)
Sunday, November 14, 2010
From the Occupied Territory to the Sea of Galilee
Sasha
Today was the most peaceful day we've spent in what seems like 6 months. We woke up in a big, empty house overlooking a valley of olive trees as far as the eyes can see. The sun was kissing our windows, and a dry gentle breeze blew through the screens. We had nothing that we needed to do, and nowhere we had to be today. Between planning the wedding, working like crazing all summer long, and then packing up our life in the bay area, it feels like such a long time since we've been able to completely relax like this. It is as if our honeymoon is finally here. (The only disturbance are the pop! pop! pop! of distant gunshots. I'd tell you what they were from if I knew.)
At this moment I sit in my in-laws weekend home at Kibbutz Moran. I am 20km Northwest of the Sea of Galilee (also known as the Kinneret), 30km East of the Mediterranean, about 30km South of Lebanon (you can't get there from here) and less than 60km from Syria, (you really can't get there from here). For those of you more used to miles, I am less than 38 miles away from Syria right now. To give you even more perspecive, this is a little bit shorter than the drive from our old place in Oakland to San Jose. :-)
We spent our weekend here with Ra's family- an Israeli weekend, which starts on Thursday afternoon, and goes until Saturday night because come Sunday morning, everyone is back at work. Jean and Oded built the house with the idea of filling it with their offspring. There is a room downstairs for Ra and I complete with an extra-long bed so Ra's feet don't hang off the edge. On the middle floor is the room for the youngest sister, Yael and her boyfriend Leron. At the top floor there were two bedrooms for Nurit and Assaf (Ra's oldest sister and her husband) and their brood of 3 adorable, high energy daughters. The oldest is a thoughtful 6 year old who clearly adores her uncle, and vice versa, the middle one can talk your ear off whether or not you can understand a word of her Hebrew, and has zero shyness of being center stage in the family and is almost 4, while the youngest one has yet to take ownership of language herself, and prefers to babble baby talk while clearly understanding everything you are saying to her at the age of a year and ten months. 11 people make for a very busy house, and the fact that three of those were high energy kids and toddlers meant that most of our waking hours here involved entertaining the children. I don't remember the last time I played "aeroplane" (or as they call it in Israel, "superman") or participated the complex hand-clapping games that come after the child has mastered patty-cake. Thank goodness I still remembered. My language barrier with the girls made it much harder to teach them songs like "Miss Marry Mack" or "My Sister had a Tugboat." On second thought, perhaps that is for the best. We played an odd combination of broken telephone and charades since they don't speak English, and I don't really speak Hebrew. Every time we successfully communicated I was inclined to do whatever they were asking as a reward, whether that be getting them a glass of water or lifting them into the superman position for the upteenth time because they had learned the word "again! again!"
The last night we were all here, I finally had a chance to talk one-on-one with Nurit, when Eden, the middle girl came up to me and started talking and miming a hand clapping game. I told her, "Not now, I'm talking to your mother."
Eden turns to Nurit and says in Hebrew, "I understood what she said," then tottered off to play some other game.
I love that by getting married, I gained 3 nieces overnight, and it is such a awesome blessing to get to participate in their lives like we did this weekend. A very exhausting blessing. And recovering from that blessing in a quiet house alone with my husband makes it that much better.
* * *
As I talk and write about the places we go here, there is so much magic in the words. All weekend I've been trying to remember the rest of the lyrics to a song I sang in bible school more than 20 years ago that included the words "from the . . . to the Sea of Galilee!" to no avail. As we drove down south to the Dead Sea last Wednesday and saw the signs for Jericho, I couldn't help but sing "the walls came tumbling down" in my head. I'm not a religious person, so these places aren't spiritual for me- it is more like driving along and seeing the road to Camelot, or being told we are going over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house. They are more like fairy tales that turn out to exist in our very real and mundane world.
And then there are the other words- Golan Heights, Occupied Territories, West Bank, Jewish Settlements. Instead of the magic of fairy tales, these words have the magic that comes from being places on the news that seem scary, and far far away. This week, I find them right in front of me.
Last week I found myself in a car driving through the West Bank from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea. I can say that I walked around in the Occupied territories; We stopped at a gas station, used a bathroom, bought some mango juice, and took a picture of a camel. Some of our American companions purchased their own authentic West Bank kafiyas at the gift shop.
Our favorite place to go swimming in the Dead Sea is just south of Palestinian Territory, in fact, the way we knew it was time to park the car to hike down to the water is that there is an Israeli military checkpoint just as you come out it You park in the lot about 20 meters down the road from that border, grab your towel and walk down the hill 'til you find the fresh water springs. On the other side of the water, perhaps 20km away, you see the hills of Jordan rising out out of the horizon.
As we were driving, Ra pointed out some of the Settlements that have been in the news recently. In my head, I always pictured pioneering farm houses out in the desert- but in reality, they look more like gated communities in San Diego suburbs- houses with peach stucco walls, red tiled roofs, palm trees in the yard, built one right next to the other, and they all looked just the same. . .
* * *
Tonight, we met up with our friend Dana. She took us to her favorite swimming hole through a kibbutz, behind groves of peaches and plums, and fields of wheat. It was cool evening after a warm day, so we hopped out of our clothes, and got into the water. Coming from Montana, I'm used to glacial run off, so the brisk waters of Israel were more refreshing than chilling. Afterwards, we would have sat on the bank longer, but the evening mosquitoes were eating us alive.
As we drove home, I was telling Ra about the songs in my head, and the magical places. I started to sing about the River Jordan along with all the others.
"You know that we were just at the River Jordan, right?" Ra tells me.
"Soooo. . . we just went skinny dipping in the River Jordan?" I ask. "Awesome."
And something about this combination of the spiritual and the profane, the wonderland connected with the act of swimming in a river just like I've done a hundred times in my life struck me as the funniest combination I could have imagined.
Today was the most peaceful day we've spent in what seems like 6 months. We woke up in a big, empty house overlooking a valley of olive trees as far as the eyes can see. The sun was kissing our windows, and a dry gentle breeze blew through the screens. We had nothing that we needed to do, and nowhere we had to be today. Between planning the wedding, working like crazing all summer long, and then packing up our life in the bay area, it feels like such a long time since we've been able to completely relax like this. It is as if our honeymoon is finally here. (The only disturbance are the pop! pop! pop! of distant gunshots. I'd tell you what they were from if I knew.)
At this moment I sit in my in-laws weekend home at Kibbutz Moran. I am 20km Northwest of the Sea of Galilee (also known as the Kinneret), 30km East of the Mediterranean, about 30km South of Lebanon (you can't get there from here) and less than 60km from Syria, (you really can't get there from here). For those of you more used to miles, I am less than 38 miles away from Syria right now. To give you even more perspecive, this is a little bit shorter than the drive from our old place in Oakland to San Jose. :-)
We spent our weekend here with Ra's family- an Israeli weekend, which starts on Thursday afternoon, and goes until Saturday night because come Sunday morning, everyone is back at work. Jean and Oded built the house with the idea of filling it with their offspring. There is a room downstairs for Ra and I complete with an extra-long bed so Ra's feet don't hang off the edge. On the middle floor is the room for the youngest sister, Yael and her boyfriend Leron. At the top floor there were two bedrooms for Nurit and Assaf (Ra's oldest sister and her husband) and their brood of 3 adorable, high energy daughters. The oldest is a thoughtful 6 year old who clearly adores her uncle, and vice versa, the middle one can talk your ear off whether or not you can understand a word of her Hebrew, and has zero shyness of being center stage in the family and is almost 4, while the youngest one has yet to take ownership of language herself, and prefers to babble baby talk while clearly understanding everything you are saying to her at the age of a year and ten months. 11 people make for a very busy house, and the fact that three of those were high energy kids and toddlers meant that most of our waking hours here involved entertaining the children. I don't remember the last time I played "aeroplane" (or as they call it in Israel, "superman") or participated the complex hand-clapping games that come after the child has mastered patty-cake. Thank goodness I still remembered. My language barrier with the girls made it much harder to teach them songs like "Miss Marry Mack" or "My Sister had a Tugboat." On second thought, perhaps that is for the best. We played an odd combination of broken telephone and charades since they don't speak English, and I don't really speak Hebrew. Every time we successfully communicated I was inclined to do whatever they were asking as a reward, whether that be getting them a glass of water or lifting them into the superman position for the upteenth time because they had learned the word "again! again!"
The last night we were all here, I finally had a chance to talk one-on-one with Nurit, when Eden, the middle girl came up to me and started talking and miming a hand clapping game. I told her, "Not now, I'm talking to your mother."
Eden turns to Nurit and says in Hebrew, "I understood what she said," then tottered off to play some other game.
I love that by getting married, I gained 3 nieces overnight, and it is such a awesome blessing to get to participate in their lives like we did this weekend. A very exhausting blessing. And recovering from that blessing in a quiet house alone with my husband makes it that much better.
* * *
As I talk and write about the places we go here, there is so much magic in the words. All weekend I've been trying to remember the rest of the lyrics to a song I sang in bible school more than 20 years ago that included the words "from the . . . to the Sea of Galilee!" to no avail. As we drove down south to the Dead Sea last Wednesday and saw the signs for Jericho, I couldn't help but sing "the walls came tumbling down" in my head. I'm not a religious person, so these places aren't spiritual for me- it is more like driving along and seeing the road to Camelot, or being told we are going over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house. They are more like fairy tales that turn out to exist in our very real and mundane world.
And then there are the other words- Golan Heights, Occupied Territories, West Bank, Jewish Settlements. Instead of the magic of fairy tales, these words have the magic that comes from being places on the news that seem scary, and far far away. This week, I find them right in front of me.
Last week I found myself in a car driving through the West Bank from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea. I can say that I walked around in the Occupied territories; We stopped at a gas station, used a bathroom, bought some mango juice, and took a picture of a camel. Some of our American companions purchased their own authentic West Bank kafiyas at the gift shop.
Our favorite place to go swimming in the Dead Sea is just south of Palestinian Territory, in fact, the way we knew it was time to park the car to hike down to the water is that there is an Israeli military checkpoint just as you come out it You park in the lot about 20 meters down the road from that border, grab your towel and walk down the hill 'til you find the fresh water springs. On the other side of the water, perhaps 20km away, you see the hills of Jordan rising out out of the horizon.
As we were driving, Ra pointed out some of the Settlements that have been in the news recently. In my head, I always pictured pioneering farm houses out in the desert- but in reality, they look more like gated communities in San Diego suburbs- houses with peach stucco walls, red tiled roofs, palm trees in the yard, built one right next to the other, and they all looked just the same. . .
* * *
As we drove home, I was telling Ra about the songs in my head, and the magical places. I started to sing about the River Jordan along with all the others.
"You know that we were just at the River Jordan, right?" Ra tells me.
"Soooo. . . we just went skinny dipping in the River Jordan?" I ask. "Awesome."
And something about this combination of the spiritual and the profane, the wonderland connected with the act of swimming in a river just like I've done a hundred times in my life struck me as the funniest combination I could have imagined.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Project Runway- Travel Edition
Sasha
Alright contestants: Congratulations, you are going to a theme party! But here's the catch- your challenge for today is to create two looks inspired by a character from Alice in Wonderland. You can use clothing and material from your back packs and what you can find in your parent's house- you will have 2 1/2 hours for this challenge. . .
It is 7:30pm, and Allon has invited us to an Alice in Wonderland party. My first thought is Costumes! We barely brought any going out clothes, while all of our costumes are locked up in a storage unit in Alameda. .
(If you don't know him, Allon is the person responsible for introducing Ra and I on the sunset cruise more than 5 years ago)
We take stock of our situation: I have two sets of googley antennae that we are giving to the girls, lots of nylon hiking pants, a pair of purple tights, two sets of stripey sock poi. . . While I have some colorful options, both Ra and I have a black outfit, and it occurs to me that if we attached spades/ hearts/ diamonds/ clubs we could turn ourselves into playing cards.
I scavenge around the house with Jeannie (Ra's mother) to find scissors, paper, a piece of red calico fabric, and a partial deck of cards. I ask Ra what suit he wants to be- clubs- but then I decided that spades would be easier to cut out and sew on than clubs. I tacked the spades and hearts onto our black tshirts, and then at Ra's suggestion added the playing cards on a couple corners. I then created a fascinator using the fabric, cards, scotch tape, and a needle and thread. Ra's hat got a pair of kings, and tah-dah! we were ready to party.
Alright contestants: Congratulations, you are going to a theme party! But here's the catch- your challenge for today is to create two looks inspired by a character from Alice in Wonderland. You can use clothing and material from your back packs and what you can find in your parent's house- you will have 2 1/2 hours for this challenge. . .
It is 7:30pm, and Allon has invited us to an Alice in Wonderland party. My first thought is Costumes! We barely brought any going out clothes, while all of our costumes are locked up in a storage unit in Alameda. .
(If you don't know him, Allon is the person responsible for introducing Ra and I on the sunset cruise more than 5 years ago)
We take stock of our situation: I have two sets of googley antennae that we are giving to the girls, lots of nylon hiking pants, a pair of purple tights, two sets of stripey sock poi. . . While I have some colorful options, both Ra and I have a black outfit, and it occurs to me that if we attached spades/ hearts/ diamonds/ clubs we could turn ourselves into playing cards.
I scavenge around the house with Jeannie (Ra's mother) to find scissors, paper, a piece of red calico fabric, and a partial deck of cards. I ask Ra what suit he wants to be- clubs- but then I decided that spades would be easier to cut out and sew on than clubs. I tacked the spades and hearts onto our black tshirts, and then at Ra's suggestion added the playing cards on a couple corners. I then created a fascinator using the fabric, cards, scotch tape, and a needle and thread. Ra's hat got a pair of kings, and tah-dah! we were ready to party.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Packing and Cleaning
Ra:
This post is much easier written AFTER we are done with the packing and cleaning. and... yes, we are done, in case you were wondering.
Took us about a week to pack everything up - I made Sasha swear she would get out of her office and help me start packing around the 20th, and that's what we did. With the exception of the party, this is what we've been focused on, and is the main reason why we haven't been showing up to parties/events.
Overall, it wasn't that bad of an experience. We got rid of a lot of stuff, but also kept a lot of stuff. Our upstairs neighbor, michael, GUARANTEED us we would regret keeping anything besides the most precious stuff, and I think he's right. but letting go of anything - let alone LOTS of stuff is hard on anyone, sasha and I included.
Our lives have been ruled by boxes. Looking for the right size box has been on my mind almost 24/7 in the past week. we ran out of boxes at some point, and I went to the "professional" moving store - the one the movers go to - and got more boxes/packing tape/bubble wrap, etc. if you didn't know, I was a mover for about 8 months a while back, and while moving and packing is no one's cup of tea, it doesn't scare me as much as it does other people. one small step at a time will get the job done :)
So, sat arrives - our imposed moving day - and we are almost ready.I found a storage place in alameda called CSI Ministorage (we suspect it's about crimes happening in storage places, but we're not sure) that gives you 4 months at 50% off, AND sends a truck and two guys to load your stuff, bring it to their storage space (Alameda or Richmond) and unload it into your space FOR FREE. yes, that's right, free. So, at about 2pm - about an hour after they were supposed to show up - they grabbed the wrong paperwork and went to Vallejo by mistake - the guys showed up and started packing.
A few things I've learned from my time as a mover:
1. DO NOT PISS OFF THE MOVERS. they now have your stuff. they will be handling your stuff from now until it gets to your house. piss 'em off and they can accidentally drop things 47 times until they break.
2. TIP THEM EARLY. I'm not usually a fan of automatic tipping - think Mr pink in reservoir dogs, but a little less... aggressive... about it - but this is the one exception. you WANT these guys to be nice to your stuff. ESPECIALLY on a free service such as this, i'm sure that many people simply use the service and don't tip. so, $100 between 3 guys is a super cheap deal, and everyone is happy.
The guys did a great job packing both the truck and the storage space. In fact, when we got there, the "leader" of the movers insisted I take a specific space which "is bigger with higher ceilings - management doesn't know about it, so they won't charge you more"... best $100 I spent all week.
The end of the day has arrived, and we are exhausted. Driving home from Alameda, we are feeling pretty good about ourselves - we got everything packed, met the schedule we set for ourselves, and now we just have to clean our place. That's when it hit me.
"Baby, where are our Passports?"
"oh, they are in the red bag, inside the metal filing cabinet that's.... Oh."
Yup. We forgot to take out the passports from their normal resting place, and they are now buried somewhere within the 16'x8.5x10' space that holds our possessions. Did I mention i spoke to the movers and encouraged them to pack it tight so we have space left over in case sasha's office has to go in there?
That, as you can imagine, put a damper on the evening. That was also the night the Giants lost - coincidence? I think not.
The next morning, around 11am, we went back to the storage space. Opening the door and looking at our space, we were bewildered by just HOW MUCH stuff we have, and how tightly packed it was. The guys really DID do an excellent job. Sasha, from behind me, asked if she can start crying now - to which my usual response is a cheery "no, we can do this, it's not as bad as you think..." - however, this time, my response was a sullen "yes".
I called Tom and woke him up - i wasn't even thinking this was the night after Halloween, we've been so busy with our stuff - and asked for a huge favor - to come and help me unload this space until we reach the metal filing cabinets. A grumpy tom took that request pretty well - love you dude! - and asked for time to have coffee and food. we decided to reconvene at 4pm.
I hung up and started looking a little deeper into the space and the stuff. and suddenly! I couldn't believe my eyes! a foot and a half behind the line of scrimmager, so to speak, was a metal filing cabinet! but hang on! there are two of those! one is dented, and is NOT the one we want. the other one - the not dented one - is the one with the passports in it. is this one dented? NO! IT'S NOT DENTED! THIS IS THE ONE!!!
I called Sasha back in, and after dancing the shiksa hora with her for a minute, put on Daft Punk in the car, and started unloading stuff to reach this very reasonably distanced metal filing cabinet. We unloaded, grabbed the passports and reloaded the stuff before the first song was over :) we're both very happy to be laughing at this, since this could have ended quite differently. but for now, this is one for the books :)
So, now we are packed and ready to go. Tonight is the last night we are spending in the US for a while. And how are we spending it? Like good Americans, by suing someone! That particular someone is the guy who ran the skool for a little while - while it was still open - who took our deposit and never returned it. but, more about that later...
This post is much easier written AFTER we are done with the packing and cleaning. and... yes, we are done, in case you were wondering.
Took us about a week to pack everything up - I made Sasha swear she would get out of her office and help me start packing around the 20th, and that's what we did. With the exception of the party, this is what we've been focused on, and is the main reason why we haven't been showing up to parties/events.
Overall, it wasn't that bad of an experience. We got rid of a lot of stuff, but also kept a lot of stuff. Our upstairs neighbor, michael, GUARANTEED us we would regret keeping anything besides the most precious stuff, and I think he's right. but letting go of anything - let alone LOTS of stuff is hard on anyone, sasha and I included.
Our lives have been ruled by boxes. Looking for the right size box has been on my mind almost 24/7 in the past week. we ran out of boxes at some point, and I went to the "professional" moving store - the one the movers go to - and got more boxes/packing tape/bubble wrap, etc. if you didn't know, I was a mover for about 8 months a while back, and while moving and packing is no one's cup of tea, it doesn't scare me as much as it does other people. one small step at a time will get the job done :)
So, sat arrives - our imposed moving day - and we are almost ready.I found a storage place in alameda called CSI Ministorage (we suspect it's about crimes happening in storage places, but we're not sure) that gives you 4 months at 50% off, AND sends a truck and two guys to load your stuff, bring it to their storage space (Alameda or Richmond) and unload it into your space FOR FREE. yes, that's right, free. So, at about 2pm - about an hour after they were supposed to show up - they grabbed the wrong paperwork and went to Vallejo by mistake - the guys showed up and started packing.
A few things I've learned from my time as a mover:
1. DO NOT PISS OFF THE MOVERS. they now have your stuff. they will be handling your stuff from now until it gets to your house. piss 'em off and they can accidentally drop things 47 times until they break.
2. TIP THEM EARLY. I'm not usually a fan of automatic tipping - think Mr pink in reservoir dogs, but a little less... aggressive... about it - but this is the one exception. you WANT these guys to be nice to your stuff. ESPECIALLY on a free service such as this, i'm sure that many people simply use the service and don't tip. so, $100 between 3 guys is a super cheap deal, and everyone is happy.
The guys did a great job packing both the truck and the storage space. In fact, when we got there, the "leader" of the movers insisted I take a specific space which "is bigger with higher ceilings - management doesn't know about it, so they won't charge you more"... best $100 I spent all week.
The end of the day has arrived, and we are exhausted. Driving home from Alameda, we are feeling pretty good about ourselves - we got everything packed, met the schedule we set for ourselves, and now we just have to clean our place. That's when it hit me.
"Baby, where are our Passports?"
"oh, they are in the red bag, inside the metal filing cabinet that's.... Oh."
Yup. We forgot to take out the passports from their normal resting place, and they are now buried somewhere within the 16'x8.5x10' space that holds our possessions. Did I mention i spoke to the movers and encouraged them to pack it tight so we have space left over in case sasha's office has to go in there?
That, as you can imagine, put a damper on the evening. That was also the night the Giants lost - coincidence? I think not.
The next morning, around 11am, we went back to the storage space. Opening the door and looking at our space, we were bewildered by just HOW MUCH stuff we have, and how tightly packed it was. The guys really DID do an excellent job. Sasha, from behind me, asked if she can start crying now - to which my usual response is a cheery "no, we can do this, it's not as bad as you think..." - however, this time, my response was a sullen "yes".
I called Tom and woke him up - i wasn't even thinking this was the night after Halloween, we've been so busy with our stuff - and asked for a huge favor - to come and help me unload this space until we reach the metal filing cabinets. A grumpy tom took that request pretty well - love you dude! - and asked for time to have coffee and food. we decided to reconvene at 4pm.
I hung up and started looking a little deeper into the space and the stuff. and suddenly! I couldn't believe my eyes! a foot and a half behind the line of scrimmager, so to speak, was a metal filing cabinet! but hang on! there are two of those! one is dented, and is NOT the one we want. the other one - the not dented one - is the one with the passports in it. is this one dented? NO! IT'S NOT DENTED! THIS IS THE ONE!!!
I called Sasha back in, and after dancing the shiksa hora with her for a minute, put on Daft Punk in the car, and started unloading stuff to reach this very reasonably distanced metal filing cabinet. We unloaded, grabbed the passports and reloaded the stuff before the first song was over :) we're both very happy to be laughing at this, since this could have ended quite differently. but for now, this is one for the books :)
So, now we are packed and ready to go. Tonight is the last night we are spending in the US for a while. And how are we spending it? Like good Americans, by suing someone! That particular someone is the guy who ran the skool for a little while - while it was still open - who took our deposit and never returned it. but, more about that later...
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