while i have my around-the-world photos out from their usual home in the garage, i think i’ll continue telling some more stories from that adventure. after the last post about egypt ...

we took a bus from cairo -- worrying if there would be any issues entering israel from an "arab country" (no problem) -- to jerusalem. spent a few days in the old city, soaking up the ancient ambiance and the LIGHT reflecting all that white and gold colored jerusalem stone from which the entire city is made. stunning.

i love love love the church of the holy sepulchre where they say christ was crucified, buried and resurrected. the space divided into six sections for six different christian denominations. the entire ceiling adorned with ancient oil lamps and incense burners, making it easier to imagine what it might have been like 2000 years ago. dark. mysterious. holy.

arab market, old jerusalem

my other favorite thing in the old city was watching everyone scurry around on friday afternoon, running last minute errands and doing last minute doings before shabbat which paralyzes the place. no running, no errands, no doing from friday sunset til saturday sunset. everything closes. full stop. a real day of rest. the one thing open on shabbat is the wailing wall, where many and especially the orthodox converge to sway and pray. we placed little notes to god in the crevices of the rocks, along with all the other notes from people over hundreds of years.

my friday afternoon scurry to the store before sunset ended in tears. just outside the jaffa gate to the old city, a huge man was selling postcards displayed on poles. laden with a plastic bag of groceries in each of my hands, i stopped to look at his cards ... when he reached up with both hands and touched my breasts. fucker! enraged at him and at all the men who had dared to touch me throughout our trip and throughout my life, i dropped my bags and pounded on his chest. i always thought i was the kind of girl who could throw a punch as good as the guys. NOT. i pounded away while he -- completely unfazed -- just laughed and laughed at me. aaaaaaarrrrrggggggghhhhhhh. adrenaline racing, i picked up my bags and marched away. i thought about going to the police. but i just wanted to retreat to the safety of curt and our little room. (rrrrr. this still makes me mad as hell!)

then we moved to kibbutz yahel, an amazing piece of green in the negev desert right next to jordan, for a month.

most kibbutz employ "volunteers" ... usually young travellers who work in exchange for room and board and per diem. we worked HARD in the HOT sun -- curt picking watermelons, me packing galia melons -- made $120 per person per month and spent it all at the kibbutz store on chips, ice cream, water and beer.

NOTE: the above photo was the security memo they gave us upon arrival at yahel. THIS IS THE LAST PHOTO i have of our RTW trip. and i'll tell you why next week. below are photos i found on the internet of yahel ...

when we weren't working, we swam in the beautiful swimming pool and sipped in the bombshelter bar. other than that, we slept. didn't have much contact with the kibbutzim. while israelis are renowned for their exotic good looks ... they are not famous for their politesse. from my journal pages ...

the kibbutzniks treated us a hair better than they treated the arab workers. then the office ladies read my postcard on which i said just that and then they were REALLY RUDE to me.

NOTE: 20 years later, i now know what a stupid/insipid/immature thing that was to think/say/write on a postcard. but it's what i did at the time.

but then there was also this from my journal:

in spite of everything, we did learn a bit about what kibbutz life is like, and had good times as well:

- waking up at 5am, dawn, and hearing hundreds of birds chirping away. slouching to the dining hall to find a cup, any cup, and wash it and fill it with instant coffee.

- driving the tractor to the dump, amidst all those hazy purple mountains, and the mountains of jordan, and feeling very free.

- going running around the perimeter road, inside the barbed wire, happy to be in a country again where they don't think you're totally crazy for doing such a thing, especially a woman.

-working so hard all you could do is go home, take a shower and fall asleep -- totally exhausted after a hard day's work. it actually felt GOOD some days, if our bodies weren't too sore.

- seeing bicycles left in the middle of the paths with no worry, never to be stolen.

we had committed to staying two months at yahel, but left after one. and i even had to talk curt into staying for the whole month. his work in the fields was really tough. so after our 30 days, we hopped a bus and went north to haifa, where we ate the best falafel in the world at a little sidewalk stand. which signaled our exit from the promised land. and thus we headed north via ferry to greece ...

~~~~~

lessons learned: manual labor can be very gratifying and grounding. a weekly, real day of rest is beautiful and revitalizing.

+++++

put on the to-do list: learn how to throw a proper punch.

while i have my around-the-world photos out from their usual home in the garage, i think i’ll continue telling some more stories from that adventure. after the last post about kenya ...

arriving in cairo after two months in kenya was like landing back in civilization ... albeit a muslim civilization (our first experience of muslim culture except for a few days on java and yogyakarta at the beginning of our trip.). in a great city ... great coffee. great food. movie theaters. museums. history. peace. safety. we were psyched!

people were quite friendly, wanting to have a coffee and practice their english. different from kenya where we felt we couldn’t trust people, they wanted to rip us off.

we spent a few days in cairo getting acclimated and doing some business and banking. stayed at the nicest place on our whole trip (except, of course, the uber fancy hotel in bombay, which is in a whole tier to itself) ... the very friendly, clean and well-run pension roma ... in an old building with tons of character, huge rooms with ultra high ceilings and antique armoires and furniture, private bath, and complimentary breakfast. curt bought roses for me several times, just like in portland where he bought me a beautiful bouquet every friday. a far cry from our stay in kenya! and all for 30 egyptian pounds or $10/night! so good that i even noted it in my diary:

the fruit juice was cheap, too! 30 cents for a big glass of fresh squeezed anything. our favorites: orange and strawberry/banana.

you have to understand ... this was straight off the heels of two months in kenya, preceeded by a month in india, and a month in nepal. all fascinating places in which we, as budget travellers, had stayed in some mighty grotty places. thailand and bali were really quite clean in comparison ... high standards of cleanliness. nepal, india and kenya ... not so much.

then we headed to luxor. and stayed at possibly the very worst place of our entire trip. ah well, this is budget travelling. sometimes the little budget finds something great, sometimes not so great. i was pretty much the master at finding good places. i have a need for “ambiance.” (my college pals will laugh at this word, but it was true even then, a nascent sensibility and vocabulary word for me!) but it took some looking. curt got used to it, and we developed a system. we would arrive in a new place. he would sit with the luggage while i ran around looking at all the accommodation in our budget. and i'd always find the best! except in luxor :-(

and since we were travellers -- distinct from tourists -- we decided to rent bicycles and tour the valley of the kings on two wheels. hah! we dumbly handed over curt’s passport as collateral for the one-speed bicycles (we'd been travelling for six months by then and we KNEW BETTER!). but off we went sans passport. saw tut’s tomb, hatshupset’s magnificent tomb, and more. and it was the hottest, sweatiest, dustiest day of my life. and perhaps the most dangerous with all those monster wide tour buses racing past us, with their fancy schmancy air conditioning. i was jealous, but it was too late to turn back.

eventually curt’s bike failed ... we can’t remember exactly what ... flat tire? sticking brake? if i recall correctly, curt and i both got on my bike, he pedalled and i sat on the seat holding the broken bicycle to the side. it wasn’t pretty. when we got back to the bike rental place, they wanted us to pay for the repair. we said no, we didn’t do anything wrong, the bike just broke. they were holding curt’s passport until we forked out. i’m sure it wasn’t much, but we were on a budget and didn’t have extra funds. we argued for 20 minutes, loudly, before getting the passport back, without paying for the repairs. not exactly my proudest moment. and limped back to our crappy hotel. NOT the best day of the trip.

back to cairo and pension roma. we toured the fabulous egyptian museum. shopped in khan el khahlili souk. bought perfume. needed a usa fix so went to see “born on the 4^th of july” in a movie theater which was an experience in and of itself. you had to sit in your assigned seat and the vendors came to you. weird. no popcorn. not the greatest fix ... i much prefer the movie-going experience at home!

the absolute best part of our egypt time was wandering around the back alleys of cairo. i admit i'm not the usual tourist or traveller. even now when i'm on a short trip. i don't love going around to tourist sites, just because the place is significant historically. just because the guidebook says you have to see it. i don't usually care to go SEE things. ruins. churches. museums. you know. it all becomes a blur after the first two or three. unless it is significant and meaningful to ME for whatever reason ... to me, this sightseeing is of the head.

i want to have an EXPERIENCE. of the heart. my heart. i much prefer to wander around and meet people, see what their daily lives entail. soak up the ambiance of the place. experience it.

while meandering the little dirt lanes in the ancient coptic christian area of cairo, we found ben ezra synagogue. having been raised jewish, i was interested in this place. what? jews in egypt? i thought they all left with moses! crossed the red sea and all. the passover story. the man at the door said he had been offering tours of this tiny temple for 40 years.

this man took us around the old synagogue where he said moses and jesus, mary and joseph spent time. moses was found as a baby in the reeds of the nile near here. this man showed us stones and stairs and all kinds of unphotogenic sites, always asking "photo? photo?" charming.

this man was my favorite part of egypt. just. look. in. his. eyes. now THAT is an experience. i'll take that over any ruin, no matter how historically significant, any day, any time, anywhere.

~~~~~

lessons learned: never turn over your passport, for anything! ever! and especially not for a broken bicycle! and don't think for a minute that being a traveller is any better than being a tourist. it's the same! that was just my egotistical youth talking.