Germans are weird. There, I said it. They usually come across as 10 times as nice as your regular European, but they have this look on their face that seems sooo fake. Everyone in our Cologne hotel was exactly like that. I mentioned it to Jess, and he covered it better than I ever could - "Yeah, it's weird. They seem nice, but they'll probably stab you in the throat when you turn around."
So, onto the holidays. Y'all probably woke up Christmas Day, opened some presents, maybe rebelled a bit by putting some baileys in your coffee. Hung out with the family. Ate some turkey. Blah blah. All the bullshit I avoid like the plague. Christmas Day for Jess and I? Lil different, yo. We're going to Jewyland!
Note - For all of you with Jewish relatives, don't call anything "Jewy" like I do about 643 times in this blog. They hate that apparently.
6am. Cologne airport. Two security screenings, which is one too many. A nice long wait on the bus that is going to take us to our plane, which conveniently sits there in -9C weather with the doors wide open. Guess who was right beside the door?
Pretty reasonable 4.5 hour flight to Israel. Arrive in the Holy Land. Looks like someone bulldozed everything around the runways. Oh wait...they did. Not pretty. Welcome to the Middle East!
I'd heard for years that Israeli security is unbelievably harsh and that we were gonna get questioned up the wazoo trying to enter the country. I had all the paperwork ready for the interrogation and all that. I wasn't gonna be intimidated by some big-nosed angry Israeli guy. Wait, guy? Why are all the immigration people women? And why are they all young and hot? Odd. Wait, why is that dark-skinned guy in front of us yelling at them? Don't be stupid buddy! Oh shit, he's being hauled into a back room by some beefy male security guards that just showed up. Whoa. Uh oh.
I got all psyched up for the barrage of questions, and Jess and I approached a pretty brunette with an angry look on her face:
"Where did you arrive from?"
"G-Germany."
"What is the purpose of your trip?"
"T-t-tourism?"
"How many days you stay?"
"Six. Total. We're going to Jordan too."
"Thank yous. Goodbyes."
My shock and excitement about being admitted to the Holy Land lasted about 6 seconds, until Jess said "You're so dumb. I told you it'd be easy." He was right this time, but he'd get his Jewy security lesson in a few days. For now though...we were in fucking Israel bitches! Bust out the shofars and draidels! Don't worry about not knowing what the hell that means...I didn't have a clue what they were either until I was there for a few days.
Our first stop was an ATM, which made us both immediately envious of how cool their money is. Canadians like to say they have colorful bills, but Israel puts them to shame - their money is fucking nice. Too bad we had to spend so much of it right away, because the train into the city was stopped for a while because of Shabbat.
READER NOTE - Shabbat is the stupidest fucking thing in the free world, and I hate it more than I hate hepatitis. I'm still not sure why I hate hepatitis, but that's not the point. I will explain more about Shabbat in future blogs, but here are the basics - Jews need a day off each week, and they need rules to govern that day off. It lasts from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, basically. They go with rules written 2000 years ago, because they're Jews and they make no sense. The rules are ridiculous. Here's just two of the fun ones - They can't turn light switches on and off. And hey can't ride elevators unless they stop at every floor, because they're not allowed to push buttons. You really think they had light switches or buttons 2000 years ago?
What the fuck?
So, we had to pay something like 45 bucks to take a cab into Tel Aviv because Shabbat shut down the trains. We arrived at our hotel, which turned into stereotype central in about 10 seconds. I talked to the reservations guy, who told me about all his Jewy relatives in Canada and how he had to go to Vancouver ASAP. Jess got stuck talking to a Jewy American hotel guest hanging in the lobby, who explained the ins and outs of bargaining and never paying full price for anything. Seriously. Both were super cool and very nice, but it was surreal. Are they all really like this? American TV wasn't lying?
After we left the hotel...it took about 5 minutes of walking for us to figure out that Tel Aviv was fucking awesome.
Ever seen You Don't Mess With the Zohan? I hadn't until after I left and Jess insisted I watch it. But at the very start of that movie, Adam Sandler walks down a hill onto Frishman Beach in Tel Aviv, with ladies all around him. Our hotel was 30 seconds from that hill, and 2 minutes from that beach. That was our introduction to Tel Aviv, walking down that same hill onto that same beach. Killer.
To the right of the street, a strip of beach bars stretches for half a kilometer or so. After that, there's a bunch of people on the beach playing a grown-up version of paddleball that I'd never seen before. It was like ping pong for big people with no table. Again, that stupid Zohan movie I watched later captured it perfectly, way better than I ever could. It's called maktot, apparently.
We decided that it was drinky time, so we settled into a table at a beach bar. Drinks were fairly pricey, but that wasn't exactly surprising - we were apparently in a pretty famous place. Jess and I sipped 9 dollar pints and 3 dollar jager chasers (best. idea. ever), while we admired the wealth of female talent using the boardwalk as their personal exercise area. Seriously people, Israeli girls are really hot if you don't mind the big noses.
While Jess took 26335 pictures of the sunset, I...got shitfaced. And admired the abstract culture. Apparently back in the day, Russia was one of the few countries sympathetic to the Jewy plight, and they sent over 100,000 Russian Jews to their "homeland" at their request. Israel was so appreciative for the support that they pledged to make the Russians feel as at home as possible - so they put Russian writing on a lot of their signs. 50 years later, it's still there. It was trippy to see menus, or street signs, or pretty much any sign in Hebrew, English, and...Russian. I had no idea about the Russian influence on Israeli culture until I saw it with my own eyes. (It became quite obvious later when we figured out that almost every cab driver was of USSR descent).
It had been a very long day by around 10pm, and I was less than sober, so I decided to shut er down. There was an Irish pub about 60 feet from our hotel, and I couldn't even muster the will to check it out. I was done. Jess on the other hand...was not. After I passed out, he walked north from our hotel, past the marina, all the way to the old port, which was where all the cool clubs were. He basically walked all the way to the local airport, and back, which is almost 5km each way. Good on him, I guess. I thought it was weird at the time he told me about it, but it turns out the Old Port was kinda cool.
The next day was all about us trying to grasp some culture. South of our hotel was a gigantic bazaar called the Carmel Market. Basically a flea market, but way cooler and less ghetto than a swap meet. We walked all the way though it, laughing at the crazy shit we saw. An entire table full of candy (mostly gummy worms), then a table full of t-shirts with ridiculous touristy slogans on them, then a table full of dates and nuts and stuff. Everyone was pretty chill until you hover for a second too long, or (god forbid) ask the price of something.
Then it's fucking ON.
"45 shekels. You like? Is very nice."
*walk away*
"40 shekels, yes? Very good quality!"
*keep walking*
"35 shekels! 35!"
*barely paying attention, still walking, like 4 stalls away by now*
*HEY! YOU! HOW MUCH YOU WANNA PAY? COME BACK!"
We were already headed south anyway, so we decided to head for Jaffa. Jaffa is the Arab town about 4.5km south of Tel Aviv. The main city's actually normally referred to as "Tel Aviv-Yafo" to incorporate the two towns. Yafo=Jaffa in Hebrew, apparently. Hebrew sucks, by the way. I'll get to that in a later blog.
Now that we were out of the Market, we were already almost 2km into the trip, so walking the rest of the way worked out well. The weather was absolutely perfect - about 15c, clear skies and sunny, with a great breeze off the water. We stopped at a beach bar on the way, admiring the hot JAPs (Jewish American Princesses) and the beaches themselves. Tel Aviv is an awesome Mediterranean city, there's no doubt about that. I've been to a few now, and it's the best yet.
As we approached Jaffa, shit changed up quick. Modern architecture gradually degraded into crumbling ancient buildings. We walked along the actual port at the bottom, which the Romans used 2000 years ago as their most important link to supply the Middle East via ship. It was still a bustling and thriving port on the day we walked in...obviously with a very different purpose, but still pretty cool.
After walking for a bit through the port, we climbed the hill up into Jaffa proper. This village had all these obviously modern fountains, with rocks carved into the shapes of whales, or goldfish. These were in the middle of a 2000 year old citadel on top of a mountain, designed to ward off intruders to the throne of whomever ruled it at the time. A huge sign just outside the walls described the ridiculously turbulent 3000+ year history of Jaffa, naming ruler after ruler and conqueror after conqueror. The mix of ancient and modern was really interesting.
We sat in a cafe, watching 18 and 19 year old Jewish girls in their military uniforms, carrying automatic weapons, which is a bit strange the first time you see it. You get used to it though. Everyone, man and woman, has to do a mandatory 2 years in the military. That's why all the immigration officials were young girls - it's all military duty.
20 minutes later, we wandered by a clocktower with a speaker on it, belting out the Muslim call for prayer that's echoed as far as possible 5 times a day. Jess was in a store buying mud from the Dead Sea, which supposedly is full of minerals and good for your skin. I stood outside, getting harassed by a Jewy street vendor trying to get me to buy a shirt that said "Israel Defense Force"...listening to the prayer call. A very odd couple of minutes for sure, at least to me.
The rest of our day just involved observing various things about the city, and drinking. We headed back to the beach bars for a while, then made our way to an American bar called Mike's Place and watched some NFL football. After that we took a cab up to the Old Port, where all the clubs where. They looked pretty cool, but it seemed like everything was closed that night. Oh well. We headed back to the Irish Pub and had the weirdest Shepherd's Pie ever, and I went to the store to buy beer. There weren't any prices on anything, so I carried 4 to the counter with a bag of chips and asked how much. The guy looked at the beer, then me, then the beer, then me again, and said "60". That's like 17 bucks.
In other words...I got ripped off. What a surprise.
After that, it was sleepy time, then the ill-fated flight to Eilat I'll never forget. Ever. Ever ever ever.
So, onto the holidays. Y'all probably woke up Christmas Day, opened some presents, maybe rebelled a bit by putting some baileys in your coffee. Hung out with the family. Ate some turkey. Blah blah. All the bullshit I avoid like the plague. Christmas Day for Jess and I? Lil different, yo. We're going to Jewyland!
Note - For all of you with Jewish relatives, don't call anything "Jewy" like I do about 643 times in this blog. They hate that apparently.
6am. Cologne airport. Two security screenings, which is one too many. A nice long wait on the bus that is going to take us to our plane, which conveniently sits there in -9C weather with the doors wide open. Guess who was right beside the door?
Pretty reasonable 4.5 hour flight to Israel. Arrive in the Holy Land. Looks like someone bulldozed everything around the runways. Oh wait...they did. Not pretty. Welcome to the Middle East!
I'd heard for years that Israeli security is unbelievably harsh and that we were gonna get questioned up the wazoo trying to enter the country. I had all the paperwork ready for the interrogation and all that. I wasn't gonna be intimidated by some big-nosed angry Israeli guy. Wait, guy? Why are all the immigration people women? And why are they all young and hot? Odd. Wait, why is that dark-skinned guy in front of us yelling at them? Don't be stupid buddy! Oh shit, he's being hauled into a back room by some beefy male security guards that just showed up. Whoa. Uh oh.
I got all psyched up for the barrage of questions, and Jess and I approached a pretty brunette with an angry look on her face:
"Where did you arrive from?"
"G-Germany."
"What is the purpose of your trip?"
"T-t-tourism?"
"How many days you stay?"
"Six. Total. We're going to Jordan too."
"Thank yous. Goodbyes."
My shock and excitement about being admitted to the Holy Land lasted about 6 seconds, until Jess said "You're so dumb. I told you it'd be easy." He was right this time, but he'd get his Jewy security lesson in a few days. For now though...we were in fucking Israel bitches! Bust out the shofars and draidels! Don't worry about not knowing what the hell that means...I didn't have a clue what they were either until I was there for a few days.
Our first stop was an ATM, which made us both immediately envious of how cool their money is. Canadians like to say they have colorful bills, but Israel puts them to shame - their money is fucking nice. Too bad we had to spend so much of it right away, because the train into the city was stopped for a while because of Shabbat.
READER NOTE - Shabbat is the stupidest fucking thing in the free world, and I hate it more than I hate hepatitis. I'm still not sure why I hate hepatitis, but that's not the point. I will explain more about Shabbat in future blogs, but here are the basics - Jews need a day off each week, and they need rules to govern that day off. It lasts from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, basically. They go with rules written 2000 years ago, because they're Jews and they make no sense. The rules are ridiculous. Here's just two of the fun ones - They can't turn light switches on and off. And hey can't ride elevators unless they stop at every floor, because they're not allowed to push buttons. You really think they had light switches or buttons 2000 years ago?
What the fuck?
So, we had to pay something like 45 bucks to take a cab into Tel Aviv because Shabbat shut down the trains. We arrived at our hotel, which turned into stereotype central in about 10 seconds. I talked to the reservations guy, who told me about all his Jewy relatives in Canada and how he had to go to Vancouver ASAP. Jess got stuck talking to a Jewy American hotel guest hanging in the lobby, who explained the ins and outs of bargaining and never paying full price for anything. Seriously. Both were super cool and very nice, but it was surreal. Are they all really like this? American TV wasn't lying?
After we left the hotel...it took about 5 minutes of walking for us to figure out that Tel Aviv was fucking awesome.
Ever seen You Don't Mess With the Zohan? I hadn't until after I left and Jess insisted I watch it. But at the very start of that movie, Adam Sandler walks down a hill onto Frishman Beach in Tel Aviv, with ladies all around him. Our hotel was 30 seconds from that hill, and 2 minutes from that beach. That was our introduction to Tel Aviv, walking down that same hill onto that same beach. Killer.
To the right of the street, a strip of beach bars stretches for half a kilometer or so. After that, there's a bunch of people on the beach playing a grown-up version of paddleball that I'd never seen before. It was like ping pong for big people with no table. Again, that stupid Zohan movie I watched later captured it perfectly, way better than I ever could. It's called maktot, apparently.
We decided that it was drinky time, so we settled into a table at a beach bar. Drinks were fairly pricey, but that wasn't exactly surprising - we were apparently in a pretty famous place. Jess and I sipped 9 dollar pints and 3 dollar jager chasers (best. idea. ever), while we admired the wealth of female talent using the boardwalk as their personal exercise area. Seriously people, Israeli girls are really hot if you don't mind the big noses.
While Jess took 26335 pictures of the sunset, I...got shitfaced. And admired the abstract culture. Apparently back in the day, Russia was one of the few countries sympathetic to the Jewy plight, and they sent over 100,000 Russian Jews to their "homeland" at their request. Israel was so appreciative for the support that they pledged to make the Russians feel as at home as possible - so they put Russian writing on a lot of their signs. 50 years later, it's still there. It was trippy to see menus, or street signs, or pretty much any sign in Hebrew, English, and...Russian. I had no idea about the Russian influence on Israeli culture until I saw it with my own eyes. (It became quite obvious later when we figured out that almost every cab driver was of USSR descent).
It had been a very long day by around 10pm, and I was less than sober, so I decided to shut er down. There was an Irish pub about 60 feet from our hotel, and I couldn't even muster the will to check it out. I was done. Jess on the other hand...was not. After I passed out, he walked north from our hotel, past the marina, all the way to the old port, which was where all the cool clubs were. He basically walked all the way to the local airport, and back, which is almost 5km each way. Good on him, I guess. I thought it was weird at the time he told me about it, but it turns out the Old Port was kinda cool.
The next day was all about us trying to grasp some culture. South of our hotel was a gigantic bazaar called the Carmel Market. Basically a flea market, but way cooler and less ghetto than a swap meet. We walked all the way though it, laughing at the crazy shit we saw. An entire table full of candy (mostly gummy worms), then a table full of t-shirts with ridiculous touristy slogans on them, then a table full of dates and nuts and stuff. Everyone was pretty chill until you hover for a second too long, or (god forbid) ask the price of something.
Then it's fucking ON.
"45 shekels. You like? Is very nice."
*walk away*
"40 shekels, yes? Very good quality!"
*keep walking*
"35 shekels! 35!"
*barely paying attention, still walking, like 4 stalls away by now*
*HEY! YOU! HOW MUCH YOU WANNA PAY? COME BACK!"
We were already headed south anyway, so we decided to head for Jaffa. Jaffa is the Arab town about 4.5km south of Tel Aviv. The main city's actually normally referred to as "Tel Aviv-Yafo" to incorporate the two towns. Yafo=Jaffa in Hebrew, apparently. Hebrew sucks, by the way. I'll get to that in a later blog.
Now that we were out of the Market, we were already almost 2km into the trip, so walking the rest of the way worked out well. The weather was absolutely perfect - about 15c, clear skies and sunny, with a great breeze off the water. We stopped at a beach bar on the way, admiring the hot JAPs (Jewish American Princesses) and the beaches themselves. Tel Aviv is an awesome Mediterranean city, there's no doubt about that. I've been to a few now, and it's the best yet.
As we approached Jaffa, shit changed up quick. Modern architecture gradually degraded into crumbling ancient buildings. We walked along the actual port at the bottom, which the Romans used 2000 years ago as their most important link to supply the Middle East via ship. It was still a bustling and thriving port on the day we walked in...obviously with a very different purpose, but still pretty cool.
After walking for a bit through the port, we climbed the hill up into Jaffa proper. This village had all these obviously modern fountains, with rocks carved into the shapes of whales, or goldfish. These were in the middle of a 2000 year old citadel on top of a mountain, designed to ward off intruders to the throne of whomever ruled it at the time. A huge sign just outside the walls described the ridiculously turbulent 3000+ year history of Jaffa, naming ruler after ruler and conqueror after conqueror. The mix of ancient and modern was really interesting.
We sat in a cafe, watching 18 and 19 year old Jewish girls in their military uniforms, carrying automatic weapons, which is a bit strange the first time you see it. You get used to it though. Everyone, man and woman, has to do a mandatory 2 years in the military. That's why all the immigration officials were young girls - it's all military duty.
20 minutes later, we wandered by a clocktower with a speaker on it, belting out the Muslim call for prayer that's echoed as far as possible 5 times a day. Jess was in a store buying mud from the Dead Sea, which supposedly is full of minerals and good for your skin. I stood outside, getting harassed by a Jewy street vendor trying to get me to buy a shirt that said "Israel Defense Force"...listening to the prayer call. A very odd couple of minutes for sure, at least to me.
The rest of our day just involved observing various things about the city, and drinking. We headed back to the beach bars for a while, then made our way to an American bar called Mike's Place and watched some NFL football. After that we took a cab up to the Old Port, where all the clubs where. They looked pretty cool, but it seemed like everything was closed that night. Oh well. We headed back to the Irish Pub and had the weirdest Shepherd's Pie ever, and I went to the store to buy beer. There weren't any prices on anything, so I carried 4 to the counter with a bag of chips and asked how much. The guy looked at the beer, then me, then the beer, then me again, and said "60". That's like 17 bucks.
In other words...I got ripped off. What a surprise.
After that, it was sleepy time, then the ill-fated flight to Eilat I'll never forget. Ever. Ever ever ever.
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