A Return to Spanish Time: Canary Islands Tour Diary

A Return to Spanish Time

Though we sit just north in the tropics, it is not a very warm evening. Much warmer than where we came from, but brisk nevertheless. I tug my blazer tighter over my shoulders and bring my tea cup to my lips. Amy bears up under the cold relatively well, however. She hates cold, which is why we’re here. We flew to Gran Canaria to escape February’s dregs. An upgrade from daytime freezing to evening briskness makes the briskness that much more bearable.

In the air another attraction floats upon the breeze. The vacation we’re taking commemorates Carnival. Carnival marks, hypothetically, the last gasp of hedonism before Lent and the aesthetic run-up to the Catholic Easter. The U.S.A. only finds Carnival in full form in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, but across the Caribbean, South America, Europe, and scads of other places, it offers parades, street parties, dancing, booze, and purported joy. I have never been through a Carnival (skipping out on New Orleans a couple weeks before Mardi Gras hit last year), but Amy has years of experience from her time in South America. I feel like I’ve been through several of them myself, having heard Amy’s stories and (sometimes fuzzy) recollections many times over. 

We sit at a café in Parque San Telmo in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, and wait for the Carnival to roll in. My cell phone reads 8:30. The Parade is due to make its final turn at our corner at 8:30, finishing just below the second-floor balcony of our hotel room. When we checked in earlier that day, our initially taciturn receptionist could hardly contain his excitement over how perfect our spot was, looking over the park and the grand finale. We feel contained excitement as we sit and wait for our waiter to bring us the bill; I am the retiring, boring type and so don’t imagine I’ll make it through much of a Carnival if it goes late, and Amy is conditioned to believe that Brazil > everywhere else, especially regarding Carnival, the country’s finest annual celebration. The parade is tardy; Spanish time is usually an approximate thing, biased towards the later side of any announced time. The parade’s tardiness doesn’t surprise us so much as reassure us, the warm embrace of an old friend.

We walk out to the corner. The sound of synchronized drums draws us closer. The crowd at the corner is relatively insignificant, no more than one or two deep at any given point on the road. The first group marches through, a group of drummers and instrumentalists, almost like a group from your small-town Memorial Day Parade, except all dressed in green. After them came a few more dancing Krewes (the New Orleans term, meaning the dancing group that marches in the parade), a few tawdry floats carrying the Queen, 1^st through 4^th Ladies, Grand Dame, and Drag Queen of the Carnival, respectively, and then a couple semi-trucks.

At last Amy feels excitement, as the trucks recall Brazil’s Carnival. The trucks are probably an evolution from the floats and walking krewes of yesteryear Carnivals. They operate like themed-party buses, everybody on board dressed in a matching costume – Flintstones, Superheroes, Cats – while a DJ bumps the tunes to a thundering level. Everybody on the truck is meant to be dancing and merrymaking, though most of the truck people are drinking and yelling instead. 

A few trucks pass and at 9:15 a lull sets in. We decide we’ve seen enough.  We return to our room, still dressed but at least freed of the burden of other people. I stand out on the balcony and watch the crowd of people below. Earlier, there was a preponderance of Superman and Wonderwoman outfits, mostly of skimpy nature, as well as a lot of men dolled up in women’s costumes, also of a skimpy nature. Now, I cannot pick out any specific dominant theme, mostly just stragglers from the krewes and trucks that have already passed.

As we stand out on our balcony, Spanish time reasserts itself with a vengeance. The parade hit a lull, a delay, but resumes beneath our eyes. The semis roll one or two down our street at a time. The truck turns the corner 200 meters away from us, its melody reaches our ears a truck length after that, and then the truck crawls past our balcony, stopping at the intersection 50 meters to our left. If lucky, the truck can soak in the spotlight and play its music for another 15-30 seconds, but as the night wears on, the cops instructing them to cut the sub-woofers and move it along get there quicker and quicker. Meanwhile, the next truck or two has already reached our point on the street, the sound systems overlapping, waves falling atop one another, us locked beneath those waves, struggling for air.

Or dancing. Mostly dancing. So we dance. We dance along together, the most we’ve ever danced together, the most Amy has ever allowed me to dance in her presence. That’s because my dancing is rhythmic but uncoordinated, unreasonable and uncontrolled, imagined fluidity replaced by spastic movements and rigid meandering over the 4/4 time signatures. The sort of thing I’m not to do in public in her presence. But here, it’s Spanish Time, it’s Carnival, we’re up on a balcony, and all we can do is take pictures and laugh about it. No one can see us anyway.

Except that some of the people on the trucks are taking our photos. We’re creating quite the little scene, it seems. Some of those drunks down there are cheering, waving, snapping. We wave back. We dance. I add a bounce or two to my moves. We laugh. Carnival roars.

This goes for an hour, and then it things peter out again. No more semis. We stop dancing, stop sweating. The noise in the street and in the park below persists but on a lower level, without the foreground clamor of the music. We stay out on the balcony and watch and glow. 

On the edge of the street below us, a girl kicks a bottle. She is maybe 10 years old and dressed in what looks like a “traditional” costume; long purple skirt and white shirt, her black hair flows down her shoulders even as it is tied in a knot. She kicks the glass bottle along the street curb. The bottle rolls, banks off the curb once or twice, giving way to her soft power. She kicks it one time too many, and it shatters.

The girl retreats across the street. Her mother and other relatives are talking in a circle there. They don’t pay much attention to her, don’t notice her. She flits in and out of the group, walks behind a tree in the park, and then returns to our side of the street. She’s found another glass bottle. She’s kicking it again. Predictably, after a few paltry efforts, she breaks it again.

We are too far away and too foreign besides to say anything as the girl starts kicking her third bottle in the same area. People stand on the other side of the curb railing with the glass breaking just below them. At the 3^rd, pattern-confirming bottle, they speak up, sharing our shock. They tell the girl to stop kicking the bottle. She stops. The bottle remains intact. The girl scurries back to her mother’s circle. The mother stomps over to the scene of the crime and yells at the people who spoke up to her daughter (the mother stands conspicuously closer to the middle of the street, away from the broken glass). The people, an older couple and another older man, yell back. The man peels off and finds a police officer. The mother gives not an inch. Her husband, dressed in a washer woman’s outfit with the top of a Christmas tree or a really funky hat on top of his head, acts as a moderating presence and also speaks to the daughter. No one takes him very seriously.

The police officer arrives. Some sort of resolution is reached – your daughter can’t kick any more glass bottles tonight, you need to leave this family alone, none of you can call one another a stupid puta, etc. No arrests are to be made in this situation, and there’s not much else to do. The plaintiffs, or else the street’s defenders, leave their post along the curb to try to revivify their Carnival joy. The cop and the girl’s parents continue to talk with much more laughter. The tumult dies down. The night and the Carnival continue to flow, softly.

And then, as we sleep, Spanish Time rears its head twice or thrice more; the semis circle back through the park once and again, just as loud as the first time. The noise threatens our sleep. I, exhausted from the flight, sleep through most of it, though I swear that at quarter to 4 I’m awakened by the thumping tunes one last time. Amy sleeps fitfully through the Carnival iterations, perhaps suffering for her Brazil-based hubris. She says that I’m wrong about the last cycle taking place that late. 

Spanish time, ladies and gentlemen.

Beeping into the Blind on the GC-200

The thing about it is, the more dangerous something is, the more thrilling. The more we have to risk to achieve something, the more it appears worth it. Life is founded on the principle of efficiency, arbitrage, and that idea; we will risk only as much as a reward merits. So, for a greater reward, we will risk more.

With risk come fear and a chance of failure. Amy – cowering and half-hyperventilating in the passenger seat, picturing us crashing through the fragile guard rail and plummeting over the cliff into more rocks and chasms and eventually the ocean, telling me to go slower, laughing at my beeping, and squeezing in dramatic scenery photos with her new camera all the while – decided the mountain drive only deserved to be risked once.

                “San Nicolas isn’t much to see in and of itself, but this trip is about the journey, not the destination. A 30km drive through the coastal mountains is one of the prettiest settings you will ever go through.”

So said our guide (I’m paraphrasing). The drive began at the foot of the hill where we were staying in Agaete, on the Western coast of Gran Canaria. We had been there for a day and already were succumbing to island fever. With nothing else to do, a beautiful drive down to the touristy but picturesque Puerto Mogan struck us as a winning proposition.  (San Nicolas is about the halfway point between Agaete and Puerto Mogan).

We left around noon. Google Maps told us it would be a 1h20m trip, which would have us in Puerto Mogan in time for a late lunch. Our car was a Toyota Auris, a small 4-door with an incongruous 6 gear manual transmission. On the highway driving to Agaete two days earlier, I hit 6^th a couple of times, coasting at 100 Km/Hr, until the dashboard light quickly suggested I shift down to 5^th as we hit a hill. There might be a use for the Toyota Auris’s 6^th gear on flat highways and long stretches, but it would be completely unnecessary on this trip.

We entered GC-200, the road that would take us the 65 kilometers to Puerto Mogan, unsuspectingly. The road began with a slight incline and a few lazy bends. There was a white line dividing us from the other side of the road. All was calm. Amy began taking photos out the window of Agaete below, of the coastline coming into view, of the mountains in front of us. Gran Canaria is considered something of a “mini-continent”, with a varied landscape; the coastline features quaint towns and pebbly or coarsely sanded beaches, while the interior has more of the rugged look, with mountains stretching up to 5,000 feet and the reddish-brown visage of the barren hills that can be found in Spain, Morocco, or New Mexico.

Rugged mountains and narrow “highways”. After a few easy kilometers, we were climbing up and down the mountain, driving through blind curve after blind curve, and finding that there was no more dividing line painted on the road. The beauty out the window, plentiful, was now obscured. Blocking our beauty was not the scenery, not the mountains getting in the way of anything else, but the fact that I was driving and couldn’t look too much at the scenery, and Amy was panicking because I was driving.

The GC-200 offers an ideal setting for car commercials. There are car commercials that take place in green rolling hills on roads with hairpin turns and endless switchbacks; there are car commercials that emphasize the open road and the plains and the thrill of adventure – the GC-200 offers neither of these. It provides a third possible setting: rugged coastal mountains with frequent turns and undulations, with the promised land of water and sun and fun just around the next (blind) corner. It is really a beautiful drive.

The problem is that I am no car commercial driver, and no commercial for the Toyota Auris will feature such driving. I have never been confused for a good driver. Amy has never been confused for a person who relinquishes control in such crucial circumstances easily. The Toyota Auris does not handle uphills very well, and on this drive I rarely achieved even 4^th gear, let alone 6^th. We were also tourists, and obvious ones, not sure where we were going and ignorant of which way the road would curve when.

"At least if we crashed, the ocean would douse the flames..."

All of which led to the scene I began with: Amy panicking at my side while I tried to maintain a balance between cool consideration and competence. When going up, I would get the car up to about 40-50 km/h (roughly 25-30 mph) in 2^nd or 3^rd gear; when going down, I would let the car coast at about 50-60 km/h, riding heavy on the brakes. As we were tourists, and timid ones, we would often get passed. Passing on a narrow mountain road isn’t easy; there’s hardly space for two cars on the road as is, and then if a foolhardy driver tries to do it on a curve, they risk getting smashed by a car coming the other way. We found a way to be passed, though, because there are few trivial things worse than having someone riding on your ass on a narrow road where you can’t help but feel sorry for them since after all you’re the one going half as fast as everybody else: I would pull on to the rare shoulders or to the little bubbles on the road where a car might stop to get a picture of the view, or else edge towards the right on a stretch of road where we could see no one was coming the other way and wave my hand so that the car tailing me started heading me instead. We were passed by bolder tourists, by eye-rolling locals, and even by runaway buses who handled the curves like they were so many city streets, with abandon. “Those poor bus passengers,” said Amy time and again, thinking of how bad she felt just sitting in our car.

"And if we crash, at least this photo will be evidence that I didn't have a heart attack first..."

We learned a technique from the cars that passed us. Some of the drivers, at least, when nearing a curve, would begin to beep. At first I thought the beeping was directed at me, being sensitive to criticism. Then I realized they were short, staccato, friendly beeps. Warning beeps. Beeps to announce one’s presence on the road, bursts of noise and self-affirmation.

This being a trick that could only help our safety, beeping quickly fell into my arsenal on the GC-200. As we approached a curve, I would beep once sharply, then twice more for a follow-up. Some of the curves kept going, with no end to the blindness in sight, and so I kept beeping every couple of seconds. I felt like a satellite drifting out in space, sending signals out to alert other intelligent beings of my presence. The scariest thing, of course, would be to receive a signal in return.

Nothing scarier happened to us than almost running into one pickup truck barreling around a curve fairly on (going 40 km/h allows for a fair deal of reaction time, at least). We also stopped towards the end at “El Balcon”, a scenic viewpoint. A man ran a concessions stand there, and he found my initial parking job unsatisfactory, requiring me to back out on the road across both lanes of traffic and straighten up. I had visions of rolling backwards forever. Amy was so flustered she spoke with the man in English first as she got out of the car; when she switched to Spanish, he in turn grew flustered, saying “Coño, hablas español?”  And yet, we survived.

We survived the whole drive, of course. The 1h20m stretched into two hours, what with the crawling speeds and the stops. We received very few beeps in return, but we made it to Puerto Mogan, where our finest meal of the vacation awaited us, with smooth vegetable paella and the best croquetas I had all trip. We took nice photos. Somehow, it was all worth it.

And then we went back around the island the other way, taking the highways. It took less time than the trip through the mountains. The drive was not worth a second trip through the mountains, and anyway, Amy’s heart and my ears wouldn’t stand it. Coño, indeed.

Two weeks in the life, or the Lost Highway

I've mentioned in this space and probably others that I've had guests in Israel before, had guests coming for Christmas break, and would be eager to have more guests as my time here continues. You, a skeptical friend or relative or stranger, might ask, "Why would I want to visit Israel? What would such a trip entail?" Well, rest assured, because I present to you a "sample" itinerary of what you might get in a two-week visit to the Holy Land. Only the best, of course.

For our purposes, we will imagine a visiting party of three people, one who happens to arrive a few days later and stay a few days later. Be warned that somewhere in the second week, we hit a searing digressionary narrative.

Also, while it's unpleasant and certainly raises the anxiety level, I'm pretty sure the nastiness in Gaza won't affect the day-to-day of this itinerary. And hopefully, whenever you, dear guest, come, that problem will be contained. Unlikely eliminated, but hopefully contained.

Day 1 - Arrival: Two guests arrive at Ben Gurion Airport, weary but excited after an overnight trip that included a brief layover in Rome. I (heretofore referred to as "The Host", or similar titles) meet them at the airport, hug them, and escort them to a small, low-quality car, a Fiat Bravo. Once their scant baggage is loaded into said car, the host takes them away from the airport, remembering only at the exit to pay for the short-term parking, causing a small backup leaving the airport.

The group avoids the main highways that would lead through Tel Aviv, for fear of traffic. Instead, they make their way with reasonable haste up the 4, over the 5, and back up the 2, into the cozy little Israeli burb of Herzliya. They wind their way down the seaside road and to the apartment building that the group will be staying in. The group somewhat inconveniently lug the little luggage they have up the 3 floors, then soak in the atmosphere of an Israeli dusk.

Plans are made quickly, and the group goes out to the local 24-hour supermarket to load up for dinner. The host prepares a chicken stir fry served upon quinoa, and a certain dear friend comes over to join the group, bottle of wine in hand. Though the evening feels a little like a job interview, all enjoy themselves, and when the host's roommate arrives, the company becomes only merrier. All are pleased and tired, off to sleep at a reasonable hour so as to revive themselves for the trip.

Days 2-3 - Hang in TA: While the host finishes up with his job responsibilities, the two guests sleep in, relax, and learn how to catch the 90 bus to Tel Aviv. They gallivant around Old Jaffa, the shopping laden streets of Dizengoff, Allenby, and Rothschild, and attract the attention of strange men along the beach, the weather temperate even in the middle of December. They also meet this woman of Russian roots, who gives them practical advice about Tel Aviv and a few Hebrew tidbits, as well as some fashion inspiration:


The one planned meeting on Day 2 between guests and host in Tel Aviv is held, though the host, assuming his guests would be late and approaching from the southern side of Levinsky Rd., wanders over to the bus station, and hence misses his guests walking on the northern side of Levinsky Rd. to the Ha-Hagana train station where they had agreed to meet.

Regardless, the group just barely catches the 8:00 train home, and then proceed to eat falafel and hummus before returning to the host's residence. The host makes sure his guests are all taken care of and ready for the next day, and then leaves them for the night. One of the guests later goes crazy over news that an old friend is planning to join the group in a week. She works through anxiety by cleaning the host's kitchen, always in need of a touching up.

Strange man and his autoharp on the beach: Ahh, Tel Aviv.

On Day 3, the planned meeting gets delayed till the evening, a convenient move that allows for the host to celebrate the onset of a vacation with his colleagues and then usher a couple of them out of town. After that, host meets guests on Dizengoff and Ester Ha-Malka in almost perfect timing. Rather than celebrate such timing, host takes guests back to Herzliya, where the group relaxes and dreams about the grand future of the next few days, planning meticulously and throwing every possible idea at the wall, settling on a few of them that leave no clear direction for the next day, never mind the rest of the trip. The same guest who went crazy the night before gets excited again over a request from a major metropolitan magazine for a photo.

Day 4 - Jerusalem: After a third consecutive late start for the group (though the first late start that the host himself participated in), the trio make the snap decision to drive to Jerusalem. Says one of the trio later in the day, "I didn't even know where we were going when we left the house."

Being Shabbat, the roads are largely empty, the traffic spots near the center largely available and definitely free, and the center part of Jerusalem dead. Fortunately, the Old City still buzzes with tourist-sparked life. The trio enter the old city through Jaffa Gate, taking reams of photos, with American tourists, school girls, small Arabic children, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre's under renovation wing, the Western Wall, the fading sun towards the Medittereanean, the view of the Dome of the Rock and the Al Asqa Mosque from the Southern wall of the Old City, the big dreidels hanging in celebration of Hanukkah, and each other as subjects. Many souvenir items are considered, though few are purchased. At times in the Arabic quarter, the host genuinely fears that the photo taking could lead to unpleasantness. The group buy two chocolate cylinders with marshmallow on the inside, a national desert. The day is a success.

Doesn't this picture scream, "This day is a success?"

Day 5 - Pick up and hang in TA: The guest who previously went crazy over emails departs to the north, to visit relatives. Plans are made to reunite with her in a day or two. Meanwhile, another guest is due later that day. In preparation, the host goes to the doctor to see about this rash on his arm. Then he collects the second guest, and the two of them go to Tel Aviv, where the host has an urgent meeting over legal status. Once that is left unresolved, the two finally resume interesting activities, walking over to Neve Tzedek, the hip, boutique-laden neighborhood of Tel Aviv. While the duo look at all the interesting shops, the guest laments that, "it's a little weird shopping with you, Dan." The host has no good response, and eventually they split a business lunch at an Iraqi restaurant and return to their car and head to Ben Gurion Airport.

The third guest is improbably held up at customs, to the point where the duo wonder if he somehow missed the flight. Just after the host goes to ask if there's any way of confirming the third guest's presence on the flight from Milan to Israel, thinking that perhaps the snow storm in New York delayed him tremendously, the host discovering that he'd have to wait a second hour before the passenger list would become accessible to him, the third guest appears, looking a little greasy in a wool square sweater and khakis. He was held up by El Al questioning in Milan, barely making it to his flight. His bag did not make it on, nor his calculator. This will be a recurring issue.

Regardless, the group treks back to Tel Aviv, where the host attends a wrestling practice, while the two guests wander around and buy doughnuts, not really getting lost in a shakier neighborhood of Tel Aviv. They then convene at the host's home for dinner and a phone update with the good folks back at home.

Glamorous. But really, all services are provided at Chez Shvartsman.

Day 6 - Art in TA: General lethargy, possibly on the part of the host, leads the group to stay in Tel Aviv. Also, the weather is bad. So amidst the rain and dull, the group take the train and then walk to Tel Aviv Museum of Art. It's widely agreed upon among the group, hosts and guests alike, that if Jonathan Richman was here, he'd go to the room with all the Chagalls, since there were no Cezannes.

The Museum of Art is solid if not masterful, but also whets one's appetite. As three, the group walks over to Rabin Square, a major central part of Tel Aviv, where they buy a falafel for lunch. They then catch the train home. A stop at the supermarket leads to the host's first flare-up at a guest, but the rough patch is quickly smoothed over, and the trio makes it home safe and sound, eager for more adventures the next day.

Day 7 - Haifa: Despite missing the train they intended to catch, the group manages to successfully embark on a trip to Haifa. The host has not yet been to Haifa, so the trip is a little bit of a mystery for all involved.

It's what the family does, I suppose.

Upon arriving at the central station in Haifa, near the northern port of the city, they make tracks to meet with the third guest, the fourth member of their group, returning from her sojourn to relatives. Beforehand, the two entities (that is, the group of three and the fourth member) agree to meet at the entrance to the BaHai Gardens. Bahai is a faith centered in Haifa, and their gorgeous domes and buildings, as well as the luscious gardens that surround them, are considered the main tourist attraction in Haifa. It appears to be an appropriate place to meet.

Having not yet been to Haifa, and also deprived of his guide book (in the 4th member's possession), the host has to rely on intuition and cleverness. The Haifa train station is at the port, as mentioned. It is also at the bottom of a hill: the whole city of Haifa rests upon that hill, Mt. Carmel. Even more essentially, the pretty domes and structures of the Bahai Gardens are visible from below. "Walk towards the dome," he says, and the group sets off.
The climb is disorderly, a weaving path through stairways and roads, almost always upwards, punctuated by one of the guests's teasing of the host, asking if this is the sort of thing he'll put on his blog, a heroic climb and a "victory", nearly earning a punch, but at last the group arrives just above the dome. The trio has arrived right about on time for the planned rendezvous, after a half hour of walking uphill.

There are three problems with their situation (there are always problems). First, the Bahai Gardens are closed due to the rain that has fallen off and on the past two days; the caretakers are concerned for the health of their visitors, in that they might slip on those slick garden paths (it doesn't rain much in Israel). Second, to visit the Bahai Gardens, one needs to be on a guided tour, and spots for a guided tour must be reserved three days in advance. So visiting the gardens is out for the group. Most essentially, the host realizes after 15 minutes of waiting that this probably isn't the planned meeting point, and that the group must climb higher.

A sign of urban (or fruit) decay somewhere on the climb in Haifa. Those are slugs.

After asking for directions and following them, the group finds themselves on a road looking down upon Haifa with the sun poking out of the clouds and a stiff, autumnlike breeze whipping through the road. The group realizes they have no way of knowing if they've missed their fourth member or if this is exactly where they're supposed to meet. As they ponder their dilemma, the fourth member pulls up in a cab and waves frantically. All has been resolved.

Relief sets in on high in Haifa.

The group continues their stay at the top of the mountain, stopping in Jacko, a restaurant that the host's guide book suggests is the key spot in Haifa, though in fact it is a chain that even has a restaurant in the host's hometown. The group is relieved and sated ne'ertheless, and after eating they proceed to return to the train station, where the host needs to be to get to practice. Much relief is also shared over the return trip downhill. The evening ends with the fourth member, the third guest, joining the host for practice so as to take photos, while the other two guests get off at the wrong station and bicker amongst each other, though in the end reuniting with the rest of the group in merry fashion.

Day 8 - Dead Sea: Reunited and refocused, the group takes off on a grand adventure, driving through the West Bank to arrive at the Dead Sea. Turning onto a Mineral Beach, the group takes in all the requisite pleasures of the world's lowest point. They include:
- Swimming (or more accurately floating) in the Dead Sea
- Getting the sulfurous water in one's eye, despite host's admonitions to be careful about getting water in one's eyes
- Covering up in mud
- Warming up in the 39° Celsius sulfur pool on the Beach grounds
- Drawing the attention of a Russian speaker from Northern Israel and his Latvian friend. Viktor and Nikolai. Viktor gives the host his phone number and email address with an invitation to visit in Tzfat, while Nikolai talks about how Ukraine still has all the good camaderie of the Soviet Union, and also lavishes a little bit too much attention on one of the female guests in our group. No harm, no foul, however.

Nikolai (and a woman in his group: his daughter?) look on as the three members of our group he wasn't interested in have fun with mud.

Day 9 - Bethlehem: Being as Day 9 coincides with Christmas, the group decides to go to Bethlehem. To go to Bethlehem, one needs to go to Jerusalem first, and then catch a cab or a bus to the border crossing into the Palestinian-controlled West Bank, and then catch a cab further into Bethlehem.
The group sets out and parks somewhere in south Jerusalem, relatively close to the crossing. They decide to take a cab to the border rather than dealing with Jerusalem traffic. On the way, the group gets sidetracked by a bakery. One member of the group, a male guest, is particularly intrigued with the doughnut selection.


Once filled on doughnuts and other delectable pastries, the group catches a cab. The cab driver takes them the short distance to the checkpoint, meanwhile explaining that he can't cross over because, "they don't like me there; they'll kill me," and warning the group to watch for their wallets. He's mostly joking.

In fact, the scariest part of this adventure is due to the cab driver, who instead of recommending the group to go through the checkpoint and do things as appropriate, begins to negotiate with an Arabic cab driver for the fare to take this group to Bethlehem. At first negotiations occur in Hebrew, but when the Arabic driver notices the host listening with interest, they switch into Arabic. Eventually, a deal is set: 100 shekels for a sketchy cab ride that takes the group through a back way into Palestinian territory. Still, no damage done again, and the group ends up in the Manger Square.

The weather is wet and droopy, and the group wanders down Manger St., a market of sorts, before going to the Church of the Nativity, where the big guy was born as a little guy 2009 years ago, or so the story goes. The Church is hollow and old and impressive in its simplicity, though the grotto where Jesus was supposed to be born is fairly ritzy and packed, full of Franciscan priests who usher everybody along and speak Italian, English, or French at times.


The trip is not a very long one, as there's not much to do in bad weather in Bethlehem. Also, Christmas Eve is apparently the time to be in Bethlehem. The group make a few gift purchases, the host flares up at one of the guests again, and the group catches a cab back to the border crossing. In the host's limited Hebrew, inquiries are made to the cab driver about why the ride back to the border is so much cheaper than the ride here. Nothing is delivered.

The group passes through the security checkpoint this time, and then catches one more cab back to the car. After some confusion from the young cabbie on where to go, they end up on the correct street. With a little walking they reach their car, weary and ready to return home and rest before a planned weekend trip to Petra. A little traffic greets them, but this doesn't appear to be a big issue.

*Searing Digression! Searing Digression!*

So the traffic from Jerusalem at rush hour on a Thursday night (remember, that's like Friday here) might be expected to be bad. Ok, I had this in mind. Even though on paper we had enough time to get back to Tel Aviv by practice time, I had reconciled myself to not going to practice, and the traffic as we crawled out of the city confirmed my reconciliation.

Tel Aviv has bad traffic at rush hour too, as do many cities in the world. The difference, which would prove to be fatal, between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, is that Tel Aviv is in a flat area, whereas Jerusalem rests on a hill, among other hills. While this makes for lovely scenic driving and adds to the Holy City's aura, it also is not fun to drive in during traffic. Especially when you have a manual transmission car. And when you're driving uphill. Do I need to go on? Ok, I'll go on.

As we slogged up the hill, my nerves were already a little frayed. The pressures of hosting, the pain of traffic, the general anxiety of being a self-tormenting dink, it was all getting to me. I tried to stay calm as I listened to a mix I had made for said dear friend, an intro to Emo, but for some reason I found my emotions rising to a self-dramatic pitch.

And then I started having trouble putting the car into first gear. And then when I did, the RPMs on the car started going up as I climbed. "We should pull over at the next exit so we can chill out and let the traffic go," my cousin suggested. Wise advice, but the next exit was a half kilometer away. Uphill.

Smoke started coming out of the hood. The tachometer started going up to 5 or 6 as we inched up, a meter or two at a time. And then it just stopped catching at all. The clutch, that is.

So, in the middle lane of the highway, amongst a huge stream of traffic, on an uphill on the country's main highway, connecting the two major cities in the country, my car was stuck. We were stuck. Not good news.

We got out of the car, and a couple neighbors in the traffic helped us push the car to the side of the road, out of kindness and also self-interest. There, we found two other cars pulled over, and an older man, religious, with a black hat and a long gray beard, came over and commisserated with me, he a little bit in English, I a little bit in Hebrew. I called the tow company, where the Russian operator told me she would try to get a tow truck there in sooner than two hours, but no promises.

We had already spent about 90 minutes in traffic. We were tired. We still had the chicken, pita, and salad we had packed in our bag for lunch, as of yet uneaten, and we had the Harel mall looming just above us, our unreachable rest area. We left the car and walked ten minutes to that mall, along the highway or the shoulder, and dined there. The tow company called me and said a guy would come soon. I cut short my rest to return to my car, where I found no one. My family came after me, and they huddled together under an umbrella (light rain began to fall) as I sang "Lost Highway" and "Two Headed Boy, Pt. 2" to myself. It was that kind of night.

It then turned into absurd. Cops drove up to us. "Drive the car out of here!" one said to me in Hebrew, I think. "Lo yahol, I can't, the car is broken!" I responded, as if the point wasn't clear. My religious compatriot partially translated for me, but then the cop's actions spoke for themselves. For awhile, I was concenred that I'd receive a fine or even somehow be arrested, because I didn't have the mandatory safety triangle one is supposed to set up in Israel when he's broken down.

Instead, the cop held up his hands to oncoming traffic and told them to stop. Then he pulled his car perpendicular to traffic. While traffic wasn't quite as bad as it had been while we were driving, there were still plenty of cars on the road. Those cars were no longer moving. Thanks to us. We shut the highway down.

Umm yeah, about not moving? Sorry, guys, our bad.


We sat there and marveled at the situation as the cops sent for a special cop truck to tow our cars to a safer location. My cousin flitted about the traffic, reporting that people started coming out of their cars, asking angry questions but also flirting and similarly laughing at the problem, while she took pictures and said she had no idea what was going on. It was partly true.


Eventually, the cop tow truck, driven by a nice, English-speaking retired cop, took us up to the exit ramp near the mall. This was apparently far enough out of danger. From there we had another half hour wait for a tow truck. At last the tow truck driver came. And, not speaking English, he told me that he couldn't take my car home to Herzliya that night, and what's more, he couldn't take us back to Herzliya.

I've been in Israel for 5 months now, and naturally the culture has seeped into me. Part of that culture is that ornery brashness, that strident screamer that demands what he wants, whether or not he gets it. Well, anyway, that part of me came out, as I lit into this driver, practicing my Hebrew at much higher volume levels than I was accustomed too (and if you ever want a good way to practice your foreign language, having your car break down is foolproof). He told me it was asoor, which I recently learned means forbidden, but I told him that we tsarachim linsoa l'Herzliya, that we had to go to Herzliya, and then his boss yelled at me in English.

Finally, this kind lady came over and helped us out. Besides speaking Hebrew, she spoke great English and was Russian. Olga was inclined to help us out, then, and she translated for me that it was the law that they couldn't take us back, or some such issue. And that my car would be taken to Herzliya tomorrow. And that the girls could stay with her if they wanted to in Jerusalem, and just go back home tomorrow. And she said she had "no fucking idea" about something, using profanity in that adorable way foreigners do.

In any case, both because I wanted to get to my bed and the guests wanted to take off for Petra and Eilat the next day, we turned down her kind offer, saw off our car in the tow truck, and then walked back up to the mall. After ten nervous minutes of looking, we caught a cab willing to take us the 50 minutes home. The price wasn't extravagant, and at last we wiped off our minds of another car disaster. At least for a few hours. Someday I'll look back and laugh on it.

Back to our itinerary...

Days 10-12 - Eilat and Petra, host free: Wiped out, our defeated yet somehow charming host relinquishes his right to lead the trip to the South. He stays home as the guests rent a car and drive to Eilat, leave their car there, take a cab to Petra, stay in Petra for two nights and one day, and then take a bus back to Eilat, where one of the three dips into the somewhat chilly Red Sea, while the rest look eagerly to a return to Herzliya. They stop by a crater on both of the drives in Israel, they get into a small accident, and they take funny photos.
There's something incongruous about this Petra picture, and also something quite nice.

Who knows what's going on here? Marcel Marceau, maybe?

When at last the trio of guests return to Herzliya, they find a lukewarm, decent tortilla español awaiting them, as well as a purchased chocolate cake. It is, after all, one of the guests's birthday.

Day 13 - Tel Aviv hardcore: The group splits up almost as quickly as it reunites. The fourth member drops the group off at the Diaspora Museum while she heads to shop and then meet with her old friend.

The group ventures into the Diaspora Museum on Tel Aviv University campus, in northern Tel Aviv. While the host finds the exhibits interesting and educational on the actual historical and geographical spread of the Jewish people, he concedes that it is a text-heavy museum (the type of museum, that is, that he prefers). His guests find it either ok but a little slow, or just poor. You can't please 'em all.

While the host is ready to pack it in for the day, the group revives the day by pushing him to lead the way to the Carmel Market. Walking through half (if not more) of Tel Aviv, the trio enjoy a nice day, stopping at a pizza place for a quiche and a rolada, and then at last hitting the Carmel Market a little after sundown. They shopped for gifts and chocolate. Then, to seal the night, they stopped by a Israeli-chain bookstore, where they bought nothing; a little Spanish-language bookstore, where they bought a cookbook; and a Russian-language bookstore, where they bought Cheburashka-related paraphenelia. A successful night, dampened a little bit by the long wait for the bus home.

Day 14 - Jerusalem again: The group, joined by the fourth member and her old friend, embarked on another, perhaps final trip to Jerusalem. Despite having the car back, the host decides against wading into Jerusalem's traffic issues again (also perhaps stung by the mechanic's assessment of blame for the clutch that he had just replaced two months before, charging the full repair to the host, with only a 20% discount on labor and a driving lesson thrown in). The group missed a train on the way to the central bus station, and fourth member and her old friend had wallet trouble, but in the end they caught the bus to Jerusalem that runs every 20 minutes.

From there, they embarked on a nearly hour-long walk to the Old City, down Jaffa Road. The walk took longer due to ambling pace and occasional purchases. In any case, once in the Old City, the group hit the two highlights, Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Western Wall. At the former, the two girls in the group used their feminine wiles to get well advanced into the line to view Jesus's tomb, ignoring the vile verbal barbs of the Russian tour group people aroudn them who rightly questioned them on their line cutting. At the latter, one of the members of the group remarked, when asked what he thought about the Western Wall, the most holy site in Judaism: "It's a wall. It's old. Meh."

That was about it for the host, who headed back to the bus station to yet again go to practice. The guests lingered around Jerusalem a little bit longer, and then split up at the bus station and returned to Tel Aviv. A mixed success, perhaps, but every one made it home ok.

Day 15 - Last night of the year, trip for two: As it's New Year's Eve (known as Sylvester in Israel, not a major holiday though Tel Aviv knows how to party, apparently), the group takes various tacks. The host goes to the center to continue waffling over citizenship, while two guests visit the beach near the host's home and even swim in the cold Mediterranean. Later, one of those guests heads into the city to meet with the fourth member and her old friend. The host and the other guest linger in Herzliya, and the host yells very loudly at El Al for not delivering the guest's luggage to the apartment. Eventually they head into the city to ring in the New Year with pomp and happenstance, as well as family and maybe even dinner. Or perhaps the rain drives the whole group to stay in at Herzliya. Then, either way, the host drives two of the guests to the airport, and the other guest and the old friend stay with the host a little bit longer.

Days 16-21 - Just one guest: We'll probably hang out. Maybe we'll do something. Masada, the Kinneret (a.k.a. Sea of Gailee), Jaffa, Caeserea? Maybe Mark will get his bag? Who knows.

Anyway, all that could be yours if you come visit Israel! Hopefully minus the car trouble, but with this host, you never know.

Pt. 1 of A Jordanian Trilogy, or What's So Suspicious About My Beard?

With Rosh Hashanah being the national New Year's celebration in Israel, and falling such on the calendar (Monday night to Wednesday night) as to give us a 5-day weekend, I decided to eschew apples and honey and go to our neighboring friendly Arabic country, Jordan. The following is the first part of a retelling of the events that ensued.


On A Sunday Driving

The initial omens appeared promising. Leaving my apartment at noon, I went to the local upscale mall and managed to load up my cell phone card in a completely Hebrew transaction, and also to get a screw in my glasses replaced without paying. Who needs Costco? Who needs fear? I took off East for the grand unknown: Jordan.

With scenic hills and brown but not barren landscapes, my route from Tel Aviv to just past Jerusalem was a pleasant one. Jerusalem is the original city on a hill, and well guarded by the mountains. No traffic on a Sunday afternoon allowed me to jet past the city, glimpsing the controversial new bridge as I grooved on, straight into the West Bank.

The West Bank, territory reserved for the Palestinian people still living in the bounds of modern-day Israel, is a lima-bean shaped chunk of land, with the inversion centering on Jerusalem. The city is, as always, at the center of all things, with East Jerusalem in the West Bank and the rest of the city in Israel. And so the city is something of a destination, of course, but also a gateway.

While the West Bank is reserved for Palestinians (and here is not the place to worry about the Israeli settlements, because I don’t know anything about them and really only want to provide a setting for my journey, as long-winded as both might be), the political control mostly resides in Israeli hands. That is, there is only Palestinian autonomy in a few cities and spots: Ramallah, Jericho, Bethlehem, and much of the southern West Bank

All this is to say, my driving to and through the West Bank was not a big deal. Perhaps I was too spooked and destination-centered to take a side stop in Jericho, but traveling on the 1 (from Tel Aviv to past Jerusalem) and the 90 that runs north-south (all the way to Metzuke Dragot of the previous post, and beyond) in the Bank wasn’t a problem. What problem could there be in popping the clutch into neutral and coasting for 5-6 km to the lowest place on Earth – the Jordan Valley – as the rocky faces on the sides of the road bore marks telling me that I was another 100 meters below sea level?

No, driving in the West Bank wasn’t the problem. Crossing the border to Jordan was the problem. First I tried at the Allenby Bridge, a.k.a. the King Hussein Bridge. (I’ll let you figure out which name is Jordanian and which is Israeli). I pulled up the gate, a bare thing that cannot compete with the grandeur of a Jersey Turnpike tollbooth, and after waiting in line for a few minutes with cabs who had no intention of crossing the border, I inched over to the guards.

Knowing visas to Jordan were not sold there, I had bought a visa at the Jordanian embassy a week before. Fairly confident that I had taken care of the challenges involved in crossing over, I waited in my car with a smile on my face. I was even unfazed when the guard told me to back up and wait for a few minutes. I was all ready to go to Petra posthaste when I returned to the gate. And I was certain of success when the head guard spoke to me:

“You need special permission to drive across the Allenby Bridge. Go 60 miles north to the Sheik Hussein Bridge.”

Oh.

I left my car to the side of the crossing area. After putting away the face plate to my radio, I took my backpack out, and armed with my two legs and a bottle of Fanta, I crossed the border by foot and descended into blistering bliss of Jordan, a short cab ride away from Amman and a longer one away from Petra. Nobody would ever steal my crappy little Fiat anyway, would they? Or abduct me on the side of the road?

Unflustered, I wheeled back out to the 90 and headed north. The windows were down, the sun high and bright, the music blaring, and I knew everything would be alright. The road was similarly spectacular here, deserted and winding through mountains that showed more and more plant life on their faces as I sped away from the Equator. I stopped for gas at a podunk Palestinian run station, and the young boy who filled my tank seemed excited to see me. I learned the Arabic word for thank you – “Shokron”, one of three words I learned in Arabic, along with “Salaam Aleikum” (hello) – and continued on with a smile and a full tank that I was sure would last me through Jordan.

The Sheik Hussein Bridge, the northernmost of the three border crossings to Jordan (the other crossing is near Eilat in the south, and the most popular portal), is near Beit She’an, a small city that has a nice National Park, per my guidebook. It is also just south of the Sea of Galilee, known as the K’neret in Hebrew. And it is in Israel itself, and not the West Bank. As such, to get there I had to cross security check at the border of the Bank and Israel.

View Larger Map

I approached the crossing and again forked over my passport to the guard on my passenger window side.

He asked me where I was going. I told him.

He asked me where I was coming from. I said Tel Aviv.

“Why did you go such a roundabout way?” I stuttered something about my border crossing travails.

The “This guy’s a crazy activist” lights went on in his eyes. “Why don’t you just pull your car up to that spot over there,” he said, pointing to my right. He held on to my passport. I complied, with a sigh.

15 minutes, a security screening, a bomb-sniffing dog test of my car (in which I learned from another guard how to pop my hood, since I couldn’t find the trigger and hadn’t popped it myself yet), a bathroom break, and a compliment from the bomb-sniffing dog guard on the Coltrane disc I had in my car (Giant Steps, itself recommended specifically by the clerk at Tower Records in that upscale mall, who insisted I buy that for my first Coltrane rather than A Love Supreme) later, and I was back on the road. Still not too flustered, but wearying.

Beit She’an arrived on my horizon in under a half hour. I stopped for a falafel sandwich. As a sign of how wearied I was, how about that I had to circle around the set of two roundabouts twice to find the entrance to the parking lot? Or that during my order of falafel, I mistakenly went for the falafel of the Ethiopian girl before me in line (this before I had even ordered anything), or that when asked to give 13 shekels for the falafel, I gave 30, drawing a puzzled look from the man behind the counter? That is all to say, the driving was beginning to get to me.

Beit She’an was a five-minute car ride away from the border, however, and a few mashed, fried chickpea balls later, I was ready enough to leave the country. I turned out on the 71 (West to Tel Aviv, East to Jordan) and after those five minutes of open road, I found the border.

The first gate was a goodbye Israel one. The guard at the gate looked at me skeptically when I expressed my interest in bringing my car with me to Jordan, but he issued me a yellow paper, a pass for me to get stamped before I could take the Fiat across. Already, I had visions in my eyes of pictures I would take of my car with Jordanian license plates, and perhaps the guard noticed those visions and knew they were foolish, brass rings that I would never grasp. But would I destroy myself in the effort?

At first I was my own worst enemy. I drove my car around the border area, twice blundering into an area reserved for those entering the country from Jordan. Fortunately, the Israeli guards managed to direct me and yell at me without jumping to International Incident level. Then I thought all I was to do was drive to the exit gate from the crossing. Happily, I wheeled up to the gate which said, "Thank you for staying in Israel, go in Peace!" or something like it. A guard await me, and upon my approach he asked me for my pass. Unhappily, I handed over my unstamped gate pass and realized this was going nowhere. "You have to go to passport control. Windows 7 or 8," the guard told me. I reared out of the gate and parked my car in a parking lot of unclear distinction.

Passport control led to customs, who were the ones to deal with cars and the like. And customs led to the exchange bureau, who would translate my registration from Hebrew into English. This all to make sure my car was not a stolen one that would never make it back to Israel.

At the exchange bureau, an obscenely well-endowed woman and a co-worker of hers (who was not slim-chested for her part), blond and brunette, explained to me that I didn't have the registration to my car that said the car was mine. Apparently, that's a problem. So, my head down and my dreams crushed, I returned to Customs, who drew big blue lines on my pass to indicate that it was a fail.

Now I was faced with a decision. Go on should I to Jordan, or stay here in the northern Israeli area, near the Kinneret, would be better, or just jumble syntax at home and try another day I could do? In this tumultuous debate that raged inside me, there was a trump card to ensure my going over, besides the fact that I'd be embarrassed with myself if I gave up: I had a friend in Amman, and she sounded reasonably excited to see me (Brief aside: she has a boyfriend and so there was nothing of that at all in the invitation. However, when I went to get my visa the week before, instead of saying I wanted it to go to Petra, I mentioned that I was going to visit her. She has a Russian-sounding name, and my passport has two Russian visas. So naturally, the sharp fellow behind the Jordanian visa counter said, "It looks like she's more than just a friend." The poor guy was a little mixed-up on the Russian women in my life.) It's not that I'd make a huge difference, but we had a steady stream of facebook messages that would go for naught if I didn't go through with the trip. As you well know, one does not let a steady stream of facebook messages go for naught. After all, as I saw my former classmate Chris Hughes quoted in some student newspaper or another, if you're not on Facebook, you might as well not exist. Online, anyway. And heavens knows I want to exist.

So I went through with the damn thing. Ahh, shit, I gotta get there one way or another, and I thought about taking a bus anyway, so why not? Maybe Petra by Sunday night, as was my goal, wouldn't work out, but I'd make it over the border by hook or by misguided guide book.

I returned to my bosom buddy at the exchange bureau, who turned my shekels into a paid border tax and a bunch of Jordanian Dinars (henceforth known as JD). Her behavior epitomized the popular stereotype/description Israelis give of themselves. The sabra is a fruit with prickles on the outside, but with a juicy sweet center beneath the thorns. So are Israelis a bit blunt and unkind at first, but then upon second glance happy to help and more jovial and familiar about it. Not that we did anything crazy, she and I, but she was a little more pleasant about everything.

After the JDs and the passport stamp, I was finally ready to cross. It was a little past 5:00 pm. Amman was about 100 KM away, and Petra another 200-300 KM beyond that. My goals adjusted on the fly.

To cross the border without your own car into Jordan, you must take a border crossing bus. For 4.5 shekels (roughly 150 cents) you drive 150 meters into Jordan. I fudged those figures a little to get to the cent/meter stat that rounds it all off. But still, it's another silly bureaucratic thing that is of no great consequence.

Except when the bus doesn't come for a half hour. And then when the bus does arrive, the driver gets out, tells you to wait via gesture, and then disappears for another half hour. Actually, it didn't bother me so much, but the older guy in a suit who showed up just after the driver vanished gradually became furious over the whole thing. He kept looking to me for support, but as I spoke minimal Hebrew and no Arabic, all I could do was mumble and nod. That's what I call good listening.

The bus did leave eventually, filled with about 8 Italian tourists in a group, that man, me, and an Irish woman who works in Nablus (in the West Bank). She seemed confused whether to speak to me in Hebrew or English when she asked about when we paid for the bus ride, but otherwise was a ruddy red-haired Irish lass who looked agreeable but strong-willed.

We arrived in Jordan and began the passport control process on their side. As I stood in line behind the group of Italians, I found myself remembering more Italian sentences from my year and a half of study than I thought I might. I asked one of the women, "Dove andate?"
"A Petra," she answered.
"A, certo, anch'io vado a Petra. Posso andare con voi?"
"Si, certo, certo!"
And so I hopped on their tour bus and rode all the way to Petra, amusing with bad Italian and a few English practice sessions. Then they invited me to a wine-drinking session and a Roman orgy.

Once through passport control, I came to a parking lot. There were no buses there except for those taking tour groups, and only a bevy of vultures hovering around the parking lot kept me from being alone. Err, that is, the cab drivers approached me and demanded I ride with them. I said I was going to either Amman or Petra. Set prices had them at 35 or 100 JD a ride, respectively. (1 JD=about 1.5 $). I was loath to pay that much, certainly to go to Petra, and possibly for Amman too. Using the "walkaway" technique, I set off towards the road.

"Hey, Daniel, where are you going!! Stop! It's Ramadan, haram, nobody's out there!" they yelled at me, knowing my name because I gave it to them. Apparently, bargaining was not part of the process here. And considering their better knowledge of the situation, and their leverage, I conceded and took a cab to Amman.

My cab driver was a nice guy. He offered me water from the restaurant he pulled over too, and then would brook no refusal when he stuck a sort of strawberry swiss cake roll in my hand. He also apparently wasn't worried about keeping the fast, as the sun still hung above the horizon.

My cab driver was also a pretty determined driver, without being reckless. Good, because the drive from the border to Amman was a treacherous one. For one, the crossing was in the Jordan Valley, Amman was well above it, and a mountain range separated the two. Not the Himalayas exactly, but the Jordan mountains immediately added a degree of difficulty. So did the oncoming darkness. But more especially, it was the combination of the two factors along with the shaky road quality on the way. Hairpin turns is one thing; gravel or dirt roads on a steep mountain climb is a second thing; those things along with big piles of sand or dirt that had to be avoided and that often turned "roadways" into one-way passes is quite another.

But my cab driver handled it well and with decent speed, considering. At no point did I feel like my life was in danger, anyway. Or at no point did I feel like my life was any more in danger from his driving than I did from the possibly poisoned roll he offered me, or from the prevalence of military-manned checkpoints along the road. We made it to Amman unharmed by any of these negligent threats.

He blanched when I asked him to drop me off at the bus station, saying that no buses would run at night, but I insisted and he relented. He smiled when he dropped me off in nightlighted Amman, and that was that.

His reports of no buses at night was confirmed by another cab driver at the bus station, who said that I was at the wrong bus station (since the public "Jett Station" is another entity, I guess) and that the bus to Petra leaves at 630 am to Petra. The first bus, I assumed. Instead of taking the new cabbie up on his offer to drive me to a hotel in the center, I set off by foot for the one and a half kilometer trek, eyes peeled for either a place to rest my head or a earpiece to rest my ear upon, and by that I mean a phone from which I could call my friend and see if the offer to mooch...stay with them might start a day early.

There were no phones to be found as I descended into the center of the city. With some wavering, I made my way to a market scene in what I think counted as downtown. For being past 8 pm, the scene was quite lively, with a few streets lined with stands and tables and offers of jewelry or clothing or wallets.

It was quite an aural setting above all else, as the clamor of the market, in the strange to mine ears tongue of Arabic, mixed with the bustle and honking of cars on the street. And over that rose the call to prayer from the downtown mosque, leading the faithful in the 9:00 pm worship. Amman is not the most religious place in the Middle East, as many went on there business, not heeding the call.

I too ignored the call as I turned back towards the bus stations. On my walk back I found no phones but a place (named Habibah, Arabic for "loved one) that served kinaffeh, a middle Eastern pastry stuffed with cheese that I hadn't seen before, and which was much sweeter than I expected. I also found a hotel to lay my head in, and after some confusing negotiations (for some reason I was concerned that leaving early in the morning would be a problem), I took a room for 10 JD. A little reading, an alarm clock setting, and I nodded off, eager to make it to Petra in the morning.

Also, I thought about the many turns of the day. In Hebrew, there's a word imported from either Russian or Polish: balagan. In Russian, the word either describes a farcical puppet theater, akin to the Italian pulcinello, or means something is a mess. The latter meaning is what it has taken on in Israel. And, I thought in that spare Jordanian hotel room as the drone of the prayer calls led me to sleep, nothing summed up the first day of my trip better than balagan. Oy!

Pts. 2 and 3 to follow shortly. If I keep up this pace, 6,000 words to go!