Pt. 3 of a Jordanian Trilogy, or the Satisfying but anticlimactic Finish

Traveling is simpler when the destination features a friendly face or two. Even when one of those face is actually unfamiliar, and attached to an unfamiliar voice.

So a bus came and rescued our stranded group of bus riders somewhere in the deserts an hour north of Petra, leaving the first, tired vehicle behind. We arrived in Amman at 9:30, an hour later than we might have. At this possibly inconvenient hour, I had to reach out to my friends, and I knew not how.

First of all, "friends" is a loose definition. Natalia, a classmate and freshman dormmate of mine back in Durham, was to be my lovely host. We were never BFFs or anything, but had hung out and seen each other around, played the occasional facebook tag, and she even hugged me upon my graduation. She was there along more so to congratulate the other half of my hosting party, Khaled, her longtime gentleman companion. Khaled's family is from Jordan (as a trio, we cut quite an international grouping: a Ukranian-born American citizen and a Jordanian-born Canadian citizen, hosting an American born citizen whose family consists of Jews from Russia and who is living in Israel; it made for fun when we thought up morbid headlines as we wandered into shadier parts of Amman. But I precede the plot...), and as such it was a reasonable landing place for them in the hazy phase of post-college life that most people lamely call "the real world."

85% of the previous paragraph comes from information I garnered after meeting up with them. Before that, I was armed with most of my knowledge about Natalia, the invitation she extended me (initiated, by the way, by a certain memorable entry in this here blog), a mobile phone number, and uncertainty over whether they were available to host me that night, as our facebook discussions before I started the trip only confirmed Tuesday night. I knew of Khaled but hadn't formally met him. While I was pretty sure things would work out, strength would not be the word to characterize my position.

I stepped out into a clear Amman night, my back sore, my feet sore and dirty. I knew little, except that I needed a phone. And that the Arabic middle-aged male greeting me as I got off the bus would ask me the following question.
"Need a cab, mister?"
He asked it.
"I need a phone first," I said. Perhaps not amazingly considering the potential for JDs at the end of it, the man lent me his phone. After some confusion over how to dial the number (i.e. with 0 or not), and then some busy signals and Arabic deciphering on his part, we got through. The man talked first, and then upon confirming that someone was there, gave the phone to me.
"Hello," I said.
"Hello," a male voice greeted me.
"Is this Khaled?" I asked, shelving the "My, Natalia, how Amman has changed you," alternative remark.
"Yeah."
And we were off. (Aren't my dialogues always riveting?) After some thinking, we decided the best move would be for me to take a cab straight to his parents' house, where they were living. Khaled told the cab driver how to get there, and he took me there with no problems. We saw a car crash at an intersection unfold in front of us: one driver driving on the left side of the road, who received heavy yelling from the two guys in the other car. We avoided similar hijinx, arrived at Khaled's house, and after another couple minutes of phone calling and wondering whether this was the place, Khaled emerged from a gate. I tipped the cabbie for the ride/phone, introduced myself to Khaled, and all was well.

There's not much of a narrative to tell from here, but a few descriptive elements are worthwhile. For example, going into the trip I was worried about Ramadan, and the implications of eating in public during daylight when the general population fasted. Petra was of course a tourist-happy exception to that rule, and I didn't make it into Jordan before sunset Sunday, but surely Tuesday I would have to face that.

Except I learned from N&K that my second Amman arrival coincided with the end of Ramadan, and the beginning of Eid. "You got here on Christmas, basically," they told me. Nothing would be open for my one full day in the capital, but at the same time, I could eat freely. Also, nothing was open that night, so for dinner we ordered McDonalds (they deliver!).

While I'm on food; I lucked into having an authentic Jordanian meal with the pair. Mansaf is the dish, a rice-based meal. Nuts are mixed into the yellow rice, and then gravy-laden lamb is served atop the rice. A yogurt-based sauce is the garnish, and really pulls the dish together. It's quite good, especially when chased down with a nice cleansing glass of Pepsi. Ahh.

I had a hard time getting a feel for the city. We walked around Khaled's neighborhood before the mansaf, and it looked modern and nondescript. Gray buildings, few skyscrapers, hilly with some nice views, the occasional mosque or picture of King Hussein, and construction that suggested skyscrapers were coming (groups in Amman aspire to make the city the next Dubai, it appears). After mansaf, we took a cab to a hipper part of town, only coincidentally dubbed Rainbow st. Near the tallest flagpole in the world, we had tea and then dinner, but while the street looked like a cool little place, it was mostly shutdown due to Eid.

Amman, from what I was told and what I could observe, is an interesting mix of economic and quasi-Western strivings (ala the construction and longing to be Dubai) and Middle Eastern ways and means. The city and history of the place is fairly liberal, as far as the region goes, but religion is an ever-present facet of city life, if only because it seems like the call to prayer is a constant one, with each mosque issuing it from a speaker system. The government is a constitutional monarchy, somewhere between democracy as we know and export it and tyranny as we support and/or oppose it.

Put those two paragraphs together and you might say that Amman doesn't seem like much, on the surface - and how many people set Amman as a destination, especially when Jordan, travel-wise, is considered a one-rock city- wonder? - but there's a lot going on here.

Anyway, my stay in the city was lovely, if that had mostly to do with the company and the recuperative aspects there of. While the trip already became a success high on that hike in Petra, it cemented itself that way during the laidback Amman appearance. And I made it home without any problems bigger than the cab charging 15 more JDs than I thought he would (because we were confused on what bridge to go to). I even bought the guy a pack of cigarettes at the border, duty-free of course.

And so, with nothing left to say, I turn to photos to complete this trilogy. Enjoy, and until next noteworthy item in my life. Because you're dying to hear about it, and I to glorify it.


The outdoor table set at Khaled's house. It reminded me of Chekov plays.

I and my host. The male one. That's also a telling shot of Amman behind us.

In case you weren't sure about Rainbow St.

You figure it out.

The lighting is poor, but the flagpole is in the distance.

Pt. 2 of a Jordanian Trilogy, or Petra Rocks! (yeah, I know)

The Khazneh, most famed building in Petra.

A Wedge O' Cheese for the Win!

One of the underrated aspects of the cell phone age is the increasing disappearance of alarm clocks or even watches from our lives. This falls more on generational lines, I believe: younger folks like myself are more inclined to skip watches and just dig into our pockets for our cell phone. And it's easier to customize a cell phone alarm tone than a regular alarm clock anyway. Truly, it's a grand age we live in.

Except when one travels in a foreign country where his cell phone gets no service. And when his cell phone, in light of the no service condition, goes into a "powersave" mode. And when he sets his alarm clock to catch the early morning bus to Petra, the only bus that goes to Petra each day at a discount of about $100 from taking a cab, and he is unaware that in "powersave" mode, his cell phone's alarm clock will not work. Then things aren't so grand.

For all that, while my alarm was set for 5:15 - to give me a chance to shower maybe, then catch a cab to the Jett station to be there by 6, with plenty of time to get on the 6:30 bus - I managed to open my eyes with alertness at about 6:14, right when I wake up for school. Cursing, I threw on my t-shirt and strangely stained shorts from the day before and bolted out the door, waving a goodbye to one of the guys at the TV in the lounge of the hotel as I left. I caught a cab a minute after getting out of the door, made it to the station, found a ticket for 8 JD, and by 6:40 the bus was on its way to Petra, me in tow.

The bus ride took three and a half hours, time I mostly spent reading or trying to sleep (my alarm clock went off during the one stretch near Petra where I got reception, strangely enough), so I can report not at all on the Jordanian landscape. It seemed pretty desert-like whenever I peeled the window curtain back, but that was not often.

I got out at Petra and immediately a bus driver or someone similar told me that the only bus back to Amman left at 5. Ugh. I had hoped to spend all day in Petra, the night in a hostel, and then the following morning riding back to Amman. Now I had to choose between staying an extra 7 hours or cutting the night out of my plans.

At first I leaned towards the night in Petra. Or near Petra - Petra itself is the rock city, while the "modern-day" town near it is Wadi Musa. The hostels I had written down were cheap and, purportedly, within 250 meters of the bus station. As we were dropped off right near the entrance to Petra, I figured I could stay nearby and be all set for the next two days, allowing for a nice peaceful exploration of a place everybody says you have to visit. I bought a two day ticket (only 26 JD, compared to 21 JD for one day) and set off for the main drag of Wadi Musa, hoping to find a spot to rest my head.

There plenty of hotels on the street, in various levels of disrepair or repair, but they all were in the "hotel" category, one I had no interest in partaking in. I could have sworn the Cleopetra should have been closer, but it's clever name never appeared on any signs near me, and the road in Wadi Musa only threatened to go up, around a hill. Here I should mention that in Hebrew, "Wadi" means riverbed. In Arabic (slightly more pertinent), it means desert. It felt like one, that day.

After asking around and finding that the hostels I had in mind were atop that hill, I reversed my decision. No way I wanted to deal with walking up there or taking a cab both ways a bunch of times. I was on the border anyway, and this pushed me back to the other side. It was not yet 11:00, and they suggested I be at the bus by 4:30. 5 and a half hours would be enough, I figured. Ahh, screw it, who did I have to prove myself to, right?

So I exchanged my ticket to regain 5 JD and, after using the facilities in the Visitors' Centre, I marched into Petra. First I had to clear the gift shops and kiosks outside the entrance, most notably the Indiana Jones Gift shop. (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed here. I've never seen it.) Then, upon entrance into Petra, I had a 10-15 minute walk down to the "Siq", Arabic for "cleft", which gives way to the main part of the city, including the most splendid building, the Khazneh (treasury).

Having been in Morocco and then Israel for some time, I've understood that in Middle Eastern or Arabic countries, you're going to get a lot of offers for service or goods or whatever from people trying to sell. Here, the most common "service" was a donkey (or camel or horse, but especially donkey) ride.

"Want to ride on a horse, mister?" one fellow asked me.
"No thanks," I said, "I'm good."
"Come on, it's much easier and faster, nice price."
"I got two horses," I said, thinking quicker than usual. I slapped my thighs and said, "Strong, they'll get me there."
"Oh, you have horses!" he said with a laugh. "Can I get a ride?"
"Sure, nice price too," I joked, before walking away and allowing any questionable elements in that conversation to continue.

Without a four-legged animal beneath my butt, I managed to make it through that introductory level with no problem. I detoured to a couple tombs on the way into the city, stopping in one to eat breakfast (bread and hummus I toted the whole trip) and drink water, as well as to change my t-shirt. I only later realized that being in a tourist's Mecca like Petra, there was no reason to worry about drinking or eating in public during Ramadan.

In Petra there is that introductory 10-15 minutes, and then you enter the Siq. The Siq is path between two tall faces of rock, leaving a path about 10 meters wide - small enough so that when a donkey chariot goes by, you have to get close to the wall to allow everyone space. There are a few man-sculpted items along the rock, but for the most part it's geological layers of beauty stripped to the sun and the naked eye. The layers are all browns and dusty reds and blacks, and they change color under different lights. This is an appropriate proper entrance into the city, as it's the first time the mystical astonishment of Petra hits. And of course, at this point I discovered my camera was having problems (I also discovered how to work around the problem, and hence the pictures. And by the end of the day it righted itself, on to new problems).

The Siq.

While the Siq is quite impressive on its own, it also serves as that proper entrance to the city because, as I said, when you exit it after 15 minutes or so of skygazing wandering, you are met with the Khazneh. The treasury is all facade, as there's nothing inside to see (and you're not allowed in anyway), but it is a very impressive building, covered in statues and crawling with tourists. If anything, it almost begins the Petra trip on its peak, with everything downhill from there.

That's mostly figurative, however. After milling about the building and buying a water, I went to my right, where a path descended into the rest of the city. The street of the facades followed, and in all the rock there were structures to be seen and buildings to marvel at. When arriving upon more open ground again, you can find to your right an impressive Byzantine Church atop a hill, with other structures around it. To the left is a little shop, and above that shop a set of stairs. I, being the curious type, took the stairs.

The Byzantine Church (possibly mis-identified) and the other structures near it.

My guidebook, as well as the official free brochure the Visitors' Centre provides, talks about the High Places altar, where sacrifices of old used to be done. Both mention it as a highlight of the city. I, realizing as I began to walk up the stairs that this was where I was heading, looked forward to a brisk climb and nice views, plus more cool structures.

Thirty sun-drenched uphill minutes later, I was resting in the shade, fears of dehydration somehow sneaking into my brain (because, you know, I've never forcefully dehydrated myself for a day or anything). This was mostly a stair climb, but it was tough. Throw in the fact that I had eaten a meager breakfast and that I had my stuffed backpack on my back, and I was beginning to feel it. I was beginning to doubt. Which leads to a mild digression.

The long and winding stairway to heaven, or a sacrificial altar. Same thing.

When Ben and I traveled through Galicia, we joked about how we "won" at various phases of the trip. We had conquered our trip, mastered it, and seized victory.
That's a silly way to look at traveling, to a certain extent, and we meant it as nothing more than a joke.
But it does get into questions of why we travel. Yes, a traveler wants to see new things, meet new people, explore new worlds. That's all noble. But there are also things like "being able to say you went," or "I had to go see it, that's what everybody said," (how many times have you justified a trip with a line like that?). Similarly, somebody like me thrives on the extremes travel forces upon the traveler, because that creates good stories.
At the same time, travel is wearying. It forces you to live in the present moment, but a bad trip leaves you eager to get back home. Doubts creep into your head; "Why did I come here," "Why didn't I just stay home and rest and save my money," "What's the point," "What are those strange glazed spots on my shorts anyway?"
So as I sat in the shade near the top of my hike to the sacrificial altar, I felt like I was losing this trip, and like staying home for five days of swimming on the beach and writing and not worrying wouldn't have been so bad after all. My car wasn't here, I couldn't contact my friends, my back hurt, etc. A change had to come for this to be salvaged.

After I resumed my trek, five minutes brought me to a shack. To my right was the last bit of the climb, to my left was a Roman Soldier's Tomb, but in the conditions I opted to go straight, for some guidance and maybe some water.
Two women sat behind a table on the elevated floor of the building. They had headscarves on.
"You can't go up there," one said to me as I approached.
"Where?"
"To the altar. Did you bring a chicken or a goat?"
"No. Why?"
"You need to bring a chicken or a goat, so the priest can sacrifice it. Otherwise, you can't go up."
"Really?"
"Yeah." The woman had kept a straight face and a straight voice as she said this, though her friend to her left was giggling all the while. I was 95% certain she was messing with me, gullible as I am, but I decided to deal with bigger issues first.
"Can I get some water, at least?"
"Oh, yeah, sure, help yourself."
I climbed into the shack and walked to the refrigerator, where a bottle of water leaked on the other bottles. I took one. I returned to the sand ground below the shack. I approached the woman awkwardly, however, at first from the ground and then thinking that rude, I climbed the stairs back up to pay her on an even ground. She, sensing the confusion said, "Here, come eat with me."
I didn't think it a bad idea, and so I said, "Ok."
So I sat down with this woman, a Bedouin who commuted from two and a half hours away each day to work at Petra, selling souvenirs and water. She spoke pretty good English, and we spoke in bursts, punctuation for our meal of pita and a wedge of cheese with a German or Dutch gal on the wrapper. She told me that one day was not enough for Petra. I took another water. Two dudes to our right slept on rugs or prayer mats or something. It was all very humble and nice.
As if that wasn't enough fun, we noticed a couple on the hill near the soldier approach us. All of a sudden, we were unite to discover who these new visitors were.
"Espana, yes?" she said as their speech began to reach us.
"I think so."
"But I think this guy is Arabic," she said. The guy has silver and gray hair and was tall and robust, with a skin tone that could have been Arabic, Spanish, or anything in between. The woman with him was a full-figured brown-haired lady who looked in her early 40's, a few years younger than he. She was dressed in all blue.
They approached and he and my Bedouin friend talked in Arabic for a bit. It was about water, apparently, because the Spanish lady took a seat and he went and got her a Sprite. I seized my chance to flash a little experience.
"De donde eres?" I asked.
"De Espana."
"De donde en Espana?"
"De Madrid."
"Ahh! He vivido en Madrid en Marte y Abril," I said, already butchering her fine language.
Soon she told me she lived in the mountains, 40 minutes from Madrid, and I told her I lived in Arguelles. In fact, the guy lived on Calle Guzman del Bueno, the very street I inhabited. Ahh, what fun!
We talked a little more. The Bedouin confirmed that the dude was Arabic and bragged of her cleverness to me. I finished my pita and cheese portion and decided that if I was going to make one day enough, I had to ship off. So we took pictures, and then I took off.


"You can go to the top," the Bedouin lady told me.
"Oh, great." I smiled in silly relief.
We all said our goodbyes. And even though the altar top had very little to see besides nice views of the rest of Petra, the tide had turned enough. From that point on, I won. And it was good.

This may have been the altar. Or a child's playset.

The rest of the Petra was fulfilling if not as dramatic. I descended from the hill and further went into the city. There was an old Roman colonnaded street to see, as well as a Great Temple, which was nice even if it was festooned in "Brown University" signs, since Babs's favorite school had excavated it. One more big hike loomed to a monastery, considered the second nicest building in Petra by the brochure. (My guidebook, Fodor's Israel 2006 which also covers the side trip to Petra, was strangely silent on it. I inherited the guidebook in my room, and it has its helpful elements, but also can be a little silly).

Turning down the donkey offers and the promises that they would cut my trip in half or even more, I set off again. If the sellers had told me I was doomed to step in donkey shit the whole way up, I might have listened to them with more attention. In Petra, far worse than other places I've been, it's not so much whether you're going to step in donkey shit or not, but whether you're going to be lucky/sharp enough to step in the dryer variants that won't stick on your shoes.

A long 30 minutes climb, with a brief stop to buy a liter and a half of water and a small, crappy souvenir elephant, since the lady didn't have enough change, took me to the monastery. It was indeed quite nice. I rested, enjoyed the view of it and of the rest of the area around (later I heard you could see into the Sinai in Egypt from here, but I think it would have looked the same - desert). And then I descended, thinking I'd have enough time to make it through all of Petra and back to the bus stop in time.

The monastery. And a horse.

As it was, I did have enough time, but just barely. Feet aching, back sore, I marched on, refusing to give in to rest or donkey rides. The walk back to the Khazneh was about as long as I remembered, the walk through the Siq slightly longer even if I wasn't stopping for pictures, and the now uphill introductory section dragged on far more than I remembered from five hours ago. And yet, I made it through the gate of Petra at 4:40, which was just enough time to get a ticket on the bus, buy a sand-filled bottle with designs in it from the Indiana Jones gift shop, load up on junk food for dinner, and change t-shirts before the bus left. Sore, dirty, tired, and relieved, I was back on to Amman. Still no contact with my friends, but I'd figure that out when I got there. I hoped. Except I was too tired to care.

And of course, our bus broke down for an hour on the side of the road on the ride back. It made no difference to me.

A few more pictures:

Still fresh-faced and eager before the first climb. How foolish.

I was born for the stage! Near the Petra theater, anyway.


The view from the monastery. Possibly to Egypt.

Sandals in Petra? Not the smartest choice.

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!

A Dead Sea Appetizer

One of the more interesting ideas our school has is the "Week Without Walls." In said week, the high school students spend two school days doing community service and then three days on a field trip to somewhere in Israel, for a deeper and separate cultural experience of the country. The middle schoolers just do the field trip part. Anyway, it's a nice concept that could lead to exciting new activities and a chance for students (and teachers) to bond in different ways outside of the classroom. In theory.

In practice, most students go with their friends. Those with good attitudes get a lot out of the activity and wish for more. Those with poorer attitudes try to play a garbled gambling form of blackjack beneath the cliff the rest of their group is rappelling on and then get yelled at by the intern teacher when they go back on their word to actually rappel after two hands. Fortunately, I didn't have to deal with any of that...


That said, there's not a whole lot of storytelling to undertake over the trip. We went to a place called Metzuke Dragot, near the Dead Sea and officially in the West Bank, below Jerusalem (a little more on this distinction in my next post). It was a nice little resort complex, and served as a safe base for our rappelling experience. We went to a nearby cliff and rappelled down it a few times. The most challenging part of the whole rappelling bit was the knots they taught us on the first day, knots that for the most part we did not need to tie the rest of the time. Also, the kids giggled a lot when the guides talked about Prusik knots. Actually, the group of 7-8 freshman boys we had on the trip reminded me a little bit too much of myself and my group of friends freshman year, from the ethnic diversity (theirs actually quite larger) to the good-humored/poor taste racial ribbing to the lack of individuality. This tempered my temper, at times. (Also, with regards to the Prusik knot bit - most of the guides giggled just as much as the kids.)

There were a couple other moments of note. The first night, we met up with another group from school that was rappelling about 20 KM south of us, and after a pedestrian drum circle, a high school dance broke out. A group of Ethiopian (or otherwise African; Ethiopians are the most common African peoples in Israel) high schoolers tried to get in to our dance, including one persistent girl especially. She pleaded, she claimed to be from our school but didn't know the name, she begged, and then she resorted to claiming one of the boys from our school, an Angolan, was her long lost brother, and that she wanted to reunite with him. She didn't get his name right even after somebody told her what it was. (It is a tricky name, to be fair.)


On our last night, we went to a spa near the Dead Sea. As such, while the kids hung out mostly in the pool, the spa did offer both a tub of mud to cover oneself in and sulfur springs hot tubs. The SSHTs were hot and smelled like rotten eggs. After about 10 minutes in one, I got out, or right about when I started tasting the sulfur on my lips. (I was warned not to dip my hair in, because then it might stink for a couple days. I mean, stink more than usual.)

After some cleansing chlorine, I covered myself in mud from head to toe. I can't really claim any great benefits of sticking mud on your body, and I only had it on for 5-10 minutes, which is probably insufficient anyway. But I tell you what, smearing yourself in dark mud that you take from a wooden tub of it in the middle of an open spa square at night is as much as it sounds, and then twice more. The whole putting on the mud thing makes up for having to shower in sulfur to rinse it off. Also, the other teacher in my group told me that a guide or someone there told her, "It's best to put it through your hair and on your genitals and everything." Sadly, I only heard about that after the fact...

Ok, here are some more pictures.

This, friends, is the Dead Sea. It's pretty.
A lonely olive tree on our resort at night.

The place wherein we did the bulk of our rappelling.

And for my next trick, we're off to Jordan! Next post, rather.

This was supposed to be a party...Oh, wait...

Call this an odds and ends post and then let's get on with it, shall we? Today's pictures are brought to you by the hills en route and near Jerusalem, right before my camera went on the fritz as we drove to the Old City, or as we say, "Right on time."


Party Party
Being as I and my roommate live in a fairly large apartment, one with an ample living room that has two separate couch seating areas, a long dining table, and a full kitchen, and being as we don't use all that space very often, we decided that the being in the apartment needed to grow. So we threw a party.

Now, for all my antisocial traits, I have had a little bit of success with past parties. In fact, most anybody reading this here blog has likely been at one or another, whether in Massachusetts or in North Carolina. And if you weren't there, you missed out.

This party took place Saturday night, which is as previously mentioned a weeknight out here (so the party had something in common with almost every party I've thrown). A small gathering of 10-15 teachers and school personnel made for lots of catty remarks about students and potential inter-department showdowns. But, thanks to the ready presence of homemade sangria, potato salad, and foods people actually liked, we had other fun things happen. Such as...

- One of my bosses decided that we needed a little bit of help around the house. To be expected, considering that we're men in our 20s who don't really care about how clean we are. At least not that much; we did tidy up before the party, but nothing out of the ordinary. So what was expected was that something in our apartment might not be quite up to snuff. No major issues, just little messes here and there.

Our boss disagreed. From my vantage point at the end of the table closer to my roommate's bedroom, I noticed her bustling about quite a bit, with regular stops to the cleaning supplies closet we had more or less ignored (I checked it the next day; I found an iron and toilet paper). Finally, she gave me the "come hither" finger gesture. From there she led me to the bathroom. Specifically, to my toilet.

There I found that all the dull stains on the porcelain had more or less dissipated. She had taken to the task with bleach and an iron will, and all of a sudden we had a clean kitchen sink, I had a clean toilet, and I learned a great tip for how to get blueberry or strawberry pie stains out (not that I like either of those foods, but the thought is nice, no?) Soon her help became a running amusement, as she noticed our quite-neglected plants and decided the neglect should end there. Which it did. Only, it picked up again the next day.

It was quite a time, actually, and every so often she would motion to me to come over again and explain her latest act and the reasoning behind it. Meanwhile, as each successive guest learned about what was going on, each successive guest made a, "I'm going to have a party at my house next!" joke. The sort of shared humor and experience that builds a community and makes parties worthwhile.


- We had an Israeli boyfriend of one of the new teachers talking politics in the wee hours with a couple of our more politically astute new teachers. As teachers at our school at least have a wide range of political views, from the current president is the devil to the current democratic candidate is the messiah, with a little leeway in the middle, and as Israelis can tend to lean towards the republican candidate a little bit more, it was an interesting debate. Or rather, it was interesting to see that it was happening. As the debate was in English, the unfair edge went to the Americans.

Somewhat before this debate, by the way, we got yelled at about the noise. Door goes closed, speakers for my sweet party playlist go off, party goes on.

- Did I mention there was potato salad, two (slightly) different types of red sangria, and a large bowl of white sangria? That might explain...

- We finished the night with a silly card game. "Apples to Apples" it's called. Each player is dealt five red cards with nouns on them, some proper, some common. One player (the player rotates) draws a green card that has an adjective or a descriptive phrase. The other players submit a red card they think best suits the green card drawn. The idea is that there will be some funny juxtapositions when, for example, a green card of "Hot and Heavy" draws a red card of "My memories".

Not too complicated of a game though, right?

I say this because one of my lovely colleagues, in fact one of my two or three favorite people involved with the school, struggled with this concept. She struggled with this concept for two reasons: 1. She has a tendency to make mountains out of the proverbial molehill. 2. She had her fair share of sangria, or wine, or beer, or the gross liquor somebody else brought. This affected her despite the fact that she has often bragged on her ability to throw 'em back and tolerate pain killers and the like, to the point where she says she can't get knocked out in the dentist's office.
Regardless, any good party needs a performance like this. She slogged through the game, adding to our collective knowledge of the game, since after all, when you have to teach something, the process allows you to understand it better. Later, she gave me the most intimidating, "I really care about you," speech I've ever had in my life, considering I did nothing wrong to spur it on. And she left her forks. And couldn't remember how she got home. You see? That's how to throw a party.


A First Guest
Also at this party and assisting in its preparation and ultimate success was Dan Fox. Fresh off the Birthright trip, he and a friend stayed at our place, in that ample living room, for a while. His friend left on Wednesday night, and though Dan made efforts to get out of town that night as well (though Lord knows why when he could stay with me), he stuck around until Sunday night.

Besides doing a fine job as visitor, lounger, and party helper, Dan also filled a key role in buying challah on Friday. Challah, the lumpy sweet Jewish bread, is only made/sold in the stores here on Thursdays and Fridays. I always forget on Thursdays to buy it. The Friday before this, I ran to the store after getting dropped off at home (by that same colleague/friend mentioned two paragraphs up, actually), to just make it before the store closed at 4. I bought a loaf and, along with my roommate, we nearly finished the thing that night. This time around, Dan kindly bought us three loaves; two for the party, and one to eat straightaway. The loaves were not a hit at the party, but they did provide me with the carb part of my lunch today, so that's cool.

The other thing Dan did was accompany me to wrestling practice. Boris loved him, though it wasn't clear if Boris realized Dan was an actual, good wrestler or not. Probably because Dan was incapable of athletic gymnastic movements beyond the diving forward roll.

Anyway, on his last night in town, Dan went with me to a practice, with the plan to go straight to the airport from there. As fans of general hygiene and not getting anymore ringworm (though my number is at arba or hamesh these days), we showered after practice. Which led to the following...

Our Man showered in the small toilet/shower stall. It was lit, but not extraordinarily well - it was in the basement of an athletic complex in Israel.
As our man lathered himself up in Selsun Blue, he heard some giggling. Obviously, with a park and a bunch of other sports going on around him, he could expect that youths would be merry. He proceeded to lather and rinse.
As he lathered and rinsed certain areas, he noticed the giggling increased in volume. He also noticed that there was light coming into the shower area from a slatted window. Could there be a connection between the giggling and the light? Nah. But as he turned off the water and bent over to pick up the Selsun Blue container, he did notice that the giggling was female in nature.
In the locker room next to the shower stall, he consulted with his friend. Could it be? "I don't know, dude, I think it might be."
Our Man, getting a kick out of this situation, made sure to go through a long, careful drying process. After all, no one wants to get their clothes wet when driving to the airport in humid Tel Aviv nighttime weather. And to find out whether whatever was going on behind that window (there was one in the locker room as well) was related or unrelated to his actions was also on his mind.
And so, as Our Man and his friend conversed in English, and Our Man dressed, he began to hear words from above that sounded like, "Go, Jeff!" Quite confusing considering no Jeffs were around.
But just as Our Man was ready to leave, the giggling from above coalesced to a question. "Hey, gorgeous," went the cries, dotted by, "What's your name, gorgeous?" Our Man, after a moment's thought, responded, "You guessed it, well done!"

Unfortunately, his friend gave the more correct, less interesting answer, "Dan." And they left, never to run into those gigglers.


Around the ol' Office
There's also a job I'm doing here. If you don't know it, I "teach" at the American International School here. As the intern teacher, I T.A. in a couple of classes (so far the highlight has been teaching the Senior Project class about citing sources, since AIS's school website links to Duke's, and teaching the AP US History class about the Revolutionary War battles, which I muddled a little bit but mostly got right), co-teach a class on Study Skills (a subject I'm less than passionate about, so imagine how 9th graders feel on it), and sit around a lot.

Ok, technically I'm the tutor, which means I make myself available for students who want help in class. Business is slow. The highlight of the business is that I made a sign for my computer that says, "The Tutor is IN" in Lucy fashion. That draws a chuckle from just about everybody. But very little business. Fortunately, I'm not paid by the client.

Four other things to note about school -
1. Most of my students call me "Mr. Schwarznegger," and then feel really clever about it. Sigh. One calls me "Superdude", actually, which is somewhat different.
2. My soccer players have figured out my secret - I'm not very good at the sport. Still, I do push ups with claps behind my backs and beat them in a lot of the sprinting, so I maintain their respect.
3. There was a big fight that rumbled into one of my colleague's classrooms (actually, also the same colleague who amused during the Apples to Apples game - sometimes she is dealt with actual mountains), and it featured one student strangling another. Sounded pretty funny, anyway.
4. Despite the fact that the strangler is on our soccer team, the squad as a whole has proven my long held prejudice - soccer players are generally pretty wimpy. Oh well.


That's all for this blog! But in the weeks to come there's plenty of excitement - a school field trip to go rappeling near the Dead Sea, a five-day weekend for Rosh Hashana that I might use to go to Jordan, a certain stop sooner or later in Jerusalem, and potentially more guests, more parties, and certainly more excitement and stories to tell! Stay tuned, and thanks for reading!
[ /shtick]

Another Basement, Another Neck Bridge

The whole thing started, as just about everything does these days, with a Google search. "Israel Wrestling" was my initial term. Through a little bit of searching and winnowing, I got to the Israeli Wrestling Federation page. There I had to weave my way through English and then Russian options, whilst ignoring all the Hebrew on the right. Eventually, I came away with a phone number, an address, and an email address.

Still mired in the states (this first search was back in June or July), I found only the last item pertinent. I sat on the info until the appropriate time. About two weeks before my arrival in the promised land, I sent an email, written first in Russian. I then translated it into English, leaving in the clunkier phrases for effect, e.g. "I was hoping to know if you could help me find a club to train at," or "I would be most thankful". I received a response in email, we went back in forth, and they gave me the phone number again and told me to call when I arrived.

Again, once I got to Israel I did the wise thing and waited. A little more than a week in, I gave them a call. A woman answered. She was kind, and she gave me two phone numbers. One was to a guy named Leo in Bat Yam, and one to a guy named Sergei (I thought) in Ashdod. I would say Bat Yam:Tel Aviv as Brookline:Boston, right down to the large presence of Russians. Ashdod is a little while away, so I thought I'd leave that on the back burner.

I've talked about Bat Yam already; it was the judo club. My experience wrestling in a bunch of random places - dating to my high school summers when my brother would take me to police stations, barns, and unused factories for workouts - has taught me to be prepared for anything. So when I went to the practice the first time and found out it was a judo practice, I was surprised, but not at all shocked.

I went to one practice. It was fine. Still, between the hassle and traffic in getting there, the other things I had to do, and the lack of interest I have in judo itself, I didn't make it back for a couple of weeks.

Upon my return, I met a game of Russian basketball. Russian basketball is what we called it at Duke anyway: it's basically rugby with basketball hoops. The big variation here was that no one could hold onto the ball, so each step had to be followed by a pass. In a way, this was closer to basketball than the Duke version; dribbling not allowed, tackling and general physicality allowed. Also, we all stunk at basketball.

I went to that second practice to work out, but more so to consult with Lior the coach. He is the fat guy who cusses out his kids and smokes cigarettes. Also the director of the freestyle team in Israel. Me and Lior, gonna be good friends.

All he told me, really, was yes, going to the mafia guy is a bad idea; yes, going to see the federation in person is a good idea; no, if you end up getting Israel citizenship, you won't have to give up the rest of your life to the army. Just a few months. Hmmm.

So this past Sunday I went to the federation. It's located in the concourse of a soccer stadium in a northern district of Tel Aviv, relatively close to where I live. I drove in, parked at the wrong place, drove away to look a little farther down the street, then tried the soccer stadium on the rebound. I asked the first guy I saw inside if he spoke English or Russian, and then if he could show me to the wrestling office. Voila.

There I met Adi and Itsi. Itsi was a bald dude in his late 30s who didn't speak much English, and no Russian. Adi was a slightly younger woman who spoke no Russian but plenty of English. So we had a little chat about me and my prospects with the IWF. The big negative garnered from the discussion was that I can't enter the National Championship without Israeli citizenship; something about wanting your national championship to be for your nationals. I mean, whatever. We're looking to see if my visa will be enough.

The big positive garnered was a confirmation on the club in Ashdod - the dude's name is Firgor, not Sergei, but they're one of the big 4 clubs in freestyle in the country - and a new number for a greco club in Tel Aviv. I thought I'd expand my net of styles I'd be willing to work out in, and the level of greco here is higher than freestyle. As Adi explained, "Our greco program has been going for 25 years, while our freestyle has only been going for 10." And by program, I think she meant acceptance of Russian and Georgian Jews.

So the new greco club coach's name was Berhay they said, though he also went by Boris. "He's a good coach. That's a good club," they told me. They also gave me a location, Bet yanim, which was somewhere in the southern half of Tel Aviv, but closer than Bat Yam. And they told me he spoke Russian, not English.

This time I didn't do as much waiting. I got home, shopped along the way, and then decided to supplement my shopping by walking to the local supermarket. On the way, I gave ol' Boris a call. I explained who I was, asked him about his club, and he said, "Sure, we have a practice today, come on down." Unready for this, I agreed. We hung up. I returned to my shopping. It was 2:20.

At about 3:20, I gave Boris a call again. I couldn't understand what he had been saying about where his club was located, so I figured I'd try again while sitting in front of an Israel emap. He explained it again, but seemed a little surprised I couldn't catch it the first time, as if my knowledge of Russian was to blame for not making out the Hebrew names he hacked off over a shoddy cell phone connection. In any case, we sat there until I figured out that Kabir was spelled with an "i" and not an "e", and that Ha Tikvah was actually a section in Tel Aviv. I pinpointed the place, thanked him, and promised to be at practice by 6.

Back in February when I was at the job fair to find a job teaching for this year, the head of the organization hosting talked about the turning point in an interview when the school you're interviewing with begins to sell you on them, rather than you selling them on you. I didn't really notice that turning point in my interview, but somehow I got the job anyway.

The turning point with Boris came at 4:49, when he called me back. He wanted to make sure I would find my way there and make sure I was coming. "We'll have a good team, you compete with us, don't worry." I'm not going to practice tonight, I told him. "Of course not, no problem! It's good to meet, to talk, just come." So it was settled.

My plans for arrival changed slightly when I received a phone call. Former teammate and still friend Dan Fox, as well as a friend of his had just arrived in Tel Aviv, shockingly ahead of schedule at the Central Bus Station. So I flipped the order of my plans and drove in to find them. Finding the bus station was in itself a mess - not dissimilar to Boston, Tel Aviv has signs directing you towards the bus station but then ceases to give you the details when you get very close. Fortunately, some dude on the street directed me, in Russian, to the station, and when I drove by the corner where Dan and friend waited, I heard the familiar "Hey, Shorty!" call. I pulled into the taxi and buses row and added my companions.

Once we found our way out of the balagan around the bus station, we made our way across the major highway (the Ayalon) and into Ha Tikvah. The club was pretty close to the bus station, so even with a few bad turns we got there in short order.

Walking by the local stadium, we found a sign for a judo club (Boris suggested there would be one) and some dudes sitting outside of a building that could have been our spot. We approached and spoke to them.
"Medeber anglit o russit?"
"English a little."
"We're looking for a wrestling club."
"Wrestling?"
"Boris. We're looking for Boris."
"Oh, Boris! He's right over there," and the guy gave us the directions. It appeared Boris was big around these parts.

We went by a little soccer field, down stairs, and into another building. Turning right down a narrow hallway in the basement, we found our pot of gold at the end of the rainbow; a blue mat and this fellow, sans trophy:


I never know what to expect from phone calls with these coaches. Lior was more your typical hardnosed wrestling coach, though quite soft-bellied. Boris looked like a wrestler - wide shoulders, a slight hunch in his back. When I walked into the room though, he wasted no time in getting to the greetings, giving me an awkward hug. Apparently that's how they treat top recruits; who said Israelis are cold?

For my first practice on a wrestling mat since July, I got the kid-gloves treatment. "Take a rest, don't do this drill," he told me during one of the neck warm-up exercises. "We don't want you waking up tomorrow and hurting everywhere, thinking, "Why should I wrestle?" Not wanting to disagree, and eager to trust the Russian training methods (i.e. being out of shape and lazy), I sat out that exercise.

Once the warm-ups stopped, I began to wrestle with Boris's son, Alex. Alex was an Israel National Team member in Greco, and had about 5 KG on me. Unlike his dad, he spoke English, which led to a mixture of Russian and English instruction as he explained I should step in on the underhook and not sit on my crappy lat-drop. "That's the only move I have!" I explained to him. Ahh, greco.

After 10 minutes of "push-push" (lazy live) with Alex, I was released to get a drink. Then I went with one of the newer wrestlers as they drilled getting off their back. I went live with this new guy too, and threw him around a little bit, if threw him around suggests avoiding his throws and getting many one-point takedowns.

The highlight of the first workout came when Boris himself came over to roll with me. Boris is a 2-time world champion...in the veterans level. He's also 50, I believe. And he was quite impressed with my freestyle wrestling. As he should have been, because when we went freestyle, I took him down six ways to Sunday. It's unclear whether he wasn't trying, wasn't in practice at freestyle anymore, or was just old. But he was impressed, regardless.

And so after practice he told me, "Don't go anywhere else to wrestle, or do judo, or karate, or anything, just work out here." Before I could respond, he added, "I've signed you up for our club anyway." Settled.

He did say that I might be able to practice for free, as long as I can compete for the club. So I'm a signed and pledged member of Bet Yanim. Go BY! Yeah? No? Well, it's good to fit in somewhere.

Postscript: That practice was on Tuesday. By Wednesday I had spotted at least 3 cases of ringworm on my person. Mmm.

Many Languages in Little World

You see it often in international sport. Most especially something popular and universal, like basketball or, say, soccer. Take the European soccer leagues. Teams are conglomerates of players from up to five different continents, and within that they represent a wide variety of nations and languages. Players need to communicate amongst themselves, coaches need to communicate to players, and most essentially, everybody has to bitch at the referees. So what language do they do this in?

I've had four practices now as assistant coach of the boys' varsity team here at AIS, and I've picked up on a few things. First of all, if the head coach and a number of key vocal players are from England, the team is most certainly not a soccer team but a football team. And if they're unproven, then they "have the makings of being a real football team". You want to play it out the back of the pitch. You don't play the game with speed but with pace; you don't kick the ball hard but put pace on the ball or play it with a little bit of pace; you don't sit on the bench if you're left out, you pace. (Ok, maybe not.)

Then it's just a matter of what languages you have in common. Two Israelis on the team might yell Hebrew to each other when they call for the ball. A kid might mutter "maricon" under his breath, and then joke with his Mexican teammate about the dull agility drills their assistant coach put them through. If a striker is from Mongolia, he might hear some instructions in Russian and take to them.

Of course, the lingua franca these days is English. Until China finishes getting its act in gear and dominates the world, the international language will be in our favor, especially when at an American school. (In fact, that probably won't change even after China takes over). Even when our school goes to play Arabic or Palestinian schools (as part of the Peace League), we're more likely to communicate to them through English than common knowledge of Arabic or Hebrew. The other big advance that might render English meaningless is telepathy, or the singularity, but we're not counting on that.

There are also all the common phrases we know in other languages. The coach might lead the count in Spanish, and if a Spanish player tackles an Italian, it's not hard to imagine them getting into it without any common language, just from similar vocab. (Another fictional proposal, since Spanish players don't tackle, and Italian players don't get into it so much as roll on the ground).

And of course, the language of gestures is a rich and varied one that can bridge many gaps. One wonders how Dutch coaches are so successful in Russia, but football is football, right? I mean, unless it's soccer. The fact that half the things said in judo practice are in Hebrew, and the other half are in Russian that I can't hear well because when I'm in practice, I become much stupider, doesn't really keep me from aping everybody else and getting a rough idea of the techniques we're practicing. And if Russian wrestling coaches were to come to the U.S., they'd be just as successful in communicating with the American wrestlers of all types. Like the time the Russian coach at Harvard asked one of the wrestlers at the Fargo camp, an Asian, if he was Chinese.
"No, Japanese," the wrestler answered.
"Konichiwa!" the coach said, and then he rammed a forearm into the back of the kid's head. Classic communication.

In the end, football (of either kind) is just sport. Masturbatory exercises that aren't worth the emotion and the intelligence that they elicit from the greater population as spectators, while also good exercise and focusing tools for participants. And it's far from me to find interest in the theory of sport as societal microcosm.

The interesting thing about being at an International school, as evidenced in the class room or on the football pitch, is seeing both the importance of identity and the irrelevance of nationality. Of course Americans are going to have a step closer in feeling to other Americans, and it's not quite productive when a British fullback on our team calls the Mongolian striker "Mongolian" rather than by name.

The fact that students coexist between all these nationalities - the football team represents Mexico, U.S., England, Cyprus, Mongolia, India, Canada, and Israel - is a piece of proof in the idea that we'll soon be beyond nationality. It's a faint hope, sure, and this school is an exception. But the commonality between all these kids, besides football and English, or whatever other languages they share, is that they're kids, and people.

Or to put it another way; every time I'm abroad, I'm tempted to, upon hearing the question "Where are you from?", say Russia, or that I don't understand English. Partly, that's because I can be a little brat about things. More though, is the desire to not be pinned down or identified. Identity is of course important and malleable and necessary, but perhaps that's just the self-identity, the inner core of who we are. I don't need you to know what I think of myself, or where I'm from, or what I believe, or anything further. Or if I do, I'll share it. In whatever language you like. (Except Finnish. Because it's confusing.)


My first guest of the year is expected sometime in the next few days, so the humorous narrative output is likely to pick up again. Though no nude activities, I hope.