Next week Israel is turning 60, and I'm getting excited in spite of myself.
Because I have been working with an ultra-left organization for three months, and because Tel Aviv has a relatively high proportion of people who refuse to serve in the military, and because I am on the ActLeft listserv which announces Communist meetings and solidarity rallies with Palestinians, I manage to absorb a lot of the negative attitude toward Zionism. Plus, I didn't exactly come here as a bright-eyed loving fan; I take visitors to Palestinian villages to protest the separation wall.
But watching some cafes and restaurants deck their windows in blue and white in the past week makes me feel inexplicably warm inside, and not only because of the promise of a massive party for the occasion. It feels like an innocent, 'look we are not perfect but we made it to 60!' expression, kind of like a birthday party for your kid, and I want to wish Israel mazal tov before I go back to 364 more days of ambivalence.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Saturday, April 26, 2008
A smokin' new roommate
This is my second post about personal defeats. It could also be called Shambles Gets A Hookah.
As anyone who has had the pleasure of smoking it knows, I have a hookah pipe (nargila, shisha, hubbly-bubbly) that's just shy of four feet tall. I got it for free in Chicago at a party I organized, in which we raffled off the nargila. For reasons I cannot understand, the winner didn't want it.
Anyways, since my sister was coming to see me for a week, I asked my parents to send it with her as a second piece of luggage. Surprisingly, they obliged, packing the hookah pipe, its glass base, two hoses and a box of top-tier coals in a long box.
When my sister got in, we unpacked the hookah only to find that the glass base had broken. We gathered the shards and resolved to buy a new base in Jerusalem.
I bought the new base for 40 shekels (around $12) and showed it off to my roommate...and managed to let it shatter on my ceramic floor. Dejected, I put the second set of shards in with the first set in a plastic bag. I ate dinner that evening to the soundtrack of Annie Lennox's "Walking on Broken Glass."
The next day, we biked to Yafo to buy yet another base. On the way out we threw out the bag of broken glass. I got a new base for 25 shekels this time ($7.50), came home to put the pipe together, and realized that I threw out the coals with the glass shards. You can't win.
I managed to light up the pipe last night using coals from a barbecue, but I have been accessorizing this thing like mad, peeing away money like I haven't since I got my new bike. Total spent:
Glass base #1: 40 shekels
Two boxes of crap tobacco: 10 shekels
Glass base #2: 25 shekels
Two boxes of good tobacco: 20 shekels
A packet of tin foil: 5 shekels
A roll of bad coals: 8 shekels
A box of decent coals: 7 shekels (go figure)
A wind screen: 6 shekels
A box of really REALLY good tobacco: 35 shekels
Grand total: 156 shekels. Total I paid for the actual pipe? Zero. Total I spent to ship it from Chicago to New Jersey last June? $30. I have to say this is the most expensive carcinogen I have ever had.
As anyone who has had the pleasure of smoking it knows, I have a hookah pipe (nargila, shisha, hubbly-bubbly) that's just shy of four feet tall. I got it for free in Chicago at a party I organized, in which we raffled off the nargila. For reasons I cannot understand, the winner didn't want it.
Anyways, since my sister was coming to see me for a week, I asked my parents to send it with her as a second piece of luggage. Surprisingly, they obliged, packing the hookah pipe, its glass base, two hoses and a box of top-tier coals in a long box.
When my sister got in, we unpacked the hookah only to find that the glass base had broken. We gathered the shards and resolved to buy a new base in Jerusalem.
I bought the new base for 40 shekels (around $12) and showed it off to my roommate...and managed to let it shatter on my ceramic floor. Dejected, I put the second set of shards in with the first set in a plastic bag. I ate dinner that evening to the soundtrack of Annie Lennox's "Walking on Broken Glass."
The next day, we biked to Yafo to buy yet another base. On the way out we threw out the bag of broken glass. I got a new base for 25 shekels this time ($7.50), came home to put the pipe together, and realized that I threw out the coals with the glass shards. You can't win.
I managed to light up the pipe last night using coals from a barbecue, but I have been accessorizing this thing like mad, peeing away money like I haven't since I got my new bike. Total spent:
Glass base #1: 40 shekels
Two boxes of crap tobacco: 10 shekels
Glass base #2: 25 shekels
Two boxes of good tobacco: 20 shekels
A packet of tin foil: 5 shekels
A roll of bad coals: 8 shekels
A box of decent coals: 7 shekels (go figure)
A wind screen: 6 shekels
A box of really REALLY good tobacco: 35 shekels
Grand total: 156 shekels. Total I paid for the actual pipe? Zero. Total I spent to ship it from Chicago to New Jersey last June? $30. I have to say this is the most expensive carcinogen I have ever had.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Shambles Goes Hiking
My sister has been in town since Saturday and we decided to go hiking in the North. We went through the motions of preparing - borrowed camping equipment from a friend, bought a map, loaded up at the grocery store. Too bad we didn't do any formal planning.
Yesterday we wound up going to sleep half-packed at 1.30 AM, waking up four hours later, shoving food, a pan, our toiletries and water into our bags, and getting on a 7 AM train to Haifa. We bought a gas canister at one bus station, bussed across town to another, and took another bus to the junction closest to our trail, arriving at 10.30 AM.
The weather was above 100 degrees, as Wednesday was the peak of a nationwide heatwave that is only letting out tomorrow. We each bought more water, shifting the weight in my sister's bag because it was her first time carrying a frame backpack and she was struggling. Then we followed some friendly Israelis to the trail. They had been hiking for four days with bags half the size of ours.
The day declined from there. Hiking at noon meant there was not much shade. The weather was oppressive. We stopped every 15 minutes - or less - to catch our breath. Because it is Passover break, the trail was overrun with school children and religious families who tore through the path singing yeshiva songs.
The high point of the day was a one and a half hour lunch we spent in a shady nook, eating as much food as we could to lighten the load on our back. The first low point was an hour later when a trail ranger told us we couldn't pitch a tent in the park and that even if we did, we wouldn't have enough water to make it through the next day. He recommended we walk out of the reserve to the neighboring town of Tsfat.
We merrily went on our way, figuring we would just camp out in the forest surrounding Tsfat. The plan seemed to be working as we made it out of the nature park and into a low path surrounded by olive groves. There was a flat patch of earth without much growing on it, so we put our bags down and looked around us - only to find a decaying cow carcass. This was the second low point.
My sister, 16, who to her great credit had been fine until this point, suddenly urgently wanted to go back to Tel Aviv. I realized that we didn't have much choice. We walked to the road nearby to thumb a ride to the nearest city and bus station.
The first car to pull over was an oldish British white couple who offered to take us to a junction where we could catch another ride to Tiberias, a major city in the North. The conversation went like this.
"So, what are you doing out here?"
"Hiking, but it got too hot and they won't let us camp."
"Ok, well we can take you to a junction to get a ride to Tiberias."
"Thanks a lot. Actually, if you know of any place we could pitch a tent up here, that would be great."
"You know you could pitch it on our back lawn. We live on Kibbutz Kfar Hanasi, it's right near here."
"Oh that would be great."
"Or you could just sleep in our spare room. What do you want for dinner?"
The couple took us in, let us shower, fed us dinner, put us up in their spare room, and drove us to the bus station the next morning, sending us off with two avocados from the kibbutz orchards.
Today I turned 23, and I realized that I'm definitely none the wiser for it.
Yesterday we wound up going to sleep half-packed at 1.30 AM, waking up four hours later, shoving food, a pan, our toiletries and water into our bags, and getting on a 7 AM train to Haifa. We bought a gas canister at one bus station, bussed across town to another, and took another bus to the junction closest to our trail, arriving at 10.30 AM.
The weather was above 100 degrees, as Wednesday was the peak of a nationwide heatwave that is only letting out tomorrow. We each bought more water, shifting the weight in my sister's bag because it was her first time carrying a frame backpack and she was struggling. Then we followed some friendly Israelis to the trail. They had been hiking for four days with bags half the size of ours.
The day declined from there. Hiking at noon meant there was not much shade. The weather was oppressive. We stopped every 15 minutes - or less - to catch our breath. Because it is Passover break, the trail was overrun with school children and religious families who tore through the path singing yeshiva songs.
The high point of the day was a one and a half hour lunch we spent in a shady nook, eating as much food as we could to lighten the load on our back. The first low point was an hour later when a trail ranger told us we couldn't pitch a tent in the park and that even if we did, we wouldn't have enough water to make it through the next day. He recommended we walk out of the reserve to the neighboring town of Tsfat.
We merrily went on our way, figuring we would just camp out in the forest surrounding Tsfat. The plan seemed to be working as we made it out of the nature park and into a low path surrounded by olive groves. There was a flat patch of earth without much growing on it, so we put our bags down and looked around us - only to find a decaying cow carcass. This was the second low point.
My sister, 16, who to her great credit had been fine until this point, suddenly urgently wanted to go back to Tel Aviv. I realized that we didn't have much choice. We walked to the road nearby to thumb a ride to the nearest city and bus station.
The first car to pull over was an oldish British white couple who offered to take us to a junction where we could catch another ride to Tiberias, a major city in the North. The conversation went like this.
"So, what are you doing out here?"
"Hiking, but it got too hot and they won't let us camp."
"Ok, well we can take you to a junction to get a ride to Tiberias."
"Thanks a lot. Actually, if you know of any place we could pitch a tent up here, that would be great."
"You know you could pitch it on our back lawn. We live on Kibbutz Kfar Hanasi, it's right near here."
"Oh that would be great."
"Or you could just sleep in our spare room. What do you want for dinner?"
The couple took us in, let us shower, fed us dinner, put us up in their spare room, and drove us to the bus station the next morning, sending us off with two avocados from the kibbutz orchards.
Today I turned 23, and I realized that I'm definitely none the wiser for it.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Rooftop party, water shortage
Last weekend we threw a party on my roof in honor of mine and my roommate's birthdays, as well as the middle of our lease. Our roof is enormous, and we easily had 40 people on it. We borrowed a sound system and grill from our neighbors, and then caught flak for lighting up the coals to roast vegetables and haloumi cheese. As in my most successful nights, I ate a lot, drank a lot, danced a lot and then fell asleep in front of my friends.
Passover is coming next week, which means that these next few days are about cramming in a few interviews and errands before the country goes on holiday for a week and my sister comes in to visit.
I'm working on a story on Israel's water shortage, which this year is the worst in a decade. The only problem is that Israel never has enough water, so I am trying to find a way into the article without rehashing everything that is said every 7-10 years. On Thursday I'm going on a ride-along with a company trying to sell water-saving devices door-to-door in a few Israeli cities. A few weeks ago I met a guy who craps in a waterless compost toilet. All this talk is making me want a shower.
Passover is coming next week, which means that these next few days are about cramming in a few interviews and errands before the country goes on holiday for a week and my sister comes in to visit.
I'm working on a story on Israel's water shortage, which this year is the worst in a decade. The only problem is that Israel never has enough water, so I am trying to find a way into the article without rehashing everything that is said every 7-10 years. On Thursday I'm going on a ride-along with a company trying to sell water-saving devices door-to-door in a few Israeli cities. A few weeks ago I met a guy who craps in a waterless compost toilet. All this talk is making me want a shower.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
First freelance articles in print
Two posts ago I wrote about how Jerusalem is in phases lovely and repellent. Well, yesterday I had my first completely pleasant trip to the city, and I must confess it is growing on me. Like a leech. Like a crowded, polluted, poorly planned...wait, this is a post about how much I like it.
I met a friend for lunch in the Iraqi section of the Machane Yehuda outdoor vegetable market. We got kube, which is a soup with what looks like matza balls but stuffed with meat. Then we wandered around, buying ultra-cheap citrus fruit and wandering through the part of the market where the lights had gone out and people were selling vegetables by candlelight. I got some freshly ground coffee as well.
After that, I went to the offices of the Jerusalem Report to pick up the last two editions of the magazine, where I have articles on strawberries in Israel and on Earth Hour. Finally, although the traffic was bad on the way home, I was comatose and so it didn't matter.
In the other capital of Israel, Tel Aviv lately has been in full bloom. The climate on the street is a party, as well as mating season. Last week on Friday there was a "Rave Cook" on the street of Rav Cook, a narrow alleyway devoted to the father of religious Zionism. Around 200-300 people were dancing in broad daylight, grinning away and eating free popcorn and red bull and vodka that people were handing out in the street. The music was for the most part excellent, a cross between the Best Of Israel in the 1980s and African drum music.
Besides looking for dancing opportunities, I have been peeing away my money in a big way. Hopefully I will learn how to write an invoice soon so I can collect on my freelance writing.
I met a friend for lunch in the Iraqi section of the Machane Yehuda outdoor vegetable market. We got kube, which is a soup with what looks like matza balls but stuffed with meat. Then we wandered around, buying ultra-cheap citrus fruit and wandering through the part of the market where the lights had gone out and people were selling vegetables by candlelight. I got some freshly ground coffee as well.
After that, I went to the offices of the Jerusalem Report to pick up the last two editions of the magazine, where I have articles on strawberries in Israel and on Earth Hour. Finally, although the traffic was bad on the way home, I was comatose and so it didn't matter.
In the other capital of Israel, Tel Aviv lately has been in full bloom. The climate on the street is a party, as well as mating season. Last week on Friday there was a "Rave Cook" on the street of Rav Cook, a narrow alleyway devoted to the father of religious Zionism. Around 200-300 people were dancing in broad daylight, grinning away and eating free popcorn and red bull and vodka that people were handing out in the street. The music was for the most part excellent, a cross between the Best Of Israel in the 1980s and African drum music.
Besides looking for dancing opportunities, I have been peeing away my money in a big way. Hopefully I will learn how to write an invoice soon so I can collect on my freelance writing.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Goodbye, right hand
I have found an anonymous pit to dump food scraps into. A guy on Tel Aviv's Avoda street has dedicated a space in the backyard of his apartment building to compost. Yesterday I self-righteously dumped a bag of rotting eggplant skins and carrot peels onto the heap and felt great about myself. In all seriousness, it is nice when you discover things like backyards and compost piles in the middle of a concrete jungle.
Ten minutes after my compost drop, I found my environmentalism came back to bite me in the ass as I careened into another girl on a bike and lost the skin on most of the knuckles of my right hand. Although I have shattered a car's rear view mirror, grazed pedestrians and collided with a reversing vehicle in a parking lot, this was the most damage I have sustained on my two-wheeler. On the other hand, it makes me look like I use brass knuckles.
Ten minutes after my compost drop, I found my environmentalism came back to bite me in the ass as I careened into another girl on a bike and lost the skin on most of the knuckles of my right hand. Although I have shattered a car's rear view mirror, grazed pedestrians and collided with a reversing vehicle in a parking lot, this was the most damage I have sustained on my two-wheeler. On the other hand, it makes me look like I use brass knuckles.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)