Ben Gurion airport seemed very American compared to what I expected, as did Israel in general. Almost all of the signs were in English and the bathrooms were even "flush the toilet paper" normal. When walking down the corridor to the baggage claim I had a moment that I have regularly when traveling out of the country. I saw a line of Israeli flags and flagpoles flapping over bushes that spell out Nokia. These flags send the clear message "You are not home." When we arrive at baggage claim there was the surreal moment of seeing the person who looked the most like Jesus that I have ever seen...in Israel even. I stared in stunned excitement bringing everyone over in a "Look who it is!!" moment. We all laughed and the guy turned and said "Tell no one what you have seen today!!" (writers embellishment).
From this point we boarded our tour bus which we would travel from town to town on for multiple hours over the next 12 days. We were like rock stars, without the fans and perks, and talent. The ride did not have many of the "Where in the world are we?" moments as I have seen on other trips out of the country. All of the signs were in Hebrew, Arabic, and English.
Our first stop was Beersheba. Lonely Planet travel guide called Beersheba "ugly" and this was pretty accurate. It was dusty and industrial. We have the first real culture shock when we arrive at our hotel and the desk workers unloading our bags both have handguns bouncing around in side holsters. I told Tiffany about this before the trip to help her feel safer, but I must say introducing a gun- usually multiple guns- into every situation didn't feel safe. It felt like the OK Corral could happen at any moment. I began to appreciate that when your nation is surrounded by people who don't like you and generally think you do not have a legitimate existence you tend to generally need to be on the defensive.
Our hotel rooms were pretty nice for the most part. It was interesting that all of the rooms did not have a large bed but rather had two small beds pushed together. The first three nights were one night stands (can I use that term?) at each hotel with no chance for unpacking. Still adjusting from the time change I felt like we were returning from dinner and collapsing on the bed to sleep at night. The travel was invigorating and tiresome. Awake at 6, breakfast at 7, load bags at 7:40 and rolling at 8. Go to 6-8 sites per day, return between 6 and 7, eat dinner and sleep. In Jerusalem we finally adjusted pretty well, but that was four days away.
I have a weak stomach, which some would fine hard to imagine. So I did not handle the first meal well. I think I had something like two hours sleep in 30 hours and I was not in the mood to be adventurous. I would enjoy many meals on the trip and come to like much of the food. But the smell of the spices in the first dining room was vivid and depressing because I was tired. Again was the reminder "You are not home." I feared I would not eat during the trip, but I did. I looked forward to the fruit and rolls and butter at every breakfast. Dairy was served at breakfast, not at dinner, I think due to kosher reasons. The first morning I tried cereal but I think it was in goat's milk which I did not like the taste of and thus I did not eat cereal or drink milk throughout the trip. One morning I ate a tuna sandwich, which some of the American tourists thought was so novel that it was laughable. "Tuna for breakfast??" someone yelled. One morning I was tantalized by some guacamole that looked so legit but it was filled with some odd spice. So much of the food was like this...close enough to break your heart. You expect one thing and get let down when it is just a little different than what you consider normal.
Lunches were either authentic Middle Eastern or American fast food. The authentic food choices were shwarama (sliced chicken), felafel (fried chick peas), or schnitzel (chicken tenderloin) pita. We brought some beef jerky from home and had that twice. We ate the authentic a few times. And had a few Big Macs and Whoppers while there. It was a real surprise when we found out that a Whopper meal was over ten dollars and I became sick of hearing how far the dollar had fallen multiple times everyday. One lunch we were in a Druze village and we had what was called a Druze pita. This was a wide roti pati smeared with cream cheese and herbs and olive oil. This was very good.
Dinners had meat (unlike most breakfasts), no butter for your rolls, and a big buffet of salads. One of the hotels had some amazing cole slaw that I piled on my plate every night. Every buffet had fish, chicken, and beef. By far the worst thing we saw was called St. Peter's fish. It was a broiled fish, skin on, hanging on the bones- head and eyeballs and all. At that lunch I chose what was called "St. Peter's Pizza" which was probably like a pizza you would make at home...but relative to the other offerings it tasted like Giordano's. At least it wasn't looking at me.
On the first evening we had a team meeting where nothing eventful happened. We fell asleep to the sounds of gunfire in the distance. The first few nights my sleeping schedule was so off that I would be up for a few hours during the night. I had a hard time adjusting, but it was much harder adjusting after returning. I felt like I slept for days.
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