I have finally started to work through some of the video from South America. I have a total of about eight hours of raw footage to sift through and decided to start with the wild life refuge stuff and work my way backwards once I put together the documentary for the refuge I worked at. I put together a short little trailer just for a taste of some of the incredible shots I have from the refuge. CLICK HERE TO WATCH IT. Enjoy!

I’m sure most of you are aware of the recent tornado that ripped through downtown Atlanta. The following article is about my very close friends, and a three month old puppy, who survived the close brush with death. Here is a quick video clip of the interview, but the article is much more descript.

How residents of the old Cabbagetown cotton mill survivedBy BEN SMITH
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/15/08 P.J. Bullock said it took 10 seconds; Kevin Goolsby said it was 15. But there was no disagreement over what had happened: The old cotton mill had been struck by a tornado.Goolsby was at home in Building H of the renovated, former Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills loft complex in Atlanta’s Cabbagetown neighborhood when the building was hit. When the room started shaking and his started popping, Goolsby said he knew exactly what was happening.

“I’m from Mississippi and I’ve been through two of these before,” Goolsby said. “That’s what happens in a tornado.”Goolsby said he immediately ran to the bathroom for cover.Bullock was a dinner guest in a top floor loft on the Boulevard side of Building E next door.“We heard a huge breeze blow through,” Bullock said. “My friend got up to close the window but couldn’t.”In a matter of seconds Bullock, his host Lauren Weiss and two other friends would be running be for their lives.“Do you see the windows?” said Bullock as he pointed to the top of the building. “They’re huge. They started cracking and the room started shaking.”Seconds later, Bullock said a wall ripped away, exposing the unit to the open air and the roaring wind. The roof opened up and then crashed on the building’s top floor, prompting a chain reaction collapse of the unit next door and part of Weiss’s and all of the floors below it.“It fell all the way to the basement, “Bullock said.Bullock said he fled down the hallway and dove into an open room while his friends hovered under fallen plywood. When Bullock realized his friends weren’t with him, he ran back to find them.“It was very chaotic,” Bullock said. “When I went back to get everybody, there was no wall, there was no roof, and all I could see was just the city of Atlanta skyline.”Bullock and Weiss said they had to climb over bricks and glass to escape down a stairwell. Weiss wasn’t wearing shoes.“I got cuts on my feet,” Weiss said.They all made it out safely — except, apparently, for “Jackson,” Bullock’s 3-month-old mixed breed German Shepherd puppy. The dog was still missing Saturday afternoon.As firefighters sifted the rubble. Bullock stood silently staring up at the roof. His girlfriend, Mary Pierce Zirkle, who wasn’t there when the twister struck, stood beside him, her eyes glazed with tears.“It was one of those things where you don’t know if you’re going to make it out or not,” Bullock. When asked how he was feeling,” Bullock replied, “I don’t know. … I don’t have a scratch on me.”

Puppy feared dead turns up safe under couch at Cotton Mill LoftsBy CHRISTIAN BOONE, BEN SMITH
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/17/08 P.J. Bullock barely survived Friday night’s tornado. He feared his dog, Jackson, wasn’t so lucky.Sunday afternoon, he and a friend returned to the Cotton Mill Lofts in Cabbagetown to look one last time for his 3-month-old mixed breed German shepherd. He was able to persuade a firefighter to check the apartment where the puppy wasn’t seen.

Mary Pierce Zirkle / Handout

Jackson

“They found him underneath a couch,” said Bullock, who was having dinner in a top-floor loft on the Boulevard side of Building E when the tornado struckThe dog apparently had scampered underneath the furniture just as one of the apartment’s walls was collapsing. That’s where he was discovered Sunday, safely ensconced amid the rubble.“Jackson was OK … completely healthy,” said Bullock, who likewise escaped the storm “without a scratch.”“We heard a huge breeze blow through,” he recalled. “My friend got up to close the window but couldn’t.”Seconds later, a wall ripped away, exposing the unit to the open air and the roaring wind, he said. The roof opened up and then crashed on the building’s top floor, prompting a chain reaction collapse of the unit next door and part of the apartment where Bullock was a guest.“It fell all the way to the basement,” he said.Bullock said he fled down the hallway and dove into an open room while his friends hovered under fallen plywood. When he realized his friends weren’t with him, he ran back to find them.“It was very chaotic,” Bullock said. “When I went back to get everybody, there was no wall, there was no roof, and all I could see was just the city of Atlanta skyline.”

Yesterday I woke up and made my way to Haifa to visit a school there, Yemin Orde.  A family friend of mine had helped with the creation of some of the facilities and they arranged for me to have a VIP visit and tour.  A taxi was sent to pick me up at the train station and I was brought to the village where the lobby of the cafeteria was prepared for my arrival with snacks and drinks with which I filled myself.

I was met and given a history of the school and the model was explained to me.  The school takes kids from all over the world and brings them to Israel.  Most of the kids are orphans or they are taken from a bad family situation such as drug abuse and alcholism.   The kids are at the school from ages 6 to 18 and then they go to serve in the Israeli army, just like every other Israeli at the age of 18.  Many of the kids, who do not have parents, return to the village on weekends and breaks from the army because the members of the school treat them as family and the village is meant to be their home. When they return home they have a place to sleep and three meals a day at the cafeteria.  The school encourages the individuals to keep in touch with their heritage and it is only the bad things from their past that they are encouraged to forget.  The village puts on celebrations for the various kids’, such as kids from Russia or Ethiopia, respective holidays in order to help them stay in touch with their heritage.  Once the kids have served their time in the army and move on with their lives, Yemin Orde even signs on the mortage to their first house until they are able to build their own credit.

 They never turn a kid away and they have various projects, bringing in large groups of 50 kids from different countries and they are always encouraged to, and their are many success stories of kids returning to their respective countries and holding influential positions in society such as mayor or police chief.  When the young adults get married, the village even hosts the wedding on site.

 After I was given a thourough background of the school, I was given a tour of all of their impressive facilities including computer labs and science buildings.  Last year the students from Ethiopia came in fourth place in a robot building competition in Atlanta, GA.

After my tour, we returned to the cafeteria where a table was set for the two of us and about eight different plates of food were brought out.  Of course, I finished as much as I possibly could without looking as though I came from a starved childhood.  Then they brought me back to the train station.  I am grateful to have had this oppotunity and I want to thank my friends for putting it together for me.

I took a taxi to the border of Egypt and Israel from Dahab.  Upon arriving, I sent my bags through a big X-ray machine and I had to empty my pockets to go through the metal detector….which was comforting considering that every metal detector I went through in Egypt was accompanied by an Egyptian dude, smoking a ciggarette, waving people with huge bags through , as the metal detector just went ballistic with every person who passed under it…no one was ever stopped.  I made my way to the bank to exchange my Egyptian pounds into Israeli Shekels.  The guy at the bank only had change, so my little red bag turned into a gigantic change purse, holding about 300 shekels in all 1 and 2 shekel coins.  When I finished at the bank, a line had formed at the passport check with about a hundred person tour group.  They, however, were at a disadvantage for they had not learned the Middle Eastern methods of, well, not waiting in line.  I walked to the front of the line that extended from the metal detectors to the passport check and just slipped right in front of everyone….maybe these Egyptians didn’t have such a bad idea after all. 

After passport check I had to walk across the border and then go through the Israeli border.  I have never experienced security as intense as I was screened crossing the Israeli border.  From the airport in Miami, I had some pretty tough screening (describing Moses’ relationship to Aaron because Aaron is my middle name), but this was even more intense.  I had to give them every detail of my month and a half travels in Jordan and Egypt…almost day by day.  Why I was picked out probably had something to do with my beard and the fact that I was the only white person with a backpack going through security at that time.  We all know that I love to talk about my travels so it wasn’t that bad.  A few times they had to make me skip some stuff because I was throwing in details such as, “I wanted to stay at the youth hostel in Aswan for 3 pounds a night, but they were booked so I ended up staying at Marwa hotel, which was right across the street, for only seven pounds, and given that its like $1.50, its a steal.  That night I hired a sailboat to watch the sunset, which was awesome, do you want to see pictures?”  By the end of the 45 minutes of questioning, the two girls who were questioning me had changed from interrogating me to just asking curious questions ”so is it easy to get to the pyramids from Cairo….did you feel safe?”  I ended by giving them the ‘ol “zachmorris.com” shout out, “for more detail and great pictures, be sure to visit…”.   One of the girls walked me to the front of the passport line so I didn’t have to wait behind the tour group who was now in front of me.  The lady at the passport check started with, “why did she bring you to the front of line?  Why was she questioning you?  What did she ask you?”…I was thinking to myself, what happened to the “Welcome home!” that I was greeted with when I arrived in the Tel Aviv airport…Telling this girl that I was Jewish did not help my situation, but smiling and cracking a few jokes had me on my way in no time.

 So, now I’m back in Israel, where the undeserved reason for a sense of security is the 18 year old girls and boys with M16’s everywhere you turn.  The girls have their M16’s strapped around their shoulders as though it were an extra makeup handbag, and the mojority of the guys, who look as though they would never dream of picking up a handweight that equaled that of an M16, wear their guns as though it were a semi-automatic extension of their member. (Below picture taken from Google images)

 After crossing the border, I took a taxi to Eilat, and then a bus to Tel Aviv.  About 12 hours after leaving Dahab, I finally arrived at a hostel in Tel Aviv. 

The above picture is the wreck that I returned to Dahab to explore.  After two days of waiting for the weather to calm down on the Red Sea, we met at 11pm and took a mini bus to Sharm (a nearby dive town that is much more touristy than Dahab).  We boarded the boat, had a briefing, and I made my way to the top deck to get some sleep.  At about 4 in the morning the boat left the marnina.   I woke to the boat rocking back and forth and hearing someone downstairs securing the tanks which sounded like they were all going to fall off the boat one way or another every time we went over a wave.  At 7am we all woke up and went downstairs for breakfast.  After some trouble getting the boat tied to the moorings, we just hopped in a little motor boat and went over to another dive boat who had a rope tied with which would could use to descend onto the wreck.
           
I look like I just woke up in the above picture because I did. So, we boated over to our drop in spot, put our regulators in our mouths and rolled off the side of the boat. On the first dive we circled around the boat, checking out the big gun on the front of the boat the propellers and where the bomb hit the boat. On the second dive we entered and explored the boat. Some of the cool things we saw were the motorcycles, cars, and bathrooms that were all still in tact.  I had a camera but in so many words, well, it sucked, so I stole some pictures from google images.
        

Diving this wreck was probably one of the coolest things I have ever done….and I have done some pretty cool shit.  After our second dive we took a few hour surface interval as we made our way to a third dive which was a drift dive at Ras Mohammed reef.

In Cairo I spent two days doing nothing but uploading photos and watching TV. I know this sounds lame, but I was pretty tired from the past week of sight seeing and I didn’t think I could jump right back into exploring the crazy streets of Cairo. The second night, Will (Paul’s roomate) invited me to one his friends place for dinner where we enjoyed an excellent curry dinner. Once again, Paul and Will were an awesome contact in Cairo and they could not have been more friendly to me. Especially considering that it took a few days before Paul and I figured out how it was that we were actually connected. If you guys are reading this, I really appreciate everything!

After a few days in Cairo, I took a 7 hour bus ride to St. Katherines Monestary. There, I stayed at a Bedouin camp with a few stone huts with thin mattresses on the floor….I would have slept great if it wasn’t for my roomate who snored like a T-Rex with a sinus infection. My first day I visited the Monestary which was anti-climatic to say the least. St. Katherines Monestary was erected in the place that is believed to be where the burning bush occured.

My plan was to go up Mt. Sinai in time for the sunrise, just because thats what people do. But after talking to some people about how the weather was, I started to rethink my options. Apparently, on a regular night, it gets to about negative 15 Celcius at the top. Every morning, there are about 1000 people at the top for the sunrise. Most of these people have no business walking up these stairs, in this temperature, and apparently there are always old people either collapsing, getting frostbitten, or just clogging up the traffic. By the picture I uploaded, you can see that you cant just step around people, especially in the dark when the stairs are frozen.
So….I was going to try and avoid going up in the morning, but after talking to a driver who said he would take me to Dahab at 9am for about 70 pounds cheaper than the last dude said, I was running out of options. I talked to a few more people who wanted to go to Dahab in this car, but after the Egyptian driver threw the camp cat in the fire, everyone turned against him and decided to find another driver. We all found another driver for 50 pounds a piece, which is a great price, and I got to go up the mountain at about 6am instead of leaving the camp at about 2am. Even at 6am I wore a thermal layer, 2 synthetic warm layers, two hooded sweatshirts, a hat, and an egyptian scarf around my face. On my legs I just put my pajamas under my jeans….In the three and a half hours it took me to get up and down I never had the thought of shedding one layer, and I was moving the whole time. I could only imagine how it would have been in a traffic jam at 4am at 7000 feet.

Now, I am back in Dahab and in a few minutes I am going to the dive shop to see if the Thistlegorm trip is leaving tonight. Thistlegorm is one of the most famous wreck dives in the world and one of the only wreck dives that you can do on an advanced dive license. The weather has been a little rough and the last few trips have been canceled, but I have no problem with waiting it out, saying as once I get back into Israel my expenses go up about ten times what they are in Egypt. I love Dahab.

Make sure to check my last post, “Luxor” because I posted it as the same time as this one.

Trailing by about a week now on the recount of my experience I have to re-post a quote from “Into Thin Air”, one that I had previously introduced when I was taking a long time to recount the story of “Trekking in the Andes”. 

¨I distrust summaries, any kind of gliding through time, any too great a claim that one is in control of what one recounts; I think someone who claims to understand but is obviously calm, someone who claims to write with emotion recollected in tranquillity, is a fool and a liar. To understand is to tremble. To recollect is to re-enter and be riven…I admire the authority of being on one´s knees in front of the event.¨ - Harold Brodkey ¨Manipulations¨, a passage quoted in John Krakaur´s ¨Into Thin Air¨.

Althuogh the past few days have not been nearly as exciting as this single mentioned story, I will do my best to recap them in this much more delayed fashion than I have previously done.

I left Aswan for Luxor at about six in the morning by train.  Luxor is much more de-centralized than Aswan and coincidentally makes for a much more local feel as opposed to the touristy feel of Aswan, with everything being based around the train station.  After checking into my hotel for 15 Egyptian pounds a night (about 3USD) I made my way to start walking down to the Luxor Temple.  I have to say, I am a sucker for a sailbaot because I was once again talked into a felluca ride instead.  I think being able to bargain them down to 10 Egyptian pounds (2USD) an hour may of had something to do with my decision.  This felluca captain also asked if I would like to go to his house for lunch which I happily agreed to.  I assume that the felluca captains all just resort to taking their customers to their house for lunch when they we don’t have a set itenerary.  When they ask what I want to do in the hours to come my usual response is, “I’m not sure….just sail around for a bit and check out some these islands”…..maybe they just take the opportunity to get a good meal on the job.  So, his wife cooked us lunch and his daughter ate with us.  After we ate he told his daughter to do her homework because she had just arrived home from school….she complained a bit and then came up with the excuse that her pen didn’t work well.  In response to this, he gave her money to go buy a new pen and a snack from the store to entice her to start her homework.  She took the money and rolled her eyes before giving her dad a kiss on the cheek and prancing off to buy her pen and snack.

Later that night, an Egyptian kid, about 20, starting talking to me and invited me to his place for tea (not uncommon), his mom’s place.  About ten minutes after his mom brought out tea for us she brought out a two pieces of pottery.  I imeddiately realized what I thought was going on, so I picked up one of the pieces and did my usual, “hmmm, interesting”. Right then, Zam Zam (the dude) said, “Take it! It is a gift from my mother!”  I continued to refuse to take the pottery and even offered money, but he wouldn’t budge.  I tried to explain that I am only traveling with a backpack and something like this is very difficult to travel with; he didn’t understand my English.  I had the nerve to ask if I could switch it for the smaller piece.  Now, the Egyptian culture is very welcoming to guests, as I have learned in my experiences, but it could be that his mother was just so excited about her annoying son finally making a friend that she felt she must grace my presence with a gift.
Later that night I met some kids when I was grabbing a snack.  A few Americans and a Kiwi (NZ) who were all teaching in Cairo.  One of the American girls had gone to elementary school with one of my friends who I had actually just met for lunch in Jacksonville on my way to south Florida; small world.  They were heading back to Cairo that night, so we talked for a while, exchanged some travel stories, and then they made their way to the train station.

 The next day I hung out with an Aussie dude that I met when I was grabbing breakfast.  We had a similar agenda for the day so we rented bikes and set out for the Temple of Karnak.

There are some cooler photos than this one, but the upload didn’t go through for some reason when I was uploading pictures in Cairo.  Shortly after we left the temple, my tire went flat and about ten minutes later his front wheel fell off, I have no idea how this happened but the whole thing was so rusted that there was no way we could fix it.  So, we walked all the way back…and ended up buying a few beers and getting a felluca for the sunset.  We passed my roomate along the way, a Japanese fellow, who also joined us for the felluca ride.

The next morning I met a guide in the lobby of my hotel. We took the ferry over to the West Bank of the Nile where we picked up two donkeys to ride over the mountain to the Valley of the Kings.

When we arrived at a certain site with a number of tombs, we stopped, and I walked down to buy my ticket and visit a few of the tombs. One of the tombs cost more for some reason and I couldn’t help my curiosity so I bought the ticket despite the guy’s stubborness in giving me a cheaper ticket (80 Pounds, just under 20 USD). The tomb was more expensive because it held the actually unwrapped mummy of King Tut (Tut for short). When I got down there, the guard asked me for a sip of my water (they always do this, its really weird), to which I naturally responded, “La” (no). Then, because I decided that I really wanted to get a photo of this corpse, saying as I paid 80 pounds to see it, I went back and told the guy he could have the rest of my water if I could take a picture of good ‘ol King Tut. He looked at me as if to say “are you crazy…you think your water is worth a picture as valuable as King Tut?” Then he preceeded to ask me where I was from and I told him I was from Canada in order to deflect the Americans reputation from becoming stingy, water hogging photographers. I ended up sneaking a picture anyway.

That night while I was waiting for my train, a Japanese lady started talking to me. She caught me off guard with her response to where I was from. When I said America, she motioned toward my backpack and said “obviously, I could tell that”. I restrained myself from pointing out that she was obviously in a forty person japanese tour group, because all of their roller suitcases looked as though they would fix me a cup of coffee if I were to press the right button.

Once I realized my train was delayed for two hours, I made my way to the train station cafe with the thought of grabbing some beers. Most restaurants in egypt do not serve beer (most Muslims dont drink), so I made an arrangement with the guy to go to a nearby market and bring me back some beers for about two dollars a piece to drink in his care. During the next two hours I had eyes baring down on me as I produced one beer after another from my backpack and sent emails on my blackberry while I waited for my ten hour train back to Cairo.

After the train station, I had some drinks at Paul’s place with some of his friends who taught at the school with him, before packing and heading back to the station.

I know that I have met a lot of people who were very friendly and helpful during my travels in Egypt, but on my 15 hour train ride to Aswan I had one of the most annoying men in the world sitting near me.  This man, although I’m sure had good intentions, woke me three times during my very comfortable slumber, by sitting on the arm of my aisle seat, tapping me until I woke up, and talking to me, in Arabic, in a normal voice.  I have no idea what this man wanted from me, but he was smiling the whole time he talked to me while I politely said, “I don’t understand you….I have no earthly idea what you are saying to me…why are you still talking to me….Please, for the love of God, let me sleep!” Now, in my younger days, I have been known to throw bedside table objects at people for waking me up, and having no recollection of doing so afterwards (sorry Mom), but because I was in a foreign country and everything I tried to be civilized about my actions.  Eventually, about the third time he woke me up, I just started to laugh deliriously with him, and said, with a big smile on my face, “Listen man, I am sure you have some great things to talk about, and I want to hear about them all, really, I do, but right now I am trying to sleep. So, if you could just not wake me up again for, say, a good three or four solid hours, I will wake up and we can talk. You can tell me everything you want to in Arabic and I’ll tell you a good story or two in English.  How does that sound?”  Imeddiately upon finishing my speach, someone a few seats back said something to the man in Arabic.  It was possibly a loose translation because the man shook my hand and went back to his seat, as well as shaking my hand when his stop came, which was a few hours before mine.  Luckily, I avoided the gibbrish pow wow that I had promised and of which I was seriously dreading the arrival.

 Upon arriving in Aswan I quickly made my way to a hotel which was in my guide book.  For $1.50 a night the bed is actually pretty comfortable.  I used my newly acquired skill of not waiting in lines to change my train ticket, giving me an extra day in both Aswan and Luxor.  I figured if I am going to get all the way to southern Egypt, I may ass well see everything rather than be in a rush.  And I booked my trip to Abu Simbel the next morning, at 3:30 am. 

 Later that night I found one of the only places in Egypt that sold beer and, after about two beers (light weight), I was ready to call it an early night since I had to wake up so early the next morning.  On my way home some Egyptian kid, 23, started talking to me, asking me where I was from and all that good stuff.  He quickly invited me to his friend’s Egyptian wedding, and as you all know I never turn down invitations to awkward, out-of-place, cultural experiences.  The guy taught me how to say “congratulations” in Arabic, so I followed him around shaking the hands of the family members and telling them “Alf mebrook” before taking my seat.  I only stayed for about twenty minutes before I told the kid I had to go, but he insisted to go with me and grab a beer.  Now, most Muslims dont drink as it is part of the religion and, when I asked him about this, his answer was simple, “I’m a bad Muslim”.  He was also a little punk and only stayed at his friends wedding for twenty minutes, but maybe thats how they are set up, I dont know. 

 I made it to sleep by about 12:30 and about three hours later my alarm went off.  My mini-bus was packed with about 40 people, 39 of whom were Asian.  Abu Simbel is an ancient Egyptian Temple whose entrance is carved out of rock and comes close to the detail found in some of the sites in Petra, Jordan. 

When I returned from Abu Simbel it was about 1pm.  I decided to hire a felluca (sail boat) to cruise to a couple of different islands and see some Nubian villages.
The first island we went to we were greeted by guards who said they had to lead me around the island and they wouldn’t let my captain walk with us (i call him my captain because, even though he told me his name a hundred times, I cant remember it…really, he’s just a dude with a boat).  The guards both had oozies strapped around their arms. (Quick note: ever since the bombing in luxor in 1997, Egypt has been trying to recoup their image as being tourist friendly.  So, if you go to a really touristy place and say you are American, most likely, they will appoint an armed guard to you….not sure what the armed guard is instructed to do if a bomb blows up, but I guess they think it looks better in the eyes of the world)  They lead me to a place where a lady served me tea and then proceeded to bring out a number of different things one by one, as if I were a professional tourist-product-buyer, which I politely looked at, “hmmm, interesting….no thank you”.  Obviously these oozied guards had a little commisioned agenda of their own that I did not want to fuel.  I may have just put some money directly into their hands if they agreed to let me take a photo with both of the oozies in my hands, but they were stubborn.  I took my time on the walk back despite their impatience of waiting for me to do something that made them no money…Snapped some good photos…

The little brat with her finger on her face ran up to me after I took this photo and asked for 2 Euro…which is like 20 egyptian pounds, and just to put that into perspective for you, this morning I had two fallafels and a soda for 4.50 Egyptian pounds, and I am paying 7 pounds for a nights accomodation.  So, I gave her a pound and said to share it with her brothers but she took off at a full sprint while they all yelled at her and then came to me for more money, which didn’t happen.

One common trend I have found about Egyptian tastes in music is that they all have that damn theme song from the movie “Titanic” on their phone.  Not sure if they all have an obsession with Celine Dion or it just comes as a stock tune on their cell phones, but they sure as hell all have it, and they like to play it using the speakers on their cell phone. Now, when I worked at Chick-fil-a, 14, the instrumental version of this song played in Galleria Mall on repeat, so, sort of like Pavlov’s dog, I start to crave a chargrilled club combo with a half sweet tea, half lemonade, supersized.  That is all on this topic.

 Yesterday, I made my way to the Nile for a full day on the Felluca with my trusted two man crew.  This time I had bargained them down to 15 Egyptian pounds an hour (3$ USD), down from 20 the day ($4 USD) which was a big drop in his initial asking price of 75 E. pounds an hour.  In 11 hours I got a lot of good reading done.  Richard Branson’s book about how he started Virgin Airlines and all the other companies he started as well as all of his crazy adventures such as trying to fly a hot air balloon around the world.  We took a few hour trip to their Nubian Island where my captain’s mother cooked me lunch and I met his mother, sister, grandmother, and 2 sons.

When we left his village, we head back to Aswan and caught an awesome sunset on the way.

The captains were listening to the soccer game on the radio and, upon approaching Aswan, the radio barked and there came an uproar from the town.  Egypt had scored a goal in the last remaining seconds of the game, in the African Cup,  and the town of Aswan had turned into a full blown festival by the time we made it to the mainland.  There were multiple parades, motorcycles screaming up and down the roads honking their horns and drums were banging everywhere.  People were standing on moving cars, waving flags, shooting off fireworks and making torches out of aerosol cans (mostly kids doing the last one).  It was the craziest soccer celebration I have ever seen.  I shot a few photos and captured a few videos on my digital camera and then made my way to my room to listen to the rest of the cellebration from my bed.

 That is all for now.  My next move is to Cairo tomorrow.  Make sure to check out all the pictures that I didn’t put on this post.  And make sure to scroll down to my last two entries which were also done today, “Honest work from a dishonest man”, and “Waiting in line”.

The day before I left for Aswan I spent about four hours at the train station.  One thing that is different about the Middle East (which is also found in Chile) is that people dont wait in lines. Sure, they have to wait if there is more than one person who wants to talk to the guy behind the window, but they are extremely uncivilived about the way they go about it.  After waiting in a line that looked like the trading floor of Wall Street for two hours, I finally made it to the the part where there was a metal bar on my left and a wall on my right.  I put on my head phones, put one arm on the wall and one on the metal bar.  Eventually there was another crowd of people formed behind my right arm, these were the people that would have walked in front of everyone.  I wasn’t sure if they were yelling at me, because of my music, or if they just came to the realization that this seems to be much more civilized and that maybe they should strike up a conversation with their line nieghbor, maybe make a friend or two.  The high level of stress caused by the people yelling in Arabic and pushing at the front of the line, to fight for who gets their hand in the window next, was drowned out by the only heavy metal music I own in my ipod.  I could picture the things they were probably saying to each other in Arabic because I was thinking the same thing, “Back the F*&% up, get in the back of line, I was here first” (if that sounds like anger in my words it’s because it is).  Eventually, I got to the front of line, boxing out the guy behind me who tried to slide his arm under mine into the window, filling the window with my head and shoulders, and I got my ticket to Aswan for later that night at around midnight. 

 Well….after eight days in the wonderland of Dahab I am back on the road.  As always, it was sad to leave the friends I made there and there is no way to make saying goodbye easy.  A common trend in my travels has been feeling like I have known people for much longer than I have. When meeting people while traveling you already have a common interest from the start, traveling, so there seems to be a connection and acceptance from both sides.

 Going back real quick.  The picture I uploaded of the kids drinking beer (and a half glass of liquor) out of a snorkel, turned into a funnel, is an initiation to the dive master certification.  Both of these guys had been in Dahab for four months and had just recently finished their Dive Master Cert. after 100 dives.  The snorkel test consists of your instructor pouring an unknown amount of alcohol into the funnel and the student finishing it all. In this case, each student was required to drink 3 beers and a half glass of mixed liquor ( i think vodka and rum). They have a finger in their mask so that they may breath through their nose.  As everyone was watching the gut wrenching superbowl game, I was on a ten hour bus ride to Cairo.  A ride that very well could have taken 6, but there were multiple stops along the way, in the middle of nowhere, for 30 minutes a piece, solely for the purpose of people smoking cigarettes and going to the bathroom.  We finally arrived, at about 7am ,and I got a hotel room, about 6 US$, to put my stuff in and start my day….on somewhere around 3 or 4 hours of very disturbed sleep. To paint a quick picture of Cairo for you; Cairo is a dirty city with plenty of traffic.  Two lane roads usually accommodates  3 lanes of cars and 2 lanes of motorcycles.  Going anywhere touristy leads to being bombarded with scammers, such as people trying to sell you tickets to something or people that want to give you a tour or show you where the entrance is and then ask you for money.  ”La shukran” (no thank you)  is the polite response for these hagglers, but looking them straight in the eye and saying “LA……la” (NO…no) will sometimes result in a different response…however, neither are consistently effective.  People crossing the street look like suicide attempts and I have seen a mini bus nudge a woman who was holding her child’s hand to cross the street.  Not to mention, a taxi I have been in has come within inches of T-boning or being t-boned while trying to cross an intersection on multiple occasions. However, I have not gotten into an accident yet, so Manila, Philippines still holds the record for my taxi getting into 4 wrecks on the way home from a bar. 

That being said, there is a lot to do here and I have one day left, and maybe one more on my way back.  So, after putting my bag in the room, I set out to find a place to get my camera fixed.  After looking for a while for the street with all the camera stores I stopped to ask a few people to point me in the right direction.  On of the people I asked was extremely helpful. “What is it that you are looking for exactly?” He asked me.  I explained to him that I needed a camera repair shop and he said “come on, lets see what we can find”.  Mahmoud ElEtrby was dressed in a suit and tie with a briefcase.  He was about my age and he worked for GlaxoSmithKline as a medical representative and he was on the job working his territory before attending afternoon classes at the university.  Mahmoud asked a few stores (translating for me) if they could repair an Olympus camera before we finally found one.  He worked out all the details for me about when I can pick up my camera and how much it will cost, and then he walked me to a road on which I could easily take a taxi, with a straight shot to the Egyptian Museum.  When we got to the street, he gave me his card and said “if there is anything you need while in Cairo give me a call, even if you just have some questions about what to see.”

The Egyptian Museum was amazing, although I couldn’t stop thinking that the little cards on every item there were full of crap.  They would say things like “This stone sculpture could have, probably, been possibly used to do something that maybe….blah blah” …you get the idea. After the museum I stopped at a shawarma place on the side of the street for a cheap (about $1.50) meal.  While I was eating, I started talking to a kid, 19, from Nigeria who came to Egypt in search for a soccer career.  He is up at 5 every morning, does physical training followed by a match. He wants to come to America and convinced me to come watch his highlight reel.  He said if I can get him a deal in America I could be his manager….I told him he has a better shot at a college scholarship, but I would look into both.  

Later that night, when I got back to my hotel, I called Paul Booth, someone who I had been talking with, by email, about possibly staying at his place.  Paul is the husband of a friend of a friend of my sisters, but we haven’t figured out exactly how we are connected because the Rachel I thought my sister was referring to went to a different school than the one that actually connects us.  Paul served in the Peace Corps in Africa for four year and is now teaching at an American school in Cairo.  He has been extremely accommodating and I could not have asked for a better contact in Cairo.  So, I made my way to Paul’s place where he set me up with a place to sleep, a couple of different guidebooks, plenty of information about Cairo, good conversation, and he even let me borrow his digital camera while mine was in the shop.

Yesterday, I woke up and made my way to the place near the museum where I met my friend from Nigeria, Agboola, because he wanted to go to Giza with me.  Giza is the typical tourist hot spot for seeing pyramids, although there are plenty of others around Egypt.And it is the home of the famous Sphinx, which is much more impressive in a photograph than in person.  My guide book refers to the quote of an English playwright, who said that “the Sphinx is like meeting a TV personality in the flesh- always smaller than had been imagined”.  I tried to take some up close photos so no one reading this has to be disappointed. We made our way to the town of Giza (about 30 minutes by taxi) for about 20 cents a piece and we bargained a taxi down to $2 to take us to the pyramids. At the gate, I worked our way into a tour group that was entering through a side gate by a guard holding a handful of tickets.  The tickets would have costed about $25 a piece.  Throughout the day we exchanged knowledge, mostly him explaining the Islamic religion to me and me teaching him basic economic concepts, starting with globalization, spawned by his curiosity in why I was so amused by a picture I took (below). 

I’m going to skip ahead a few hours (imagine that) to my way home, last night after I picked up my camera at the store.  Paul had given me a map of Maadi (the area he lives in) and an address, so I just had the cab driver drop me off at the restaurant at which I met Paul the night before, before walking to his place.  After second guessing myself about my sense of direction, and my place on the map, I stopped to ask a guard at some bank if he knew where we were on the map.  About 5 minutes later there were about 6 bank employees looking at my map, none of whom spoke English.  Eventually the bank manager came outside to help; he spoke English.  After asking where I was from, he quickly invited me in to join him for a cup of tea.  We spoke for about twenty minutes, I asked him some questions about his banks strategy and the level of competition in the market and he asked me questions about my travels and what I did at the bank at which I worked before my travels.  (Freddie, if you are reading this, I’m doing some international competition research for when the time comes   He had lived in New York, for a few months, doing training at the Bank of New York.  I can’t remember his name, but I do remember that it meant honesty in Arabic.  When we finished our tea he asked if I would like one of his employees to assist me to Paul’s apartment.  When I turned down his offer for a personal guide around the block, he took out a piece of paper and translated the address I had showed him, into Arabic, in case I were still unable to find my way I could ask someone on the street. 

With all that being said, I will end this post in saying that I have still yet to try camel meat but I refused to leave the country without adding camel to my list of exotic cuisine.  It will be right up there with some of the top ones, such as kangaroo and zebra (which the sale of is now outlawed in restaurants in Kenya- Source- Paul).,/p>Today I am going to get lost in Old/Islamic Cairo and make my way to the Sufi dancing presentation tonight. 

I have not been writing much recently because I have been very busy. For the past 3 days I have been up at about eight, I meet a group of kids that Drew had introduced me to (Drew head back to Cairo to catch a flight back to istanbul), and we all go scuba diving, 7 times in the past 3 days days. Our instructor is a free lance dive instructor and he was teaching the rest of them their open water certification. I hopped on the train on the last day of the open water (I think its 4) and then the next day we started the advanced certification. I had taken the whole course before when I was 15 for a marine biology course, but I ended up changing schools and never finished the summer course. So, this is ideal because otherwise I would have had to take the whole thing over again and it would have costed hundreds of dollars. 2 days ago we had an incredible dive in a place called the “islands” because there are two huge coral islands and then that afternoon we had our navigation dive which is part of the advanced certification. I had to navigate a triangle using a compass at about 20 meters. Yesterday was our last day of the advanced and we did three dives including “blue hole” “the canyon” and a night dive. Google the blue hole in dahab because it is supposed to be one of the coolest things in the red sea and a very famous dive (I would have a link for you but I’m typing this on my blackberry)The people I’m taking the course with is a couple from Canada, Peter and Shalah and a dude from Norway, Martin. They’re all about 30 and have been traveling through Africa for the past year and a half. Peter and Shalah were traveling through Europe for a year and a half before Africa. The three of them met somewhere along the way in Africa. Next, they are doing Jordan, Syria, and Iran, and then Thailand and Maylaysia.  Check out Peter and Shallah’s website and Martins website.  The rest of the crew is Joel (pronounced Joe-el) who is our dive instructor as well.  He is from Barcelona and has been here for a while living with his brother.  Carmella is Joel’s girlfriend.  She is from Canada and i think has been here for a while as well.  Sam is from Canada and is currently on is gap year, or two, between highschool and college and he just completed his dive master and he has been here for 4 months. And Brian, from the States, has also gotten his dive master in the past couple months. Carmella, Brian, and Sam often joined us on our dives for our open water and advanced certification. And last but especially not least, Summer, who worked at Yalla Bar, where we went every night to unwind after our dives.   Summer, from New Zealand (Coromandel Bay- check out day one of my New Zealand trip), has been traveling for quite some time and just recently finished the second part of a three part extended travel.  She has been in Dehab for a few months re-upping on cash before she travels the rest of the Middle East.My current living expenses, diving aside (which is extremely reasonable) is 3 dollars a night for accomadation in my straw hut, and about 7 or eight dollars a day for 3 meals and my constant consumption of water. If I have some beers during happy hour, my total daily living expenses comes out to about 12 US dollars. Huge change from Jordan.Don’t have any pictures of the last few days at the moment because my camera is currently out of commision, but I may try to rent or buy a disposible camera for the wreck dive I plan to do with my advanced certification. For the wreck dive trip you go to the wreck on a boat the night before the dive, sleep under the stars and do three dives the next day. One around the wreck, the next one in the wreck, and a drift dive near the wreck where you get to swim with sea turtles and some other cool things.I hope everyone is doing great and I will post again in a few days!Until then…

We made it to Dahab and it only took us 12 hours from the time we showed up at the port to the time we left the port in Egypt.  The ferry, that was supposed to leave at 12am ended up leaving at 2:30 and arriving at 8.  Then there was the usual middle eastern stampede to the doors despite the ferry worker’s request for women and children to be first.  When it comes down to it, in this situation, it’s either push or be pushed (if you cant beat’em, join’em) So we pushed our way off the boat and onto the bus that ships us to customs.  At customs we had to wait for the bank to open, about 45 mins, to get our visa.  Then we made our way outside to the nearest cafe to partake in the traditional smoking of shisha to regroup before we caught a taxi to Dahab.  “Wahid tufa shisha, law samat” means “one apple shisha, please” in Arabic.  Dahab has a lot to offer…warm weather, beach, straw huts to sleep in, cheap beer, cheap scuba diving, and I am going to look into the prices of kite surfing, but I cant imagine it to be to substantial.  Drew told me that a kid from Canada had been here for four months getting his scuba certification and has spent about $1500.  I imagine its going to be hard to leave.

Yesterday, after I met up with Drew (the kid I met in Petra), we had someone approach us on the street about a trip to Wadi Rum.  To make a long story short ( for once) we worked out a deal so that we would get transport to Wadi Rum in a 4×4 vehicle, straight off the highway into the dessert, tour the dessert for a few hours and see some cool things, and then go straight to a camp in the dessert.  Eventually, once at the camp, a tour bus arrived with a bunch of people from Amman.  The camp blasted Arabian techno out of some huge speakers that they had surrounding the camp fire.  All of the Jordanian tourists were eventually dancing some crazy dance where they held hands and did circles around the camp fire.  They didn’t stay there the night, just there for the party, and when they left Drew and I figured out how to hook up our ipods to the sound system and the result was 2pac, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and a few other artists being blasted through the dessert. 

Today we boarded our 4×4 vehicle, did a little more dessert sight seeing, mostly rock formations and heiroglyphics and stuff, and then were dropped off in Aqaba, which is a town in the south of Jordan that boarders both Israel and Egypt.  Tonight we have a ferry at midnight, over the Red Sea, to arrive in Nuweiba, Egypt.  As my friend, William, said it, “I have heard that the slow ferry could possibly take 16 hours, or it might not go at all, or it might sink.” Hopefully William was poorly informed and the 3 hour ferry ride will only take, at most, 6.  Once we get to Egypt we will make our way to Dahab which is on the coast and is warm.  Internet time is running out, gotta go.

The history of Petra is much to elaborate for me to go in to but it started with the Nabataeans.  Please check out the Wikipedia site, because they are better at explaining just about everything that I try and explain, although some of their material is questionable given that it is a non-profit encyclopedia. 
I woke up yesterday at about 6:00am and was at the gate to Petra at about 6:50 when which I had to wait for the ticket counter to open at 7.  I had on about 4 layers and hat and gloves and still had to keep moving to stay warm. They say that the best time to view Petra is early in the morning or late in the afternoon because in the middle of the day all of the color from the sandstone is drowned out by the sunlight. 
Also, pictures are better at this time because the structures aren’t flooded with tourists.  I started the day off with the Treasury, just because its the first thing you see and also one of the most amazing. 

I met a girl from Japan/Boston who I explored with for a while including a 900 stair trek to the Monestary which, although exhausting, was well worth the climb for it was even more amazing than the Treasury.

Once she left, to visit the Dead Sea, I ventured off to some areas off the path because there were structures everywhere, not only where you could see or the ones that were on the map.  While venturing off the beaten path I found numerous pieces of what could be no other than ancient pottery, as well as some cool rocks.  The date from which the pottery comes is debatable because Petra was inhabited during a few different time periods. 
While climbing around on the rocks, more than once, I found myself in a bind about how I should go about getting down because I had gone far from my point of ascension. Just searching for a few more minutes would often reveal an ancient staircase that would make for an easy and safe descent.

Note: While walking around in the touristy areas, kids would come up to you on donkeys and say, “You want taxi?  I have hummer with air conditioning.”

When I went to eat lunch I asked how much and the guy said 10 dinar, which is like $14.  Super tourist prices because it was inside of Petra.  I tried to bargain him down and failed, he said “the price is set”.  Soon after, I heard a kid come in and get the meal for 5 dinar.  Intrigued by his method I sat at his table and started talking to him.  He has been studying in Turkey for a semester and is traveling in between semesters and he had told the guy he was Turkish in either Turkish or Arabic.  He is heading to Wadi Rum today, as well, so we are going to split a taxi and try and get a good deal on some kind of Dessert Safari. 

Make sure to check out all the pictures I uploaded because there is a lot of them and I wasn’t able to incoorparate all of them into this post. Will be in touch.

Hamada (the Egyptian dude) and his roomates had asked me to come back last night to hang out, so when I left the internet cafe last night I went on a hunt for their apartment.  As you can see from the pictures, Amman isn’t exactly on the grid system.  After what must have been about 300 steps and a little backtracking, I found the apartment.  When I walked in they all stood up and greeted me and said “sit, sit!” as they moved stuff out of the way of the most comfortable spot in the room (this was on a mattress on the floor, near the wall so I could lean) They were all huddled around a gas stove, with both stoves going full force to warm our hands (it was cold as shit, remember it was snowing earlier that day).  They made me tea and never let my cup bottom out, and one of them prepared some food.  Because it was difficult to communicate, saying as I don’t speak Arabic and they don’t speak English, they spent most of the time teaching me Arabic and I taught them some English.

This hospitality is not uncommon of the Jordanian, or Arabic in general, treatment of guests.  This morning I went to a traditional meal for breakfast (Hummus and Pita) with  the brother of a friend of my father’s who lives in Amman.  He had attended both Emory and Mercer and returned to Jordan and now owns a Pharmaceutical company in Amman.  One question I asked him had to do with the cultural differences between here and the states and what drew him back after all those years in the States.  He said that the biggest difference is, in a nutshell, that the people treat each other with more respect in the Jordanian and Egyptian cultures (this would include the Bedouin culture as well).  For this reason, people are more loyal to each other, families are tighter, and friends are closer, and in my case, guests are more welcomed.  He also said that he feels safer in Amman than he does in Atlanta.  I agree with this because my walk to the Citadel at 6am was rather pleasant, while walking around downtown Atlanta at 6 in the morning will just about get you shot.

Today I took a taxi to Petra and the weather is shitty so I am going to go to bed early and wake up early and get to the gate by 7 in order to have a full day of exploring the ancient city.  Good night!

As I write this I am sitting in an internet cafe in Amman, Jordan.  The smoke filled room is fully equipped with mobile space heaters and until about five minutes ago I had Arabic music blaring in my face.  The owner had kindly given up his main computer because there were no computers open when I arrived.  This accomodating treatment does not stray from what I have experienced since I arrived last night.  But let me start earlier than that.

 Yesterday morning I woke up around 8, packed my bag and made my way to the Jordanian Embassy. I had to wait for them to open (the receptionist told me they opened at 8 but that was ok because I was the first one there and my guide book said I would have to apply and come back around 2pm to retrieve my visa.  Thankfully, this was not the case.  The man prepared my visa as I stood there and then I hopped a cab to Central Station and bussed it to Jerusalem.  When I arrived in Jerusalem I inquired at the information stand, but after my introduction that went something like, “im trying to make my way over to Amman today…” she cut me off with a “Good luck!”  She told me how she thought I should go about it but given her response to my inquiry I didn’t take her advise.  My guidebook mentioned a tour agency and a general area  of where I could find it, “opposite Demascus Gate”  so I made my way there and found the office.  The last bus had already left but they could arrange a driver for me for about $40 USD. 

By about 1pm I was on my way to Jordan.  The Arabic driver explained to me along the way about all the land that should remain uninhabited or land that should be theirs but the Jewish people have been building on it and continue to build on what rightfully should belong to the Palistinians.  I just nodded and smiled at his enthusiasm along with the irony of the situation and answered his questions when he would say, “and do you know who lives there now” I would respond, “the Jewish people, of course!” It was interesting to see how the other side views Israel, Its important to get different opinions I am glad to have had the chance to speak with the Palestinian people. In this hour long ride he also taught me some Arabic and practiced counting from one to ten, learned how to say how much, and thank you.

Upon arriving at the other side of the Jordanian boarder, after crossing the Jordan River (which was more of a creek than a river, you could jump over it if you wanted), I met an English man, Matthew, who was nice enough to answer all my questions and even gave me a ride to the nearest town and drove me right up to the mini-bus which was heading to Amman.  All of the writing on the busses were in Arabic so it would have been difficcult to find a bus on my own, and by him helping me I saved about 30 bucks.  He has been living in Jordan for about eight years working with children for a company called CBM

In the mini bus an Egyptian kid, about my age, starting talking to me and asking me questions.  He knew maybe about 10 to 15 unrelated words in English so the conversations never went very far.  When we arrived in Amman he showed me where I could find a hotel and then we got something to eat.  By the time we got to the restaurant, which was more like a shawarma McDonalds, I was a little wierded out by how friendly he was being, but after all the attention I recieved in the restaurant, I guess people were just excited to meet someone from oversees.  On my way to the bathroom I had three people who worked there introduce themselves, shake my hand, and offer the little English they knew to greet me, “Welcome! Welcome!”  Keep in mind I have been telling everyone I was from Canada for reason of taking politics out of every conversation.  Everyone seems to love Canada here. 

After we ate he took me to a couple of different Archaelogical sights and view points that I would have not found on my own.  Amman is a city that is built in the mountains and is built around a number of ancient Roman archaelogical sights.

The buildings cover the mountains for as far as you can see from the top of a mountain.

After meeting some of Hamada’s friends who were also very welcoming, I left to go to bed because it had been a long day and I wanted to avoid the possibility of them asking how the Canadian National Anthem goes. 

This morning I woke up at about 5 and couldn’t go back to sleep so I waited until about 6 and head for the peak of the view point I was at the night before to watch the sunrise.  Unfortunately, because of a storm that was brewing in the distance, the sun never came up. But the guard at one of the Archaelogical sights let me enter and snap some photos at the break of dawn, about two and a half hours before the place opens to tourists. 

Because I got a lot done this morning and last night, and Amman was in white out by 8:30, I had my hotel contact a taxi driver who could drive me to Petra. He said he would do it and I bargained him down about 15 dinar (jordanian dollars) which is about 22 bucks, but it was all dependent on the weather. He called back a few hours later and cancelled due to dangerous conditions and I took his advice to wait until tomorrow and go with him other than look for someone else. He also speaks English fluently, which made it easier to bargain, but he can also help me with my arabic. People are very pleased when I use one or two words of Arabic, usually hello and thank you.

Well, tomorrow I head to Petra in the morning so lets hope for good weather. Until Then…

Here are some other photos that were taken by our group leaderand posted on the internet at this site

http://www.funtour.co.il/images/pictures/910/big_pictures/big_MVC-733S.JPG” alt=”Floating in the Dead Sea. I’m in this picture, just not in the frame.”>

The trip ended on Wednesday night. Thursday, me and two friends went to Haifa, which is North of Tel Aviv, and went out with one of the Israeli soldiers that was on our trip. The next day we visited the Bahai Gardens, which is connected to what I think is the biggest Bahai temple in the world. This was interesting to see and read about, considering I had never heard of the religion before 2 months ago when an 85 year old man, staying at my hostel in Bolivia, spent an hour trying to convince me of the truths and try to convert me to his Bahai beliefs before I cut him off (not sure why I let it go that long, its just hard to cut off an 85 year man). The religion is just over a hundred years old and basically has the belief that there have been multiple messiahs including Moses, Jesus, Buddah, Etc. In short, every other religion’s messiah is somehow included into Bahai beliefs.

After Haifa, we made our way back to Tel Aviv and have just been hanging out by the beach and seeing some sights.  Today we went to Old Jaffa to walk around and have some lunch.  I wasn’t able to rotate this photo, but you can get the idea.

So, in the past two weeks I talked to a few people who had made their way to the various places I plan on visiting and in doing so I have received some very good information and a little more concreteness to my plan, not when or how long I am going to each place, just which places I want to go to.  Unlike South America, I will not be venturing off from what I have been reccomended to see, given the surrounding geographics.  For instance, I dont think I am going to rent a car and zip on over to Saudi Arabia for the weekend, just wouldn’t be smart. I do however plan on visiting a few Bedouin villages in Jordan, such as Wadi Rum and an archaeological ancient city, which was found in 1812, called Petra. After, or before, my short stay in Jordan I plan on going to the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt to live in a straw beach bungalow and do some of the best scuba diving in the world.  Then, their is the possibility that I fly to Cairo from Nuweiba, or just come back to Tel Aviv and fly to Turkey….I figure I may as well see as much as I can while I’m here since I came here on a free plane ticket which would have costed $1500 , thank you Taglit Birthright.  Well, thats all for now, I will update you when I reach my first destination! 

Hello everyone. I apologize for the lack of communication but the days have been long and we have done a lot in the past few days. Every morning we set our alarms for 6 and have the eaten breakfast and loaded the bus by 7:30 and tour around until we go to dinner at our hotel, rest for an hour and meet to talk about stuff, we usually finish around 10 every night. We have seen various ruins and gone on hikes in places from the Golan Heights to the Negev Desert. Although I feel like I’m experiencing Israel through a glass bottom boat, I have made some great friends and that has made for a great experience. My blogging will pick up when the trip ends and I start making my way to a few places we missed, and so will my photo uploading. Its crazy how traveling on your without a plan, as opposed to on a planned trip, gives you satisfaction in simple things such as getting from one place to the next, whereas while traveling with this program, the most thinking you have to do is to remember to charge your ipod at night, or whether or not to bid nil in a game of spades, which I am getting much better at playing. Well, this may be short, but I am typing the whole thing on my blackberry. I will update soon when I start making some moves. Until then!

About 24 hours ago I arrived at the Miami International airport to meet up with my Taglit group. The security screening process that we all went through for EL AL airlines was the most thorough I have ever experienced. I was asked who I stayed with in Florida, how do I know them, what are their names. I was asked if I knew where in the bible my middle name, Aaron, came from and I had to explain his relationship to Moses. I was unable to remember the name of my torah portion but I just explained that it was a long one. After answering all of these questions, along with assuring them that no one gave me anything to bring on the flight, without flinching, they let me check bag and proceed.

My packing job for this trip was done in somewhat of a minimalist fashion although I feel like I have plenty of clothes. One thing I kept in mind was the countries in which I plan to visit, so all of the t-shirts I brought are solid colored, with no writing on them. This may be a bit extreme, but I figured backpacking through middle eastern countries is no place to express individuality

But for the next 10 days I will be traveling with a group of 17 kids from ages 19 to 26. At the moment we are making our way to Jerusalem to visit the wall and some other things. I will try and get an Itenerary up at some point.

…Well, this didn’t post as effiectively as I thought it would from my phone via email, but now I am able to post it straight to my admin site from my blackberry. Our first night we went to a Taglit event to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the independence of Israel. I use the term celebrate loosely. The event we went to was pretty lame. Some cheesy guy up on stage tried to get everyone rowled up at this alcohol free event with 3000 taglit participants. I can honestly say I would have been more entertained at a broadway musical.

The rules of the trip are somewhat annoying. The alcohol rule says that we can’t drink at all until after all the events are finished and we are not supposed to go anywhere other than the hotel bar. This includes having a beer with lunch. With this being said, I have not officially arrived in Israel for I have yet to enjoy a local beer, but I have learned a lot of history for one day.

Today we learned about the destruction of the 2nd temple and how it was the worst thing to happen to the Jewish people in the history of the Jewish religeon, the first being the holocaust. But that is just a summary of one part of a very long day, 16 hours to be exact. 6am to 10pm.

Ok. Going to bed now.

I arrived in BA and made my way to the hotel I had booked for the last leg of my trip. The man who showed me to my room must have thought I resembled a caveman as the expression on my face while he showed me how to use the air conditioner probably looked like the excited caveman in the Geicko commercials. (Low, medium, high settings….Que Bueno!). Eventually before he left the room he reccomended I take my bag off and take a seat because, standing there with my bag still on my shoulders, I must have looked as though I thought I was only taking a tour of the room and not actually staying there.

Coming back to Buenos Aires has been the biggest culture shock of my entire journey, except for the one back to the states that awaits me (in a few hours). However, even though the never ending city seems to have the pace of life of New York, the laid back attitude of everyone seems to put you at ease despite the hustle and bustle. I have always liked the Spanish way of acknowledging that someone has thanked you, as opposed to the English way. In Spanish they say ¨de nada¨ after being thanked, which, directly translated, means ¨of nothing¨. But in Argentina they take it a step further by saying ¨no, por favor¨, meaning ¨no, please¨ when someone thanks them, as if they mean, no, please, thank you!. Almost as if they are continuously deflecting your attempts to thank them, where as in the English language, ¨you´re welcome¨ seems to simply acknowledge the fact they someone has thanked you.

 My first night back in BA I went to a cafe for some coffee and a ham and cheese sandwhich. After 2 cups of coffee and my sandwhich I asked for the bill only to realize that I had left all of my money on the table in my hotel room. I apologized and assured the waiter I would come back with his money. The waiter simply put up his hand to stop my rambling and without asking how far away my hotel was or how long it would take, he said ¨Tranquilo, amigo…¨, ¨Relax, friend, I´ll see you in a bit¨.  This man decided to trust me without reason other than the fact that I said I would be back. Also, when I was in the market buying some gifts for friends and family I frequently asked vendors ¨how much is this….this….this?¨, and then said thankyou without buying anything. They always returned my thankyou with the sweet sounding ¨no por favor¨ or the even better ¨al contrario¨, ¨on the contrary¨, Nothing like the grunt you would expect from a big city market place after not buying anything.

 Saturday night Hank, Sofia, Dakin, and I went out to dinner and had the usual late night Buenos Aires experience.  Arrive at the restaurant at 11, dinner until about 1:30, drinks until 2:30, arrive at the club by 3, get in the door by 3:30, go home at about 6:30 or 7am.  Argentines seem to operate on little sleep…it must be that powerful coffee.

On Monday I took a day trip to Colonial in Uruguay.  I rented a moped for the whole day and drove it up and down the coast, occasionally stopping to rest on the beach.  At the end of the day, with fifteen minutes until I had to return the bike, the damn thing died.  It said there was no gas even though there was plenty.  This was a huge problem given that I had to return the bike in fifteen minutes and be at the port to check in in 45 minutes….unfortunately I had not allowed time in my schedule for moped malfunctions.  I was even more stressed because I had to give my passport in order to rent the moped, and if I didn’t get back in time they would close the stand and take my passport.  I tried to flag down a few trucks to see if I could put my moped in the back of their beds, but my frantic waves with both arms were only returned with friendly waves instead of a ride.

I saw few guys who had motorcycles and asked them if they knew anything about these things.  One of them responded, “you speak English”  so I described the problem to him and after a few tests he said it was an electrical problem and offered to use his cell phone.  With two minutes left until closing I contacted the rental place with the number on the receipt, he came and fixed the bike, and followed me to the gas station and then returned my passport to me. 

So my simple day trip to Uruguay had to end in a frantic stressful last half hour.  But it lead to the interaction with the guy at the rental place who was extremely kind and apologized for the malfunction as well as the kid, about my age, who ran some diagnostics on my moped and then offered me to use his phone.  I had heard that the Uruguayan people were very kind and welcoming, but would not have experienced this had my moped not broken down.