Hello everyone, I'm in Israel, as the title of this post indicates. It's been a long ride so far, including 1 1/2 in New York and a 12 hour flight from JFK to Tel Aviv. Wow. Today is our first full day and we have so much stuff on our schedule. It turns out that--yes!--we will be floating in the dead sea. Sweet!
Israel, from the little I have seen, is amazing. When we left the airport at 5:30 it was hot and BRIGHT. I mean, searing bright. But, by the time the sun set it was almost cool and really comfortable. Our hotel is about a 2 minute walk from the Meditteranean (by the way, any spelling mistakes don't count in this blog, because spell check is in Hebrew!). We went for a walk on the beach last night at 10:30 or 11 and saw all of these people out, stilling have dinner with their family, going to any of the many clubs along the beach. It was very cool.
We also ate at this fantastic restaurant. Baba ghanoush (sp?) galore! It was great. And I think I had fresh halwa, but I'm not sure. Oh, also met with the ex Media advisor to a Prime Minister, you know, all in a day...
Well, there are people waiting to use this, so I'm going to sign-off. Will blog again when I can. Yay!
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Okay, another day, another adventure. That's my moto, you know...So, after I wrote my freak out post last night, things started to look up a bit, though not enough for me to rescind any of my original comments.
So, there was a very nice Argentinian girl in the room with me last night--definitely absent from the same room was the older guy I mentioned in the blog. I'm still not sure if he lives here, but he doesn't appear to sleep here, at least during the week, because he has a night job. Anyway, I'm soldiering through. Ha ha ha--anyone who knows me knows that I don't like soldiering through anything.
Okay, so back to something that's actually interesting: the Cinque Terre. So, I loved Corniglia. It is the smallest and least touristy of the five towns, and it is right in the middle of the five towns. On Saturday, the day I arrived, I met this nice girl from New York and we ended up spending most of the afternoon and the morning together. Then on Sunday I went into La Spezzia and caught a bus to Portovenere (the Port of the Poets). La Spezzia, at least the part I saw, was less than impressive. Frankly, it smelled bad and had very few interesting buildings. However, it is right on the sea and in-between two hills.
Portovenere, on the other hand, was almost painfully beautiful. It's so obvious to see why it was so inspiring for some many writers (including Byron and D. H. Lawrence). It's a really small little hillside town on the Gulf of La Spezzia. The town stretches down from the hills into a little stretch of land that just seems to rise from the sea amongst all of these beautiful rocks.
So, there are three main sites in Portovenere: the churches of San Pietro and San Lorenzo, and then a medieval castle. San Lorenzo wasn't that impressive, although it is on a nice plateau/piazza that allows you a nice view of the sea. What's an even better view? Uh, the view from the medieval castle, duh! I mean, freaking incredible. God. Here's a really cheesy picture of me at the top:
I promise I didn't mean to look so thoughtful when I took it, it just happened).
Then, after looking at the castle and kind of chilling out at the top of the town, I walked down many many steps to San Pietro and saw Byron's Grotto:
So, I saw Byron's grotto, which is supposed to have inspired one of his major poems (can't remember which one). I just kind of chilled out there for a while, you know, soaking up inspiration. Then I got back on the bus and headed back to the Cinque Terre.
As seen int he background of this picture (where I look, like, so happy).
Back at Corniglia I got lunch (super late in the afternoon) and started walking around. I ended up walking to the next town because I was trying to find a place where I could get down to the sea. So, that walk wasn't what I expected...I was in a dress, a really pretty blue dress, and I had my purse, not my sack. And it was essentially a low intensity hike--that took about 1 1/2 hours. And then, interestingly enough, I had trouble getting down to the water (again, in a dress). Then, when I got down to the water there was this guy (kind of old) in a very tiny black speedo. And he kept watching me and then moving around on his rock. It was weird. I didn't stay there too long, but it was nice, minus the gentleman in his speedo.
Anyway, I then walked through the town (Manarola) and caught the train back to Corniglia. All in all, it was a very good day.
UPDATE: Couldn't post this last night because (surprise) the wireless is down at the hostel. I found a connection this morning that I'm using right now. So, to add to the list of things I don't like about the hostel-->
I went to take a shower (before anyone else got there and made it more gross) and I was actually in the shower for about 3 minutes, because I knew that the hot water was going to give out any second. Well, the shower, like most hostel showers here, is a little standing one in the corner of the bathroom with two doors that are on rollers. Well, one of the doors is clearly broken--not really a problem. The real problem? The other door broke when I was in the shower, so for like 5 minutes I stood there and tried to move it, and then just had to wedge myself through a not-Marianne-sized gap. Not fun (although admittedly HILARIOUS).
So, there was a very nice Argentinian girl in the room with me last night--definitely absent from the same room was the older guy I mentioned in the blog. I'm still not sure if he lives here, but he doesn't appear to sleep here, at least during the week, because he has a night job. Anyway, I'm soldiering through. Ha ha ha--anyone who knows me knows that I don't like soldiering through anything.
Okay, so back to something that's actually interesting: the Cinque Terre. So, I loved Corniglia. It is the smallest and least touristy of the five towns, and it is right in the middle of the five towns. On Saturday, the day I arrived, I met this nice girl from New York and we ended up spending most of the afternoon and the morning together. Then on Sunday I went into La Spezzia and caught a bus to Portovenere (the Port of the Poets). La Spezzia, at least the part I saw, was less than impressive. Frankly, it smelled bad and had very few interesting buildings. However, it is right on the sea and in-between two hills.
Portovenere, on the other hand, was almost painfully beautiful. It's so obvious to see why it was so inspiring for some many writers (including Byron and D. H. Lawrence). It's a really small little hillside town on the Gulf of La Spezzia. The town stretches down from the hills into a little stretch of land that just seems to rise from the sea amongst all of these beautiful rocks.
So, there are three main sites in Portovenere: the churches of San Pietro and San Lorenzo, and then a medieval castle. San Lorenzo wasn't that impressive, although it is on a nice plateau/piazza that allows you a nice view of the sea. What's an even better view? Uh, the view from the medieval castle, duh! I mean, freaking incredible. God. Here's a really cheesy picture of me at the top:
I promise I didn't mean to look so thoughtful when I took it, it just happened).Then, after looking at the castle and kind of chilling out at the top of the town, I walked down many many steps to San Pietro and saw Byron's Grotto:
So, I saw Byron's grotto, which is supposed to have inspired one of his major poems (can't remember which one). I just kind of chilled out there for a while, you know, soaking up inspiration. Then I got back on the bus and headed back to the Cinque Terre.
As seen int he background of this picture (where I look, like, so happy).Back at Corniglia I got lunch (super late in the afternoon) and started walking around. I ended up walking to the next town because I was trying to find a place where I could get down to the sea. So, that walk wasn't what I expected...I was in a dress, a really pretty blue dress, and I had my purse, not my sack. And it was essentially a low intensity hike--that took about 1 1/2 hours. And then, interestingly enough, I had trouble getting down to the water (again, in a dress). Then, when I got down to the water there was this guy (kind of old) in a very tiny black speedo. And he kept watching me and then moving around on his rock. It was weird. I didn't stay there too long, but it was nice, minus the gentleman in his speedo.
Anyway, I then walked through the town (Manarola) and caught the train back to Corniglia. All in all, it was a very good day.
UPDATE: Couldn't post this last night because (surprise) the wireless is down at the hostel. I found a connection this morning that I'm using right now. So, to add to the list of things I don't like about the hostel-->
I went to take a shower (before anyone else got there and made it more gross) and I was actually in the shower for about 3 minutes, because I knew that the hot water was going to give out any second. Well, the shower, like most hostel showers here, is a little standing one in the corner of the bathroom with two doors that are on rollers. Well, one of the doors is clearly broken--not really a problem. The real problem? The other door broke when I was in the shower, so for like 5 minutes I stood there and tried to move it, and then just had to wedge myself through a not-Marianne-sized gap. Not fun (although admittedly HILARIOUS).
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