לצלם

Venice

2008-07-16T10:33:00.000-07:00

san maggiore (k's pic)

panorama (k's pic)

reflection

gondola

heart

glass rolling

sky

the square at night

overlooking doge's palace (k's pic)

hello!

bridge of sighs

monks

flag

ceiling

on the train

K Came to Israel....

2008-07-16T10:28:00.000-07:00

I didn't take enough pictures from when she was there. If you have the desire, you should check out her photos from traveling all around Europe at http://gallery.mac.com/kebrodgesell.

Much more to come soon.

Shooting shooting

2008-05-06T07:14:00.001-07:00

my target

andrew

recoil

me again

no, not what we shot at

loaded clip

learning the grip

So I got the chance to fire a gun for the first time. We got a very thorough safety briefing and learned how to use our Czech-made 9mm semi-automatic pistols. We all got 50 rounds each and shot at targets at a range of 10 or 20 yards. It was actually really fun. Its fairly easy actually too, just line up the rear site, the front site, and the target and squeeze.

Out of all of us, I think Andrew and I had the best grouping. We both had a pretty decent holes dead center in the target.

Oh yea...

2008-05-05T00:58:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention that I went to Freiburg and surprised K on her birthday. She was, well, surprised...

London

2008-05-01T13:52:00.000-07:00

welcome to london....

abbey...normal...

parliament from the eye

me in the eye

eye landing

my future job, think they give us uniforms?

big ben and old bill

a few years later

beef and tongue

tower bridge

traitor's gate

the ravens

me and k in front of buckingham palace

pretty sure this has something to do with why we won the revolutionary war

a pope interred

LONDON!!!!!!!

By far my favorite city I've been to yet. On the hit parade for this leg: Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, the Tate Modern, Parliament, Chelsea v. Man U, Changing of the Guards, Tower Bridge, Hyde Park, Big Ben, and the Eye.

Whew. Ok, K and I had an absolutely fantastic time staying with my aunt and uncle in London. First the bad news though: I didn't get to go to the one museum that I really wanted to go to. The first time I was stupid, and the second the bathroom overflowed. Go figure.

Everything else was pretty much perfect. To start the trip, K and I took a bus tour of London. Right when we got into the bus, we got hit with typical (read 'crappy') weather, so that was a bit of good timing on our parts. We got to see a big chunk of London our first real day there, and then decide what we really wanted to do with our time based on what we'd seen. It was sort of the non-criminal version of casin' the joint.

The bus trip was really great because at any of the designated stops you could get out, walk around, and then hop back on later. Our first stop was at Westminster Abbey. Poet's corner was very cool to see. Like I said about Barcelona, seeing this stuff with a religion or art history person helps out quite a bit. This leg, I got the art historian, which was fantastic as always. I'm a bit bummed about this part though because it was only after I got back that I started reading 'Monarchy' by David Starkey. So I got to see first, and then appreciate later. Its sort of like seeing a band and then realizing about 2 weeks later that you absolutely love their music and blew the chance to be able to sing along and really enjoy the music. Sorry if thats a little campy...

Anyways, after Westminster Abbey, K and I walked along the Thames, went out to a superb dinner with Carl and Sherry, and that was day 1.

Day 2 started off with the Changing of the Guards outside of Westminster Abbey. The regular police constables are ridiculously funny and cracked up the crowd a few times before the main act began. Its very hard to take Her Magesty's Royal Guard seriously when they insist upon playing the Mission Impossible theme for the assembled audience. But, in all fairness and seriousness, it was something very cool to see.

After that K and I went to get some Fish n Chips and a pint for lunch. It was fantastic. Don't really know why the English insist upon luke-warm ale and beer, but thats sort of beside the point.

Back to the palace for a second, I didn't mention that we actually got to stand next to the sister of one of the officers who was leading the 'changing'. She was telling us that the personnel gets switched all around from Buck Palace to Kensington Palace to the Tower, where she said that the guard has been locking the gates each night and opening them in the morning for the last 700 years. Pretty cool. Coincidentally, it was our next stop.

The tower is one of my favorite parts of London. I have very scattered memories of visiting the UK when I was little, but the one thing that does stand out were the Ravens and the Tower tour. The tower guards (Beefeaters), like the architecture around them, really breathe history into the place. In 1066, William the Conquerer defeated the sitting English King at the Battle of Hastings. In order to secure Britain, in around 1070 he began to construct a fortress in its largest city, London. Since then its seen countless murders and executions, including one of Henry VIII's wives. Anne Boleyn was brought into the Tower through traitor's gate, and in 1536, she parted ways with her head. I promise thats a whole lot more fun to hear when a man in a funny uniform tells it to you in an English accent...

After the tour, we went in to see the crown jewels. They're ridiculous and huge and un-insured.

After the Tower, we hopped on the London Eye, which you should really do if you get the chance. Seeing London from that angle is pretty cool. It was sort of a crappy day, but you could clearly see Parliament and Big Ben. Also, as I've found at Sagrada Familia, I'm sort of afraid of heights... But love flying, go figure.

So, our last day in London was pretty great, with a few screw-ups, but whatever. It started out going to the wrong war museum, not the Churchill one that we were supposed to go to. We took the tube across town in an attempt to go to a museum that was about 10 minutes walk from the flat. But, if we hadn't screwed up like that, we wouldn't have found the pub that we did to watch the Man U/Chelsea game. There isn't much better than watching a football game in an English pub with a bunch of crazy football fans yelling at the tv, watching a great game with a pint in your hand. Its half the reason I'd go back.

After that, we hung around the flat for a little bit and then went to the Tate Modern. K made a bunch of random modern art in a room (like a bunch of sleds crawling out of a VW bus) really interesting. After a few hours in the museum, we went up to the restaurant on the top floor and had a fantastic dinner. The food was good, but the view over the Thames was better. We walked back on an unusually warm night to the tube and then to the flat, and that was my trip to London.

As always, hope you all enjoy!

Barcelona

2008-04-30T04:30:00.000-07:00

fishy

muscles?

meats in the market

under the stairs

before the cold

sharky flyby

moonlight

lights

sagrada familia from the botttom

on top of sagrada familia

fluffy at gaudi park

casa mila

casa mila looking up

The first leg of my break was Barcelona with Keaton. We did a pretty good job of traveling around and seeing all that we could. We hit Sagrada Familia, Casa Mila, Gaudi Park, the Olympic park, Nou Camp, the beach, the aquarium, and La Rambla.

Sagrada Familia was interesting for me because I felt more connected with it than other big churches and synagogues mostly because its under construction. I remember thinking in France about how Notre Dame took hundreds of years to construct, and wondering what it must have been like to see that thing going up and really living the history of the cathedral. Then I went to Barcelona and I got to do exactly that. Another tip, go see these kinds of places with a religion major or an art history major. It helps. A lot. There are so many nuances built into these places that its simply criminal not to. Keaton definitely shed light on a lot of the sculptures and symbols that I simply would have missed otherwise.

I also really love being in a city thats easy to get around on by foot. Coming from LA, the subway is a little foreign to me, but its common to every city that I've ever really liked. I can't imagine coming as a tourist to LA and having to get around on foot.

On the worst day that we were there, Keaton decided that it was absolutely necessary to go to the beach and get in the water. That was a whole lot of fun to watch. At least I was in my bathing suit because it rained when we were the furthest away from the hostel.

Gaudi Park provided a really great view from up on the hill, its a little bit of a climb to get up there, but definitely well worth it. It was nice for me to actually see where I had been, and see the layout of the city. From there you really can see the whole of Barcelona, which is beautiful from that perspective.

I also seem to sort of remember how to speak Spanish. On the plane going to Barcelona, they were making announcements in Spanish and English, and the people speaking next to me were speaking Hebrew. Which leads me to one conclusion, I should be a flight attendant for Clickair...

A few more scattered thoughts: this trip definitely got me into football more than I thought it would. Also, not wearing a watch let me relax a whole lot on this trip. I think I might try to do that for all my trips. So, all in all, Barcelona was fun, sangria is nice, tapas are meh, and medium translates into spanish as 'sort of still moving' for steak.

Jordan

2008-04-28T02:46:00.001-07:00

orange?

jason and me on the jeep trip

at the gas station

red rock

the group

air jordan (sorry)

non-flush toilet

looking out over wadi rum

looking out of the kitchen

footprint

nargila outside where we slept

travelers

kung fu

guard in petra

wind tunnels

disco!

i-rab

bottle and wheelie

under the flight path

So, I have lots to put up since the last time I posted. This one's about my trip to Jordan.

For the trip, our group went down to Eilat at the southern tip of Israel. The next day we crossed over into Jordan by foot, and caught a cab to Wadi Rum.

Wadi Rum was incredible. We took a 6-hour jeep tour of the surrounding desert, climbed a bit, saw hieroglyphics, and looked out across the entire wadi (dry river or sea bed) from the top of a gigantic sand dune. And we jumped down it.

I've found more and more that the places I enjoy touring and seeing are places that have an ingrained sense of history about them, and Jordan certainly doesn't fail in that regard. We got to see a camp in which T. E. Lawrence stayed during his time in the region during the Arab revolt in 1916. We also got to see the hieroglyphs as I mentioned before, but since our Bedouin driver and guide didn't really speak English, we didn't really know what was going on. During the rest of the day, we got to run across some local Bedouins and I got to talk to them a little bit, using my abysmal Arabic. Nothing beyond 'what's your name,' or 'how are you,' but it is still really rewarding to be able to communicate across cultures, that's what I think this whole abroad experience is really about.

Anyways, after the day tour, we started getting into the really cool stuff. At night, we stayed in a Bedouin tent in the middle of the desert. We got to sit on this outcropping of rock overlooking the desert and read for a few hours until dinner. We ate local food, hummus, rice, and a bit of chicken on the side, and it was pretty great. The dinner tent had a really communal and warm feeling, with everyone talking when they weren't concentrating on their meal. Jason and I fell in to talking to a couple who had traveled more or less around the world by backpack, so that conversation lasted a few hours as we asked endless questions of them (where did you get the sickest? Where did you eat the best? Where did you feel the most vulnerable? etc...).

After about 3 hours maybe (I don't know, I've started not wearing a watch when I go on trips), we stepped outside under a blanket of one of the most incredible night skies I've ever seen. I really regret not sleeping outside under them. But, I did get to play around with the sky as I rounded everyone up and got a light-painting photo shoot going. I set the camera down on a tree stump, left the shutter open for 30 seconds, and literally painted the light onto the exposure with a flashlight. Everyone got really into it and they got better and better as we went on.

The experience really reminded me of a night that I had with my dad out when we sort of fell into doing the same thing. Its pretty great that I can feel so close to home while being in the most remote place I may ever be.

The next day, we went to Petra.

Petra is the place in the Indiana Jones movies, and also depicted in David Roberts' lithographs of the Holy Land, which were some of the first views that the 'western world' got of the Orient. The interesting thing about all this is that Roberts was a set painter or designer for theaters, and painted the Orient as such. Roberts said that his preconceived image in his head of what he thought the Orient looked like was so strong, that he needn't have gone to the actual places to paint what he painted. His images are a prime example of Columbia professor Edward Said's idea of 'Orientalism'. Simply stated, Orientalism is the idea that the West sees the Orient however it wants to, that it metaphorically and literally paints whatever it wants.

For those of you wondering what my PCON major actually is, this kind of stuff is it.

So, moving away from the whole academic side, in Petra I had this great interaction with the local people, one of those incredibly fulfilling experiences that makes me really glad I came here. I was sitting on top of a rock listening to my ipod, when this old woman noticed me sitting there. She looked at me and motioned to my ear as if she wanted to listen. I told her in Arabic something to the effect of 'of course, come try,' and she brought her two little girls over to listen. I introduced myself and they introduced themselves and I gave them a headphone each. Then two Jordanian girls who from the age of about 8 will sell trinkets to tourists for the rest of their lives, listened to Led Zeppelin. They were smiling and dancing (and wanted me to give them my ipod), and yelling out 'disco!!!'. It was really great and we all sort of hung out together for a few minutes, and I got some really great shots of the girls, even though they look like an Apple ad.

So after Jordan, Jason and I hung out in Eilat for the better part of the morning, sitting under the flight path of the Eilat airport. It was a really nice relaxed and easy trip and the amazing time is sort of handed to you on a platter. Being in Jordan was eye-opening to say the least. As always, I hope you enjoy the photos, and thanks for reading.

Some volunteer work

2008-04-08T06:31:00.000-07:00

engineer

the panel

gate

t.v.

sunset and tractor

sky

desert plants in the bahai gardens

electrician

moonrise

overlooking the goat pen and the farm

bustan people

view from the top

Sorry about the time gap everyone.

So, a few weeks ago, I was contacted to do some volunteer work with a group called Bustan. Bustan is an organization of Arabs and Israelis that 'promote social and environmental justice in Israel/Palestine'. Basically what I did was photograph a few people from Bustan installing a solar panel to generate electricity for a family in a Bedouin village. One of the kids had CIPA, which means that the kid can't feel pain or heat or cold. Kinda interesting... Anyways, it was my first step sort of off the reservation into a real Bedouin environment with no 'Israelis' around. There is something about being in an environment and being in the big open sky like that. Its serene.

I also got to see Haifa for the first time and the Bahai Gardens which are amazing. There's something very eerie about the whole thing though, for some reason. The rest of Haifa though was amazing. The city reminds me of San Francisco a lot. Yea, more stuff to follow shortly.

Paris

2008-03-10T07:46:00.000-07:00

looking up in the louvre

rose windows in notre dame

prism in notre dame

painter in the louvre

notre dame

nail polish on the top deck

first observation deck of the eiffel tower

focal point

flight

So, on a whim, I decided to go visit K in France. I'd like to first state that French rail absolutely sucks. Kristen got off of her train to Freiburg to kiss me goodbye and placed her backpack, purse, cellphone, passport, and life on the seat next to her friend. She got off the train and we said goodbye, at which point the train proceeded to leave. Thinking about it again still gives me the throat sinking into my stomach feeling. Bleh. K finally got on another train and it all ended up working out ok, but I had to leave in the midst of the turmoil to catch my flight back to Tel Aviv (which was of course delayed). So that sort of soured the trip for me.

Other than that, the highlight for me (sightseeing-wise) had to be the Notre Dame cathedral. As explained to me by my tour guide, what makes a cathedral a cathedral is that it is the seat of a bishop.

I haven't felt moved ever by a Christian structure (...what with all of the ones I've seen and everything...), but this was pretty spectacular and picturesque. There is a nice promenade along the Seine which makes for a nice walk around. The Louvre and the Eiffel Tower were both overrated. I wish we had gone to the Musee d'Orsay instead. The Mona Lisa was underwhelming as well, I think it would be better so see it in an empty room. Being so conscious of the fact that you are having the exact same experience and connection with the painting as the 50 people standing all around you cheapens it for me. It was like watching a single frame from a Marx Brothers movie in a crowded theatre with the lights on. That, and predictably, everyone is taking exactly the same picture. So, I decided to take a picture of the people taking pictures. Whenever you are trying to shoot something and someone gets in your way, generally you get angry. Why not flip it and seek out exactly what everyone else is trying to avoid? I always think of that image that Natchwey shot of some guerilla in the foreground, and then a few photojournalists lying on the ground below the gunfire amongst the shell casing trying to shoot the guerilla too. The people perceiving are as much a part of the experience as what is being perceived, I think is what I'm trying to say. Anyways, there's my two cents.

On a much lighter note, Eddie Izzard taught me about 15 words of French. Alas, 'the monkey is on the branch' did not come in handy...

So, as always hope you all enjoy!

Hebron

2008-03-03T14:26:00.000-08:00

marbles

soldiers

There is more than one soldier for every Jewish settler in Hebron, here are a few of them

yussuf

Is I think the son of the man whose house we were invited to. Yussuf told me that he was playing in the street one day when an IDF soldier came up to him and yelled at him for being on the street. The soldier took his ball away and gave it to the settler children. The visual of it all happening was haunting and the sincerity of his eyes crushed me.

groceries and m-16

Settlers are given m-16s by the state and other Jewish agencies to protect themselves. On our trip around Hebron, it was not the IDF that escorted us around to protect us from Palestinians, but the police forces to protect us from the settlers.

palestine

muhammad

Taught me how to play marbles. He insisted that we take some of them with me, so I have three. I also suck at marbles.

crazy settler

He accosted us in Hebrew saying that we should be ashamed of ourselves for being in Hebron, and that we should all make aliya and live in Sde Rot.

old store fronts

The store fronts were closed to Palestinians and later taken over by Israeli families, who would not be evicted. The only way to ensure that settlers nor Palestinians use this area is to destroy it as it is seen here.

hardware

hebron is empty

The result of carefully crafted Israeli policy, the Palestinian population of Hebron has decreased 40% in the last decade and a half.

chocolate

is the international bridge builder. It crosses all language and culture barriers.

checking ids

Palestinians are not allowed to drive cars in any part of the city. On certain streets, they are only allowed to walk behind barricades like the one here, and they can be stopped at any time to be asked for identification and papers.

'houses'

On certain other streets, it is completely forbidden for Palestinians to walk at all. In this shot, two Israeli police officers walk below the balcony of one of the 4 remaining families living on this block. 7 years ago, the front door to the house was welded shut. Since then, the family has been getting in and out of the house through a hole in the ceiling.

banksy and bike

kids

These kids made the trip. At first they were shy and retiring, until the oldest one (on the left) made a gesture that she wanted to take a picture of me. So I placed the camera around her neck and she took a picture of me. Soon, her sister and brother and also wanted to take pictures. There was a crowd of kids around me, and they took more pictures of me than I did of them. It felt really incredible to be able to give something back. The only thing I had done was literally and figuratively 'taken' from them. They gave me their marbles from their game, tea, and they let me take photos of them. I felt that I was exploiting them. I felt like giving them the camera was a way to level the playing field. Also, the visual of the three kids huddled around a camera was captivating, I just wish I had a camera.....

On a technical side, or maybe an emotional one, there hasn't been a place that I've gone to that I feel as if I've missed the emotion of the place in my photographs. I really do feel that while some of my stuff from other places like Jerusalem and Tel Aviv accurately captured the place, but in Hebron, I feel like I didn't even come close. So, if things calm down a little bit, I want to go back. This time, I'm bringing a soccer ball and some marbles...

thanks for reading

Turkey

2008-03-03T12:49:00.000-08:00

me and sheshbesh

snow at the train station

sky

stain glass in the hagia sophia

snow outside attaturk's palace

j playing for a discount, and losing

hagia sophia?

lights in the bazaar

j sheshbesh

leaving israel

more of the blue mosque

elias reading on the plane

danny eating doner kebob

directions

truck in the bazaar

domes inside the blue mosque

snowy blue mosque at night

attaturk overlooking the straits

rain on the plane window

Turkey!

So, Turkey is pretty incredible. The history there is obviously incredible. The people were great. It snowed quite a bit and I wasn't really prepared for that kind of weather. I got to see the Hagia Sophia the Blue Mosque, and Attaturk's palace. I washed my greenstone in the Bosphorus Strait.

The food is pretty decent. I like doner kebob a lot more than regular kebob I think, its much cleaner. Also, the baclava was amazing. I'm not a big sweets person, but it was ridiculous. It melted in your mouth, just like MnMs, but you know, Turkish.

So, the last day we were there, we decided to spend the last night out instead of sleeping in the hostel for three hours. This would be a great idea in nice weather, but it was right around freezing with snow and crap dumping on us. So we naturally holed up and had a 6-person round robin sheshbesh (backgammon) tournament. The playoffs are coming up, and I think I'm seeded third (on a side note, I just played a little bit and Jason got his ass handed to him three times in a row, he's the number one seed). Whatever. Anyways, after that was Attaturk's palace, which I didn't get to take my camera into, it was an extra 6 dollars to bring my camera on top of whatever the admission price was in the first place.

...Which brings me to the peanuts. Its sort of the running joke that we as Americans and not knowing more than 2 words of Turkish sort of got ripped off. I think its the national past-time over there, ripping off Americans. They are quite good at it if not by nature, then by practice. Over the course of the weekend, we payed 12 dollars for 2 cups of peanuts at a bar (the beer was awful and 4 dollars), and we payed something like 20 dollars for french fries. Also, the same backgammon board (yea it was kind of a theme too) that they sell in the grand bazaar for $70 dollars, they sell at Attaturk Airport for $700.

So, as you might be able to tell, we had to haggle over the price of everything. Even when I got my Turkish bath, I had to write in steam on the marble wall the price that I wanted to pay the masseuse under the table for my massage. Talk about relaxing. In the end, it was 20 dollars more, and it was very relaxing.

However, the people (when not selling you something) are incredible. The people at our hostel in Sultanamet were incredible, and we got into a snowball fight with some Turkish people who came out of their stores to join in the fight against us at 3 in the morning. Being at Colgate for a little while now, I've seen some pretty good snow for snowball fights, but this snow was superb. To get an idea of how long this went on for, everyone's arms were tired the next morning from throwing. It was the single best thing I did in Turkey.

Some stuff

2008-03-03T06:32:00.000-08:00

sunset

scraps

sunset 2

dad's thing

building on the beach

2008-02-17T09:21:00.000-08:00

me and tammy in the mirror

shades

table

sunset

no shit

eyes

The photo shoot weekend. The hebrew means roughly 'the Israelite people live'.

Amit is pretty photogenic and we always make this really amazing eye contact that leads to some pretty cool pictures. I feel like he's going to be a really cool person. Also, generationally we are on the same level, so I feel that much more connected to him. He was a pleasure to shoot and I hope I can again!

Playground

2008-02-06T03:17:00.000-08:00

puppy at naot goat cheese farm

our counselor liat on the swings

jason in the slide

swings

So, last weekend I stayed in Beer Sheva. Staying is sort of hard to do because Shabbat shuts this place down, and thats how I ended up drinking German beer in a Russian bar listening to British and American rock in Israel. Thats fairly multicultural for one night.

The big event this weekend was going down to tour different types of settlements and living situations in the Negev. We were led by someone from the Or movement, whose mission is to populate the Negev as much as possible. Only a tiny percentage of people live in 60-70% of the land of this country. My initial reaction to this was to think about Sam Kinison's rant abotu world hunger, but as I thought deeper about it, I began to change my mind. In fact, the idea is pretty valid. While Beer Sheva isn't the most incredible city on the planet, just its sheer existence attests to the fact that you can 'make the desert bloom'. Turns out Ben Gurion wasn't just a crazy old man who stood on his head, he sort of knew what he was talking about too...

But, the most interesting stuff I took was of the group letting off a little steam by going to a playground. I kind of like the stuff I shot, but I totally BLEW a portrait of a little girl that I was taking. Its still kind of nagging me.

Anyways, my hebrew is getting way better and I've noticed that I've been able to speak and understand more. Its getting to the point where I can actually communicate with people and find out a little bit about them.

Anyways, watch Kinison's thing about the desert and stuff like that and see if you don't laugh at me just a little bit.

I'm going to Tel Aviv and Tzfat this weekend, and then Istanbul the weekend after that. So, I'm just guessing that there will be a bunch more stuff going up soon. Thanks for reading!

Tel Aviv 2

2008-01-31T07:06:00.000-08:00

t e and r

riley, romie, and jason on the beach

riley in front of the heater

horse and me

amit

Last weekend was the second time I got a chance to go up to Tel Aviv again. I went horseback riding with Tammy, which was really great. I forgot how much I missed it. I also got to go to the Med for the first time. Dinner with the families is always the highlight of my week, its probably the biggest thing thats made me feel happy in Israel, its amazing to step off a plane thousands of miles from home and still feel like I'm home still. I'm staying in Be'er Sheva this weekend, so we'll see how that goes... Anyways, hope you all enjoy.

Mitzpe Ramon

2008-01-27T12:14:00.000-08:00

trekking

jump!

me over the canyon

the bar mitzvah dancer doing thriller

the group in the wadi

zoolander over the maktesh

My trip to the grand canyon of Israel.

Day 2

2008-01-27T11:28:00.000-08:00

reflection

windmill and the moon

redhead in the light

light hitting a column in the sepulchre

first camel in Israel

the guys overlooking the city

store in the shuk

garbage forbidden

our waitress in the cafe

ray of light in the church of the holy sepulchre

dome of the rock from the roof of the muslim quarter

deport the fuckers

reflection on a painting in the church

candles in the church

butcher in the muslim quarter

broken down outside the damascus gate

Second day of Jerusalem walking around more of the Muslim quarter. It was fun.

ירושלים

2008-01-27T08:17:00.000-08:00

greetings

spice mosque

shabbat is coming

security guard at the armenian christmas parade

scrolls at the wall

praying

photo op

onions in the market

me at the wall

kefiyah jason

jason and sidurim

hide and seek kids

wall and dome of the rock

candy glow in the muslim quarter

cab driver

armenian drummer

al-aqsa mosque

Jerusalem!

So, instead of going in to Jslem early friday morning, a group of us decided to stay at Rachel's house (thanks Rachel). After going out the first night, we headed off on a tour of the old city with the rest of the group. Its a pretty special feeling to be able to see this stuff firsthand after having studied it for a while at 'gate. We took a virtual tour of the Old Temple, and went to the Western Wall. Some of the cooler things about the temple and city were the architectural things that made it work. The gates were build to counter a phalanx of invaders, so the gates were built with 90 degree turns to exploit the exposed right flanks of any invading forces. Also, at the temple, the stairs were built to have uneven lengths. This made people bow their heads to look at the stairs. It also made them feel a sense of awe when they finally reached the top of the stairs and looked up at the structure in front of them. Also, there was a massive archway that was taken down by the romans, the stones that made up the arch are piled up along the side of the wall. The stones fell to the ground, and there is a huge depression under where the arch was from when the stones fell.

Other than that though, while the wall itself was powerful to see and touch, I wasn't swept off my feet like I thought I would be...

After the group left, we walked around the Jewish and Muslim quarters, I re-adopted my shooting from around the neck thing from the shuk in Tel Aviv. We also came across a parade of Armenian kids for the Armenian Christmas, which is where the drummer and bullet-proof vest shot come from.

The next stop on our hit parade was an amazing Israeli market. The place was very energetic as it was getting close to time for Shabbat, which is why you see a haradi walking through the market with a horn to announce the coming of sunset. People were in a rush to get goods for the weekend, and the shopkeepers were trying to pack everything up and make their last sale for the day. How different the vibe was there versus inside the city in the Arab and Jewish markets caught my attention. Maybe it was the light.

A rant:

Jerusalem also kind of turned me off from religion more than I thought it would. I haven't really had a positive jewy experience here yet. For instance, if a haradi man is sitting next to a woman on an airplane, El Al will usually reseat the woman so as not to inconvenience the man. They are also, from what I can tell, subsidized completely by the Israeli government, do not serve in the military, and are over-represented in the government. In order for political parties to gain a majority in the government, they must ally themselves with smaller groups whose platforms conflict the least with their own. Thus, political parties that normally do not carry much sway get a much larger seat at the table. Our security guard at Mitzpe Ramon also gave me some more insight into this: he served in the infantry in the IDF protecting Israeli settlements in the West Bank. He said that 300 Jews are surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. So, the job of protecting these people falls on IDF soldiers who hate them almost as much as the people living outside of their high walls. At the very least, it seems a bit like a misallocation of resources to me.

Rant over

Anyways, those are my thoughts on the first day of the old city

2008-01-27T06:22:00.000-08:00

edo's helmet on me

j learning to put together a comforter

hanging jacket

the home/store

sleeping on the train

tools in the antique store

shuksuka

old man in the shuk

'faltzanim'

dr. shukshuka

The next real trip I took on my own was to go stay at Tammy and Edo's for the weekend. The first day we went to the shuk and to the old city of Jaffa. To eat, T&E took me to Dr. Shukshuka. For anyone playing the home game, Shukky and Shukshuka were the names of Tammy and Edo's hiking poles when they came to the US (the second time around). Now in Tel Aviv I share a room with them. Anyways, back to the restaurant, shukshuka is basically a broth of God only knows what, with onions, peppers, and some other stuff cut up and added to it. Then the Dr. drops in two eggs that are just barely cooked through. You eat it in the pan with hummus and couscous and some Iraqi salad. Its amazing.

Another place we went was the shuk. The coolest store we went to had all of these antiques starting maybe from around the foundation of Israel. I picked up a WWII pack that I use as a messenger bag thats pretty much exactly what I was looking for. There were various tools lying around, a section of meat grinders, old cameras, and outfits hanging from the ceiling. I also got another shot of a woman whose shop looked like a set of a home, with the 4th wall blown out so the audience could see in. She was a bit sick of students from Tel Aviv University, so she wouldn't let me take a picture of her until I told her I studied at Ben Gurion, then it was all ok.

The next stop on our hit parade was another shuk. I decided that I would try and put the camera around my neck and just shoot up blind at people, which turned out to be pretty great, I got to get some shots of people who had no clue I was even there. The two guys here are what I've been told are 'faltzanim,' which basically translates to 'little shit hipsters'.

The soldier I shot while he was sleeping on the train back to Be'er Sheva. Like I said before, the most interesting and different aspect of Israel so far has been the integration of the military into regular life. The fact that this is so amazingly ordinary on a commuter train is what drew me to it.

On a less serious note, I threw in some pictures that Tam sent me of Jason and I messing around in the apartment.

Hope you enjoy!

2008-01-27T05:49:00.000-08:00

car overlooking the arroyo

land and sky

no passage

me at ein avdat

Ein Avdat

2008-01-27T05:40:00.000-08:00

One of the first things we did after getting off the plane and getting situated was go to Ein Avdat. Ein Avdat is basically a big canyon. At the very beginning of the trip, I was sort of freaked out by everyone walking around with guns. Every time OSP (my group) goes on a trip or whatever, we are always accompanied by a security guard with an Uzi. Kind of fun.

Anyways, Ein Avdat was fairly fun, and a nice way to break Israel in.