India in 10 days (roughly)

So here's a rundown of things happening with me.

- Headed to India on the 10th of November. I have my visa in my hot little hand and I'm raring to go. The Visa, however, is only for 3 months, single entry. This is bullshit. It means that I need to leave the country (oh and get a visa to whatever other country to do so), reapply, then come BACK. One thing not mentioned anywhere--- if applying for an indian visa in ethiopia (oh my god i hate this computer... fuck spelling and grammar), even though you pay 250 birr MORE than anyone else, you will get only half the amount of time and entries. No exceptions. Fucking stupid.

- STA travel is retarded. I keep emailing them to ask about extending my insurance and buying a flight so that I can prove onward travel when I land in Mumbai. No one has gotten back to me. I want to give them money and they can't even get their shit together enough to take it. OR, they e-mail me back with a phone number to call. THERE ARE NO PHONES. THAT'S WHY I'M FUCKING EMAILING. .. so I'm not sure what I'm going to say to the immigration officials. Either that, or I need to buy a ticket from somewhre else,.


OH MY GOD THIS COMPUTER SUCKS. I CAN' T WRITE ANYMORE>

TREVOR

Trev, I hope you still read my blog every now and again.

These fucking shitty fucking Ethiopian computers won't let me do ANYTHING. I can sign onto facebook, alright, but forget trying to read anything in my inbox/write on peoples' walls/update my status. Oh, and no messenger, no Yahoo, no Gmail Chat, and DEFINITELY no Skype.

Anyway, so I got your message about there being something incredibly important in my facebook inbox.. I just can't CHECK my inbox to see what it is.

I wasn't planning on updating, but hell,... why not? I just finished my first week of teaching English in an Ethiopian school. Observations:

1. I don't hate children as much as I thought I did. Some of them are really, really cute. I have actually taken a liking to one or two in every class. I know it's wrong to have favorites, but they live in Ethiopia, for God's sake. They already know that life isn't fair.

2. Western children are spoiled brats. "Waaah... Billy has better video games than I do" ... "Waaaah... Jimmy took my toy", "Waaaah... I want clean water to drink!" ... ALWAYS complaining. These kids here, in my grade school, play soccer with a deflated basketball. 50 children. One sad little crushed basketball. And you know what? They don't give a damn! They run around playing with it all day long, only stopping to blow it up every now and again. I'm not sure if it's awesome or heartbreaking... but I'm leaning towards awesome.

I will write more next week. I just logged on to tell TREVOR... I CAN'T READ YOUR MESSAGE IN MY INBOX. EITHER PUT IT ON MY WALL, OR SEND ME AN EMAIL.

That's all.

Last day in the Middle East

So I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Cairo, waiting for my flight at 2 am tomorrow morning. I really, really have to pee. Ack! The crappy thing about checking out of your hostel first thing in the morning is that you have nowhere to waste your time until your flight.

Happily, I managed to get quite a bit done here today. I bought some easy children's books for the kids I'll be working with in Ethiopia, washed my laundry (aka, rubbed a bar of soap all over the mound, then hosed it down with the bathroom shower-head... strange that the shower itself is in no way separated from the rest of the stuff in the bathroom), and dropped about 5 pounds off my pack for the flight.

Anyway, before I take off from the Middle East, let me recap the last couple of weeks.

I finished at Bahariyya Oasis, and decided to go to Luxor instead of Dahab (I mean, how many beaches can one person really take, anyway?) and quickly realized it to be the ninth circle of hell. Holy crap, it's hot. Hot and dirty. Also, you can't take photos at like, half of the sites there. Here's one of the few that I DID manage to get, at the Colossi of Memnon. Yeah, I know- cheesy... but it was really hot and I couldn't think of anything less campy. They were pretty cool. I also got a look at the Valley of the Kings and Queens, and Hatshepsut's Temple. No pictures. -pout-

Anyway, after Luxor, I decided to go to Dahab anyway. A series of unfortunate events in Luxor (and the intervention of good old common sense), dissuaded me from trying to stuff Jordan in my trip plans as well, and I spent a few days snorkeling, shopping, and simply BEING. Morgan from Isla de Ometepe was right. Dahab IS paradise. (Reiteration of question phrased above: How many beaches can one person really take? Answer: A LOT.) What makes Dahab, and really, the rest of the Sinai penninsula so different from the beaches in C.A. is that the reef comes RIGHT up to the water's edge. You have about 3 feet of sand, then straight up coral, then bottomless ocean, filled with fishies. Highlight: I think I saw a fish orgy. Lowlight: I saw a huge jellyfish out of my peripheral vision and went berzerk, started to scream, inhaled salt water, fought for the surface, and pissed myself right in the middle of a school of very unhappy fish. The jellyfish = plastic bag filled with water. FUCKING GARBAGE. For my first time (last time?) snorkeling, it was pretty cool. There's a photo of the Funny Mummy restaurant under the 'Egypt Photos' tab. Literally, the reef was RIGHT there.

Now the good stuff: Israel.

I'm going to add an Israel tab up top, so I'll try not to bog this post down with too many photos... but let me do a quick rundown of each day.

29th of September

- My arrival. It took 1 border, 2 buses, and 3 different trains (stupid Yom Kippur) to get to Nahariya... but when I did, I was greeted with Shiran's smiling face. And food!

- Nothing much for the rest of the day- tried to send some stuff at the post office, but was foiled. Shiran, Shiri, and Shiri's boyfriend came out with me for a birthday drink at midnight. It was nice.

30th of September

-Akko. FUCKING awesome. Very colonial, and mmmm- such good hummus

- Rosh Hanikra. Even better than fucking awesome! There's a photo under the 'Israel' tab. I've never seen water that blue- especially up close... well, except for maybe the Red Sea... but even so- the Mediterranean is better.

-Tel Aviv.... OK- I had planned to have as much fun as I could on my 25th birthday. It's a big one, right? But I had secretly, in my heart, been aware that being away from home, being away from everything that I know- it just wouldn't be the same. This is true. IT WAS BETTER. Of course, I would have loved to have everyone at home in Israel with me... but really... how many times in your life can you get smashed in Tel Aviv, reunite with someone you met in a foreign country two years ago, puke in 4 different locations throughout the city, and get carried home by a mixture of old school homies, and brand new ones? Here's a photo from that night. One of my best birthdays... EVER.

1st of October

- Woke up and immediately went for hangover munchies.

-Shopped all over town, and got to glimpse the seaside. First major city I've been to with beaches that weren't buried in garbage. Here's a picture of me with some hot young soldiers. God- I love a man with a gun... too bad they're all about 18 years old.

-All you can eat dinner just outside of Nahariya.

2nd of October

-The Golan

-The Sea of Galilee. It was really beautiful... but there were lots of people on the shore doing weird stuff. Pretending to walk on water earned me the stink-eye from everyone else there. It was worth the picture though.

-The famous bread-and-fish stone. I'll post the pic under the 'Israel photos' tab that I've yet to create. Too many pics for such a small space, I think. End the night back in Nahariya after scaling the border with Lebanon. Lots of tanks. Lots of fences.

3rd of October

-Ein Gedi and The Dead Sea. Watch me float on my belly! People weren't joking when they said not to put your head anywhere near the water. I got a drop on my lip and felt like puking when I licked it off. It also makes all your fragile parts burn. Stupid salt.

4th of October

-Jerusalem. I'm not sure what I can say to encompass what Jerusalem as actually like. Uhm- Historical? Chaotic? INCREDIBLE? The city itself wasn't all that much to look at... but we took a free tour around the city and it's fucking insane how much such a small plot of land can mean to so many people. Here's a photo of me at the Wailing Wall. I'm thinking of my prayer.

5th of October

-Hiking in Ein Gedi, and my departure. I won't write too much here. The area itself was ... uhm... rock-ish. From what I gather from my two lovely guides, there used to be a lot more water. It was still really pretty though.

This is a long post- whew! Tonight, I take off for Ethiopia, and I wanted to close the chapter on my Middle East experiences before I moved on. It's so odd being right in the midst of the Arab-Israeli conflict and yet meet awesome people on both sides, with such fascinating lives and such a friendliness about them... you can't help but be charmed. Really love this part of the world. Really love the food. Next time I come back, I'm bringing drawstring pants.