Cheerio blog

So i guess this concludes Justin's oversea Fun, and it has been fun. I've learned alot, probably grown up a bit, become more independent, met some very cool people who i'll strive to stay in contact with, met some rels, experienced different cultures and have actually come up with some pretty solid ideas of what i want to do this year and with my life. All up study exchanges get two thumbs up from me.

I've quite enjoyed this whole blog thing, so i'll probably kick up a 'justin's musings on life' blog later this year, stay tuned...

10th

Today i just steadily made my way back to London - things worthy of mention include the Australian girl who got in trouble by the bus driver on ride home for drinking beer (fosters) on the bus, and the cement trough come flower bed that we passed near Camden that was inscribed with the words 'Metropolitan drinking and Cattle trough association' Wha??!!

I met up with Emma and we went out for Indian and later on that night i discovered that i didn't actually have my plane ticket to get back to Aus, and that i'm leaving a day earlier than i thought - lucky i checked eh?! I've almost got the ticket sorted out now, so it's alright, hehehe.

9th

The day started with a relaxing walk along the wide sandy beach and a quite amble through the town. for lunch i had two types of cheese, olives, a baguette, coffee flavored moose and apple juice sitting in the main square, it really was nice. I also had fun with the language trying as much as i could to pass my self off as being French. It is so much fun, it's hard to believe people actually talk like this, it all sounds so fancy and cool - i was saying bonjour and oravwa to as many people as i could, the lady who served my crepe for dinner even said 'bon apetite' what a hoot! It's almost like they are just saying everything fancily because they know i'm a tourist and are really having me on.

8th

At Victoria coach station at 9:25 i decided with the help of the cashier man to go to Calais as it was the cheapest European destination at £22 by coach. Upon boarding the ferry at Dover i got talking to Rachel a French girl who has been working in Essex for seven years. Her accent almost sounded South African andover lunch on the ferry she told me how she was actually losing her French because she was always talking in English and how this annoyed her parents who only spoke French - what on odd concept, losing your first language.

In Calais i found a youth hostel and had a nap and then went out for tea at a Pizza restaurant. I had the most beautifully ugly pizza ever. It was a quattro fromage and had melted cheese daubed on it like a painters pallet - the moldy blue cheese looked particularly wrong, but tasted so right!

7th

My only objective today was to catch my plane to london which left at six in the evening, so i spent the first half of the day on the beach where i had a swim and checking some emails on the free internet that was available in the supermarket of all places. I left for the airport at two giving myself an hour to get there and three hours before the plane left I figured i would have a lot of waiting to do but i didn't want to risk being lat. I'm very glad i left so early. I caught a sheroot to the town station no worries but boarded a train going in the opposite direction to the airport. A very kind army girl found directions for me and showed me the right platform. Finally when i was in the airport i got pulled up by a security lady who passed me onto a pretty intimidating man wearing a black suit. He questioned me very thoroughly for at least fifteen minutes about my trip asking where i stayed and demanding receipts from the places. I got a bit nervous under this sort of scrutiny, but i soon warmed to the task and told him as much as i could in the greatest detail and even offered to let him read this journal i have been keeping. He seemed pleased with my answers but he gave my passport to another suit clad man and took my bag into some 'questioning' rooms with me following dutifully at his heals. Despite my best efforts he wasn't keen on small talk. The room had many smaller areas cordoned off by curtains - i was told to place my bags on a bench and have a seat. At about this time i started to t a little nervous again but i thought 'what's the worst that can happen? You will be strip searched and you won't have a funny comment ready to say' Thankfully nothing so tragic happened. My black suited friend came and took me into the curtained room and told me to take off my shoes. "Now I'm going to body search you" he said "Well then i'll try not to smile too much". He kept a pretty stern face and started patting me all over and swiping me with his metal detector, things go a bit more exiting when he swiped the metal buttons on my fly and asked me to undo my pants, but apart from that it was all G-rated stuff. Back in the main room i was asked to open my bag and watched two lads go through my stuff very thoroughly, checking al the seems of my jackets and pants. My wallet and electronic stuff was taken into another room to be examined and taken apart. The battery from my phone had ben taken out and replaced as had the lens from my camera. I was really impressed at how thorough they were and i told this to he nice lady who walked me around to book my luggage in, she was a great deal friendlier than suit man. Finally i was through to the departure lounge with only a couple of minutes to spare and i got chatting to a four year old girl. According to her, her parents are in Australia or Switzerland and she and her brother are going to visit them soon. She was with her brother who had a pretty deformed head and a lady who she didn't refer to as her mum, but seemed quite conformable with. As i was wondering what her story was Denise walked by so i had a good chat with her. After the five hour flight back sitting next to a nice Jewish couple and their nineteen month old child i met up again with Denise and she offered to let me sleep on the floor in her room that night. I accepted this very gratefully as it sounded a hell of a lot better than the airport bench that i'd planned. We chatted merrily all the way to her place just up the road from Alisons and i made the most of hearing her fantastic Irish accent and had to suppress a laugh every time she said a word like 'think' as 'tink'. She grew up on a dairy farm in Ireland with nine brothers and sisters with fun names like Fergal and Dermot. Brilliant!

6th

Our first full day in Tel aviv and our last day together, we started it off with a nice sit on the beach, then a stroll through the busy market place. Rhys bought some gifts for his family and i tried not to get into too much trouble with the sellers who are very aggressive with their tactics. We pottered around for quite a while, had some bread for morning tea, then got ome fantastic felafel (yup we ate alot of it!). We covered alot of the city then ambled back to our hostel along the beach. Rhys got his stuff together and made his way to the airport. He had made a great travelling companion, we talked about big issues that affect the world and small issues that barely affect us. Long distance bus rides were thought of as a time to cover another important topic, not as a time to listen to an ipod and wait to reach a destination. Rhsy wanted experiences more than seeing sites and meeting people more than looking at things, as i did and we both didn't mind how cheap and nasty the place was that we slept at. But what made Rhys such a super travel buddy was how he viewed things that happened good or bad as an experience, and stayed up beat, such as when someone stold 600 shekals from him in Jerusalem or when we needlessly changed our sheckels in to $US instead of Jordan Dinas.

So it was a bit odd when he left. I opted for the great loner chiche of walking along the beach by myself and got pleasently lost in thoughts. Upon walking back down the beach i passed a girl that i had already walked by so i smiled at her and said 'how's it goin?' She smiled back, stopped and we started talking. Her hair was dyed bright red, she came up to about my shoulder and she spoke with a pretty strong Israeli accent. We walked for a bit and she told me about her life and i did about mine, but to a lesser extent. When we were sitting on a bench she told me about her singing ambitions and sung me a verse from American Pie by 'Madonna' after building up enough courage. I told her her voice was reat and she seemed really happy. Madonna she said started singing Karaoke and despite being knocked back many times she has succeeded. So she has looked into a Karaoke bar in Tel aviv and will become a singer just like her. We then went for dinner and i waled her to her bus stop. Another interesting thing that she said to me was when she was talking about her english skills and how she struggles with her grammar, but that it isn't a major concern of hers as musicians don't follow the grammar laws. "Do you know the Rolling Stones?" she said "The song 'i can't get no satisfaction' should actually be i can't get any satisfaction". She said she was twenty two and had just been a year out of the army, but she would have passed for 16. When she spoke she seemed so innocent and naive, but every now ad then she would swear or say something unexpected - certainly coming from someone i had only just met that would make her seem older. Ashley was her name, and we swapped email addresses and she said she asked if i'd meet up with her if she was ever in Australia. She hasn't left the country before but would liked to go to the US or Britain because she thinks they are nicer than Israeli's.
So that filled on of the only gaps that i had found in this trip - that of not actually meeting many Israeli's as the Couchsurfing fell through. But talking to her and Jael and Daniel in Jordan all for solid lengths of time have given me at least a taste of the Israeli mindset.

5th

At 4:45 in the morning Allan's alarm went off and he Rhys and I got up, changed and headed out of the hostel to tackle the 2km snake path up to Massada. We didn't get far though as the big gate to the hostel was locked. Rhys noticed a rectangular outline in the tarmac and thought it might be a sensor for cars so we both jumped on it and the gate opened, we didn't actually think it'd work... We made our way up the steep track and were on top of hte 300 metre rock well before the sun had risen. Masada was the last strong hold of the Jews when the Romans invaded, it is a fortified little city ontop of a rock. The Romans had to build a massive dirt ramp to reach the door and then had to burn the door down, whentey got inside they found all 900 Jewish people dead. They men had killed their families then ten people were chosen to kill all of hte men, then one person chose to kill those last remaining 9 men and himself. We scurried back down and had breaky with the three girls who also went up Massada in the morning and found that they were doing a col walk and camel ride ane were going to Tel aviv like us. We didn't get an invite to join them so we though we'd bit the bullit and just ask - as it utrn out they were just going to bum around the hostel or that was just their excuse to get rid of us. We never really figured out there whey were coming from, seeming really pleased to see us and very friendly but a little stand offish. We said we'd probably se them on the bus t Tel aviv and headed off to a waterfall near Ein Gedi about twenty kms away. We tried hithing and wee successful! A bus pulled over for us and we payed 16 shekels for the ride (okay perhaps not technically hitchhiking but the intent was there). We saw some cool animals like ibex and hyrax (dear and tail less possum looking things) at the waterfall place, then went to wait for the bus, but it was a little late and a lady in a small suzuki pullled over and offered us a lift to Jerusalem so we took it. Then with the hel of some very friendly locals we made our way to central Jerusalem bus station, then sat on the floor of the bus to Tel Aviv where we caught a sheroot to our hostel near the beach. Straight away i could tell that there was a difference between Tel aviv and the rest of Israel - it just seemed like a big Western city. The hostel that we stayed at too was different, very laid back and social. Still only one sex per room, but as Rhys said, they don't mix their cheese with meet, so haved mixed dorms must be way out of the equation. Rhys and i were starving and decided as this was our last night together we would make it a big one. Allen had talked of sending 200 shekals in one night on booze so we thought we'd aim to try and spend a similar amount on food. We managed to spend 70 shekals on Shwarms, pizza, chocolate milk and sweets - we went crazy! At the end of the night we got completly lost. It was fun, but we were quite tired, i was really sure i knew where we were, but i was wrong, very wrong. That was a pretty solid day.

4th

We had fruit for breaky and then walked about the old city abit more and checked out the dome of the rock in greater detail, at one of the security points we passed a security guard with what looked like an uzzi, a very very mean looking gun. We caught a bus to Ein Gedi, and talked briefly to a Canadian guy who like most canadians carried a 'canadian safety flag', a small flag on his backpack so that people would know that despite the accent he wasn't American. In Ein Gedi we met up with Denise (32) who is an Irish Garment Technician working in London. We swam and floated in the dead sea which was alot more fun than i've been told after a picnic lunch and then the we met up with the three sydney girls form Jerusalem. They were staying in the same hostel as we were planning on staying at in Masada, as was the Canadian guy Allen (27ish) who we were sharing a room with.

Rhys and i then went for a walk in a cool dry river bed which looked like hte stampede scene from the Lion King. As we were walking back we were approached by two men not in army clothes by holding machine guns - then about 100 Jewish school girls followed them, apparently that is how they go on excursions here.

Dinner was quite exxy but we ate bucket loads, and we stayed town there for almost two hours chatting to Allen and Denise, who has a fantastic accent.

3rd

Our plans changed yet again and we went back to Jerusalem instead of Masada as this was easiest. We hadn't booked tickets for the trip so spent most of it standing or sitting in the isles. Some army girls got on who looked younger than us, they wore earrings, and make up, and carried mobile phones, but they also wore the army uniform and carried machine guns. In Jerusalem we took a taxi to Yad Vashem the Holocaust museum, but were told that it was closed. But luckily we got in via the back entrance by walking in with two girls who knew someone working there. It really wasn't a barrel of laughs and was quite full on, but worth seeing - something like that should not be forgotten.
We walked back, picked up some milk, bread, sweets (there are lots of lollie shops here) and made macaroni cheese and ate it on a wall overlooking the city.

Our room here is better described as a walk in cupboard of average side.

2nd

We ambled around Aqaba in the morning before having cheesy bread for breaky cooked in a big oven. We then caught a taxi which pulled up for us in less than 40 seconds of us walking on the street, and headed back to Eilat. We were easlily viewed as tourist even before we had our bags on, and as a result may have got ripped off for some things, bu not to what it was worth to us in Australia.

In Eilat we had a power nap, laid on the beach and ambled town, saw the film 'august rush' on a tiny cinema screen which paused half way through for an intermission. Then we ate more felafel and looked out over the bay towards Jordan before hitting the sack.

1st

With a hearty breakfast of a bag of milk (our staple drink which cost only 2 shekels) and a pastry we took a taxi ride twice to the boarder of Jordan, the second time with Rhys' passport that was no longer safely tucked under his matress in the hostel. The guard at the boarder chatted to us about Australia where he was planning to study, and then advised us that it probably wasn't worth going to Jordan as the road to Petra were closed because of the snow. We opted to go anyway, but were a little disencouraged when we met some American backpackers going the other way who had missed out on it because of the snow. After walking the eerie 100m or so to Jordan through no mans land we met up with some Israelli's who also wanted to see Petra - Jael (ya-el) and Daniel. We struck a deal with a taxi driver to take us there and back for 80 Dina's which works out to be about A$40 each. We were then taken from the boarder in a samsung taxi to a driver who didn't speak much english in a corolla in Aqaba. On the way to Petra we saw a sleepy driver in a van smash into a guard rail (not too badly) as well as lots of dirt and mountains without any vegetation which looked just like piles of dirt from mines. It was getting quite hot in the car but when we stopped for coffee we realised it was actually quite chilly outside dispite the sun being out and not a cloud in the sky. Then all of a sudden we started seeing snow sitting on the desert floor - odd! It then got thicker and thicker until we had to take an alternate route because the road was blocked.
Our time in Petra was quite limited but was long enough to get a feel for how mighty it was, Jael and Daniel shared their megre lunch with us and we ambled through the ruins taking plenty of photos of the sharp gorges, cave, and the monumental treasury facade.

On the way back we had some thick turkish coffee and Jael and Daniel were dropped off at he boarder, and our taxi driver took us to a cheap hotel. Although he didn't speak much english he was good fun and we had a few laughs along the way. That night we had cheese burgers and realised for the first time that we actually missed not haveing cheese and meat together. Jordan is a lot more how i pictured the middle east to be that Israel, really baron and not many women about at all, the ones we did see were covered with the burquas, yet the ones that we saw on the music video's on the tv in our room were dressed just as scantily as you would see in any western country.

The pillows in Jordan were very hard.

31st

That morning it was very snowy - but not slushy and we bought some food for all our three meals for the day for 37 shekals, about $1.50 each per meal. A one armed man in our hostel told us that buses were not going out of the city because of the snow so we decided to take a sheroot to Tel aviv and go to Masada from there. It only snows in Jeruselam every 3 or 4 years and when it does it is a big deal and most businesses close down. Talia was going to Tel aviv that day so i told her that we were going also - she came down stairs but decided not to go - Pol came down too - which was both good and bad, good because it was nice to see her again before we split but bad because it meant that we couldn't part on her previous final statement which made me chuckle " Just remember if you stay in the dead sea too long your genitals might start to sting"

After a moment of panic in Tel aviv where i left my black bag containing my passport, wallet and camera in a sheroot we boarded a bus bound for Eilat - right at the bottom of the country. We had missed the bus to Masada and figuered we would do it on the way up. With us on the bus trip were many Israelli youths from teh army with their menacing guns and a lady who we talked to briely from Tasmania. In Eilat five hours later we opted not to be driven to a cheap hotel by someone at the bus station and went to the one accross the road - the little prince. It was quite cheap but very empty. We dried some of our clothes and our shoes there with a hair dryer that we were lucky enought to find. For dinner we had meaty `israelli take away burgers as we hadn't had meat in two days - i also had a malt fizzy drink which smelt like beer.

30th

Rhys and i woke early and went out into the street to a grocery store to get some breakfast (soup). While eating the girls emerged and we headed out into the snow. Rhys ad i wore bags over our socks to keep our feet dry, but they only worked for the first little while, before long we were stepping into puddles of icey slush without caring, our feet coldn't get any wetter or colder. The alley ways in old jeruselam created a maze that we got lost in frequently, but we finally found the Western wall - the most holy site in Judaism and the Dome of the Rock - one of the most holy sites in Islam. Both looked quite spectacular draped in snow. At the wall we all had a pray and then headed back through the ubiquitous security checks to have some lunch, and take off our shoes to warm up our feet. Then we met up with the girls' guide mate who took us around to some other places like the entrance to Hell before we went back to the hostel to warm up. Rhys and i couldn't get right into the warming up with too much vigor as the hot water in the showers wouldn't come on until four (an hour away) and there were no heaters to warm up next to or dry our stuff. As we didn't have any dry shoes or in my case pants (i was wearing my towel) we just stayed inside for the rest of the evening and night and didn't even get tea.

There haven't been many other times in my life when i have been this cold, but it was well worth it - there haven't been many other times in my life when i have been walking around old Jeruselam in the snow either!

29th

This morning i walked to the showers in my boxers, right passed a sign that said residents must always wear shirts when walking to and from showers...The bathroom here was sweet as, it had a mirror right near the toilet that opened up as a window and offered someone who was having a long sit a very pleasent view of the city scape. For breakfast we had cold pizza and mandarins and then realised that we had missed the only bus to Jeruselam and would hav eto catch one via Tel aviv. We waited for quite a while in a bus shelter while it rained then jumped on a bus for two or so hours. Talking to Rhys along the way made the time pass well. While in Tel aviv we had Maccas - big and dirty, i had a super size. (no cheese though) then a short bus ride took us to Jeruselam where it was really windy and cold and we both felt a bit tired - nto keen to walk around with our bas until later when we could find our couchsurfing mate Simon's place - so we sat down on the floor in a shopping centre and thought - then walked to a hostel and booked in, read the paper, and went out for felafel. Ont the way back at about eight we got talking to some girls from Sydney - all a bit younger than us (they'd just finished their HSC), went to private Jewish schools and had different accents to ours - rich upper class Aussie ones, i didn't know that they actually existed. For the first time i felt like i had grown up on a farm about half an hour from Tamworth - ha! There names were Talia, Polena and Naomi. They ditched us to watch a TV show but came back soon and wanted to go out with us instead to a bar. They were all thinkers and we talked about lots of things. After we had tea and were sitting back in our kitchen we went to the rooftop where it was snowing so we sung, danced, hugged and threw snowballs!

28th

We woke pretty late today, chatted to some fellow travellers, ate some of our expensive (though quite nice) cheese and fruit and with directions from the very kind hostel lady caught a bus to Nazareth. The bus ride didn't sit well with me at all, i felt a bit nauseous, and the almost constant beeping by the bus driver didn't help. But in Nazareth i felt much better once we were walking around. Rhys and i came accross a big church with nice mozaics around it so we wandered in. It was the chruch of ascension built ontop of where Mary lived and was almost thirty nine years old! We then followed the signs through the labyrinth of market alleys to our really cool inn, and unlike times of old it now had room. The inn had really high ceilings with murals on them and large tiled floors. Rhys and i sat on some cushions in the corner and sipped mint tea and listened to the calls of prayes at Mosques. We then heeded the advice of the owner and walked to Mt. Precipice which took us through the industrial part of town which was a little dirty, but the view from the top of the mountain made it worth it. However, on the way back we did have to pass an unofficial garbage dump which in the words of an American that we met in Jeruselam 'smelt like an abortion'. As we slowly wandered back we waved to by many people and honked at alot - it was a little disconcerting, much like we foreigners, which i guess we were. As we had Shwarma (like a kabab) we branched out and had pizza for dinner from a nice little place on the main street.

27th

This morning i met up with Reza again and he drove me to the top of the Bahai gardens where Tahereh had organised for me to take part in a tour of the Bahai administrative centre. This was good fun, but meeting the people on the tour was just as cool, two people from Darwin, one from Melbourne, one from Moldova and our tour guide from America. After the tour i met up with Rhys who had ambled up to the gardens and we had a tour of the Bahai gardens together, before checking out the Bahai information centre at the underpass.

Rhys and i then went in search of Elijah's cave which we didn't end up actually finding, but we had a nice walk in the process. We had a lunch of fresh breads and then bought food for that night including five slices of cheese for $5! We didn't know the price when we bought it... Soon we were exhausted so went back to the hostel, chatted, rested, ate, slept. Was very nice sitting outside under israelli stars sitting in old chairs chatting about Religion, philosophy and life with a good mate.

day 3

This morning after another great breakfast of egg, pita bread and carrot and apple juice we travelled the 30km to the prison city of Acca. Reza was a fantastic guide telling many stories about the places that we were visiting and making the trip so much more valuable. We followed Baha'u'llah's path as a prisoner, where he arrived, stayed in gaol, then was finally released and the houses that he stayed in. We also visited some crazy markets, where i learned to say 'thankyou in arabic 'shockran' and i saw a sharks head for sale! We had another fantastic falafel for lunch and then headed to the shrine of Baha'u'llah - the founder of the Bahai faith. All day long and on the way back to Haifa i peppered Reza and Tahereh with quesitons about the Bahai faith and we had some great discussions. I was interested to know how we would get along, but it all worked out really well, i would consider them friends now not just the parents of my ex girlfriend.

That night i met up with Rhys at the Port Inn in Haifa and we sat in the garden under the stars talking for ages and then walked around Haifa and got pleasently lost - it was really good to catch up with him again, but strangely odd as although we know each other quite well having emailed each other at least once or twice a week for the past year, this was only the third time i'd actually seen him.

day 2

Today after a large hearty breakfast the Khanlari's took me around the Bahai gardens which are easy to see from their 13th floor flat. I had read about the Gardens and seen pictures of them, but they were much more impressive than i could have imagined, my favourite detail is the streams of water that run alongside all the stairs from the very top to the bottom, it not only looks pretty but creates a beautiful burbling sound to accompany the stroll through the gardens. Reza and I then visited the shrine of the Bab and prayed there before we grabbed a quick lunch and i had a walk around Haifa. That night i had my first fellafel and we went to some other friends of the Khanlari's and had sushi and listened to a man play an interesting stringed intsrument by tapping it with sticks.

Israel Jan 24th day 1

Israel! The land of all things religious - even on the plane trip over i knew it was going to be interesting as there were many many ultra orthodox jews on the plane with me sporting the big black hats, yamakas and curly bits infront of their ears. With the arduous trip over (earphones to listen to the tv cost £3 so i opted to lip read - unsuccessfully) i got my passport checked three different times and was questioned very thouraghly on my plans in israel before i left the airport. Unfortunately a british girl who i had been chatting to was asked to move along as she was waiting for me while i was being questioned - i didn't get to meet up with her again...

Once through i picked up 600 shekals (A$200) which are very brightly coloured and found the train station where i waited to board the train to Haifa. While waiting a young chap in an army uniform and holding a serious gun sat next to me, most likely travelling back home after some army training - i had read all about this, but i'm just not that used to seeing guns like this about. That night i met up with Reza and Tahereh Khanlari at their place in Haifa and we went to some of their friends place for dinner.