grace

Me and my friend with Jerusalem behind us.


This is the Wailing Wall on Tisha b'av - the day when the first and second temples were destroyed by the Babylonians and the Romans. This is the last peice left. We all put wishes on peices of paper and stuffed them in the cracks. We walked backwards away from the wall because thats what other people were doing but we didn't know why. I remember one woman there was all dressed up, her head covered and crying into her torah with a large machine gun at her side.
That gold dome belongs to the Muslims, but inside is supposed to be the rock Abraham was going to sacrafice his son on. If you believe creationism then that's also the first rock ever created.


The men's side was MUCH larger than the woman's side.


Ooo la la, ladies in uniform! Every 18 year old joins the Israeli army, men for 3 years, ladies for 2. A couple of the paratroopers were telling us about the war they fought in against Lebennon last year (grusome stories.) Neda, a girl above had a friend die from a suicide bomber, and Shir's family, another girl above, had to escape from bombings and move to another part of the country (twice).


The Red Sea, off the shore of Eilat. You could see Saudi Arabia and Jordan from there.


The Dead Sea (you float like crazy!) I happened to have stepped through a hole in a cement floor the night before, don't ask how, and scraped up my entire leg. Needless to say the salt hurt like fuck.


My friends and I at the Mediterranean Sea in Tel Aviv. We also took a boat on the Sea of Galilee and Kayaked down the Jordan River.


A fort in Tsfat with bullets holes from a war against Palestinians.


Sara's camel yelled at her! Eric and I named our camel Shiva.


My friends and I chillin on the roof of the Jerusalem Hostel on Shabbat (nothing was open.) We talked lots of politics. The two guys playing chess walked with me to the Muslim Quarter of the old city for tasty food, turkish coffee and hookah. They both moved from the US to join the Israeli army.

The guy on the left is Saad, my driver. When I went off to Egypt I had no plan and no escort. I knew I needed to wear a burka or at least a wedding ring to keep from being harassed, but being that the desert was as hot as 112 degrees and I don't look Egyptian anyway I said fuck the burka. The "wedding" ring did not do shit however and people kept offering to trade my "husband" twenty camels for me. Ha ha. I decided I would employ Saad to take me to some cool places in Sinai and then to Cairo. He turned out not to be a murdering rapist, he served as my Arabic translator/teacher, plus he's a good cook and got me stuff for the Arab price instad of the tourist price.


This is the first village in Sinai we stopped in to buy food. That shack is the grocery store.


Kids all chased Saad's taxi and followed me around. They would just stare at me and giggle... the girl here could speak a little english and said she liked my earrings... so cute!


We drove up Mt Sinai - the one where Moses recieved the ten commandmants from the flying spaghetti monster and then proceeded to get lost in a desert, which by the way takes 5 hours to drive through, for forty years. We stopped at a Bedouin village along the way to prepare our food. Yes that lady is chasing a camel.


This is Fatima and her baby. Her husband told me about making cheese from their goats and sold us weed he grew.
Bedouins still practice female circumcision... can you believe it?? ouch!!!!!!!!


Cairo and the Nile River! Cairo has traffic worse than New York. It's a cool city with lots of unfinished buildings and beautiful mosques. I saw Muhammad Ali's palace too (no not the boxer)


YES that's actually the Pyramids and the Sphinx!!! I could not believe I finally saw them for real. I went up at night and rode a camel through the Sahara to see them lit up at night too. It was amazing! It was amazing that is except when the guy who rented me the camel, after smoking hash with me and getting me food, tried to kiss me and I had to bolt out of the place. So other than that... Yea. Next time I'll wear a burka.

On the way back Saad took me to his brothers house just outside Sinai. They were a family of six in a four room house with the living room consisting of a TV, a fan, and one plastic chair. One of their boys had a wheel from a broken childs tricycle for a toy. They made some amazing turkish coffee and the grandmother showed me tattoos she had on her face (so I showed her mine!)