Wake up. Call Mom. Good start to the day. Then it was downstairs for another yummy breakfast. We took it nice and leisurely in the morning and ended up getting a late start.
First stop? Shopping! We started in the Old City, armed with a list of things that we wanted to buy, but had never gotten around to buying. It took us a long walk through to finally get everything we wanted at the price we wanted, but we managed. Everything, that is, except one CD that I had promised Carli I would get her. Since it was Israeli music and since most of the music shops in the Old City were Muslim, we had no luck. She had suggested Ben Yehuda Street, so we went over there. Enter crazy driving in Jerusalem. Did you know that there are actually several lanes, distinguished by color, that are designated solely for taxis and buses? In fact, sometimes entire roads are set aside solely for them. We learned this the hard way when we were driving down Jaffa and actually got pulled over (waved over?) by a cop standing in the road. She finally gave up trying to explain to us what we did wrong when Travis pulled out his American driver's license. Instead, she sighed exasperatedly, and waved us on, warning us not to do it again.
We finally made it to Ben Yehuda street, but the street isn't for driving; it's for walking. And since Travis couldn't find a parking spot, he decided to [Mom, this would be a good time for you to skip a few sentences] sit in the car while I went to find a music shop. I wandered up and down that stupid street with no luck. There were people everywhere playing instruments for tips, but no where that sold CDs. Finally I asked someone where I could find a music store and they pointed me just around the corner. Finally I found the store, and then the CD. And all was well in Zion.
On my way back to the car I spotted a display of amazing yamulkahs. Remembering Travis' promise that he would wear a yamulkah I bought him if it had a basketball or softball on it, I became giddy when I found an entire section dedicated to sports. I flipped the basketball over to check the price.... 80 shekels! (That's $20, my American friends.) Even if I justified spending that much, I didn't have that much cash with me. Thus, I didn't buy it. Travis has not let me live it down to this day. Apparently it's my fault that I didn't know how to pull 80 shekels out of thin air. [sigh]
Next stop: Ein Gedi. This is a beautiful oasis, hidden in the middle of desert. It's here that David hid from Saul. (Though, I would think that it would be the most obvious place to hide. "Hmm... I'm in the middle of a huge desert with no water. I don't think anyone will think to look in the oasis—the only place with water for miles and miles—where everything is green and there are many beautiful water falls." Yup. Seems logical to me.)
We started our hike up to the first set of falls. Here we found dozens of scantily clad teenage girls surrounded by an equal amount of hormonal teenage boys. Both having far too much fun for their own good. The place was seriously packed. Travis tried to take some pictures, but it was busy, distracting, and kind of uncomfortable. So we decided to keep hiking and stop at the falls on our way back down... hoping the hormones would have dissipated by then.
We made it to the second set of falls and, to our great pleasure and disbelief, it was empty! It was larger and more beautiful than the first, but apparently our group of friends down below were too impatient to keep climbing to see if there was anything better further up. After a bit we continued our trip up to find the final and most beautiful of the falls at the top of the trail. At this point I laid down on the ground where I could stare peacefully up at the waterfalls (have I ever mentioned that I love waterfalls?) and Travis took off to photograph the beauty. At one point he ended up looking down at me from above and was convinced I was sleeping. Nope! Definitely just gazing contentedly at the falls.
After awhile we realized that we had to get going soon as the park was going to be closing. On our way back down we ran across an entire herd of ibex! Of course Travis, who lugged all of his lenses around everywhere we went, decided to leave his telephoto lens in the car here. [rolls eyes] He still got some great pictures, though. Perhaps just not as close up as we would have liked.
We wanted to go to Masada and Qumran, but the hour was getting late, it was really hot, and we decided to put our priorities in order. The Dead Sea definitely was the most important. So instead we drove by Masada and I pointed out the distant plateau to Travis and we continued our journey to the Dead Sea.
Can I just mention, once again, how much I love the Dead Sea? There was a guy out there, relaxing on his back, reading a book. Travis taught me how to take really awesome pictures of people in water. (My 341st photography lesson of the trip.) Which means we've got some really fun pictures of both of us floating effortlessly in the water.
At one point Travis decided it was time for our self-portrait. Of course, we had to be in the water to take it. So here comes Travis, super-expensive camera in tow, into a giant body of salt water. Smart brother that I have. The problem with the Dead Sea is that if you're trying to stay upright, like, not in a lying down position, you tend to flip onto your side. So here is Travis, trying to go upright with a camera in his hand... and of course he tipped. I saw that camera going under, and it scared me to death. Sacrificing myself, I grabbed his falling arm and pushed up, pushing myself under. It was successful, though, making it worthwhile. Even if I did have to take a break to scramble up to shore to try and get the salt out of my eyes. 1) I did get the picture. 2)There was only one moment of extreme stress. Most of the time was quite effortless. 3) I actually spent a while in the water without a spotter taking pictures of myself. 4) Tianna is way too dramatic sometimes. 5) Thank you for saving the camera Tianna. :) You're welcome!
I headed down the beach to try and get some Dead Sea sand. This was probably the most difficult acquisition of them all. When Dead Sea mud dries out, it hardens into a pile worthy of a chainsaw. It's ridiculous. So I sat there with my little baggy and a rock I found, slowly chipping away at the mound of cement. It was ridiculously slow, though, so then I had a bright idea. What if I made it into mud?! So I poured water over my pile of sand, and it worked... but it made a really sloppy mess. I ended up figuring out a way of getting big chunks of sand and used that instead.
Travis took the opportunity to take more pictures and to just enjoy his swim. As I sat there on the beach waiting for him (I don't recall exactly what I was doing, this older man (white hair, beer belly, probably mid-50s) started talking to me. After he told me that they wouldn't let him get a visa to America and such, he started telling me that he'd love to come visit me. I laughed and pointed out the obvious flaw in his reasoning. In which he replied, "I would swim across the ocean for you." Can you say humorous awkwardness?! I took this opportunity to go find Travis again.
On our way back to Jerusalem we stopped at a parking lot so that Travis could get some distance shots of the Dead Sea and we heard the loudest BOOM! ever. After reassuring ourselves that we were not dead and there was no bomb nearby we looked into the sky and saw fighter jets speeding across the the blue. I have now officially heard a sonic boom for myself.
We finally made it back to Jerusalem... but got lost along the way. Sometimes it's difficult not being able to read Hebrew while navigating highways. Next thing we knew we were on the wrong side of the separation wall (you can tell because it was the poor side), we drove through neighborhoods that we decided it was better to stay in the car for, and we drove by parts of the separation wall that we had visited with the Center. Tragically, I hadn't paid enough attention to be able to get us back. Finally we just turned around and headed back to the highway until we were able to get back into the city. Of course, once inside we got lost on our way back to the hotel again. Go figure.
Once safely back inside the hotel we started to clean up for the day. Problem: we had wet swim suits and towels and no way to wash and dry them. So we hand washed them and left them spread out all over our apartment to dry. They were everywhere.
Next we needed to get dinner. Having spent the last several hours in the car, lost, we decided we didn't want to chance that again. There was nowhere nearby that we knew of that would still be open and we had lost the phone number to the bacon cheeseburger place. Plus the girl at the front desk who was so helpful previously in finding non-kosher eats on the sabbath was no longer at the front desk. We began to believe that she may have been too helpful for the liking of our Orthodox Jewish Hotel.We decided to revert back to childhood and eat the dinner we would have prepared for ourselves around the age of 6... pop rocks chocolate dipped in peanut butter.
I jumped in the shower that night to discover that our shower was quite amazing... it was sideways! Meaning, typically you have a long shower with the head at the end. This shower head was in the middle. So you had big empty spaces to the left and right where no water hit. Weird...
One phone call to Mom later... we slept.
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