Passover in Greece: Something Interesting

So I ran the Jerusalem Half Marathon (somehow), waved the team flag at a Jerusalem basketball game, and saw Mosh Ben-Ari in concert without having to buy tickets (thank you apathetic Israeli security).  Quick recap before something interesting:


-The Jerusalem Half Marathon was really cool.  The route was a mix between dirt paths, the streets, and up the sides of mountains.  Incredibly scenic.  There was a really long uphill which almost knocked me out between miles 5-8, but after that it was pretty much smooth sailing to the finish.  I guess I'm in better shape than I thought.  This made me want to run Chicago again, and they sent me an email with the following header about 3 hours ago which really got me thinking:

Registration Approaching Capacity for the 2010 Bank of America Chicago Marathon

I considered it, then forgot about it, then got another email 3 hours later:

Registration Has Closed for the 2010 Bank of America Chicago Marathon

AGH!!!  It filled up a full MONTH before it reached capacity last year, which was a record time already.  Ridiculous.  Since when do Americans care about exercise?

-Jerusalem basketball game: Final score was something like 104-52.  Yeah, they doubled the other team's score.  The 100th point was an alley-oop dunk and I won a long-running debate when it turned out there WAS room on the high-school style scoreboard for the extra "1".  Here's a picture of me waving the flag:

-Mosh Ben-Ari blends rock and reggae into a distinctly Israeli style of music.  It's really soothing.  Check him out:  Cool song

As is the case with anything in Israel, we got within 15 feet of him.  Everyone started dancing near the stage at the end.  Dude has crazy dreds.

Drum-roll please...

SOMETHING INTERESTING

After the Jerusalem vs. Tel Aviv quarterfinal soccer game tomorrow night, and after my Yam al Yam trip from Thursday to Sunday (Sea-to-sea hike from the Mediterranean to the Sea of Galilee) I'm going to Greece for 8 days.  I get there on the first night of Passover.  Sucks to not be in Israel for Passover, right?  WRONG.  

Something Interesting

That's right.  Guess where Santorini is?  Greece.  I'M WHERE THE PLAGUES ACTUALLY STARTED.  CRAZY.

not gonna have regular access to a computer for 2+ weeks, but I'll fill you in afterwards because I'm such a nice guy.  I got a new camera too, so there will be pictures (don't worry Mom!)

Hag Sameach,

Daniel

First Buzz Cut, Joe Biden, and the Coolest Class Ever

First of all...

HAPPY 16th BIRTHDAY HANNA!!

If you don't wreck the car you'll have a belated gift from me when I get back in June.  Ok on to 3 events in the past 3 weeks of my life, because I took way too long to blog since Istanbul.

1) Buzz Cut

Christina from South Africa who speaks Swahili gave me the cut.  I now look 50% more Israeli.

2) Joe Biden

I went to Tel Aviv at 5 am on Thursday to see Biden speak at TAU.  We got there 2 hours ahead of time and, just like with the Netanyahu speech, were able to easily and inexplicably get unbelievable seats.  We got 2nd row seats, only about 15 ft from Biden.  The coolest thing about it was that we sat directly behind the bigshots in the first row.  NAME DROPPING ALERT:

Before and after the speech, I talked with these people:

Tzipi Livni

She will likely be PM of Israel after next elections

Dennis Ross

I saw a man hand a brown envelope to him and say "Give this to the President".  He was not talking about the President of Tel Aviv University.

/END NAME-DROPPING

The actual speech was amazing.  Biden spent a lot of time fluffing up Israel before criticizing its decision to form 1600 new settlements in a controversial area in East Jerusalem, a decision with terrible timing because it threatened to undermine the indirect peace talks that Biden came to Israel to promote, between the Palestinians and the Israeli government.  The full text of the speech can be found here but I recommend watching it here because then you can see me!  I'm first visible at 1:00:17 when the camera zooms out, leaning forward in a white shirt in the 2nd row next to my friend Mike in the blue shirt.  If you pause it, you can see Tzipi in the first row with red hair four seats to the right of me, and Dennis is sitting next to her on the left.  There were a ton of other bigshots but those were the two I spoke with.

Basically we told them we were Americans studying abroad and they were very happy to hear, and they even seemed a bit surprised that we were in the second row.  I don't know how it happened either.  But it was so cool to talk to them, and they told us we were Israel's future.  Just watching them throughout the speech was an amazing glimpse at the front stage of international politics.  It made me feel like I could do it.

There is one regret to that amazing experience.  As some of you may recall, I happen to own an Obama mask that Dad gave me as a gift for Halloween.  I left it at home.  I didn't think of this until after... but what if I had snuck the mask into the speech, and put it on?  You can see how close I was to Biden - he would've HAD to notice his boss staring at him from the second row.  It would probably throw his speech off, I imagine he would've had to say something about it.  I could've been on the front page of CNN!  But I wouldn't want to throw off Biden... maybe if I put it on before asking him a question during the Q and A, and then asked him something like, "Great job, Joe.  You're doing great.  Look, do you wanna grab lunch later?"  If only I had the mask...

3) The Coolest Class Ever

I'm in this class called Archaeology of Jerusalem, a class that anyone studying at Hebrew U needs to take.  Last week we spent the class walking around the Old City of King David, which dates back to the 1st temple period (1000 BCE).  This week, we talked more about what we saw.  

What you are looking at is proof that Jews were in Israel first.  And it was discovered less than 5 years ago.  Let me back up:

There are these seals called bullaes used during the time of the First Temple that were wrapped around letters.  The seals said the name of the person who sent the letter.  Because Hebrew is a very old language, we can tell that the one above belongs to Gedalyahu, and it was one of two seals found in the past 5 years in the Old City.  The other seal found belonged to someone named Yuchal.  There is a third seal, which was found earlier, that belongs to Gemaryahu.  Do the names sound kind of weird?  They should.  They are Biblical names.  From the Old Testament: "So the officials took Jeremiah from his cell and lowered him by ropes into an empty cistern in the prison yard. It belonged to Malkijah, a member of the royal family. There was no water in the cistern, but there was a thick layer of mud at the bottom, and Jeremiah sank down into it." [Jeremiah 38:6]

Gemeryahu is believed to be Jeremiah.  The spelling is a common way to spell Judean names from that historical period.  They are very similar, but it could be a coincidence.  The recent discovery of seals belonging to Gedalyahu and Yuchal, however, also match up with names in the Bible - the very people who threw Jeremiah into the pit!  This is strong historical evidence that events from the time of the Bible are found in the city of David.

I wish I could write the entire 4 hour lecture down here, but I simply don't have time.  It was filled with historical evidence - from the Old City of David, that we walked through just last Monday, which lies not 5 miles from where I sleep at night - that events from the Bible happened in the Old City.  This is why I came to Jerusalem.

Schedule for the next 21 days:

Thursday, March 18 - Jerusalem Half Marathon.  Haven't been training at all.  Should be fun.

Friday, March 19 - Climb Masada in the morning (it's going to be a tough 24 hours for me).  Ein Ghedi hike during the day.

Saturday, March 20 - Dead Sea and Jerusalem Basketball Game vs Bnei Hasharom

Thursday, March 25 - Sunday, March 28 Sea to Sea trip.  Hiking from the Mediterranean to the Sea of Galilee. 

March 29 - April 6 Greece

THANK YOU MOM AND DAD!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HANNA!!!

Love and miss you all (especially Mango, she keeps getting comments every time I use my credit card),

Daniel

Istanbul...

Not Constantinople!

The above picture is courtesy of Hannah Gerstenblatt's camera.  I lost mine in Istanbul, so my camera is somewhere in Istanbul, not Constantinople.

Turkey was awesome. We flew out on Wednesday night and got into the very cozy Sultan's hostel around 10 pm. I don't know how this hostel is in business; it must be losing money. $8.50/person/night, and it includes FREE complementary breakfast (tons of hard boiled eggs, yogurt, granola, and rolls), FREE coffee and apple tea until 6 pm (apple tea is the staple drink of Turkey, it's amazing, tastes just like apple cider but a little tangier), and FREE internet/tv (proud to say I barely utilized that) to go along with a very nice location, right in the heart of the old city, about two blocks from all the sights. I got more than my money's worth just with breakfast, we stuffed rolls and hard boiled eggs in our pockets like packrats and ate them throughout the day while walking around the city.

The city is gorgeous. On a scale from 1 to 10, pictures don't do it any justice. There are two HUGE mosques, the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia, that are impossible to miss. The outside of the Blue Mosque is shown above, and the inside looks like this:

I bet the maintenance guys are happy the chandelier is so low to the ground, I can't imagine replacing light bulbs on the ceiling.

                                              

Outside from the imposing mosques, another highlight of the trip had to be the Grand Bazaar.  It's like the shuk, but about 10x as big and with a much bigger variety of things for sale.  Imagine Mall of America outside, spread out all on one floor.

This photo courtesy of Lindsay Weisberg

None of us had phones while in Istanbul because our Talk n Save are only set up to work in Israel, so one of the bigger challenges of the trip was staying together while we were in the bazaar.  I made things tough on everyone when I peeked my head in a rug shop and saw the two owners taking a break eating a meal.  I was about to leave but they beckoned me in, sat me down, and started feeding me while asking me where I was from.  It's painful that I had to type that out, because it was such a normal thing for them, it's custom to invite strangers in to eat if you are in the middle of eating, and just being hospitable is a part of their culture.  But it doesn't really work like that in America, especially in the malls.  I had a great talk with them and completely forgot to tell anyone where I was.  I emerged about 25 minutes later, full, knowing the full life story of Mohommed the Turk (he's got an uncle in New York), and saw the frantic faces of everyone I was with.  Oops.

Sightseeing was great, but since we were there for 5 days, we had time to do non-touristy things too, and those ended up being the most fun parts of the trip.  The first morning in Istanbul, we (Me, Isaac, Mike, and Sarah) all went for a jog around the city.  Our hostel is prime location so we got straight to the Bosphorous River, which runs through Istanbul and literally divides Europe from Asia.  That was one of the coolest running experiences I've had.  A bunch of young Turkish students started chasing after Isaac at one point, thinking he was Ussain Bolt.  Here's the river:

Not terribly exciting... BUT LOOK AT THE BOARDWALK!!!

You walk down that boardwalk, and you feel like a celebrity.  All the restaurant owners are standing out waiting to approach you as you walk by.  We literally didn't walk five feet down that boardwalk without someone trying to get us into their restaurant with special deals.  None of them really understand the word "free" though.  They say it to get your attention, but it doesn't mean anything.  Here is a typical way they would approach us.

"Hello, can I just say one thing?"

"Sure"

At this point, 2 different conversations will follow, depending on if you're a girl or guy.  

GUY

"I give you special deal.  Here is menu but don't look at prices, I'll give you a special deal."

"Ok.. what kind of special deal are we talking about?"

"Everything... FREE!"

"You mean, on the house?  Free?  We don't have to spend anything?"

"Yes, yes... FREE!  All... FREE! Special deal."

Then if you are naive enough to believe that there IS such thing as a free lunch (only if you stumble in on rug shop owners in the Bazaar), you will eat the meal and then receive the bill.

GIRLS

"You are beautiful.  I want you in my restaurant."

"Haha... what's so special about your place?"

"We have nice... chairs"*

"Sorry, we are gonna keep walking around, maybe we'll come back!"

"I hope you come back!  If not you break my heart."

*This was a verbatim quote from one flustered restaurant owner.  After walking around all day though, the nice chairs were appealing

Ironically, we passed on all of them and settled at probably the most expensive restaurant on the boardwalk, where I got a fish (which was delicious, to be fair) for about 24 Turkish Lira (about 16 bucks).  The best food opportunities in Turkey are buying from the street vendors.  They all have delicious rolls or drinks or clam, all for just one lira each.  Impossible to resist.  That's like not even 70 cents.  

The last day of the trip was by far the best one.  We took a ferry to Prince's Island, and fed the birds that flew alongside the boat during the ride by throwing bread crumbs at them.  They would swoop and dive to catch the bread in midair before it hit the water.  Then I came up with the genius idea to catch one of the birds.  I used the string from my 1 Lira Turkish top and tied it to a 1 Lira breadroll and waved it over the side of the boat, hoping to reel in a big bird.  I didn't have any luck, but I had fun trying:

When we got to the island, we rented bikes and rode around for about an hour.  We found a crazy high hill and pushed our bikes up it, then saw this really old church with intricate artwork at the top of the hill.  There was also a restaurant, so of course we had to get a beer and sip on it while looking out at the amazing view.  Then, we rode down the hill, which was not as fun as it seemed it would be because the rental bikes don't really have brakes.

All in all, Turkey was incredible and I wish I still had my camera but the memories will live on forever.  I definitely want to go back sometime.  There was one interesting piece of news waiting for us when we got back to Israel...

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/02/22/turkey.sledgehammer.arrests/index.html

THAT HAPPENED WHILE WE WERE THERE!  Didn't hear a word about it.  Crazy.