Travel update

I am sitting in the Amman airport this morning, having gotten here far earlier than I needed to as a result of the highly anal-retentive travel habits I've picked up from my father (a good thing) and a cab driver who made the 45 minute drive from Amman to Queen Alia Airport a 25 minute drive.
It's going to be an incredibly long trip, but luckily my trip from Tel Aviv was much easier than I had expected, largely (ok, almost exclusively) due to Noga finding an amazing bus from Afula to Amman, straight through. Had to stop at the border obviously, but it was better than my anticipated route of a bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a bus Jerusalem to Beit Sha'an, taxi from Beit Sha'an to King Hussein Bridge border crossing, and then a taxi from there to Amman. Much easier, and cheaper. Got to see Amman one last time, and I had forgotten how much I really do enjoy this city. I've called it dull, lifeless and confining, but it was so good to see the city one last time. It really is a great place. Had some good conversations with cab drivers, had some good humus and mango juice. In short, did the Amman thing.
I am flying from Amman to Dubai, long layover in Dubai, but I am not sure I am going to be able to go into the city. I did some checking, and it looks like having an Israeli stamp is problematic. I just hope it doesn't cause any problems transiting. It shouldn't, but you never know. I am going to try to get into the city, but I might be stuck in the Dubai airport for 11 hours. If so, I'll probably write some wrap-up blog posts, because I am going to have the time to do it! I also have a long layover in New York, which I actually chose to do because I am sure I am going to have problems entering the US again. What with having my passport filled with Jordanian, Syrian, Israeli and Egyptian visas, and I didn't shave, so surely my stubble will indicate that I am someone bad. I should have shaved and gotten a crewcut. My bad.

This and that

I am wrapping up this part of my trip in the Middle East soon. I will be headed back to Jordan on the 31st now that the general strike that closed the borders in Israel is over.
Hoping to catch one more Israeli Baseball League game before I go, but I might not have time. It's actually been fun ball, from the games I've seen. Well, except for the part where my team, the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox had their asses handed to them by the Tel Aviv Lightning. It was embarrassing. Juan Feliciano, the ace of the Bet Shemesh staff gave up 8 runs in three innings and still has an ERA of 1.93, somehow.
In other sporting news, the Tour de France is a joke, again. Last year I was rooting for Floyd Landis long before his absolutely unbelievable Stage 17. I didn't make it to work that morning it was so incredible to watch. But, he tested positive that day. Surprised? No, not really. This year my other favorite to win this years Tour, Alexandre Vinokurov, my longtime favorite rider due simply to his insane attacks, as best seen in the 2005 tour, tested positive for homologous blood doping. It's hard to see this as anything other than a mistake. Sure, he was cheating, but he probably got someone else's blood rather than his intended blood bags. Cheating has become so sophisticated that it's about slipping up rather than not doping. Homologous blood doping is so easy to detect now that there isn't a chance in hell Vinokurov did it intentionally. He got the wrong blood bag. It's likely the same thing happened with Floyd Landis last year. He probably wasn't using testosterone at the time, however the blood (his own blood) taken in the off-season did contain testosterone. Or that's my theory anyways.
Yesterday however, to make things worse, Michael Rasmussen was fired by his own team, Rabobank, for lying about his whereabouts during training. Wouldn't be that bad, except that he was the race leader, and after his astounding win yesterday when he dropped Alberto Contador (who I wouldn't be surprised to see kicked out soon too) the likely overall winner. In addition to a couple other positives this tour. It's a wonder they haven't cancelled the rest of the tour, and expect to see sponsors drop like flies at the end of this season. At the least Astana and T-Mobile will drop. To sum up, Mauricio Soler of Barloworld is my new favorite rider. He's just a fun story, a great rider, and has the funniest riding position going. He also is going to win the King of the Mountains Jersey, and is only :50 behind Contador for the young rider White Jersey. If Contador gets booted, (which I am speculating in a totally unfounded way) he would take the Polka-dot and White jerseys.


On a slightly different note, I had the chance last night to see The Syrian Bride, an Israeli made film about a Druze woman crossing the Golan border to marry a Syrian cousin. Of course Syria does not recognize that the Golan is a part of Israel. As far as the Syrians are concerned, she is crossing from Syria to Syria. As far as Israel is concerned the bride is renouncing her already fractured Israeli identity by crossing the Syrian border. Once she crosses into Syria she can never return to Israel. Of course her transforming identity is bound up in her Israeli identity-in=opposition to the dominant Israeli national identity.
Having experienced some of the absurdity of Syrian bureaucracy some elements of the film were perhaps much funnier than they might have been to others. The film was very well made, but the characters were very dry in some ways. Really there were only two characters with enough depth to really try to understand, and thankfully they were strong enough characters. Otherwise the film might have been very drab. Nonetheless a very worthwhile film, if only for putting a human face on an ignored people and conflict. It would be very helpful though to know something about the Druze, or at least be familiar with some aspects of Druze history.


Photos from last weekend up north!
The Bahai Gardens from the outside.

The coast at Rosh HaNiqra

Marina at Akko

Haifa

I was driving down the road to Tiberius next to the Sea of Galilee. Noga was taking photos. Somehow they came out!

Lebanon from the Israeli side.

The grottos at Rosh HaNiqra

Dear Israel,

It has come to my attention that there is a deep and abiding conflict that has gripped your country. It is a conflict that has divided father from son, brother from sister, split entire cities into two feuding camps. It is not only a war of words, it is a war of habits, mentalities, sentiments and senses of place. One aspect defines well this conflict. It is the conflict that has divided cities, the conflicts of place. I am of course not talking about east verus west Jerusalem, or inside versus outside the ____ (insert adjetive here) wall. I am talking about a purely domestic matter, which makes it even more heartbreaking. A conflict dividing Israelis. I am of course talking about Tel Aviv versus Akko. Or more to the point, Abu Hassan's versus Humus Said. Both places are considered, perhaps rightly, to have the best humus in Israel. But people can't be content enjoying the humus. No, instead they have to fight about it.
On the surface Abu Hassan's and Humus Said share a lot of similarities. They both serve humus, for example. Both are considered by their various devotees to be the best in Israel, and not just Israel but the Middle East. Both have lines out the door on Friday mornings, and getting a table can mean waiting for a half an hour or more. The actual humus though is very different in substance, making to me a head to head comparison a moot point. It's a matter of taste, not quality. Abu Hassan and Humus Said are both of the highest quality, and have been for a long time. So what's the use in fighting about it? Abu Hassan's humus is perhaps a bit more conventional, but delicious. The lemon pepper parsely sauce (I don't even know what you call it) is fantastic, and goes well with the humus. Humus Said on the other hand has a very different flavor. Very garlicky and with a completely different texture. Hassan's is very smooth and creamy, whereas Said's is very chunky and not so creamy. It all comes down to taste people. That and geographical location. I've been to Abu Hassan's four or five times now because I am in Tel Aviv. Akko is a bit out of the way. If you're in the area, go to both of them. Decide which one you like, or appreciate them both. Don't be a partisan. /sarcasm.
I think I might prefer Abu Hassan's humus, and he also has better bread.
But Humus Said has a better location in the old city market in Akko. It's beautiful.


Humus Said's in Akko





Abu Hassan's in Tel Aviv

Lolita Lolita

One of Noga's good friends, Lail Arad, (god I feel dirty linking to myspace) the daughter of the Ron Arad the influential designer (although I am sure she would love to be mentioned without her father in the same breath, particularly in Israel) performed a concert the other night at the Levontin 7. It's been a while since I've heard music that was so playful, snide, sincere, well-written and performed so well. I had met Lail a few times before when we all went out, and she introduced us to Lychee Martinis which are amazing. And not a kind of drink I usually like. I've cultivated my taste for beer into something thoroughly blue-collar in the context of white wine and martinis. How pretentious is that? Maybe just lame.
Point here is that the concert was fantastic. Lail had a presence that commanded the stage without overwhelming it, keeping a very intimate atmosphere, as it was a small venue. She has a delightful sense of humor that shines through in her songs, and even her covers. With just a few word changes and a sultry twist to her voice she turned in a rendition of "I Could Have Danced All Night" from My Fair Lady that was the most sensual, seductive thing.

Her own songs, performed in this concert on just piano and guitar, were absolutely wonderful. Or to use one of the eight Hebrew words I know, makseem. Ok, I know more than eight words, but that's only if we include counting to 10. Even if it is damn close to Arabic. She performed one song, "Generic Love Song" that at first blush was a dig at the entire genre, but was performed with such sincerity and obvious pleasure that it was hard to not to be taken by it. She even managed to please the crowd immensely by singing snippets in Hebrew. Parts of her performance reminded me of the Dresden Dolls, although that's a pretty limited comparison. It's sort of hard to lump her in a category, which is certainly part of her appeal.
I managed to take a few photos, but left my camera in Tel Aviv, so I'll have to post them later. If you can, check out her songs. Even if it does mean myspace. In this case it's actually worth it, even though the recordings that are up are not that great. They don't capture the dynamics of her voice


I think this video is of her father's work, with her singing. It's not a particularly great recording, but the lyrics are still funny.


Side note-when I'm really wealthy and riding a fancy road bike (if anyone wants to get this for me, it's on the dream bike list)I either need to not run into dogs with 5,500 dollar wheels (yes, you read that correctly) or I need to not ride 5,500 dollar wheels. The results could be tragic.

That's an ex-wheel.

A new article up

It's kinda crap, but at least I am doing something with my time.
A Window of Opportunity

A few more Greece photos

The amazing thing about Prevali Beach is not so much the beach itself, which is good but not great, but the river that flows into the ocean at the beach. It's a beautiful hike up the gorge to the mouth of the river, with lots of little pools to cool yourself down in.

The walk to Prevali beach. One of the things keeping it from being completely inundated by tourists, although there were people there.

Prevali Beach from above.

The Israeli Baseball League, Part שְׁתַּיִם

It took me far too long to make it to an Israeli Baseball League game, considering I had intended to go to the opening game about three weeks ago. Noga and I went to the Petach Tikva Pioneers @ Tel Aviv Lightning at the Sportek Stadium, however Stadium might be something of a misnomer. The college summer league team in my hometown of St. Cloud, the St. Cloud Riverbats has a nicer stadium. And the seating left something to desire.
But, as I wrote to my father

The crowd, such as it was, consisted entirely of Americans. Although all the announcements were done in Hebrew and in English. But I can now announce a ballgame in Hebrew if I ever had to. Good life skill to have. Not sure I could do it in Arabic. They didn't make us pay for tickets, not entirely sure why, so we spent our ticket money on beer, which was a reasonably priced 15 shekels for a half liter of Tuborg or Heineken. That works out to 3.75 a beer. Compare that to 7 dollar Miller Lite! I'll take the cheaper, better beer. The game started at 5pm, because there are no field lights, so they can't play after dark.

The stadium (ok, field), was outside, which makes it infinitely better than the Metrodome, simply by that virtue alone. There is nothing worse than an indoor stadium.
It was fun baseball too, although the fielding was poor quality, generally. It was also clear that the pitcher had mostly overmatched the batters, but I am suspecting that particular game more than the league. Looking at old box scores the games have tended to be high scoring blowouts. As a generaliztion, particularly looking at minor league baseball in the states. Hitters tend to be dominant, up to a certain point when pitchers are able to make the adjustments.
The Tel Aviv Lightning (if I say anything mean about them, I'm liable to get beaten up) took the day, 3-0 in the 6th inning. These games only last 7 innings, and any ties are settled by homerun derby. I personally have decided to support the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox, but I haven't actually seen them play yet. They are playing Tel Aviv at Sportek, so this could be a bloodbath. Tel Aviv is now just 1/2 game behind Bet Shemesh... Could be sort of tense. Poor Petach Tikva though, sitting at a record of 2-13.

Sheer Genius

Allow me to propose a thesis on our fundamental common humanity-I am human, therefor I like chocolate milk. Chocolate milk, like Scooby Doo is that rare, blessed thing that cuts across all social, political, cultural, linguistic and culinary obstacles. I would have thought Peanut Butter fit into that category too, but sadly enough peanut better is mostly an American thing. Who would have thought? But chocolate milk, that's different. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar, a cheat, and a scoundrel. I say this unequivocally. The only thing that might match it is VitaMilk, which Noga so kindly brought me from Cairo. To say I crave VitaMilk like a junky craves his fix might not be that far off, truth be told, but that's not the point of this blog post. The point of this blog post is chocolate milk.
Chocolate milk has been my constant companion, through thick and thin, and in recent years my recovery drink after cycling, running or swimming. It was a bit of a struggle when I learned that skim chocolate milk is not sold in Indiana, which is of course problematic in the context of muscle growth. The beauty of chocolate milk is its nearly perfect 4:1 ratio of carbohydrates to protein. It's also very high glycemic carbohydrates, so your body of course digests it much more quickly. The issue with non-skim chocolate milk is that the fat, however delicious lowers the glycemic level of the chocolate milk, making it slower digesting, and thus not as valuable as a recovery drink. Once that Indiana related crisis was averted by Hershey's syrup, my love for chocolate milk reached epic proportions. We're talking some of the great romances of the world here. Rama and Sita, Mulder and Scully, Romeo and Juliet, and Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn pale in comparison. To borrow rather crudely from Salman Rushdie.
My great love for chocolate milk has been rekindled by the sheer genius of the Israeli dairy industry. Put in short, chocolate milk in a bag.

It's genius on so many levels. It's cheaper, it's delicious, magically always cold, highly portable, but honestly, what I am most impressed by is the minimal amount of packaging used by chocolate milk in a bag, as opposed to a normal thick plastic bottle. Environmentally friendly gets my vote any day of the week. Oddly enough when I was in Crete I met an woman a bit older than me who worked at the chocolate milk kibbutz, Yotvata about 30 km north of Eilat in the far south of Israel. She was less enamored of chocolate milk than I was, for some obvious reasons, but when it comes to chocolate milk, it's one of those bonding things that everyone shares.

Knossos and Iraklio

My second full day I made the brave, and perhaps foolish decision to go hike Samaria Gorge. To do so from Rethymno on your own is pretty difficult, at least as a day-trip. It requires a lot of bussing, and as much as it sucks, at least from Rethymno it appears it is easiest to pay for a package from one of the many travel agents to have a bus come pick you up. I did in fact do this, and at 28 euros (a little steep perhaps) I was all signed up to get picked up at 5:30AM from Rethymno to go hike the 18km gorge. I went to the gates of the city park at 5:20 to wait for the bus to come, only to see it just whiz right by. I was pretty pissed at the time, it being 5:30am and not really having another plan for the day. I pretty quickly realized thought that I could get on the 6:30 bus to Iraklion and get to Knossos before all the crowds hit. I managed to get to Knossos at 8:15, which led to hilarity. The following is a transcript of my conversation with the ticket seller.
Me: One student ticket please (Handing her my student ID)
Her: Oh, I don't need that.
Me: Oh, ok. Thanks?
Her: Well, I can tell you're a student.
Me: Oh yeah? How's that.
Her: Well, I can see you are young, and I can also see you are smart. So you must be a student.
Me: How can you tell?
Her: Well, you are here early. So you're smart.
Me: Oh. Thanks.
So I did get to see Knossos in the morning, when it was still very cool and there were not too many box tourists. It's sort of hard to know what to make of it. On the one hand it did force us to rethink what we know of civilization, with incredibly advanced sewage systems and so on. On the other hand, it's pretty well ruined, and what has been reconstructed may be fairly imaginative, depending on whose interpretation you subscribe to.





The harbor and Venetian era fortress in Iraklio.

View from the Venetian fortress in Rethymno. I hadn't really intended to see the fortress, but it was only three euros, and one of the guys I met, a Serbian/Canadian demolitions expert who is now out of the business. And too young to have taken part in the war.
I am bloody exhausted, so this is going to be split into a third post that I'll try to finish tomorrow!

A lapse, the first part of Greece, and much absurdity

So following my usual pattern I disappeared from blogging for a while, for which I apologize to the two readers of this blog. I was actually pretty impressed with myself there for a bit!
We had a break in our internship program, so I got to cram my entire vacation into an approximately 10 day period, which I feel like I did pretty successfully. Got to see some of Israel, as well as get a 5 day trip to Crete, which was lovely. Except for Israeli security, and the incredible numbers of box tourists in Crete.
Some thoughts on airport security-I am a pretty miserable excuse for a spy, so I can't quite imagine why airport security was so taken with me. Ok, I suppose I can. Buying a last minute ticket to Greece via an Israeli carrier on a flight in which I was the only non-Israeli, traveling on a passport filled with visas indicating I've been moving in and out of Arab countries for the last oh, 5 months or so looks pretty bad. I wasn't entirely sure they were going to allow me out of the country during my interrogation that lasted nearly two hours. I just played really, really, really dumb and never lied, just never really told the truth either. It was actually sort of fun to play their head game. The guy could tell I was sandbagging, but somehow I was keeping him a bit off guard by tossing in the little bits of Hebrew slang and swearing I did know. That and his English was just a little bit off, as compared to a lot of Israelis who speak perfect, American accented English. He wasn't all that fluid, which probably helped me some. It didn't help that my sealed bottle of water, still in the bag and cold from the store set off the bomb detector. Standard procedure then dictated a more, uhh.. intimate security screening. Let's just say to get to that point in my relationship with the security screener made me feel a little cheap. Could have at least bought a bottle of wine or something. The bizarre thing is the security handlers had no goddamn clue as to why this bottle of water made by an Israeli company would have set off the bomb detector. Eventually they let me through, after escorting me through the airport to my gate. A little humorous. And more than a little bit absurd. I am now marked for all Israeli security. My passport has a little red tag from them. I can only hope that their security screening lists are not shared with the US or EU, but that's a pretty slim hope. Flying might be difficult for a while. The return flight certainly was.
A brief summary of Crete-It's absolutely lovely, and it is possible to avoid the enormous package tourist busses that descend like flies on an ancient culture's carcass. I stayed at the Youth Hostel Rethymno which at 9 euros a night and very clean offered a great base to daytrip around the island.

My first complete day there I rented a 50cc moped for the day at 20 euros, which might have been the best money I've spent in a while. Was more fun than I've had in months. I really didn't have an agenda, I just knew approximately where I wanted to end up. So I wound up just driving down the coast west of Rethiymno. Visited several very tiny little villages up in the mountains, some with feeble attempts to attract tourists, and others villages that obviously were content to not have too many tourists. Met a lovely old woman, who expressed grave concern in broken English that I was going to run out of gas up in the mountains. Speaking of old Cretan women, the notion that their is magic Mediterranean diet that keeps people ageless is total bullshit. Every Cretan woman over a certain age is withered, hunched over and remarkably short.
After riding all over the mountains, I descended towards Lake Kournas, which I believe is the only lake on Crete. It's nestled in between the Mediterranean and the mountains, and is simply stunning. I stopped at a grocery store and got a picnic lunch of some chocolate milk, bread, Gouda, and oranges and took it to the lake.

I spent most of the day just putzing around the west part of Crete between Rethymno and Chania, and then to the north of Rethymno. I tried going to a Minoan necropolis, but sadly it was closed.
All told I think I covered about 150 kilometers in a day, which as an awful lot to ride in a day on a scooter.
I should actually do some work, but this is a pretty decent start on an update. Things to blog yet:
1.The Tour de France started yesterday. My money is on Alexandre Vinokourov who is riding for Astana this year. Admittedly he didn't have a great spring, and he is aging, but he can do it this year. I could see Oscar Freire of Rabobank or Cadel Evans. It's sort of an open Tour, no obvious pick. Wish I could root for Jan Ullrich again, but those days are gone.
2. The rest of my trip to Greece. Yes, there's more! Wish I could claim I did something incredible or exciting, but really it was just nice to be able to relax a little bit. Have some time to myself for the first time in what feels like five months.
3. Jerusalem Film Festival. Saw Persepolis and Two Days in Paris. Persepolis was just amazing. Going to go try to see Paprika tomorrow, and perhaps Control as well, whenever that is showing. Mostly because I love Joy Division.

All of this brought to you by your incredibly nerdy blogger-


In my best nerdy China/Ketan voice-"Excuse me, but could you please take a picture of me? But hang on a second so I can put on my helmet."