Eilat and Petra

So it's been two weeks since I've posted, which, given what I said at the beginning, apparently means I'm dead. Which—I'm sure you've figured out by now—I don't happen to be. So sorry, Samira, you don't get my Hebrew-English Dictionary, and Nicole, same goes for the Life Application Bible and, Lisa, while I'll take your demand for my signs as your way of making sure I'm okay, the answer is still no. Save that for when I actually am dead. But take heart: given the trip I'm planning to Jordan in a couple of weeks and Egypt after that, it could still happen. Then you explain to my parents why you're ruthlessly looting my still-cooling corpse, and maybe you'll get something.

So here's what I've been up to while, you know, not dying: I've been busting my ass for the Jerusalem Post, which lures you into a false sense of security with its relaxed hours (I go in at 11 on an early day) and atmosphere, then sucks the life out of you. It's been good, though. I've published three stories so far (here, here, and here, if you are interested), the editors are happy with me—which directly translates into 'Give me more work'—and I have, so far, managed to avoid spending a single minute working in the archive room. All good things. Then weekends usually find me at the beach in Tel Aviv, which I vastly prefer to actually practicing my religion, although I do that too.

So you see, gentle people, why I have not been updating you on the vagaries of my Israeli life. However, I realize that this blog is, for many of you, the only sign that I am still among the living, and that my stuff is still not—I say this most emphatically—up for grabs. So here goes:

I spent most of last week slaving for the Post, then took off Wednesday night and headed down south with some friends to Eilat, which--for those not in the know--is a resort town on the Red Sea, known mostly for beaches, diving, and the Exodus. Because my friends are, ah, Jewish, they decided to take the midnight bus to Eilat and spend the night, or more accurately morning, on the beach. So we took a five hour ride through the desert, then watched the sun rise over Jordan, less because we wanted to than because we really had no place else to go. We slept for a few hours on the beach, went swimming--the usual, except really crazy tired.

Really, the only thing less interesting than actually being on a beach is writing about being on a beach, and I imagine reading about it is even worse. So I won't subject you to that. Suffice to say, we got a hostel, established that we would be going to visit Petra, in southwest Jordan, at seven the next morning, then proceeded to make a series of bad decisions.

Seeing as how my parents, as well as possible employers, may someday read this, I will not subject you to what those were. But it may or may not have involved some Israeli soldier girls, a bunch of Argentines, some Palestinians teenagers and several bottles of very cheap vodka. Use your imagination.
But the end result was that we didn't get up at seven--nine found us groggily moving in the direction of the border, where we found the Israeli guards to be surprisingly incompetent. As we were paying our exit visa, one guard's desk calculator ran out of paper, so we had to wait for--I wish, oh I wish I were making this up--half an hour while she figured out how to replace it. But, eventually, we made it across into Jordan, into the beneficent gaze of King Abdullah, who, I might add, was everywhere.

Jordan was my first chance to be in an authoritarian state, and I have to say, I was impressed by the ubiquity of the royal family. I mean, windshields, restaurants, really creepy big two-sided portraits--everywhere. Another difference: the Israeli side was run by twenty-year old women, presumably army conscripts. The Jordanian side was populated swarthy soldiers with mustaches and large cups of tea. There were no women in sight.
Anyhow, we got a cab from the crossing to Aqaba, then from Aqaba into Petra. The cabbie ripped us off, but, luckily, getting ripped off in Jordan is kind of like being charged normal prices in America. So we rode off through the Jordanian desert, when E, who was a little sick from the previous night's festivities, decided we needed to stop. So we told our cab driver, Mahmud, to pull into the nearest market, which happened to be a one room concrete shack filled with the best American imported candy and soft drinks (Arabic Coke, anyone?), where the Bedouin owner pushed Turkish coffee on us, insisted it was free, and then charged us for it.

(Side note: one obnoxious thing about the Middle East in general is that even when people rip you off, things are still inexpensive. For example, three cups of good coffee cost two dollars. Now, this is partially a good thing, but it really makes it hard to argue with the person ripping you off. Because I mean, the Bedouin will do more with those two dollars than I will. They need it more than I do. So I can be an asshole to get money I don't need, or I can be taken advantage of. Usually, I try to strike a balance, but it's a problem.)

Other than his insistence on making pit stops at establishments run by his friends, though, Mahmud seemed like a pretty nice guy. He didn't speak much English, but still tried to tell us everything we were passing, which was all right, because the names weren't English either. Then we got to Petra.

It seems like a cop-out to say this, but Petra was indescribably awesome. Not literally--I could describe it, and I may another time--but indescribable as in it will save us both time if you just look at the pictures, and then I'll write something to supplement that. You can do so here.

So that's all for the moment. My friend's birthday is tonight, so I'm heading home to put on real clothes (JPost is very, very lax on dress code...I do not choose to elaborate on that statement).

From Jerusalem, Saul Elbein.