Bangkok to Calgary

Mackenzie Lowry: Adventurer, story teller.

[mackthai]

Take It to the Limit

Back in college, Katie and I had a radio show together called “GOBSMACKED with Katie and Mack!” Each week we had a different theme that we made up (mythology, rebellion, girls’ names, etc.) so we would pick related songs and tell the stories behind them. Once or twice we did shows where we chose songs that were meaningful to us and told our personal stories about them.

Throwback to GOBSMACKED, early 2017

So naturally, one of the things I was most excited about was to be on air with Katie again, which I finally got to do on Sunday. On Sundays, Katie hosts the KNOM request show. People call in, email, and even write letters with their song requests. Katie showed me some of the letters they had received—most of them came from the same two people. One woman writes lots of letters, each only containing one song and the name of a person (or people) who she wants to dedicate it to. The other KNOM pen pal is a man who is in a nearby prison and mails lists of carefully selected songs he would like to hear played. We tried to break up the requests, so we queued some of their songs and then waited for the phones to ring.

Doing the show with Katie gave me a greater perspective on how important KNOM is for that region. We got calls from many of the local villages, some that don’t have great service so you can barely hear their requests over the phone. For a lot of these people living in tiny Alaskan villages, KNOM is their connection to the world. (For some of them, mountains block the radio waves so it’s hard to even get a signal.) Besides being a station that plays their favorite tunes, it’s also how they get the news and keep tabs on what’s going on around Alaska.

In between answering calls and announcing song titles, I spent time hanging out with Les. Les is an older gentleman who has been a station engineer at KNOM since the 70s. Although he is mostly a behind-the-scenes guy, he covered the first ever Iditarod for Associated Press. He showed me photos of him working with the old-fashioned radio equipment and told me lots of kooky stories about Nome. One was about a Russian man and his son who decided to ski over the frozen Bering Strait from their home country to Nome. Another man once tried to sail from Nome to Russia in a bathtub. He couldn’t get past the wave breaks.

Les also showed me photos of the building KNOM used to be in. An interesting thing about Nome is that they move buildings, so when you want to sell a property, you don’t actually have to sell the house and the lot together. KNOM sold their original building. The guy who bought it wanted to move it, but it was too tall and would hit the phone lines, so he just cut off the top half and moved it as a one-story home.

He never put the top back on.

Back on air, Katie and I decided to ask listeners to share stories with their requests so that we could tell them on the radio, a bit of a tribute to our college show. We weren’t having much success with this. People either didn’t hear us or didn’t care to share stories.

However, we did prompt a surprise visitor.

“I was in my car heading to the banquet and then I heard two awesome radio hosts and I had to stop by!” Matt said.

Matt, like many residents of Nome, is not Alaskan born, but he’s been living there for a long time now. I had met him the day before: we saw him on the street and Katie stopped to say hello. The first thing he said to me was that he wants to be Katie when he grows up.

Even though our meeting was brief, Matt radiated positivity and put me in a good mood. He is the kind of person who seems genuinely enthusiastic about everything and when you talk to him, you can tell he is actually listening to and interested in the things you are saying—even if he just met you. Being called awesome by Matt is an honor because Matt is an awesome dude.

We told him about our old radio show and how we were asking for stories behind the songs. Immediately, Matt had one.

He told us about being a college dropout way back in the day and deciding to come to Alaska to try to find himself. He traveled all around the state alone, wandering with just his backpack.

“…and whenever I was feeling lost, I would put on my Walkman,” Matt mimed putting on headphones, “and listen to ‘Take It to the Limit’ by the Eagles and it would give me the confidence to keep on going.”

Seeing as he’s still in Nome, Matt must have been successful with finding himself in Alaska.

We played the song live and, with a little convincing, we got Matt to tell the story on air. 

It’s sort of amazing how certain songs have the power to instantly spark a feeling or jog a memory. One of the coolest things about associating stories with music on the shows with Katie is that songs I’ve heard a million times before suddenly have new meanings for me.

Now, every time I hear “Take It to the Limit,” I will think of a Sunday afternoon in Nome, a young Awesome Matt putting on his headphones, and a guy trying to sail away in a bathtub.

[mackthai]

Running Out of Roads

In Nome, people ride their snow machines around the streets like cars. They zip down the snow-covered concrete, past houses and pedestrians, whipping around corners at a speed that was almost scary for me as a never-been-to-Alaska New York girl just trying to walk from the café to Katie’s house.

But it did seem pretty fun.

Sam had to leave on Saturday. Unfortunately, our trips barely overlapped. The only fortuitous thing about her departure timing is the fact that Sam had no interest in going on snow machines but KATIE AND I DID so that’s exactly how we spent our Saturday afternoon.

Katie has a friend named Phil who owns a couple of snow machines and takes people out on tours.

(NOTE: I kept calling them “snow mobiles” but I think machines/mobiles are pretty much the same thing; they just call them machines in Alaska.)

Phil was taking one woman out on a tour that day and he said we were welcome to join. Katie, her roommate Emily, and I bundled up and took a walk from their house over to the old church-turned-meeting-place. Emily and Katie were skeptical about my ski jacket keeping me warm. By the time we got to the church, I started to be a little skeptical myself.

Selfie in our snow machine gear! Katie looking stunning as always

Phil was out front with three snow machines and a woman named Tara. He let me take a heavy parka out of his car, which I was majorly grateful for later. Having never been on a snow machine before and feeling both terrified and excited by the power of the thing, I elected myself a passenger. I rode on the back of Phil’s, figuring he’s the most experienced and, therefore, probably the safest driver.

I hopped on behind Phil and we bumped off through town, riding on the streets at a smooth pace. I held on to the bars and thought, This isn’t too crazy, while reminding myself that we were still in city limits and the speed was yet to come.

Anyway, as soon as we escaped to the open road, Phil increased his speed with a jolt. I was holding on for dear life. I loved it, but my arms got sore so quick from my iron grip. I think I got more of a workout holding onto the bars on that thing than I ever have by lifting anything. However, once my grip was set, I was able to enjoy the ride and the scenery.

Driving outside of Nome felt like riding into a snow desert. It was mostly barren aside from one or two sections of sparse bushes. There is a road that goes outside of Nome in the direction we were headed, but most of it is closed in the wintertime. We passed some snow bikers and a few crosses on a hill – a traditional burial ground, I guessed. We also started to see the little huts that made up the “fish camps” outside town. They were dotting the shoreline, covered in snow.

The open road

About 20 miles outside of Nome, we saw a musher coming down the trail ahead. We moved off to the side and turned off the engines to let her pass, but it seemed like she wasn’t going anywhere. She was having a lot of trouble with her dogs. They weren’t moving and they were clearly fighting. She must have just left the Safety checkpoint because she was only a football field away.

This was at about 2 PM. She didn’t make it to the finish line in Nome until 7 AM the next day. To put this in perspective, typically, if a musher is leaving Safety, you can assume they’ll be at the finish line in 3-5 hours. It took her 17 hours. That happens — sometimes, your dogs just don’t want to go anymore.

We left her to handle her dogs and pulled up to the Safety checkpoint, which is, during the winter, basically a bar standing alone in the middle of a snow desert. It’s only open in the summer and during the Iditarod.

The view from the porch of Safety

We went in for drinks and snacks. Since it is a checkpoint, it needs to be open 24 hours. There was a cot set up and a couch, potentially for mushers to use to rest, but more often used for the staff to sleep on (the mushers typically didn’t stay too long in Safety). The bathrooms were honey buckets during the Iditarod. They don’t get running water out there any time of year, but in the summer they bring a truck full of water they can use.

There were signed dollar bills and old film pictures stuck to all the walls. Phil told me about this guy who used to have a reindeer that would ride in the back of his pickup truck. The reindeer would come with him out to Safety and nap on the couch. We scanned the walls trying to find a picture of the reindeer.

Imagine you are on a snow machine cruising through nowhere and nothing and all of a sudden there’s a bar—like an oasis—and you walk in and, hey, there’s a reindeer on that couch, also please pass the Fireball.

Reindeer chillin’

I later retold this story to a couple I sat next to on the airplane from Anchorage to Seattle—they happened to also have come from Nome and they knew that reindeer guy!

Back at the bar, I was telling Katie how interesting it was to me that so many people who live in Nome are not from Alaska. She told me that Phil—the husky-owning, snow-machine-touring, commercial fisherman—is from Texas. I asked him how he got to Alaska.

He said, “I got in the car and I kept driving until I ran out of roads.”

“Did you hop around different parts of Alaska before you got to Nome?”

He thought for a second and then said, “I think I got here and just forgot to leave.”

When we left Safety, we saw some snow coming from the distance. When we looked out at the horizon, it looked as if someone had just placed a white sheet over half the sky—that was the snow.

We got back quickly, unloaded our gear, and went into Phil’s wife’s cafe for croissants. It was a wonderful Alaska day.

[mackthai]

Crossing Under the Burled Arch

Lance Mackey is the Iron Man of the real world. According to the Iditarod website, he has racked up 15 race attempts and 13 finishes. He placed in the top ten 6 times and came in first place 4 times, 4 years in a row – 2007-2010. He has battled throat cancer, lost a finger, and has no salivary glands.

And he still decided to mush 1000 miles across Alaska in the winter again. AMAZING!

The last time he attempted the race, he wasn’t able to finish due to health complications. This year, before he even started, he proclaimed that he wasn’t doing this one for the competition. He was doing it for himself. He said, “[If I] make it to the finish line, I won.”

The “burled arch”

Although most mushers stop at each checkpoint for the minimal amount of time they need to check in or eat or rest, Lance had been taking his time at each one along the way, enjoying the food and the people. He was absorbing the fruits of the journey rather than just rushing to the destination.

Now, like I said, I hadn’t really heard of the Iditarod until I was planning a visit to Alaska, but as soon as I learned about Lance on the Iditapod (Iditarod podcast) I was a super fan.

So you can only imagine how excited I was to find out that I happened to arrive just in time to see Lance Mackey and Jessie Holmes cross the finish line, merely 5 seconds apart.

Katie had been “spotting” throughout the race, which means taking some binoculars and driving outside of Nome toward Safety (last checkpoint before the finish line) to spot the mushers coming in. Katie often went out in the middle of the night, trying to catch a glimpse of the mushers’ lamps in the distance. When we went, it was still bright out, and the mushers were closer than we thought. We saw them running on the beach and quickly turned the car around so we could get ahead of them and watch them run in on the road.

Lance Mackey, comin’ in hot

We followed them onto the main street and parked near the finish line.

Every time a musher is approaching the city, an alarm sounds all around Nome. People hear it and rush to the finish line – reporters, tourists, locals, the mayor, everyone! Kids crowd around the front to point out their favorite dogs and beg the mushers for some of the little booties the dogs wear on their feet.

Lance’s dogs, basking in their victory, after their booties have been given to the kiddies

By the time the mushers came into the finish line, a full, cheering crowd had gathered.

Lance stepped off his sled, looked at the crowd, and said, “I won!” 

Everyone cheered. 

Reporters flocked around him, asking about the race and how he was feeling. (Poor Jessie was a little overshadowed here.) Katie, Sam, and I were petting his dogs and listening in. We heard Lance say, “This one’s gonna go down as my snooze and booze cruise.”

Imagine going through 1000 miles of snowy trails, spending basically the whole time standing up in a sled, practically alone, with just your dogs, out in the wilderness, not knowing what kind of weather may hit you at any moment. Now, imagine doing that 15 times. Would you be able to come out of it feeling jolly, asking for a cocktail and calling it a “booze cruise?”

Spoiler Alert: Later, at the awards banquet, Lance was given the award for “Most Inspirational,” an award voted on by other mushers. It’s easy to see why.

I am amazed by all the mushers. And their dogs! The Iditarod is such a physically, mentally, and emotionally challenging event, it’s an enormous accomplishment to even attempt it. I may have missed the first days of the Iditarod, but this was an incredible, energizing start to my experience.

Selfie with Lance at the bar that night

[mackthai]

What is Nome?

When I was on the plane approaching Nome, I thought for a moment that we were in a cloud – everything out the window was white. Suddenly, I saw a weed and realized we were not in a cloud. In fact, we were very close to landing. All that white was snow and pale skies.

The plane did not connect to a terminal. We walked out and into the airport, which was essentially one big room where baggage claim, check-in, security, and waiting all took place. It was bustling with people and dogs and big plastic bins that were coming out of baggage claim, apparently mostly filled with food.

Katie was right there to meet me. It was awesome to see her after so many months. We’d been talking about my Alaska trip in letters and texts for so long; it was almost surreal to finally be there.

We grabbed my unnecessarily large bag and hopped in the car with her coworker. It’s not like east coast airports, where cars have to loop back around if their passengers don’t hop in within minutes. In Nome, the cars are just parked outside the building and the town of Nome is less than a 10-minute drive away.

Katie had warned me that Nome would be a little bleak as far as appearances. There are no trees, quite a few abandoned buildings, and feet and feet of snow on top of everything. We drove past cars buried so deep that you could see the imprints of snow machines that had driven right over them.

Nome is located on the Bering Strait, but the water is frozen for a good chunk of the year. After Christmas, the people of Nome put their trees out on the sea ice in a section of the city with a sign that says “Nome National Forest.”

It’s quite the opposite of whatever they show in The Fourth Kind.

Behind the welcome sign with the figurines, you can still see the remnants of the Christmas trees that made up the “Nome National Forest” and the little people cutouts that stood by them

But, of course, Nome is way more than what it looks like. It’s the cliché of “a lot going on under the surface” or “don’t judge a book by its cover.” The most literal example of this would be the fact that their Subway (sandwich shop, not train system) has a movie theatre in it. I saw nothing that obviously identifies that it’s in there, but people who live in Nome know that it’s there.

A lot of the commercial fronts are more than one thing. The rec center is sometimes a roller skating rink. The museum is also the library and a cultural center. One of the two coffee shops is also a florist and a tanning salon.

The area of Nome was once used as fishing camps in the summertime for Native Alaskans, and later it became a gold rush town, bustling with shops and bars and 20,000 citizens.

Today, it’s a city of a little less than 4,000 people. It’s a little fishing-campy and a little gold-rushy and just very Nome-y. Fishing camps still exist in a more modern way, through huts people build just outside the city along the water. These are their summer getaways, although the tradition has expanded to many citizens, not just Native Alaskans. Some of the buildings still have a Wild West look about them (see above), and the oldest Alaska newspaper (located in Nome) is called “The Nome Nugget.”

I knew none of this when I first got to Nome. Katie and I stopped briefly at her house to drop my bag and meet up with Sam, who was also visiting and had spent that morning cooking up some delicious blueberry pancakes for us. We ate them fast, and then went out to catch some mushers coming in.

Note: The source for most of the information I’ve recapped here is word of mouth from people in Nome, or from strolling through the Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum.

[mackthai]

Alaska Arrival

On March 15, 2019, sunrise in Anchorage was at about 8:15. When I lulled awake around 6, it was still completely dark out.

I was almost at the end of my trek out to visit my friend Katie in Nome, Alaska, a city that is closer to Russia than it is to Anchorage. There are no roads out to Nome, so you can’t drive there. The only way in or out is by airplane – or on a sled pulled by some huskies, if that’s your thing.

I would be arriving just in time to catch the last few days of the Iditarod, which is an annual epic 1,000-mile sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome. It is sometimes called “The Last Great Race on Earth,” and after catching even a little portion of the race, I have to agree. It’s wild.

Until Katie decided to move to Nome for a radio fellowship, I had never heard of the Iditarod. When she filled me in, I thought it would be a great opportunity to both see my friend and to witness this great human/dog feat.

My flight from there to Anchorage got me in late at night. I stayed in a hotel near the airport so I could catch the first flight out to Nome the next morning. Hence, early rising on March 15th:

I showered and took a walk to the main building. The sidewalks were coated in a thick layer of ice, but the air was a little warmer than I had been expecting. A faint greenish-blue glow was spreading across the horizon. For a moment, I thought maybe I was witnessing some northern lights, but it was just the beautiful beginnings of a sunrise.

Blue skies over Anchorage

I had noticed a lot of creative Alaska-themes sculptures in the airport and the lobby of my hotel was decorated similarly. I overheard two men talking about how glad they were that the crowds were gone – perhaps referring to the influx of people for the start of the Iditarod in Anchorage, which was March 2.

When the shuttle came to take me back to the airport, another passenger joined me.

“You going north?” he asked.

“I’m going to Nome.” Sort of north.

“I’m going more north: Prudhoe Bay.”

“To visit?”

“To work.”

“Are you from there?”

“No one has been born in Prudhoe Bay in 200 years.”

The driver added: “It’s an oil field.”

“How often do you go up there?” I asked.

“Every three weeks. Three weeks there, three weeks home in North Carolina.”

“Long commute.”

We drove along and it was still dark, but the light around the edges was beginning to illuminate the mountains. In less than 10 minutes, we were at the airport.

“Have a safe flight,” I said.

“I’ve been taking this flight every three weeks since 1989,” he responded.

I added: “And nothing’s happened yet.”

He smiled. “Nothing’s happened yet.”

I hopped out and headed to Nome.

Nome, here I come!

[mackthai]

Trip to Eclipse Pt 2: Larry Cohen and the Minister’s Treehouse

The next morning, we were still sort of in awe about the miracle we had experienced, but it was time to shake it off a bit, pack up, and hit the road.

Our next stop was a quick night in Chattanooga: a small city in Tennessee (Chattanooga! Tennessee! so many double letters!) that seemed to have a strong arts culture. We popped in a few hip little coffee shops and antique stores, saw some blue trees, and went to The Palace movie theatre where they do surprise movies on Tuesdays – i.e. you pay $5 to see a movie even though you have no idea what it will be. Ours turned out to be The Stuff – it was a Larry Cohen movie that we quickly became cult fans of. We now have a very large movie poster for that film hanging in our kitchen.

Panorama in Chattanooga 

The next day, we were planning to make one stop between Chattanooga and Tennessee. It was a place I had read about years ago and when I realized it was sort of on the route to where we were going, I knew we had to try to see it. I say “try” because it is technically closed.

This spot was The Minister’s Treehouse. 

Photo source: Unusual Places

A bit of a backstory on this place:

In the early 90s, a man named Horace Burgess was looking at a very big tree on his newly purchased land and decided he wanted to built the biggest treehouse on Earth. So he did. Well -- he started to. He ran out of lumber and energy after a few years. But, alas, he was a religious man, so he prayed to God and God told him, “If you build me a treehouse, I’ll never let you run out of material.”

Horace got ordained as a minister and kept building for 11 years. He built the biggest treehouse in the world, completed in 2004. There were never any blueprints made, so he actually doesn’t even know for sure the square footage of the place. The structure is actually supported by 7 trees and stands 100 feet in the sky.

Churches started to hear about it and people came from all over to climb the treehouse. They were technically trespassing, but Horace didn’t turn them away. Eventually, he had to stop watching over it and go back to his normal life of family and landscaping. People kept coming, though, and started to vandalize the place. They ripped up boards and put graffiti on the walls. Horace had to get 24 hour surveillance and he built a welcome booth where people had to sign a waiver before they went up.

In 2012, the fire marshall closed down the treehouse.

So Matt and I decided to visit the treehouse. We knew we probably wouldn’t be able to go in, but we at least wanted to look at it from the outside. We drove for miles and miles on nothing but tree-lined roads. No cell phone service. Eventually, we got to Crossville, Tennessee (more double letters!) and made our way down the road where the treehouse was supposed to be. Near the end of the road, there was a long log blocking the road. We could see the gate of the treehouse at the end, but we couldn’t drive through. So we parked and walked up.

It wasn’t very secluded. There was a large open property on the left and a man was riding his lawn mower around. He stopped to look at us. We stood by the gate and looked out, but we could only see the tippy top of the treehouse peeking up in the foliage. I waved over the man on the trailer.

A Matt Jacobs photo!

He rode his law mower over.

“You’re not allowed in there,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “But I’ve been reading about Mr. Burgess and this place for a long time and I just wanted to see it.”

“Well, Mr. Burgess put me in charge of watching over it and he said not to let anyone in.”

I said that was okay and we talked for a few minutes. Finally I asked, “Do you think we could go in if he took us?”

“Horace?”

“Yes.”

The man thought for a second.

“I just spoke to Horace not too long ago. You actually just missed him, he was here earlier. He said he was going for lunch with his wife. Maybe you could go find them,” he suggested. He told us where he remembered Horace saying they were going to be and off we went.

We looked around Crossville for a while, but we couldn’t find him. At this point, I decided we should go to his house and just knock and ask if he could take us up there. (Definitely admittedly crazy on my part.)

Meanwhile, Matt did not like any of this at all. He did not think it was a good idea and he definitely just wanted to get out of there. But I dragged him along with me to Horace’s house, knocked on the door, sweating profusely the entire time, and a girl answered and said he wasn’t around.

So, we went back to the treehouse. The log was moved now so we drove up to the gate, parked, and got out to talk to the Guardian of the Treehouse and tell him what happened. I forget if we asked, or if he offered, but the Guardian dialed Horace’s number. He explained the situation to Horace and handed me the phone.

“I would love to show you the treehouse,” Horace said, “but if I let one person in, I would have to let everyone in, and people just don’t respect it.”

He sounded very sad about it -- something he’d worked so hard to build, inspired by God, was now falling to disrepair because a few people decided to ruin it. He explained that he wanted to show it to people like me who were inspired by it, but he couldn’t anymore.

“The other day,” Horace said, “someone came to see the treehouse and pulled a gun on him [the Guardian]. I can’t have my friends in danger like that. It’s becoming a real problem.”

I looked up at the Guardian who nodded in solemn agreement. Horace and I spoke a few more minutes.

“Well, thank you,” I said. “And I’m really glad I got to speak with you.”

“I’m glad I got to talk to you too,” he agreed.

So, we went on something of a wild goose chase and we only got to see the tippy top of this treehouse.

BUT. I was glad we got to talk to Horace and it made me appreciate the place more, even without having seen it up close. When we left, Matt was in a better mood about it, too. We drove off to Nashville.

[mackthai]

Trip to Eclipse Pt 1: Miracles and Amateur Campers

In honor of the year anniversary of the USA solar eclipse, I decided to write a few posts about Matt’s and my epic “Trip to Eclipse” road trip…

It was 5 AM on Saturday morning, August 19, 2017. Matt and I were already sitting in my mom’s mini cooper (which she lent us for this road trip) with the engine running. The car was over-packed with camping equipment, snacks, and duffel bags.

We were ready for this road trip and for the solar eclipse and we were way too excited to be tired.

A bit of a backstory on why we were embarking on this adventure: Matt and I met for the first time in late December 2017 and on our second date in January of 2018, Matt told me about this solar eclipse -- this cosmic phenomenon happening in the coming August. He said the best place to see it was Tennessee, and that we should go see it together. We agreed that if we were still together and liked each other in August, we would make the trip for this eclipse.

So here we were: Armed with maps and our phone GPS (thank you, modern technology), we made our way down to Asheville North Carolina – our first stop. We were only there overnight, but we had plenty of time to peruse local bookstores, drink craft beer, and, of course, get a good, cheesy, Southern breakfast in the next day.

*Only one day and Matt’s beard was already growing toward lumberjack levels*

Next was the drive to Chilhowee Campground in Tennessee for the main event.

When we originally started looking into camping in Tennessee for the eclipse, we were disappointed to find that most campsites were all booked up. Mind you, we were looking months in advance, but it seemed some people had started booking a year in advance. When we stumbled across Chilhowee on a camping map, it seemed way too good to be true, but we snatched it up.

On the drive down, we passed tons of signs about solar eclipse parties. Even back in Asheville, most of the local small businesses had signs taped to the window saying “Closed for Eclipse” or advertising a party they were hosting for the magic event.

The campsite itself, however, was totally not crowded – the opposite of what we were expecting. It was perfect. We set up camp, made some dinner, and played a game of “who can find the biggest bug in the bathroom”. I think I won.

A camp ranger came around to warn everyone not to venture too far from the campsite for the time being because there was a bear and her cub roaming nearby.

So, of course, as we tried to turn in early so we could wake up to scope out an eclipse spot, I was wide awake imagining a bear ripping the tent open.

This did not happen. However, we didn’t think we needed the rain guard on top of the tent and in fact we did get rained on a little in the night.

Undeterred, we woke up early in the morning, packed our backpacks with snacks and hammocks, and set off hiking to find the perfect spot for the solar eclipse. We were convinced this would take a few hours, but we actually found a good spot in less than an hour of hiking.

It was a big clearing in the middle of the woods – a spot we were sure would soon be flooded with eclipse viewers.

We wandered a little farther and set up hammocks in the forest to kill time. When we returned to the clearing for the start of the eclipse, we were delighted to find it was still completely empty.

I guess I didn’t do enough eclipse reading because I was thinking that it would be completely dark for the entire length of the eclipse. I also heard somewhere that nocturnal animals get confused and come out, so I tied our snack bag up in a tree a little ways away from us in case any bears came for it.

We laid out our blanket and waited. And waited.

We were starting to get sweaty out there and nothing much seemed to be happening so we moved under a tree at the edge. Soon, another couple joined us. It was their year wedding anniversary and they decided to celebrate it by doing what we were doing – taking a road trip to witness this miracle of the sky.

The four of us chatted a bit and excitedly interrupted each other every time we saw some movement in the sky. The sun and moon were growing progressively closer, so we moved back into the field and gazed up at the sky, armed with our eclipse protective glasses (which my mom bought a 50 pack of).

The shows around us started to get a little strange – it felt like the forest darkness all around was creeping in on us. As the sun and moon crept closer, the sky turned dark shades of purple. Then, there it was, the moon in front of the sun. Above us, the sky was completely dark, but all around the edges of the forest, it was sunset-colored. It was as if we were experiencing all times of day at once.

And above, we took off our glasses to see the perfect shining white halo around the moon. For that one minute and however many seconds, we all felt loopy, almost high. We snapped a few photos, but the time was so short, we just wanted to savor the moment gazing up at this miracle.

Much more suddenly than it began, it was all over, but we were all still lying in the grass in complete and utter awe.

After a little while, we gathered up our things and parted ways. Matt and I continued hiking until we came upon a waterfall. People were scattered throughout the pools, daring to climb the sides of the falls, and sticking their head under the icy splash. We set up our hammocks on the side and spent a while there, cooling down and chilling out and talking about the amazing thing we had just seen.

Back at the campsite, we discovered that our bear-proof contained was not ant-proof and much of our food had gotten infested with ants. (Can you tell we’re amateur campers?) Luckily, we also bought freeze-dried food from the big REI store so we were prepared with a backup dinner. We spent that one last night in the tent and then the next morning we were off again, toward Chattanooga, Tennessee.

[mackthai]

Brooklyn Spotlight: Rooftop Reds

What’s the only thing better than wine in the summertime? Wine in the summertime on a rooftop with a slice of pizza and “The Birdcage” playing on a projector.

This is the experience every Thursday at Rooftop Reds, a rooftop vineyard located in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It’s a little tough to find and while you’re making your way up to the roof, you may question whether you even know where you’re going. But once you open the doors and see the sprawling turf, grape vines, and wine drunk city-folk swinging on hammocks, you’ll know you’re in the right place.

photo by Ali Collins @aliicollins

Rooftop Reds was founded by a man named Devin Shomaker. It started as a viticulture college project that inspired the world’s first ever rooftop vineyard. The vineyard officially opened to the public in April 2016 and their first harvest was in October 2017. Shomaker expects the first bottles of wine made from rooftop grapes to be ready in 2019. However, he’s planning for only 30 cases – a limited stock with a whopping price tag of $1,000 a bottle.

If you want to visit the vineyard, have no fear. You don’t have to spend $1,000. The Rooftop Reds tasting room is currently stocked with an affordable selection of wines made from grapes sourced in New York’s Finger Lakes region. Throughout the summer, Rooftop Reds hosts movie nights, yoga classes, viticulture tours, and pop-up dining experiences. Or you can just go on a chill night to try some wines, get a cheese picnic, and take in the gorgeous Brooklyn views.

Location: Rooftop Reds, The Navy Yard - 299 Sands Street, Building 275, Brooklyn, NY 11205

Hours: Friday 4-10pm, Saturday: 12-10:00pm, Sunday: 12-8pm

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wedding shenanigans featuring Papa Kev, Roy, and the groom

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THE ISRAELI WEDDING

was AWESOME.

We got there at 7:30 and for a cocktail hour before the ceremony. The venue was absolutely beautiful. It was all outside (it doesn’t rain in Israel all summer long until like October or November or sometimes even later so you can plan an outdoor wedding and rely on the fact that it will not rain). It was a garden, with little lights hanging from the trees and everything was green. There were hammocks and little white tables and chairs that looked like a potential spot for Alice’s Tea Party. Old American love songs were playing in the background like Louie Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” and Elvis’ “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” kind of stuff.

Ceremony under the chuppah

Shai and Dean (bride and groom) were walking around greeting guests. There was an open bar and different food stands all around serving small appetizers. Mojitos were prepared and waiting so when you wanted one they would just add ice.

People dress in whatever for this. There were people like me in gowns. Others wore jeans. Some were in between. Heels, flats, sneakers, whatever. Arturo, Rudd, and Dad all wore yarmulkes (i.e. yamikas – yes, that’s how it’s spelled and no, I didn’t know until I looked it up) thinking that was what they were supposed to do. As soon as we got there, they realized no one else was wearing them so Arturo and Rudd took them off, but Papa Kev kept his on American print yarmulke for fear that he might have yarmulke hair underneath.

Everyone thought my dad was this devout Jew because he was wearing the yarmulke. He was talking to a guy who had lived in New Jersey for a few years and Papa Kev told him we’re staying in Caesarea.

New Jersey said, “How do you get to temple?”

Apparently the temple is very far from where we’re staying in Caesarea and the devout Jews can’t use machines/transportation like cars and bikes on the Sabbath Day.

Papa Kev said, “Eh, I’m skipping it this week.”

The New Jersey guy laughed and goes: “You’re just Jew for a Day.”

Caught!

Around 8:30 the wedding was supposed to begin. The setup was a few white benches in front of a chuppah (the arch thing they get married under). Some people sit down, but I discovered that getting a good seat wasn’t really important.

When the music started playing, the siblings of the bride and groom walked down the aisle, followed by Dean and his parents, then Shai and her parents, who leave her halfway down the aisle as Dean came down to meet her. When they got to the chuppah, people all gather around the stage, like a concert. Someone even lit up a joint while the rabbi was talking.

The lovely bride and groom

I have no idea of what they were saying because it was all in Hebrew. I could can when it was over because they kissed and everyone cheered and immediately upbeat music started playing.

The crowd filed over to a different section of the garden area. This was filled with dining tables and on the left was a huge dance floor with another bar. This bar was just liquor and has a constant supply of shots available on the counter. On the right there was a lineup of different food stands. It was a buffet that Shai had set up like a marketplace, so there were separate stalls for meat, veggies, rice, challah bread, etc.

Shai is also a wedding designer – she started her own business – so the details were beautiful. Little fans with their names on them, leaves and tiny thank-you pouches at every place setting, etc. The pseudo-marketplace even had little vintage-y touches like a metal bicycle shaped wall decoration and worn yellow wood cabinets on the walls behind the stalls.

We ate and ate and ate.

And then, we danced till 2 AM.

Semi-embarrassing depiction of dance moves featuring Mom and Ori

They played American pop music and upbeat Hebrew music and people walked around the crowd handing out shots, popsicles, and churros. They bride and groom were lifted in the air on chairs and all the boys changed out of their button-downs into t-shirts. It was all very sweaty and very fun. Around midnight, they rolled a grill onto the floor with hamburgers – a midnight snack.

The entire night we just kept moving. We took shots with the bride and groom, attempted to learn to salsa, pulled Shai’s grandma out to the floor. We cheered and took more shots. We danced with everyone.

At Israeli weddings, they go until the bride and groom decide it’s over. Around 2 AM, there were only maybe 20 of us left (it started with around 360 people) and Shai finally decided she was tired and it was time to end the party.

I felt like part of the Israeli family. A lot of times at these things if you don’t really know anyone, you’re kind of like an outsider, especially since the bride and groom have their own shit to do. But I got to hang out with the bride and groom, with Smadar and Ori, Roy and all his friends, and all the strangers on the dance floor didn’t care who you were or if you spoke Hebrew. As long as you were dancing, they were dancing with you.

Pre-wedding photo of me and my favorite brother

[mackthai]

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On the morning of September 11, we stopped at the Garden of Gethsemane. This, I think, was my favorite holy spot. There was a basilica and there was a gate around the garden, but it still felt open, natural, beautiful. I looked past the gate into the garden and imagined 2000 years ago, when it was just a green spot in the valley where Jesus sat to pray amongst the olive trees.

[mackthai]

Border to the West Bank

After the Holy City, we entered a new realm: the West Bank, Palestine. Israelis are not allowed into Palestine – I think our tour has an agreement so that our guide is allowed to come with us, but when we got there he became part of the group and we had Palestinian guides.

It looks like Jerusalem (the part outside the holy city) except it had a tense feel to it. I wouldn’t wander off to check out the markets like I might in Jerusalem. However, I don’t know if that’s because of my predispositions about the place or because of how it genuinely felt.

A Banksy on a wall in Bethlehem

Our guide was Christian-Palestinian. He said his religion was cause for discrimination and sometimes being a Christian could be dangerous. He said he actually leaves to live in Norway for a while whenever things get really bad. There are different neighborhoods in the West Bank, and this guide lives in one where the Christians and Muslims try to live together peacefully. In East Bethlehem, he said, you will never see a Christian.

He led us over to Jesus’ supposed birthplace where there was, of course, a church built up around it. In the courtyard outside the church, there was a sign with some stats about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (picture below). This quick trip into the West Bank was one of the few times I was exposed to the Palestinian side of the conflict. Even that exposure was cut short as we were whisked into the church.

Sign hanging in the courtyard outside the church

The cave where Jesus was specifically born, according to tradition is in the basement. It was extremely ornate and hot and crowded. I couldn’t stay down there too long – it was very uncomfortable and claustrophobic – but it was definitely worth the visit. I tried to appreciate the experience of touching the cave walls in the brief time I spent there.

Humble doorways

Transformations - a sign on the chapel entryway

We had a tour of the tunnels beneath the Holy City scheduled for 5:30, but we were still in Bethlehem at 4:45. Our tour guide said if we wanted to make it back, we’d have to walk over the border. He tried to convince us not to bother to go, but we were adamant so he called a van to drive us to the border. The guide hopped in to help us find the way. The van drove as close as possible before dropping us off to walk the rest of the way.

Palestinian men were flooding in through the gates from the Israeli side, where they had apparently gone to work all day. A lot of men were also there with fresh fruits and vegetables, I guess selling them or bringing them to sell. Everyone was staring at us. I guess it’s rare for them to see foreigners crossing the border on foot. Anyone who goes over is usually in a tour bus or something.

Lizzy and I moved quickly with the guide who apparently didn’t feel the need to wait for the rest of the group to catch up. At the entrance to border patrol, a teenage Palestinian boy stood over his crates of fruit, not speaking to or bothering anybody. Our guide came up quickly, took grapes right out of the boy’s crate, ate them, and just kept walking up the ramp. The boy, obviously annoyed, was yelling at him in Arabic. I was nervous because I didn’t know if someone would run after us but the guide didn’t even turn around he just kept walking up through border patrol. He didn’t even stop to look back until he realized Lizzy and I had stopped to wait for our family.

It made me so mad. It was a little thing, stealing a few grapes from the Palestinian boy, but it came across as some kind of arrogant entitlement move. It was as if the guide felt like he could do whatever he wanted here – as if he thought he was better in some way.

I can’t assume that his feelings and motives were the same as I’m interpreting them, but actions speak. I didn’t like that at all.

Inside there was a metal detector and a little security setup, but no one was there. No people, no guards. We went through the metal detector anyway as if there had been guards. I guess the must’ve been watching from cameras or something. The guard in the booth way at the end didn’t even look at our passports. He just waved us through. It was all very odd.

On the other side, the guide hailed us a cab to take us to the tour. My dad tipped him. He waved us off. I wasn’t sure what to say. I was still fuming about the boy with the grapes.

I wish I had said something at the time, defended the boy, questioned the guide, or maybe called him out on his audacious move, but there had been so much going on around me that I didn’t even think to.

[mackthai]

[mackthai]

The Layers of Jerusalem

Jerusalem is literally built on top of history. It’s hilly so the houses are all terraced and they’re all made out of limestone so they’re all the same color (it’s the law). The tight streets run through the neighborhoods. You can tell if it’s an Israeli or Palestinian neighborhood by the street names and signs, Hebrew or Arabic. It’s built up on and around the Mountain of Olives, which I learned is the place where all three main religions (Judaism, Islam, and Christianity) believe the savior will come to (next time he comes).

The Holy City is in the middle, with a big wall around it. There are 9 entrances or “gates” into the Holy City, but only 8 are used because one is a golden entrance, meant to be used by the Savior when he comes strolling down the Mountain of Olives. The Holy City is holy for all three religions. Within the gates, there are neighborhoods or “quarters” for each religion: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It’s like the rest of Jerusalem with the tight cobblestone streets and terraced homes, lots of stone staircases, but there are very few cars within the Holy City and lots, and lots of markets. Jesus would’ve been pissed I think because when he was at the Temple in the Holy City back in his day, he flipped over the tables of all the people making sales in the holy place.

The coolest thing about the Holy City is that there are so many layers underneath it. It’s the place where Abraham went to sacrifice his son, Isaac, and it’s also the place where the 10 commandments were found (supposedly). The first temple to be built there was back in King David’s time when it was still “The Kingdom of Judah.” He built David’s City, but the temple there was destroyed. A while later, Herod was king and he wanted to make the Jews like him so he re-built the temple as this beautiful grand structure all would come to see. It was a hilly area so he had his workers basically cut off the top of a tall hill and use it to fill in a valley part to make a platform for his Holy City to sit on, a quarter of a mile wide. This is the temple Jesus visited that outraged him.

My brother modeling his most recent purchase outside a Holy City home

Later, it was destroyed by the Romans. The land of Jerusalem went back and forth for a while between the Crusaders and the Muslims – it was valued land. Finally, the Muslims came out victorious and decided to rebuild there. However, they didn’t like the valleys surrounding the city because they felt that if there were intruders coming up that way, they wouldn’t be able to see them. So they filled them in by building new layers. This is the basic development of Jerusalem as it is today.

In 1948, the Jews finally got Israel, but it wasn’t until 1967 that they got Jerusalem. There was a section of the original West Wall of Herod’s temple remaining. There’s something in the Jewish Torah about the West Wall of the temple never falling and it was also the closest wall to the place of the Covenant of the Ark (the 10 commandments – people believe the original ones are still buried under Jerusalem somewhere). So the Jewish people flooded into the city and cleared some buildings to make a plaza – The Wailing Wall now.

The wailing wall plaza from above 

Washing our hands before we approach the wall

At The Wailing Wall, you have to go through a security check with x-ray machines and metal detectors. We split up because one side is for men and the other for women. There’s a place where you wash your hands to cleanse yourself before you approach the wall. Then, you write a wish and when you go to the wall you’re supposed to stick it in between the stones. Up close, there are so many tiny sheets of paper shoved into every little nook and cranny and even little indents in the wall. Some of them are pressed so hard into the wall that they look more like gum than crushed paper (I looked closely to assure they were not, in fact, gum).

Women were crying or rocking back and forth in prayer, touching the wall, putting their heads against the stone. It seemed like some divine power or rush of emotion had washed over them just by being in the presence of the wall, something I personally did not feel. I watched them cry and put the notes in the wall, some women pressing them with all their might as if trying to make the words they’d written peel off from the paper and permanently attach to the wall. I wondered what they’d written down. I kind of wished I felt that strongly too.

Photo at the Wailing Wall, taken by Lizzy

When the wall fills up with notes, they take them and bury them all in the Mountain of Olives. Jewish people used to pray towards Jerusalem all over the world, the same way Muslims pray towards Mecca. They technically believe that all your prayers will first go to Jerusalem before they go to Heaven.

I left a note in the wall.

When we left, we had to walk backwards because you can’t turn your back on the Wall.

It’s so interesting to be in a place where all three religions come together. It’s holy for everyone. The mosque, though, is cut off from the rest. The quarter where their markets are and their people live is open. However, to enter the mosque you have to go through a separate security. They will let people of other faiths go in, but you’re not allowed to bring any books of faith in with you. Apparently, if they catch you with one it can start a riot.

However, we also had an Israeli guide so I’m not sure if his explanation was biased or exaggerated.

At the Catholic quarter, we saw the rock where Jesus was crucified and touched the stone where he was cleaned and saw the little cave where he’d been buried (“in accordance with tradition” – i.e. the places they generally believe all this happened). It’s all built up inside a church with extravagant decorations and mosaics and it’s so, so crowded. The wait to get into the burial cave was around 3 hours.

Papa Kev touching the stone where Jesus’ body was cleansed

My parents and Lizzy said they felt a jolt of energy when they touched the rock Jesus had been cleaned on, but I didn’t feel anything. My brother, Rudd, kept complaining the whole time about how it probably wasn’t really the rock where he was cleaned and how all of this was probably bogus. My dad got annoyed at him. He said it’s not about that. It’s about absorbing the spirituality of where you are.

I think I would feel more connected to the place if it were closer to its original state. I found it didn’t feel genuine or even very spiritual and special because it had become such a pompous tourist attraction.

Outside the church, up on a scaffolding there is a wooden ladder. Five different Christian denominations own the church together and used to argue a lot so they finally signed a contract saying nothing could be changed without the others’ approval. At the time they signed, someone had been using a ladder by the window. So, they left the ladder there as like a freezing of that moment of their agreement. Now, the key to the church is held by the Muslims and 5 representatives from the Christian faiths go over to the Muslim side every morning, promise to behave, and get their key to open the church. It’s all a little ridiculous.

Also ridiculous was Rudd trying to put our 8-year-old family friend through a window of Jesus’ tomb. The priest inside did not like that one bit.

Everyone in our group seemed to have something they connected with most that day. For me, it was the Stations of the Cross – the real Stations of the Cross. In the Holy City, the places Jesus walked, where he fell, where Mary met him, etc., are all marked in the spot where they actually happened.

Disclaimer: These marks spots are where the evens of the crucifixion “actually happened” according to tradition, and technically the whole thing occurred on ground that is now buried far beneath the currently streets.

But still! I was standing in the streets where Jesus himself had taken his final steps (pre rising from the dead). The tour guide moved quickly past these, not even stopping to show us each of them, but I stood on the side while he rambled. I stared at the spot where Jesus met his mother and tried to imagine what it must have been like to be a part of the crowd standing there watching them.

Touching a stone Jesus leaned on for support (according to tradition)

But before the image could fully formulate, we were whisked away to the next thing. I wish I had gotten more time in Jerusalem – just a day trip isn’t nearly enough. I certainly intend to go back.

The next stop: Bethlehem, in the West Bank – Palestine.

[mackthai]

Masada, The Dead Sea, and A Brief Jewish History (told by me)

Before I got here, I thought I knew something of Israeli/Jewish history thanks to 13 years of rigorous Catholic schooling. Once I arrived, I discovered there is so much I don’t know or at least don’t understand and now when I get home I want to read the Bible straight through (for the history of the Israelites) and also get some books on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

It started on our day trip to Masada and the Dead Sea. We had a tour guide who was extremely passionate about her Jewish heritage and loved sitting with us to talk when we had questions – and I had a lot.

Going into this, I had no idea what Masada was. What I learned is that it’s this big mountain in the middle of the desert that was important for two different people (or groups of people): King Herod and the Jewish rebellion.

Pre-History Lesson: Before I explain Masada, I feel it’s important to cover a brief history of the Israelites. I’m not sure how much of this you already know, so if you’re well versed, skip this part. So Abraham is essentially the father of Judaism (and Christianity and Islam too if you think about it; he’s in all their holy books). He was the one who was told to sacrifice his son for God and he was about to do it and then an angel came and was like, “No, Abraham!!! We see now that you’re loyal. He’s a ram to sacrifice instead.” (Abraham had another son named Ishmael by a mistress who the Islamic religion offshoots from but he’s not important to this particular story.) Isaac had a son name Jacob and Jacob had 12 sons, whose descendants became known as the 12 tribes of Israel (including Joseph, star of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, or, my childhood favorite, Joseph King of Dreams). Israelites are direct descendants of Jacob. Israelites were basically fighting to keep their Holy Land (the land of Israel, the promised land, promised to them by God) from the time of their birth until 1948. It took a very long time.

King Herod: Towards the end of the BC years, Israel was ruled by the Romans. King Herod was buddy-buddy with the Romans and he was a Jew, but a converted Jew. He married a *real* Jew and ruled over the Israeli area but all the Jews still hated him because he wasn’t a *real* Jew. Therefore, he was paranoid that everyone wanted to kill him so he ended up murdering his children and his wife because they were *real* Jews and he was afraid they would kill him to get the throne. Apparently King Herod was a psycho but also a genius and a great builder.

Anyway, he was running away to hide which is apparently something he did from time to time and came across this huge mountain that was super difficult to get to (Masada) and decided that’s where he wanted to hide. He went up and constructed a huge palace and a giant beautiful bathhouse and a complicated advanced water system (no water up there, it’s the desert, but it is near the Dead Sea and some ponds). He lived up there with like 30-40 people including himself and his guards and members of his family that he didn’t kill.

This was somewhere between 37-4 BC (BC years go backwards to 0 and then start AD). During this time Jesus was also alive and running around Israel claiming he’s the savior and such.

Jewish Rebellion: Post-Herod, around the year 66 (AD) the Jews decided fuck these Romans we’re ready to take back Israel (jokes on them it was gonna take like 2000 years). A group of 960ish Jews (men, women, children, elderly, etc) climbed up Masada and took over Herod’s now defunct mountain fortress. They did some remodeling to make it fit to hold all 900 of them and they hid up there from the Romans. The Romans were pissed about the rebellion and sent 10,000 troops to camp out around Masada. They were hoping they would just intimidate the Jews or they would run out of supplies and they would surrender, but the Jews weren’t intimidated because the Romans had no idea how to get up there. For three months it was just this stalemate. The Jews would wake up every morning for three months and look down and see 10,000 armed warriors who wanted to kill them because of what they believed in. Yet, they stayed strong.

UNTIL the Romans figured out a way up and tried to ram the walls on top of the mountain. So the Jews reinforced them with pebbles and wood and stuff and the Romans set it on fire. The wind blew the fire back at the Romans and they had to retreat and decided to come back the next morning.

Except the next morning they came back and it was really quiet which was weird. So they looked over the wall and there were only 7 people there – two women and five children. They Romans were like “What the heck? What happened to everyone?” And the women said, “Everyone killed themselves because they would rather be dead than slaves, except us.” So the Romans spared these ladies and children.

But the weird part is that no bodies were ever found from this supposed suicide mission. A few years ago, excavators found 29 sets of bones nearby but they were also buried with the body of a pig and Jews don’t kill pigs and this still doesn’t make up for the fact that over 900 people randomly went missing.

This information comes in part from the archaeology of the area but also from two accounts written by a Jew who was living in Rome, not on Masada, at the time. He knew what was going on and had spoken to the women who survived after the fact. However, they have found many of his other writings, even ones they thought made no sense, to be accurate and true. Therefore, they find him a reliable source.

But where did the 900 people go? Did they really even die? And if so, was it a suicide? There’s a religious law in Judaism against suicide so it’s possible that the leader actually decided they were all going to die but they took turns killing each other until only one was left to kill himself and these women maybe hid with their children because they didn’t want to die. This is another theory, but it still does not account for the missing bodies.

It was very, very hot on top of Masada. Our group slowly fizzled out throughout the tour, with people going back down to the AC area when they couldn’t take it, but I stuck around. We took a cable car up to the top and it’s mostly just ruins now. Some of the walls were restored to show you what it would’ve looked like, but they left a lot of it alone. Even a lot of the un-restored ruins were still in decent shape, like the insides of the bathhouses. You can tell when looking at the ruins what parts were probably from Herod’s time and what parts were from the Jewish rebellion. The detailed fresco walls, for example, were Herod’s time. The rugged cooking holes in the floor were from the Jewish rebellion, when they were cramming hundreds of families into this palace. It’s incredible to literally walk through the history as you hear it being told. We were standing in the place where these people lived out their day-to-day lives, talking and laughing and bathing and cooking just as we do, except in these little holes in the floor over 2000 years ago.

After Masada, we had lunch by The Dead Sea. It’s kind of resort-y now. You pay a fee to get in and they have a gift shop and a bar and showers by the beach to rinse off the mud. This isn’t the only place you can go in the Dead Sea, but it’s the only officially designated beach. Locals sometimes hop in at other areas around it.

Fun Facts About The Dead Sea:

-It’s actually shrinking very, very fast – at the rate of 12 centimeters per month. PER MONTH! There’s a lot of reasons science behind this that I won’t get into, but you can read more about it here.

-The Dead Sea is the lowest point on Earth. It’s a sea 430 meters below actual sea level. They have a bar there marked, “Lowest Bar on Earth! 420,” which is not a pot reference – the bar is at 420 meters below sea level.

You can’t really swim in the Dead Sea because of the way the water is, so thick with salt. You just float. If you stand pencil style in a place where your feet don’t touch the ground, you still float, without kicking or anything. The mud is really good for your skin so we covered ourselves and let it dry. When you go up the beach where there’s less water, there are actual little chunks of salt, orange and clear ones, all over the place. In the water, there are a lot of sinkholes in the mud (real life quicksand!) so you have to be careful where you step. Lizzy and Rudd and I sat in a pit near the shore and rubbed mud on our faces and dug salt stones out of the wall – it’s just salt, but solidified to look almost like quartz.

I don’t think I could’ve stayed in the water too long because it starts feels strange on your skin after a while, kind of itchy and sting-y in some parts, especially if you just shaved that day (which I did). But it was very cool – like nothing I’d ever experienced before.

*Other Fun Fact Learned Today: Every person born in Israel has a tree planted and named for them by the government at their birth.

[mackthai]

Israeli Weddings, As Interpreted By Me

*Some of this may also apply to all Jewish weddings and some of this may apply only to Shai and Dean’s wedding. This is just a collection of traditions I noticed, asked about, and read a bit about later. It is not a complete guide to Israeli weddings.

Pre-Wedding

Israel is a country largely standing on Jewish law. Unlike in the United States, you can’t just run off to court and sign a contract to get married. If you want a quick marriage without a full wedding, you have to leave the country of Israel. Within the country, couples must be married by the laws of the Torah.

Shai explained that the bride and groom must go to meetings with the rabbi and do prep work with him in advance of the wedding. This also involves a ceremony called a “Mikveh” which is a ritual bathing women must complete a few days before their wedding. Basically, the bride-to-be is fully immersed in an indoor spiritual bath, sometimes alone or sometimes surrounded by close family members. In Shai’s case, with family members.

Traditionally, the mikveh was supposed to be used to cleanse women after their periods. According to Jewish law, men and women are not supposed to have sex during and right after a woman’s period, and they can’t resume relations until after she’s had her mikveh.

Recently, however, for many modern Jews, it’s become a ritual done only once in a woman’s life: right before her wedding day. According to Smadar, the bride and groom are not supposed to intimately see each other in the time between the mikveh and the wedding ceremony.

The Actual Ceremony

The bride and groom don’t have bridal parties like we do in the US. First, the siblings of the two walk down the aisle together. Then, the groom walks with his parents. The bride is the last to walk along with her parents. They walk halfway down the aisle together before her parents split off. The groom then walks down the aisle to meet the bride and he places her veil over her face, a tradition I later learned is called “bedeken.” Then, they walk together to the Chuppah (pronounce like “Hoppah”)  which is the wedding arch at the end of the aisle. Here, their parents and siblings are waiting.

At this point, at least at Shai and Dean’s wedding, family and friends crowd around the chuppah area to watch the wedding. You can stay in your seat if you want, but it’s better to stand and get close. It’s sort of like a small concert venue: a crowd around the stage trying to be the closest to the show, someone possibly lighting a joint, a lot of excited chatter all around.

The ceremony was conducted in Hebrew (the language everyone there spoke besides us American visitors), but I gathered some things from it. There seemed to be a few readings and some words from the rabbi, which I later learned are called the “Sheva B’rachot,” or Seven Blessings. There was also a part where each of the groom’s parents and siblings spoke about Shai. I learned this is an old tradition where the family of the groom speak positively about the bride, who will be taking on their last name.

At the end, they broke some glass and everyone yelled “Mazel Tov!”

This is a traditional Jewish signal for “PARTY!”

(Just kidding, sort of)

[mackthai]

Impressions of Tel Aviv

On the drive to the hotel after we arrived, the sun was setting over Tel Aviv but it was a weird feeling because we had just been served breakfast on the plane and in our American bodies, it was morning time. It was a sunset, but through my eyes it looked more like a sunrise.

My first impressions were that the city felt similar to Bangkok. There were some run down buildings jammed together, all the same beige color with miscellaneous clothes and plants hanging off the balconies. All that was missing was a couple motorbikes whizzing by. But the more we drove the more I saw how Tel Aviv is different. Shop names and signs are in both Hebrew and English, colorful murals appear around every corner, and in between the run down buildings are old ones beautifully renewed again.

Smadar and her family met us at the hotel to take us to dinner with them and some cousins. During the walk to dinner through Jaffa Port, the old part of Tel Aviv, Shai’s fiancé, Dean, explained that there is a law in many parts of Tel Aviv that says when you want to create a new building, you also must agree to maintain an old one. This is what creates the interesting landscape in the city of Tel Aviv – old ornate structures next to architecturally funky new ones spotted with the run down ones. I’m into it. The city has character.

At the port, we walked along the path high above the water, dodging kids riding hover boards or bicycles and occasionally feeling the spray of waves crashing against the brick.

There are a lot of palm trees here – not something I expected. There are also quite a few Palestinians. Apparently, Jaffa is a popular Palestinian area. I initially thought Palestine and Israel were two distinctly divided places, but they’re not really. There is a line of division between the Palestinians and Israelis called “The Green Line,” which separates the West Bank from the rest of Israel. But there are also a lot of Palestinian settlements within Israel, in places like Jaffa.

Even though I felt completely comfortable walking through the area, I understood that for the Israelis, it was a pretty tense and uncomfortable feeling. The all live in the same area, frequent the same shops and restaurants, yet they seem to remain in separate worlds.

In my short time in Israel, I learned more about this conflict than I had the entire rest of my life. Yet, I know there’s a whole side of it – the Palestinian side – that I’ve yet to know.

At dinner, we were served many dishes that are familiar to me thanks to my wonderful Lebanese roommate, Sam, but also some new ones. There was a bunch of pita and a lot of small plates; the Israelis called them “salads” but they were really all sorts of different dips and veggies. At this restaurant, the waiters keep bringing more and more refills of these small dishes and the pita bread until it looks like you’re finally not eating anymore. Then, they bring out whatever main meat dish people ordered (although I was too full to even eat mine). No cheese, and the coffee afterwards is served without milk because dairy and meat can’t mix here. Israeli operates on Jewish tradition.

Also when the boys came to bus the tables they take ALL THE DISHES AT ONCE in a big pile. It was like extra entertainment, I’ve never seen such talent before.

Although a short evening, it was one well spent and definitely a good introduction to Israel.