Armageddon

We met up with our new tour group early Friday morning in Tel Aviv. We started off the morning exploring Jaffa. Apparently, Jaffa is the original port city and Tel Aviv grew around it. Now, Tel Aviv is so big that Jaffa is seen as a little port lining Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv houses all the embassies even thought Jerusalem is the actual capital of Israel. That is because the Arabics as well as some other countries refuse to recognize Jerusalem as the capital due to its religious significance. Tel Aviv inhabits a quarter of Israel’s population, and consists mostly of immigrants. We visited the house of Simon the Tanner (where the apostle Peter stayed).

Jaffa (or Joppa) has great significance. In Greek history, it is the site of the Andromeda rock. In Biblical history, it is where Jonah was swallowed by the whale, where Peter raised Tabitha from the dead, and where Peter received the vision from God about eating unclean food (or ministering to the Gentiles). Unlike most of Jerusalem, the buildings in Jaffa are constructed from sandstone. The roads are still built from limestone, however, as limestone is better able to handle the wear and tear of travelers.

We then went to Caesarea, the city Herod the Great built to honor Caesar Augustus. It was extremely grand, featuring a theater, an amphitheater, a beautiful palace, and an extravagant bathhouse. It is said that Caesarea was even more extravagant than Rome. Here, Pontius Pilate governed and Herod, the last Jewish king, died Caesarea is where the first Gentile (Cornelius) became a believer, and where Paul was imprisoned at the end of ministry (and wrote the majority of the New Testament). We also explored vestiges of the Crusader’s fortresses that they left in the 1100’s.

We then headed to Megiddo, aka Armageddon. Because Megiddo lies on the crosswords of many many countries, it is the site of numerous and battles and wars. In fact, the city has been conquered and razed so many times that it is actually 25 different cities build on top of one another.

Many famous Old Testament battles were fought here including ones involving Deborah, and later King Josiah.  We climbed to the top of the city and looked down on the valley where people believe that the last battles in Revelation are to take place. Up to a hundred years ago, the city was surrounded by swamp. Now it is a dry desert. We exited the city by climbing through the city’s secret source of water – a hidden underground water tunnel that leads into the swamp surrounding Megiddo.

The Busiest Day

I have officially hit a wall. Today was the day I could have slept for 24 hours straight. Coincidentally, it was also our busiest day in Israel. I'm actually looking forward to our tour starting again tomorrow because the pace is much more manageable for me!

We started off waking up bright and early for an underground tour of the Western Wall. The Western Wall, aka the Wailing Wall is the only remnant of the Jewish temple. The temple that Solomon built was destroyed by the Babylonians. However, less than a century later, a much simpler temple was constructed to replace the original temple. Five centuries after that, Herod the Great began elaborate expansion on the Second Temple in order to restore the temple to its former glory. Herod's temple was then destroyed again by the Roman Empire, but a few pieces of the Western Wall remain as the stones were just too heavy to topple. Today, the Western Wall is a site of great spiritual significance. Even during our tour underground, we ran into many who were reading the Torah and praying in front of the wall. We also saw hundreds of notes left in crevices in the wall. It was definitely a very special and reverent experience.

We then visited two Israeli wineries. Both wineries were Kosher, which meant only "clean" people were involved in any of the wine-producing process. They were delicious. I ended up buying a bottle of Merlot from one winery, and a few wine jellies from the second.

We finally drove to our hotel in Tel Aviv. We walked down to Jaffa (which was Joppa in the Bible). It was gorgeous. In my opinion, Tel Aviv is like a humongous Austin with a salt water beach instead of Barton Springs. The downtown is crowded and sordid in some parts, and reminiscent of Austin's 2nd street in other parts. The people are diverse, liberal, and absolutely off-the-wall. I have decided if I ever move to Israel, Tel Aviv (specifically around Jaffa) is where I would be. I would LOVE to live by the ocean one day, but I'd be okay with the Mediterranean Sea!

Can you tell how absolutely tired I am today? We finished the evening off with dinner at one of the best seafood restaurants in Tel Aviv named Goocha. I had the Seafood Gnocchi, and I'll tell you that the restaurant really lived up to its reputation. Yum!

Scuba and Eilat

I got an email from my mom this morning (Israel time) reminding me to try not to be alone in Israel and to stop talking to strangers. I'll do my best as I realize that's how people like me get duped into dangerous situations. It's just that ever since I was little, while people watching I always imagined human beings surrounded by these little bubbles I called "realities." And we spend our entire lives living in our own realities (along with those of our close friends and families), but for a split second, our realities can intersect with a that of a complete stranger. We can let the realities meet quietly and walk away, or we can allow something to happen during the time those realities meet.

For example, this morning over an Israeli breakfast we met a Russian woman named Marsha who grew up in China but now lives in Australia. We conversed mostly in English, although from time to time she would slip into a little Mandarin just to brush up on her intonations. Marsha has a son who has been in a coma for 7 months, and she showed us picture after picture of her beautiful grandchildren. Before this morning, I never knew Marsha existed and after this morning I'll probably never see her again. But because we conversed this morning, just for a split second, the reality of this woman collided with mine, and I would like to think that we were able to affect each other in just a small way. 

But I digress.

The receptionist at my hotel, Loay, had been more than gracious in allowing me a lot of time on the hotel phone yesterday to track down my luggage. It is now safe with me, but for some reason it took the taxi driver 3 hours to deliver my luggage to our hotel after he arrived in Jerusalem. Loay reminded me that in Jerusalem, 5 minutes can mean anything from 5 minutes to 50 minutes. I remarked that even so, 5 minutes rarely means 3 hours anywhere in the world! Loay thought about it and nodded quietly in agreement.

While we were waiting for my luggage to arrive from the airport, I told Loay my plans of scuba-diving in Eilat. Eilat is the southernmost tip of Israel, and boasts of beautiful coral beaches bordering the Red Sea. East across the sea you are able to see Jordan, and about 5 kilometers to the West lies Egypt. Loay got really excited about my trip and it turns out that working the front desk at our hotel is only one of his many jobs. He is also a computer technician, and  moonlights as an underwater photographer. 

The story goes like this: Back in 2004, Loay was engaged to be married to his current wife. A little apprehensive about being "tied down," he decided he wanted one last hurrah before the wedding. He either wanted to learn to play the guitar, become a certified sky-diver, or become a certified scuba-diver. Guitar he decided he can learn when he's old. Out of the latter two, scuba diving was cheaper. So, he spent 10 days working on his certification. Before those 10 days, he had spent every day with his then fiancee. During those 10 days, he was away from her and he missed her so much that his affection for her grew (to which I interjected "absence makes the heart grow fonder!") Their wedding was scheduled for the spring, but when Loay returned, he moved the wedding up to the fall. He credits scuba for growing his love for his wife.

Years later, his wife would always worry about him when he would leave to visit the underwater world. He would always share with her what he saw, but she could not fully comprehend. "Why not bring me back pictures of what you see?" she suggested. And that's how Loay the Underwater Photographer began. In 2008 he had his first photography exhibit in Jerusalem. And he's had one every year since. 

I asked him if it was okay for me to post his website on my blog. Do fish live underwater? Here is the link to Loay's beautiful photos: http://www.palgallery.com/index.php.

I credit Loay for making our Eilat trip possible. He mapped out a route, gave us tips on how not to get a traffic ticket, recommended a scuba diving company, and even froze our bottles of waters for us for the morning (it was supposedly almost 120 degrees today) and arranged breakfast to be served early so we can leave with a full stomach. Yusef, the other receptionist, graciously walked up to our room and knocked on our door for the wakeup call. We were on our way by 6:45AM to the beach for some tanning/scuba/snorkeling.

On our way back to Jerusalem, we stopped by a McDonald because some of my Israeli yoga students had told me I had to try it in Israel. Apparently the vegetables are really fresh (I MUST try the salad!) and the meat is also grilled fresh. I'm not going to lie - it was pretty darn good food for fastfood. Of course the employees were making fun of us the whole time. I don't blame them. American tourists eating McDonalds abroad? It is pretty cliche.

Interesting People I met in Jerusalem

Upon arriving in Jerusalem, I was still pissed off from customs. That, added to the frustrating process of renting a car and having shared a hotel room with two other people all week (note: Tracy loves privacy and alone time), I recognized that my Pitta dosha (for those of you familiar with Ayurvedic medicine) was EXTREMELY out of whack, and I needed to cool down before I started taking out my irritation on my travel-mates.

So, I took only a few dollars with me as well as some pleasure reading (Elizabeth Gilbert's newest book Committed if you must know), and made my way down the street of the hotel. I quickly learned that walking around Jerusalem by myself as a woman is not a smart thing to do, so I turned around, bought a Coke Zero and a strawberry popsicle (or as the storeowner calls it, "strawberry ice") and walked to a small park next to the hotel to read.

The sun was just setting when a kind-looking man sitting in the park bench across from me called out to me and told me I needed to go see the sunset. "There is a beautiful view just down the street. You must go watch it from there," he said. "I don't know where there is," I replied. "Okay, I walk you down there. My cousins work at the hotel you are staying in. I know where to go."

Ibrahim is a Muslim who is a direct descendant of Lazarus (as in the one Jesus raised from the dead). He has worked as a tour guide for the past 40 years and actually lived in both North Carolina and Florida to learn English before coming back to Jerusalem in 1990. Because he is Muslim, he is not allowed to have physical contact with women after a certain time of day (or is it at all? I don't remember...either way he explained this to me when he refused to shake my hand). Still, he was gracious enough to carry my book and soda as he walked me down Palm Sunday Road (yes, the significance of the road is what it sounds like) while smoking a cigarette with his free hand. We walked past the Mount of Olives, the Garden of Gethsemane, and he gave me a brief history of post-Christ Jerusalem until we reached a gorgeous view of the sunset overlooking the Holy Lands.

As the view really does overlook Jerusalem, he then gave me a quick rundown on all the famous Jewish, Christian, and Muslim sites. You can see Bethlehem in the picture below:

I started to explain to him that I will be going on an 8 day tour of the Holy Lands soon, but that led him into a long rant about how he doesn't bring politics into his tours, but he refuses to call David and Solomon and Jesus "king" because they were not kings, merely prophets. I couldn't get a word in edgewise, and even if I could I was starting to get a little concerned about getting back to the hotel before dark. Luckily, he finally noticed my agitation and walked me back to my hotel. Before dropping me off, Ibrahim took it upon himself to give me a lecture about interacting with people in Jerusalem.

"Do not talk to anyone or look at the boys. You seem to be a nice girl, and you are here to find God, not to play with the boys. Do not smile or look at the boys and make sure that you use the word "no" instead of "yes." If you even look at the boys, they will come and bother you. Understand?"

I found it to be a little ironic since I was having this conversation with him because I responded to his greeting in the first place, but I nodded my assent. He was right, after all. That's when the front desk man at my hotel, Loay, looked over at me and said "I'd be wary of him." But Loay is another story, one that I will leave for tomorrow...

Our last day in Jordan

What I didn't know before was the significance of Jordan in Jewish history. There were three kingdoms that the Israelites encountered repeatedly: the Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Edomites. Petra was actually the abandoned kingdom of the Edomites ("Edom" means "red," and Petra is the "Red City"), the Ammonite kingdom now is the city of Amman, where we were staying the last two nights, and Moab is now "Madaba," which is the city where Rami now lives.

Today we took a tour of Amman and Madaba. Amman was actually named Philadelphia while under Roman control (the original city of brotherly love), and is very diverse as it has very small, poor houses, all the way to huge, multi-million dollar mansions. All the embassies are in Amman, as Amman is the capital of Jordan.

In Amman, there are still remnants of the Philadelphia amphitheater that seated 6000. It is actually still used today, although the smaller amphitheater next to it that only seats 500 is no longer in use.

Rami explained to us that about 43% of the Jordanian population consists of Palestinian refugees, mostly because Jordan gives refugees the same rights it gives its citizens: the right to vote, work, hold office, etc. In fact, in Jordan, women are given equal rights as men. Also, education is very important to the Jordanians. One third of the population are currently students! What I didn't realize is that Jordanians have little choice about their careers. Like much of Asia, at the ages of 17-18, they study hard for tests that then place them in their career track. Apparently that's why Rami fudged the answer a little when I asked him why he chose to study languages in school; he really did not have a choice in the matter. Another bit of trivia is that 60% of the population is under the age of 30. I asked Rami what happened to all the old people. He replied "nothing. They just keep having children!"

We then moved onto Madaba. Madaba is a much smaller city of 150,000 people. However, it is 80% Christian, a very different demographic than the rest of Muslim Jordan. We visited a tiny little Greek Orthodox church that houses the first map of the Holy Land laid out in mosaic tiles. First, Rami gives us a tutorial on how to read the map and a little Old Testament history of the land. 

Then we were able to look at the real thing:

The same church contains one of the "certified" miracles where a third, blue hand mysteriously appeared in the picture of the Virgin Mary and Child.

As mosaics is what Madaba is known for, we stopped briefly at a Mosaic school. 

As you can see, the women are hard at work doing the intricate work of cutting and gluing tiny little rocks to form elaborate pieces of art. It was here that I finally did a little souvenir shopping, buying little Dead Sea products for some friends as well as Mosaic coasters for my new apartment.

We then went to see Mount Nebo where Moses died. We climbed to the same exact spot where God showed Moses the promised land in Deuteronomy 34. It was quite amazing to see it as exactly described in the Bible. Mount Nebo is located on the plains of Moab (Madaba), overlooking the Jordan River and the City of Jericho just beyond. I stood in that spot and quieted myself, going over the promises that I personally have received from God. It's amazing how we as humans can have such little faith. In America, there is so little belief in God and what actually happened. It is an amazing experience to be in a land where people take Biblical stories to heart and believe it to have happened as it is written on their land. Talk about a renewal of faith!

Mount Nebo concluded our time in Jordan. We said our goodbyes to Rami and drove to the border where we spent 3 1/2 hours getting through customs. I'm actually VERY frustrated with the process. They almost didn't let me through because I didn't have my plane tickets out of Israel on me, and when they finally let me through, THEY STAMPED MY PASSPORT! I don't know if I mentioned this yet, but since my passport doesn't expire for another 5 years and I don't know for sure I won't visit countries such as Syria and Lebanon, all my stamps have been on a passport insert to ensure that I can still enter countries that don't recognize an Israeli stamp. After all that work, and sacrificing having stamps in my actual passport, the custom lady (who looked about 16 years old I might add) stamped RIGHT on my passport, and then tore up my passport insert with all the previous Israeli stamps with no shame. I'm a pretty good traveler as that is the one area in my life that I'm usually really laid-back in, but this is the first instance during my Israel trip that I got certifiably pissed off. BUT, we needed to make it back to Jerusalem without me being thrown in jail for yelling at customs, so I zipped my lips and continued on forward.

The Lost City

The day started out with a delicious breakfast! I have now decided that the Mediterranean breakfast is my favorite. There was a spread of dips (hummus and yoghurt), as well as fresh vegetables and fruit. I also noticed all the hotels have a cereal bar, and they always include Cocoa Puffs. Apparently, the Middle East loves their Cocoa Puffs.

We drove south along the desert highway where we saw almost nothing but rocky desert. Jordan is so dry that the each of the houses in Jordan have a little tiny water tower on top. Rami told us his family only used tap water twice a week. When the water tower ran dry, they would get more water from a “water tank truck.”

There is one fresh water spring that we stopped at, however, where most of the locals draw their drinking water. I swear I saw one or two cigarette butts floating in that water, but I guess in a land where there is no fresh water, you take what you can get!

After about 3 hours of driving, we turned onto the King’s Highway. This is the road built over the path that Moses and the Israelites took to the promised land. Coincidentally, this is also the road that many of the Muslims take to travel to Mecca. 95% of the population in Jordan are Muslims, and of the remaining 5% that are Christians, most are Greek Orthodox and only a small handful are Roman Catholic.

And now, Petra. Petra is Greek for “the rock.” Other names include “The Lost City” and “The Red City.” This is also where the wise men supposedly stopped on their way to see Jesus, where Moses struck the rock and water came forth, and Aaron is buried (Jabal Haroun, or Mount Aaron). The citizens of Petra were killed long ago by a flash flood and it was inhabited quietly by the Nabateans until  the city was rediscovered in the early 1800s. It is no surprise that Petra is one of the Seven New Wonders of the World as it is gorgeous. It consists of natural gorges (The Siq), canals, and tombs. Movies filmed in Petra include Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Arabian Nights, Mortal Kombat, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tyiger, Transfomers II, among others.

While most of Israel and Jordan are built out of limestone, Petra is carved out of sandstone. The stone is a beautiful red color, and the shade changes throughout the day due to the sun. In fact, many of the native women use the red in the stone for makeup and to dye their clothing.

Camel rides were fairly expensive, but some of the camel herders let me sit on their camel just to take pictures!

We ate a quick lunch of PBJ, and then met back up with Rami at the treasury. Another 3 ½ hours later we were back at the hotel.

I wrote yesterday that there were no street vendors in downtown Amman. When I mentioned that to Rami, he asked me which direction we walked when we exited the hotel. “I walked right,” I told him. “No! Walk left. You will run into a nice Jordanian street with shops and restaurants” he promised. Sure enough we found a busy street with shops and vendors. E, A, and I had kabobs at a cute little Arabian restaurant. I also got to try some Kebbuh, and I tell you it is delicious! Unfortunately, I could not capture any photos as my camera decided to run out of batteries just as we sat down for dinner. Now we are turning in early for bed. I might practice some yoga, do some more reading before we conclude our time in Jordan tomorrow.

A "Trivial" Intermission

To those who have been praying for my luggage, THANK YOU! Apparently it has been found and the airline is delivering it to my hotel when we return to Jerusalem tomorrow.

Anyway, I wanted to reserve a whole post for our day in Petra, so here’s a little post just about some things I learned about Jordan. You can definitely skip this post if you don’t find it interesting, but I find these trivial tidbits so fascinating!

As soon as we got on the bus today, Rami proudly informed us that we got our numbers from his people, the Arabic people. Of course most of us knew that, but what we didn’t know was that the number system was based on the number of angles in each of the numerical symbols. I’ve posted a few numbers below with the angles marked.

Zero has no angles, 1 has one angle, and so on. What’s really ironic is that as the rest of the world caught onto the Arabic number system, the Arabic language switched to Indian numbers, which are based on the number of lines in each symbol. The Indian numbers were easier to write for the Arabic people since they never had to pick up their pens. Arabic writing is from right to left, but the numbers are always read from left to right.

Speaking of the Arabic language, Rami and the staff of my hotel has been patiently teaching me a little Arabic. I know use the following words:

Shukran  = Thank you

Marhaba = Hello

Ma’assalama = Goodbye

Salam = Peace

Yallah Yallah = Let’s go

Apparently, I have a pretty pathetic accent. I wondered why the hotel staff was always giggling at me when I greeted them in Arabic. As Rami was teaching me names of breakfast foods this morning, he literally choked on his food laughing at some of my pronunciations. I wish I had a little more time to spend in Jordan as we are headed back to Israel tomorrow where I will have to learn a new set of vocabulary in Hebrew.

Rami explained to us that Jordan was so easy to get into for us from Israel because it is one of the countries that actually recognizes Israel. At the same time, it is friendly with Iraq because it allows Iraq to trade in one of their ports on the Red Sea called Aqaba. As a result, Iraq would provide Jordan with free gasoline and free education to its citizens. I had posted that Rami got his education in Saudi Arabia. That was incorrect. He got his education for free from Iraq. Well, he was there until 2001 when the war started. Then he came back to Jordan.

I asked Rami why he chose to study French and English in school, and he explained that tourism was one of the biggest industries in Jordan. Studying languages was simply a good way to get into the tourism industry. Rami probably spent 9-10 hours on the road today, and he and the bus driver were not able to eat lunch until 4pm because of us. With the heat and with having to walk almost 4 miles through Petra in that heat, that is a great sacrifice! Because of the heat, it is now the slow season, but during peak tourist season, the tour guides work every day of the month with no vacation! I’m sure the money is good, but the work is hard! It’s not something I am sure I would put myself through, that’s for sure!

The Tour Begins

Early next morning we woke up and I did a short 15 minute yoga practice (5 As, 5 Bs, and 3 closing postures) and ate a hearty Israeli breakfast at the hotel. Some random Israelis had showed up in my yoga class the week before and were raving about the vegetables in Israel. They were not kidding. The salad bar was the most incredible one I’ve seen, and that was at breakfast! There were a few hoards of Jewish kids also staying at the hotel who were traveling to Israel for their birthright trip. The Birthright Trip is a trip sponsored by an Israeli organization that pays for a 10 day trip to Israel for a young adult aged 18-26 to learn about their heritage. One boy started talking to me in the lobby and commented on how I had packed almost nothing for my trip. I told him I actually packed quite a bit, but the airline had lost my luggage. “You need to call them and tell them to find it or else because you are Jewish!” he exclaimed.  I quickly checked my face in the mirror and as far as I know, I still look Asian. So I reply to him “um, I’m not Jewish.” He looks very confused, “so why are you here???”

I also randomly met another guy also on his birthright trip who surprisingly was from Austin, TX! He grew up in Chicago, moved to Austin, and never looked back. It’s a small world.

Our tour company sent us a taxi that drove us from Israel to Jordan where we would be touring for the next 3 days. Unfortunately, in my hurry to leave the hotel, I left my journal there. Perhaps I’m supposed to lose it, as I’m praying this trip would mark a new beginning for me in finding myself. Still, with so many things missing, it’s frustrating to lose yet another item.

In Jordan, we met up with the fourth person attending the tour with us, Luana. I absolutely adore her. I was grateful to be traveling with E and A as they were married. That gave me friends on the trip, but I also felt that since they were married, I had the freedom to branch off and make new friends. Luana is a 29 year old teacher from Brasil who was also getting her doctorate’s in education. She speaks 4 languages, and is on the last 3 days of our 12 day vacation in Israel. She is a Christian, and is extremely outgoing and talkative. We also met our tour guide, Rami. Rami is, in my opinion, a very very handsome man. He was born in Madaba, a city next to Amman, and studied English and French at a university in Saudi Arabia, and of course he grew up speaking Arabic. He lives with his parents still, as that is the custom for single adults in Jordan, along with his twin brother and two sisters. The day after our tour ends, however, Rami will be taking a few weeks off to celebrate the wedding of one of his sisters. Rami is extremely knowledgable about the history of Jordan, and quickly brought us up to speed on the history of the Jordan royal family.

The first day, we went to Jerash, which is part of the Decapolis. Jesus did a lot of his ministry in Jordan (he was baptized in the Jordan river) and the Decapolis consists of 10 Greek – then Roman – city-states. In Jerash we saw a reenactment of the gladiators and chariot races in the Hippodrom. We also visited the Temple of Zeus and the Temple of Artemis. All the buildings in Israel and Jordan are built from limestones since they have plenty of that material. There were many columns in Jerash – apparently, it is the site of the last Corinthian columns. The columns were connected with steel bars that allowed them to be flexible (thus resilient) in earthquakes. The weather was comparable to Austin – about 95-105 degrees, but it was very dry. In fact, Rami informed us, Jordan only gets about 2 inches of rain each year!

We ate lunch in Jordan (E and I decided to be cheap and eat our leftover Hummus and Tahina) then visited more of the ruins. It was absolutely amazing!

We then drove to Amman where I am now writing from at the hotel. After I finish blogging, I plan on walking around the city to look for a spare battery for my camera, a new journal, and eat some authentic Jordanian dinner.

[update]

We are staying right in the heart of downtown Amman and surprisingly, there isn’t much in terms of street vendors. I ended up going to the mall and buying a Shawerma combo meal (with fries and a drink) from a Lebanese food stand. I wanted to try a Kebbeh there, but unfortunately they were out and the food stand was closing down soon. The two guys working at the counter were named Oday and Laith got me a cheaper meal off the menu, and Oday was kind enough to promise me a free Kebbeh if I returned the next day. For only 2.6 Dinars (about $3.60) for an entire meal, I probably will be back tomorrow for more.

I stopped by a camera store to look for a battery charger for my Nikon D50. Since we are going to Petra tomorrow, I wanted to make sure that my camera battery can last through all the picture taking. Since the charger cost almost as much as a new point-and-shoot digital camera (and if my luggage is found by the time we get to Israel, I really won’t have need for an extra charger), I ended up buying a cheaper point-and-shoot. I needed a new one anyway, and although this is a lower quality one than my old one that got run over by a car, it’ll do. 

Shalom Shabbat

Our first evening, we stayed in a tiny hotel in Jordan. E and A decided to explore the town while I grounded myself by practicing half of the primary series of Ashtanga. Afterward, I battled jet lag by joining E and A on their walk through New Jerusalem. It’s strange not knowing any of the language here, but luckily for us, there are three languages all the citizens learn: Arabic, Hebrew, and English. Pretty much everyone we met can communicate in English.

It was the Sabbath in Israel, so the city was like a ghost town! All the shops were closed, but it was a nice walk nonetheless. We decided to walk farther and explore the Old Jerusalem, which is the area where Jesus walked in and died in. Because a huge portion of the Old Jerusalem is now Christian, a lot of the businesses were open. Almost the ENTIRE CITY was converted to vendors and shops, which was really sad. There was a little portion that was still the temple and schools for the children.

Since we were leaving for Jordan for 3 days, I had to buy some clothes for that part of the trip because I wouldn’t be able to retrieve my luggage during that time. While E and A took more pictures, I split off to do some shopping. Haggling was fun as always. One thing I learned is that the Israelis LOVE the Asians. One shopowner who I bought a dress from asked me if I had a boyfriend. I answered no, though I HAVE to start lying about that! He then proceeded to say “do you like me? I be your boyfriend. I free in 3 hours and you join me.” “Um, no…but thank you for the dress.”

I got lost in Old Jerusalem, and ran up and down the streets looking for E and A. Luckily one old man understood what I was looking for “Where’s the small pizza stand????” even though there were probably 10 pizza stands in the city. We ended up grabbing dinner before heading home (BEST hummus I’ve ever had) and going straight to bed by 8:30pm and slept almost 11 hours straight.

Toto, we are not in America anymore

To give some of you background information of why I went to Israel, I’m giving a talk on my research at the International Association of Relationships Research (IARR) conference in Herzlia. Because I LOVE traveling, and because I don’t know if I’ll ever get a chance to go to Israel again, I decided to spend a little more time here touring. Luckily, a fellow labmate (E) in the relationships lab I volunteer with is also giving a presentation and she, her husband, (A), and I decided to go to Israel 2 weeks before the conference and tour the sites.

Right now, we are staying in Amman, the capital of Jordan, and luckily I was able to purchase a few hours of Internet use for my laptop. Thank goodness, because not much else has been going that smoothly for me on this trip. At the same time, God has been really gracious in meeting my needs. I’ll explain:

Thursday night I drove to Hurst, which is a small city close to Fort Worth, to meet up with E and A who were staying at their friend’s house. Around 11:30pm I got lost in Hurst and it took a little over an hour to find the house. We woke up early Friday morning to get to the airport. From there, we flew 4 hours to Toronto (since we are flying Air Canada), and then another 11 hours to Tel Aviv. The flight was smooth and enjoyable. The food was decent on the flight (we were served dinner and breakfast) and I didn’t get much sleep since I was too busy catching up on movies I’d missed. On the flight, I watched one episode of 30 Rock, She’s Out of My League (hilarious!), Back-up Plan, Clash of the Titans, and Valentine’s Day.

Customs was surprisingly easy to get through. However, when we landed in Tel Aviv, my luggage got lost! I think someone took it home by accident since the only bag left on the carousel was one that looked curiously like mine. The big bag had most of my shoes, clothes and bathing suit, toiletries, and sunscreen. More urgently, it had my camera charger. I was pretty upset about my lost baggage, so I’m praying it will turn up by the time we travel back to Israel from our 3 day stint in Jordan. Luckily, I had my laptop, my USB flashdrive (with my presentation), a few days worth of clothes and toiletries, and my makeup in my carryon. I’m grateful also that I chose to wear my Chacos on the flight rather than some flimsy sandals so I’m all set on footwear.

A Pilgrimage of Sorts

I leave for Israel this week and I finally started feeling excited today. There is still a lot to do before I leave, but the end is in sight. I feel that this trip will be a significant one. Lately, I feel as though I've been called to surrender everything and finally forced to face my insecurities and my shortcomings. Perhaps this trip is meant to be a spiritual pilgrimage for me as I'm seeking God about who I am, where I'm going, and what His promises are for me while walking the very ground He walked long ago. I'm literally leaving for Israel with no home, no romantic prospects, multiple options for a career path but no clear direction as to which one to choose... it's like I'm an empty vessel ready to be filled with whatever is in store for me in Israel. And that is an exciting place to be!

Sthira and Sukha

I'm sitting on my bed right now surrounded by boxes filled with my stuff. This is certainly a time of being stretched and challenged as I'm balancing finishing my Master's Thesis, constantly grading papers and exams, preparing for my upcoming talk in Israel (not to mention preparing for traveling in Israel), keeping up with my yoga practice and teaching schedule, all the while trying to move out of my apartment before I leave the country on July 8.

Yet my heart is full and I'm grateful. My yoga practice has been teaching me the importance of the balance between Sthira and Sukha, or strength and ease. To find the strength and foundation as I move through postures (and life), all the while finding the softness and ease within each posture. As life gets hard (and the summer months get hot), it's so easy to harden the self just to get through it all. I found in my yoga practice, I've been trying to muscle through my practice as the summer months make a vigorous practice almost unbearable. Yet, when I harden, I cannot grow in my practice. I miss out on the entire purpose of my practice. Likewise, as life gets crazy, and my responsibilities start to weigh me down, it's easy to harden my heart and my mind and muscle my way through it all. But if I stay hardened and try to move through life relying only on willpower and inertia, I miss out on so much! Not only that, but I can drive the people around me that I love away.

So during this time of craziness, I've tried to take time out just to stop and sit. To find the stillness and softness amid the chaos of my schedule. To quiet my heart and mind enough to sit before the Lord and allow Him to speak to me. And He has. Not only has He been speaking, He's been showing me just HOW MUCH I'm blessed.

• In a time when I've been feeling frustrated with yoga teaching, He's provided me with classes to go to where I can be a student again and learn from Master teachers...
• Not only that, but I have a teacher willing to mentor me and pour into me...
• I have true friends in Austin who I found that I can be vulnerable with and grow with...
• I have people offering to help me move, providing me with boxes and helping me to actually pack...
• And people coordinating trucks and manpower so I don't have to rent a U-Haul or call people up myself...
• I'm sitting on so much data for research that I don't even have time to analyze it all before the Israel trips...
• And I have not only one, but two advisers, who are invested in seeing me succeed in the academic world...

So with this craziness I'm realizing how closely God is holding me in the palm of His hand. Which only means that He has a plan for me, one bigger than I can imagine. All I can do is to soften and surrender to Him, to open my mind and heart to all that He has to offer. And to be real. Not to strive toward being someone I'm not, but to just be me.

Finding Myself

May was a blur! I subbed yoga classes like crazy, just about figured out my master's thesis AND my dissertation topics, and have been trying to catch up with friends. This past month, I feel like I've attended many birthday parties, pool parties, and grill-outs, attended a 2 day stats intensive workshop, finally make it to B-Scene at the Blanton, somehow lucked out and scored cheap tickets to the MGMT concert.

This month, my goals are to write up my master's thesis (hah!), submit a Symposium for SPSP, finish my presentation for Israel, and sell my furniture and get ready to move out of my apartment.Somehow in there I'm also planning a pretty crazy birthday party for one of my best friends.

I've been learning a lot of lessons about life and friendships lately though. Lucky for me I've made some of the best friends I've ever had in Austin. Friends who know me inside and out, who love me, rebuke me, encourage me, and help me find myself and be true to myself. I've learned that there IS something to the self-fulfilling prophecy - that to a large degree, you create the environment you are in. That if I stop being so worried about how others see me and whether they accept me, and just go through life assuming as if I already am, chances are people who treat me that way. I've just witnessed so many people so sensitive to rejection that they actually act in such a way that turn people away. People treat you the way you want to be treated. As simple as that truth is, it's been blowing me away. I've carried this into my professional life and found that it's made a huge difference in the way I'm able to network and build connections.

Now I'm not saying that there aren't limitations to this - obviously there are or everyone would be able to overcome any circumstance they are born into (which is just not true). But just this little insight has been very freeing for me. It frees to me to simply be secure and confident in who I am in all areas of my life!

Random Thought

Sometimes I wish life came with a manual on how to protect one's heart.

Contradicting "Truths"

I had a good but brief conversation with my adviser yesterday that basically highlighted the need for us to sit down and talk about the next 2 years of my graduate career. I am hoping to write up a Master's Thesis this summer and earn a new set of letters after my name to show for my last 3 years of work. In the fall, I'm probably going to propose my dissertation. That is, unless we decide to shoot for a grant (either a lab grant or a dissertation grant for me). In the off-chance we get the grant, I will likely stay in Austin a 6th year, which would mean I'd wait another year before proposing a dissertation. In the meantime, I have been itching to start bridging the gap between my research and the topic of human trafficking, and I need to start focusing my attention there.

Long story short, there is a lot to think about. Which brings me to an observation that I've made recently. 

As a yoga teacher, I'm a huge proponent of practicing what I teach, and I realize there are certain aspects of the Ashtanga practice that I teach but don't do. For example, I teach my students that the most important part of the Ashtanga sequence is the last three pranayama postures and savasana. Confession time: I've been hypocritically skipping (or at the very least truncating) those postures in my own practice. In the Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis makes the point that we as humans often hold multiple "truths" in our heads and don't pay attention to how these "truths" contradict one another. The reality is that there can only be one truth and truth cannot contradict itself. So if I really believe that it is the truth that savasana is the most important aspect of the practice, I cannot skip it in my own practice. If I do, I'm saying that I don't believe that particular "truth" and I believe in the "truth" that it is not important in my own practice. 

Which brings me back to research. I'm convinced that my interest and growing passion for social justice, particularly human trafficking, is from God. And that a lot of my training and education is preparing me to do something in that area. That it is no accident that in the last month, about 4-5 people have independently told me to think more deeply about International Justice Mission and their work. Plus my hangup in this career direction is my insecurity about my statistical knowledge and I find out on Tuesday that this summer I have the opportunity to take a 2 day intensive workshop with one of the greatest statistical minds in our field. So, if I believe that God is directing me into this area of research, shouldn't my actions reflect that? Not that I should stop my research on relationships (I still think that it is important research), but I need to allocate more of my time to social justice research, and stop worrying about advancing my career in topics outside of social justice. Basically, if I really believe that God called me to something, there is no need to keep relying on a plan B. I cannot say I believe in God's calling, and at the same time act in a way that shows distrust in Him. That is, I cannot demonstrate belief in two contradicting "truths" because it is both philosophically and logically impossible.

So this summer I have to get my priorities straight in my career. If I really believe God's calling, my actions and the projects I take on MUST reflect what I believe to be true. I have finally decided to say no to an opportunity I had recently to start a business that could potentially be very successful. It's not about money. It's not about success. It's about doing what I'm called to do and to be true to the Truth that am professing to believe.

Yoga Sub Schedule

I added a module on the right that lists all the upcoming yoga classes I'm subbing.