August, 2002
Israel | Hebrew Union College |
Travel | Family |
Fun | Thoughts |
Recent Photos | Home
As you know, last week was a rough one in Israel. The Hebrew University bombing was horrifying and unfortunately, Rachel Ann and I knew a few of the victims (not well, but enough to feel extra pangs above and beyond the norm). Today, more bad news near Tzvat, a town we both love since our time at the work/study program Livnot U'Lehibanot. I don't know the limits of what these Palestinians will do, but I pray that this is the bottom. We've been taking it easy for a few days, as have a lot of people around here, and we continue to take all the precautions we've set for ourselves and feel comfortable where we are.
So before I jump into a little snapshot of our experience here so far, I want to warn that it's kind of long. I won't be offended if you don't read it all, of course, but just in case you're interested in the details ...
Aside from the obvious, we've had a wonderful 7 weeks in Jerusalem. For me, the bulk of the first month and a half was devoted to Hebrew in our optional ulpan (intensive Hebrew language course). Most of my rabbinical (and cantorial and education) class decided to take the ulpan which was offered in Cincinnati, and another large group elected to spend their summers doing things besides studying Hebrew. Our group was the smallest - just 12 students and 3 spouses out of a class of 61 students. It was actually very nice to have such a manageable group, and I've had a great time getting to know a nice mix of people with myriad backgrounds, talents, and perspectives. The youngest is 22, the oldest in her mid-50s. We spent a lot of time with each other, of course -- mostly in class, but also having meals and celebrating Shabbat in each other's apartments, making our way around a limited section of Jerusalem, and taking several trips to various parts of the country. It feels very good to get acquainted with the elements of Israel off the beaten path ... I have spent lots of time through the years in Jerusalem and Haifa and Tel Aviv and Tzfat, but this is a chance to see specific neighborhoods, historic villages, archaeological sites, etc.
I am also amazed at how quickly my Hebrew has improved. After this short amount of time, I find myself understanding a lot of what I read and able to have decent (if superficial) conversations with people on the street. The challenge is to seek out opportunities to use my Hebrew outside the classroom -- a goal with has been somewhat thwarted by our decisions to stay close to home. It took a while at first, but I am starting to get into the flow of student life. It was so strange at first to realize that with all my free time, I have studying to do, but no work in the sense of what I've been doing for the past 9 years. And the idea that I actually have regular vacations is fantastic.
Speaking of which, Rachel Ann and I just returned a few days ago from our first trip. We are in the midst of a 3 week break ... it is such a unique opportunity to be in this part of the world, and to be able to take advantage of what it has to offer. When we first arrived, we were watching CNN and saw a travel commercial come on. It was beautiful, showing beaches and nice towns and mountains ... at the very end, it finally said, "Come to Croatia!" As you can imagine, we fell off our chairs laughing. But as we joked about it, we finally realized that it might be a wonderful place to visit ... Yugoslavia used to be the jewel of Europe, they are clearly begging for tourists, and it must be cheap. The last straw was an incredibly cheap ticket we found through the student travel agency to Venice! So we were off for 9 days in Italy and Croatia.
The whole trip was awesome. We started in Florence ... I had been there when I traveled 10 years ago after graduating college and fell in love with the city. It was even better than I remembered. So much art and architecture and history and culture that you can just soak up through your pores. We didn't get to see everything, but hit the highlights ... especially climbing to the top of il Duomo and taking in the view of the whole city. I could have stayed there for weeks. Then, another short visit to Venice, where we floated down the Grande Canal, went to the glass factory on the island of Murano, and watched the rain fall across the Rialto bridge.
Next we stopped in Trieste and then got on a bus for Croatia. It felt a little funny to be going into a region that is so strongly associated with a recent war. But as soon as we crossed the border into Slovenia, we were amazed at how well-kept and beautiful all the houses and shops were. Much nicer than just about any area we saw in Italy. We were glued to the windows as we passed into higher mountains, moving through beautiful valleys. Soon we hit the border with Croatia. Our bus wound through the hills, and finally opened up for our first view of the Adriatic ... so beautiful! We passed through a lot of small towns on our way to Rijevic -- the 2nd largest city in the country, and major port. As soon as we stepped off the bus, things weren't quite as easy as they had been in Italy. We were given conflicting information about many things, found that railroad service only went toward Zagreb and that if we wanted to go down the coast it would take us a few days, and discovered that the ferry along the coast would take 12 hours to reach a destination only a few hundred kilometers away. They had a Tourism Office, but didn't quite understand the concept of customer service, yet, and basically told us we just needed to walk around and find information for ourselves. It was somewhat amusing, and just reminded us that we weren't in 1st world Western Europe anymore, and that is part of the bargain.
Eventually, we rented a car. The agent was a great guy named Sasha and spent about an hour with us discussing politics, telling us what the war had been like in different areas of the country. He said that the current state of affairs includes lots of hard work and not much money. He said that people are very ready for things to get better, but that it may take a while. You could hear the pleading in his voice ... they desperately want to take part in the globalization that is reaching so many corners of the world. From what we saw, the people were very nice, warm, industrious ... I'm sure the country will turn around quickly.
Our drive down the Adriatic coast was absolutely stunning. We went about 1/2 way to Dubrovnic, passing through dozens of small towns. There didn't seem to be a lot of tourists -- I think they are more confined to the big resort areas in the north and south. We stayed at a lodge in a small town called Starigrad, watched some locals playing soccer, and found a cozy spot to watch the sun set into the Sea. It was truly sublime. The next day we drove North again, this time along several islands that follow the coast. The largest one, Pag, was gorgeous, and we found some spectacular views. Our plan was to catch the car ferry back across to the mainland ... what we didn't realize, however, is that we were fated to spend 3 hours sitting in the line up to the ferry. It was fairly excruciating, and another reminder that everything isn't quick and easy, the way we might expect it back home. We played backgammon on my Palm Pilot while we waited, and chatted with other "stranded" tourists ... lots of Germans, Italians, French, Brits ... even though there weren't throngs of people, they represented a great cross-section of Europe. Eventually, we rode across the water, and finished our drive into the resort town of Opatija. It was fun to see the energy here -- LOTS of people around, all sorts of activity, sitting by the beach (cement beaches), lots of cafes, walks along the Sea. We found a gorgeous hotel, the most beautiful, old hotel we've ever stayed in, with a balcony looking out over the Sea, and it was only $60/night! Including breakfast! We had 2 long days to enjoy the town, relax, swim in the Adriatic, walk to neighboring towns, and catch up on our sleep. It was so nice to have this element to vacation, as well as all the historicity of Italy, and we took full advantage of our time there. In the end, we didn't want to leave ... but we had a date to fly out of Milan.
We took a bus back out of Croatia Monday afternoon, then a train across Italy into Milan. We knew it was a major, modern city, but our mouths fell agape when we entered the train station. It is enormous, cavernous, beautiful. Wow. The next day was our last in Europe :( We decided to get out of the city, and went to see Lake Como, on the edge of the Italian Alps. There was a very nice, small town with some intersting buildings and nice views. We brought a picnic over to the park, and all of a sudden, found ourselves in the middle of one of the most impressive Holocaust monuments I've seen! It was very well thought-out and put together, including large marble slabs that had quotes from people who had been killed in most European countries, and sets of stairs that were cut off near the top. Very powerful. We still don't know what it was doing in such a small place, but it made an impact.
So now we've been back in Jerusalem for almost a week after a very eventful red-eye flight. The airline we flew was apparently "borrowing" a plane from some other country, and the Israeli authorities didn't want to give us permission to land. So we were stuck in the Milan airport for 2-3 hours with a group of Israelis who didn't handle it so well ... let's just say the agents called in a few security guards since the crowd got a bit unruly :)
Rachel Ann has been making great use of this year so far to develop new skills and explore some talents ... she has been watercoloring, studying Hebrew, working on the computer -- and yesterday, started learning a bit of HTML! So she (with very minor help from me ; ) put together a little website for us to share our photos. Right now, it is just about our trip, but soon we'll update it to include photos and words about our year here. We hope you enjoy it ... Just click here: Mark & Rachel Ann
I hope your life is going well. I know mass e-mail is impersonal, but I would love to hear back from you with lots of details about what has been happening with you.
Talk to you soon,
Mark
September e-mail
Back to Thoughts Page
