Israel & Jordan | FindPenguins

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Trip start
July 8, 2023
Israel & Jordan Traveler
Welcome to the Middle East
July 8, 2023 in Israel ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C
Viktor accompanied me to the airport in the morning so that I could catch my flight to Tel Aviv. I made conversation with a lovely Israeli family on the plane and killed the 3,5h flight time like this, as well as with generic love songs and some sleep since Vik and me stayed awake throughout my last night in Austria and I felt completely destroyed. We landed 25 minutes early and I finally realized that I had indeed for the first time in my life travelled to the Middle East. That was huge. Almost like discovering a new continent, I stepped foot onto an entirely different part of this world for the first time. And I had no idea what to expect from this experience, all that was stuck in my mind were the countless warnings I'd received about coming to Israel in the first place. At Ben Gurion, the first thing I noticed was that it was incredibly HOT. Like, not Austrian summer hot, but "holy fuck I'm in the Middle East" hot. I had no idea how I was supposed to survive this weather while walking around and exploring, but it bothered me less than I would have expected. I've always loved the heat, so I could actually handle this despite wearing… "modest" clothing that covered up most of my body. Even the vegetation looked completely different, there were palm trees lining each street. There was Hebrew writing everywhere which was about as foreign to me as the entire rest of it. The passport control, which everyone had warned me about, took approximately 20 seconds so I didn't even get my passport stamped and was free to simply walk through the border control. Since I arrived on Shabbat, there were no trains or buses running from the airport to the city so I had to get onto a taxi. I was warned beforehand about Arab taxi drivers in Israel so I wasn't that much looking forward to this part of the journey. However, Siko, my taxi driver, was very lovely and drove me to a store where I was able to buy a SIM card even on Saturday and afterwards gave me his number since we planned on maybe going out to a pub together after his shift. I arrived at my hostel where I took a short break to charge my phone before heading out to explore Yafo. I started by going to the Great Synagoge before heading all the way down to Jaffa Port. From there, I walked along the beach to meet with some people from the hostel to go swimming. The water had an amazing temperature and the waves were incredible. This beach was perfect for Corgi and me to go surfing the next day. We sat down on the sand with some beer and wine and hung out until a beautiful golden sun set above the sea. Then we walked back to the hostel to get ready for my first experience of the bustling nightlife of Tel Aviv. We decided to go on a pub crawl, however, since I hadn't eaten anything yet we went to get some Israeli food, fried meat and hummus in a bowl with fresh bread. Afterwards, we ran into our friends from the hostel and went to two different bars together. In the second one, I started talking to a guy from Maryland and the two of us decided to go back to the hostel for some beer and chill conversation until I eventually passed out in the hostel bar from being exhausted.Read more
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Tel Aviv
July 9, 2023 in Israel ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C
I woke up on the couch of the bar to Corgi ringing my phone since he walked all the way to my hostel after I didn't show up at Hahagana station. I stole some breakfast from the hostel for him and we headed out to take a bus to the port. We stopped at a store to get a bit of beer and then headed to the waterfront to drink some coffee together. Then we went to the beach and swam a little before hanging out in the sun with some music. Afterwards, we took the bus to Sarona to get some food and went shopping at Carmel market. By this time, I felt really comfortable to be in Tel Aviv. Despite being a middle eastern country, the people are extremely open and friendly. I love the vibe that this city has. It is yet to see how well I'll fare in the more conservative parts of the country. On the way back to the hostel, we spontaneously stopped by a tattoo shop so I could get my travel tattoo. The Arabic part in it was Corgi's handwriting, permanently marking him and our day on my skin. Afterwards we sat down at the rooftop bar of the hostel with some beer and hip-hop blasting from the speakers until he left to return to Haifa. I went to bed early since the next day, I'd start exploring the country a little.Read more
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Israel & Jordan Traveler
The Holy Land
July 10, 2023 in Palestine ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C
I woke up at 2am, unable to fall back asleep, so I went outside on a quest to buy cigarettes. One thing I noticed was that Tel Aviv apparently doesn't sleep. There's something going on and people walk around all of the time, even most stores are open 24/7. Half of the city consists of gay bars and nightclubs, while the other half smells like weed. I found cigarettes quickly and headed back to the hostel where I hung out with people until it was time to catch my bus to Jerusalem. I realized that getting up at 2am hadn't been my best idea and decided that I would try to fix my sleeping pattern. Although I had been very euphoric in general and about traveling specifically, the sleepiness pushed my mood down a bit. I spent the bus drive listening to music and daydreaming about seeing Viktor again. We arrived at the religious capital at around 9am and started our walking tour around Old Jerusalem by the Jaffa gate. We walked through the Christian quarter to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to look at Jesus' tomb. Afterwards we walked through the bazaar and ended up at Via Dolorosa, the street Jesus had to walk up with his cross, before continuing through the Muslim quarter to the Western Wall where a Barmitzva took place. As beautiful Jerusalem is and as interested I am in religious history, part of me felt weird about being in such a highly religious place. We walked through the Jewish quarter where I got myself some street food falafel before returning to the Christian quarter where we checked out a rooftop restaurant and I finally got myself shawarma with chili sauce and tahini. We then went to the holocaust museum which was a quite depressing experience. Especially the memorial for the 1,5 million murdered children was tough to take in. After I was done, I sat down in the café of the museum where I spotted Jonathan, our guide and pretty chill jewish guy, praying in the middle of the café. I sat down with him afterwards and talked about life in Israel and traveling while smoking some cigarettes together. We returned to Tel Aviv where I got myself some sabich before falling asleep at a surprisingly reasonable time.Read more
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The Hashemite Kingdom
July 11, 2023 in Jordan ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C
I overslept and almost didn't arrive in time for my bus to Jordan. Luckily I made it within the last minute and spent the ride listening to music and falling in and out of sleep. We drove through Palestine and along the Dead Sea towards the border crossing near Eilat, until eventually the sun started to rise above the deserts' dunes. The sun had barely scratched the horizon and we already had 26 degrees. The further we would drive into the desert, the worse it would get. Although it had already been hot in Tel Aviv, the city still felt like it might as well be somewhere in Europe. Here, it was abundantly clear that I had traveled to the most different part of the world I'd been to so far. And I hadn't even reached Jordan yet. Border control took around an hour, so it was 9:30am by the time I was able to enter, buy a visa and get on another bus to go to Petra. We drove through the Wadi Rum area, a beautiful mountainous stony desert with camels roaming around freely. After Wadi Rum, there was nothing but sand as far as the eye could see. Sand, and goats. I started wondering how anyone could not only survive but permanently live out here. It seemed so foreign to me, yet at the same time, oddly beautiful. We arrived at Wadi Musa around noon and started exploring the ancient ruins of Petra, the rose city. The reasoning behind that nickname soon became obvious as the rocks sparkled in rainbow colours in the sunlight. After reaching the treasury at the end of the path, I climbed up a cliff to get a better view and went through perhaps the most pretentious photo shooting of my life. The way back led all the way upwards and the sun was burning, so I was exhausted by the time I finally reached the restaurant that was our meeting point. Once we finished our food, we started our way back. Remembering how much of a hassle it was to come here in the first place, I realized that I'd have a long night ahead of me. I spent the bus drive the same way I spent the one in the morning and talked to a group of Americans, before finally arriving back at Tel Aviv around 1am.Read more
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Israel & Jordan Traveler
Haifa
July 12, 2023 in Israel ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C
I took the train from HaHagana station to Haifa in the morning, where George picked me up with his car to go back to his family's apartment. We had breakfast together at his balcony and watched memes together before heading out so that he could show me his city. We drove up to a viewpoint on top of the mountain that gave us a beautiful sight of the sea and the city. Then we went to look at the temple and the centre of the city, ironically called the "German part" which does not even closely resemble anything in Germany. Afterwards we went to the beach where I unfortunately lost my moon meteorite ring and drank some beers together. Then we went to a café where I got some cold ginger, honey and turmeric drink and we discussed how he might best get the number of the waitress there that he has a crush on. Unfortunately, we also saw a starving kitten there. I've seen way too many unfed and uncared for animals both here and in Jordan and it kind of breaks my heart. We drove back to his place, on the way to which I learned a lot more Arabic swearing thanks to Geroge's road rage, to eat dinner with his family. This was finally the first time since I went to the Middle East that I ate European food since his mum made ravioli. George then gave me some stuff to help with the countless wounds I had gathered on the soles of my feet by now. Afterwards, we played music together. Well, he played some, I just tried to. He drove me to the station to catch my train back to Tel Aviv on which I almost fell asleep. Back at the hostel, I sat down in the garden with some beer before calling it a night.Read more
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Israel & Jordan Traveler
Beach break
July 13, 2023 in Israel ⋅ ☀️ 33 °C
After nonstop being on the run for 5 days, I made myself a chill time and went to the beach where I befriended the first random group of people my age. They were Israelis and Moroccans living in Canada and a lot of fun to hang out with. It was barely noon and I was already tipsy. As much as I dislike the taste of Israeli beer, it does kick in. Maybe that's also due to sitting in the Middle Eastern sun with 30 degrees and the fact that Israeli beer is almost as strong as Belgian ones. I jumped from group to group until I ended up with a bunch of Israelis with whom I got high and we swam out way further than we were allowed to, into the high seas, where the waves almost drowned half of us. Luckily, I'm a good swimmer, so I was the only one who could keep up with this one Israeli guy swimming all out to the boy where were not allowed to go to and were able to sit down on the attached string and have some conversation before swimming back to the safe waters, where the other dudes were waiting and shouting for us. I then joined another group of Israelis by telling them that they have shitty beer and we took the bus together to… no idea. We went quite far outside of Yafo, away from the tourist spots, and it felt like I was finally getting the true Israel experience. I lost the guys in the mall and went shopping by myself, spending way too many shekels on cute outfits. I took a taxi home with a friendly but also slightly intoxicated driver and drank some beers until I fell asleep.Read more
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Israel & Jordan Traveler
Lo efrit
July 14, 2023 in Israel ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C
I woke up early and went to the beach with an Israeli guy from the hostel until he left to visit a friend, so I jumped from group to group, swam some and met a lot of Israelis along the way. I ended up drinking beer, smoking weed and cigarettes with people I'd never met before and ended up meeting an Israeli guy, Michel, in the water who took me back to his place where we hung out before driving me back to the hostel.Read more
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Israel & Jordan Traveler
Goodbye, Tel Aviv
July 15, 2023 in Israel ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C
I spent the day at the beach again, jumping from group to group, getting slightly drunk, a good tan and a bit of a sunburn on my nose. I went to bed early to catch my flight back home the next morning.Read more
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Trip end
July 16, 2023