The night before we left for Poland we went to Old Jaffa, where it was still in the high 30’s even at night. The ocean breeze at night in Jaffa was so so nice. Jaffa is just south of our hotel, a mostly Arab part of town with a very different feel to Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv with the most beautiful beaches, beach bodies & resorts I have seen, is hustling, bustling & very cosmopolitan, while Jaffa is a sleepy, quaint ancient place with narrow cobblestone streets, historical architecture, restaurants & markets.
Not unlike Petra where we just were, Jaffa has changed hands many times throughout history. The city is mentioned all the way back in 1400’s BC where it was conquered by the Egyptians and it is also mentioned several times in the Bible. New contemporary buildings are often built on ancient foundations so you also have a mix of new architecture with ancient history, pretty neat.
In Old Jaffa the Palestine-Israeli conflict doesn’t seem to exist. Although there was an older man walking around with a handgun visible to see on a holster. Arabs and Jews seem to live in peace, here and walk side by side.
It was a nice walk from Jaffa along the Mediterranean to the skyscraper hotels that face the beach in Tel Aviv . The restaurants & bars have their tables right in the sand of the beach facing the crashing waves. We finally got home only to get our 2:30 am wake up call that came far too quickly. On the way to the airport the boardwalk was still very busy with people walking along the sidewalks even at this hour.
Leaving Ben Guirion airport was like the other times entering or leaving Israel, it is an exercise in patience. It is really organized chaos with massive crowds of people even this early. We were at the airport about 3 hours before our 5:50 am flight. Besides the six, I think we counted ,security stations where the questioning is quite thorough and some people were pulling apart all of their luggage there is also always the presence of weapons, ranging from M-16’s to pistols. But we made it really all things considered without much hassle comparatively speaking.
George was detained a few hours of questioning where they moved him from room to room & they had a photograph of his father up on the computer screen. George is Canadian & the picture of his Dad was not a passport or drivers licence photo just an arbitrary picture. Kareem was held for over 8 hours. In fairness he has been to Saudi, & Peshawar, Pakistan but still they had all of Kareem’s phone calls & e-mails up on the computer screen & asked him who is this person or that person, who was this phone call to etc. Denise had her Facebook page pulled up in front of her & they asked about all of her Facebook friends ‘who is this, how do you know them? As they went through her Facebook page. A volunteer that came before me was held in jail for 2 days! I was worried & told Yasser that if Christie was held for 2 days she’d cry her eyes out. Baffled he said ’What?? Cry?? After only 2 days??? No…’ In a place where most, if not all of the adult males I knew have been jailed, shot or shot at it certainly puts a different perspective on what we see in Canada as an extreme experience. But we got out with no crazy stories to tell except that if you go do be prepared for some pretty extensive questioning
Every male in Israel serves three years in the military & every girl serves two years. suprisingly everyone I spoke to about it loved their experience in the military. After their service they are still on reserve until the age 45 or so. So what you essentially have is an entire nation as a standing army all trained in weapons & hand to hand fighting style called Krav Maga. Pretty overwhelming when virtually everyone you meet still works for the military. So you have guys in pony-tails approach your car at checkpoints with machine guns, very strange.
Arriving in Poland was refreshing, and cool. Nice reasonable temperatures, we even had a nice bit of rain today, & the smell of fresh cut grass & vegetation. Aahhh. Don’t get me wrong if you want heat Israel & Palestine is the place to go, but days on end of high 30 degree to mid 40 degree heat can be a bit much for this Canadian.
We arrived in Krakow, & went to the Wewel Castle that was built in the 900’s and added on to at different time periods all the way to the 1500’s. Hard to believe it looks old but when you compare it to the pyramids it does seem newer! Krakow is Much like Old Towne Warsaw only with the castle. Since most of Warsaw was destroyed in WW II besides Old Towne Warsaw is dominated by the square block like buildings of 1950 communism. Krakow the whole town is intact & has a very European feel. We went to the cloth market, to escape the rain & where the amber was surprisingly expensive.
The Nazis took over Krakow in WW II & set up their headquarters in the Castle. From here they placed the Jewish people in a ghetto and later sent them to concentration camps. Oskar Schindler, from Spielberg’s movie Schindler’s List, rescued employees from the Ghetto to work in his factory here, & he saved well over 1000 people from the camps
We are off to Aushwitz tomorrow, a trip that I am looking forward to & dreading all at the same time…
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