Narcissistic Travel Blog: Entry 1
6/7/11 – Jerusalem
We’ve arrived at our hostel, the three of us. “Stan”, “Buddy” (names have been altered to preserve a false sense of anonymity.) and I. We have a tiny room with a single cot and a bunk bed, and it’s late, but we’re pumped to be in the Holy Land. It’s a holiday, Shavuout, so the streets are quiet and we’re hungry. We manage to find some uninspired grub. As the man behind the counter takes various sauces and vegetables, adding them to the pita like pocket, Freddy declines the hard boiled egg extra. The dude looked up at me right after he chopped it and gestured “you want it? i already chopped the shit up”. I eagerly accept.
I decided I would get up early in the AM with the other eager beaver, Freddy, who had the bright idea to take a jog through the Old City on what was apparently an observed holiday in the holiest of cities. We got our fair share of puzzled looks, 2 idiot Americans jogging down an ancient street, never mind my running shorts look like Ivan Lendel’s 80′s Wimbeldon wearing high rise jawns. We managed to run alongside a prcession of observant Jewish families leaving early morning synogogue. Very embarrassing. But a great way to see the Old City and avoid the sweltering heat that was to come.
Our tour guide, Ori, was a work horse of a guy. Though he appeared to be in his late 70′s, it was clear that his formidable younger years in the Israeli air force prepared him to out walk me not only through the treacherous souvenir plagued streets of the Old City during the peak of the desert sun hours, but also show us the view from MOUNT SCOPOLUS!!! definitely my favorite buzz word to come out this leg of the journey. Just the way Ori continued to say MT. SCOPOLUS through the bootleg minibus PA system, made the place ubiquitous in my Israeli history refresh.
The next day we hiked Masada. On the drive up to the mountain from the highway, in what feels like the middle of nowhere, there was a stage being constructed. There was a giant Sphinx head, if I recall. And it just looks so damn dramatic, it’s unreal. I learned at the base of Masada in the tourist/ticket center, that the stage was for an opera performance. I’ll have to google which one it was. Anyway, I had a vision that it would be incredible if Kanye orchestrated some type of venue for a show. Really in the middle of nowhere, but in front of Masada. Whoa! Who could top that shit? He could come in on the gondola that comes down from the mountain. Talk about Jesus walking! I’m talking about Kanye lowering down thousands of feet in a glass globe.
We climbed the mountain.
All the overweight families on the top were actually clapping for us when we made it. They all took the gondola up and thought it was a feat fit for the likes of Moses what we did. What would have been more astonishing… Dan lighting up cigarettes the entire climb to the top of a mountain at the peak of a Middle East summer day? Or actually making it up without a cig? You’ll just have to keep wondering.
OR was it Freddy, the Abrams Tank Kullman, who was running off pure whiskey that was just kicking in from the night before? We rode the gondola on the way down.
