yeah yeah yeah

It's been a week since I boarded the Egged bus for Eilat. I should probably start with the recap.

Wednesday afternoon, I had a meeting at the Jerusalem PresenTense office to discuss the next issue of the magazine. I brought my (USY) duffel bag with, and headed straight to the Central Bus Station afterwards. Now, when I go to Tel Aviv, it's first come first served, and I can sit anywhere. Not so on this bus. I was assigned to a specific seat. I was lucky that there was room on the bus because the 5pm bus was the last bus to Eilat of the day. Not quite halfway through the trip (after we passed the Dead Sea), we stopped at a rest stop that had a gas station, bathrooms, burger restaurant, and a cafe/espresso bar. Around 9:30pm I arrived in Eilat and after wandering around and eventually getting a cab, I arrived at the youth hostel.

Now would be as good a time as any for a geography lesson. Here is a map of Israel:

(http://www.merriam-webster.com/maps/images/maps/israel_map.gif) Because this map clearly isn't mine.

Jerusalem is in the middle of Israel, where the star is. It's elevated, a little hilly. Green, parks. Buildings are made of stone. Jerusalem stone is a pretty common building material. It's light-colored and looks rosy when the sun hits it just right. It's pretty. The north is more mountainy and plays home to many kibbutzim (sort of an ode to communes of yore, and the first settlements in Israel) and forests.

In the south is the Judean Desert. I don't have fond memories of the desert. In the summer of 2007 when I was on USY Pilgrimage, we did an overnighter in the desert and I (as well as 2 other girls) woke up feeling really sick. We were driven to Beer Sheva and hospitalized there. The other two girls went to pediatrics but because I was 18, I went to the main area. After waiting around forever, they gave me an IV with fluids. I had initially been sweating, but the fluids were cold and I was soon freezing. To this day, that's the only time I've ever been hospitalized.

Anyways, there's not much going on in the south. There's Beer Sheva. There are some kibbutzim further south. There's Ben Gurion University. But mostly, there's desert. Sort of sandy, but mostly rocky desert. Then, at the very most southern tip of Israel is Eilat.

I stayed at the International Youth Hostel in Eilat. It was nice/clean. I got a bed, linens and towel, and breakfast for $25 (including the online reservation/booking fee). My only issue was that there was one key to the room and there were 5 girls. (My other issue is that I barely slept, but that was due to excitement.)

Sharing the room were me, a French girl named Sara(h), and three girls who met on Birthright and extended their trip. I've never really talked to anybody who has done Birthright, so I was very curious. My suspicions that the trip is loaded were confirmed. Granted, when you take a group of young adults with potentially little prior knowledge/interest in Israel and try to...change that over the course of 10 days, it's going to be intense. I don't mean this as a dig to Birthright. Frankly, I'm impressed with the job they do. I don't think any of the Israel trips I've been on have had the same intent/angle as Birthright.

Anyways, I went to a bar and grabbed dinner, went to bed and barely slept, then woke up on Thursday morning, ate breakfast, checked out of the hostel, and went on my way.

I took the Egged bus from the Central Bus Station to Taba, the checkpoint between Israel and Egypt. Except I got off the bus too soon and had a lovely 40 minute walk in the hot sun. Yeah, even at 9am, it was bloody hot.

Getting through security was a breeze...I just had to show my passport about a million times and get people to sign things. I paid the border fee to get into Egypt, changed my money from (New Israeli) shekels (NIS) to Egyptian Pounds (EGP) and went on my merry way...it took about 15 minutes total.

At this point it was 10:15 and the bus to Cairo was scheduled to leave at 10:30. I knew it would probably be late...and even though it was only 1km from the border to the East Delta Bus Station, I took a cab, to make sure I'd get there in time to get a ticket.

Which I did. I bought my ticket and a girl who looked about my age introduced herself. Her name was Sheerin, she said she was going back to Alexandria where she lives and studies in the university. Her English was pretty good and she was a godsend, not only because we could talk but because it's sort of unusual for a woman to travel alone in Egypt. Yeah.

While on the bus I had to pay another border fee, in order to leave the Sinai Penninsula and enter Egypt proper. I also had to show my passport several times. The bus was a coach bus and there was an Egyptian movie peing played loudly over the speakers. I sort of slept. Outside, there was a lot of...desert. Not much else.

All of a sudden, a city appeared. At first it looked small...but this was just the outskirts of Cairo. Cairo is HUGE and sprawling, and constantly expanding outwards. Sheerin lent me her cell phone (my Israel phone didn't get reception) and I called Hilary's mom to let her know that I was arriving at the bus station. We'd gotten in sooner than I had expected, so I waited around an hour and then saw Hilary's mom! Hilary had mentioned that she had pictures of her family on Facebook, so I knew what she looked like...but she was also easy to recognize because she was a white woman in Cairo.

We took a taxi to the bus station and then took a bus to El-Rehab, the suburb where Hilary's family lives. It took awhile, and it was REALLY hot outside. We arrived at their apartment, which had AIR CONDITIONING! Also, I slept on the first regular-height bed I've slept in in awhile. (At school the beds are lofted a bit, I sleep in a bunkbed at home, and my bed in Jerusalem is lower than the average bed.

Anyways, I saw Hilary! We hung around and caught up. Later, we went to the mall across the street from her apartment (Mall 2) and got food from the Lebanese restaurant there. I got shwarma, because shwarma is awesome. It's meat. Yeah. It had essentially the same things as an Israeli shwarma pita, though the meat was prepared a bit differently (grilled, maybe?) and was in what was essentially a tortilla. Anyways, it was delicious. We hung out some more, and then eventually collapsed in bed.

Story to be continued, because it's now 12:10am here...