One Month In...

First off, allow me to apologize for a lack of updates since I've been out here. Our schedule is crazy busy, so I haven't had much time... and quite honestly, much motivation... to keep this up to date.

But, now seems as good a time as any to go over some things that have happened since my move to the Middle East.

So, here is how it has gone down. Upon arriving in Eilat, we had a week full of Ulpan Hebrew to cover some language basics, and then we settled into our jobs and normal schedule / routine.

It works like this: Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we work at our hotels. Monday is Hebrew class. Tuesday is Hospitality Management class, followed by volunteering, and then an evening lecture or activity. Saturday is our day off.

Let's begin with Eilat itself. Yes, it is absolutely beautiful. And I've never lived so close to a beach or in such a hot climate for an extended period of time like this, which is awesome! But, it does have its quirks as well.. so without trying to make it sound like complaining (because I DO still LOVE it here)... here are some of the "funnier" things about the city...

- There is an airport in the middle of the city. This may seem convenient for people flying in, but it's a pain in the butt for those trying to get from one side to the other, as you have to walk all the way around. When the airport was built, Eilat basically only existed on the side of the Red Sea... now the other side is filled with housing developments / apartments and such. This, unfortunately, is where we live...

- ... but at least there's a bus! And it takes us door to door, from our apartment to the Hotel I work at, the King Solomon. The only downside is that it only comes once an hour! Boo.

- It's hot... really hot. I love the sun and the heat, but we're only in early May and we already have many consecutive days of 38-42 degrees celsius! I am quite curious to see what July is going to feel like. But at least there's...

- ... the beach! BUT the beach here is unlike any I've seen, in that the sand is not soft and pleasant, but rather very rocky... and because of the weather, extremely hot. So you basically always need to be wearing flip-flops. They also charge to rent beach chairs for the day, which is annoying, but I guess mostly logical. The Sea / Gulf are *very* beautiful though, with the clearest, calmest water I've seen... just a little too salty is all.

- The Post Office. Yes, that's right, *The* Post Office. I know Eilat is not huge, but come on... One Post Office for a whole city?! Really?!

- Stores being closed on Saturdays. Yes, I know this was to be expected because of Shabbat... it's just sometimes annoying that most things are closed during the day on our one day off.

- The price of sunscreen. I get it's because it's not made in Eilat, and being in a tourist city, demand is definitely very high... but $15 or more a bottle is a little excessive.

Ok, enough ripping on the city for now! Haha...

Work has been pretty alright. I won't get into too many details out of respect for my employer, given that this is on the internet and all... but I live the glamorous life of a waiter / bus boy in my hotel's dining room / buffet restaurant. This basically means I clear tables, refill coffee, set tables... no brain surgery or anything too too strenuous, aside from lugging around the sometimes quite heavy trays. The people I work with are quite fun though... two American girls and a guy from our group, and then an international cast of characters... lots of Israelis and Sudanese refugees / immigrants for the most part, some guys from Azerbaijan... it all makes for a very interesting dynamic. Some of them can speak English quite well... others, depending on the day and mood, it is either entertaining trying to figure out what they want... or a pain in the butt. My Hebrew, though, is slowly coming along, and hopefully I'll get some more study time in soon.

Our guests also come from all over... I'm really grateful, actually, that there is a huge number of French tourists in Eilat. They are always delighted with my ability to speak la langue Moliere, and I'm happy to have a conversation in someone else's first language (without them straining to find words).

So I've been having a pretty good time at the hotel, though I'm sure it will get better once I'm moved to where I've been told I'll work: Room Service. Actually, my future boss, the Room Service Manager, spent some time working in Edmonton. Yes, I said Edmonton. You are probably asking yourself the same thing I asked him. How the bleeping heck does an Israeli end up in Hell-Frozen-Over-monton?! He claims to have picked a company to work for and was willing to go wherever he had to for them... I think it may have been some IDF technique* to start training its soldiers for cold weather combat! Conspiracy alert! I just don't see any other logical explanation. But in either case, he's a cool guy, and probably much cooler now for having lived in Canada.

*Note to any IDF spies snooping this blog for suspicious activity: that last part was entirely a joke.

[to be continued after dinner]

View From My Window

I got a camera! Yay!

When I say it's beautiful here, I mean it... here are pics taken from our 2 large (nearly floor to ceiling) bedroom windows. Totally un-zoomed, even through closed windows...

Ani Garr Bei Eilat

So a long overdue update... sorry, I hope the anticipation hasn't been killing you. They've just been running us around a little much... between class, "group activities", showing us around, orientation sessions... I can't believe it's only been a week since I've arrived in Israel!

So how does one begin to describe a city of such beauty?... Let's start with where I'm living. Our modest apartment (2 little bedrooms of 2 people each joined by a hall that serves as a kitchen, and a bathroom at the end) is situated at the top of a hill above the city of Eilat. Opposite the street are sandy desert hills and the end of "civilization". From the road you can look down and see the Red Sea in the distance. Beyond that you can see enormous mountains, most of which are on the Jordanian side of the border it all in makes me smile every morning.



Walking down the hill takes you past a number of Falafel shops, corner stores, and knick-knack vendors (though the walk back UP the hill does require a lot of motivation in the strong strong heat). At the bottom of the hill is "the city" of Eilat itself: the Red Sea / Gulf of Eilat with its beaches and boardwalk, the hotels, the bars and clubs, the mall, and so on and so forth... even a Biblical-themed amusement park!



While living in a beach town may sound wonderful, especially to someone like me who has never had the privilege, there are a couple of downsides to this paradise on earth. The beach / sand / sea are annoyingly rocky, so it makes it hard to walk without flip-flops. But the super clear and calm water mostly makes up for this, so we can let that one slide. The other negative is the difficulty of getting around in the heat and sun. There is only one bus to get between the city and our apartment, and it only comes once an hour. Otherwise the walk is a good 35-45 minutes. And again, the way down is doable... it's the way back up that's the killer!



Hebrew class is going well so far and I'm learning and increasing my vocabulary bit by bit. For those that didn't know, I'll be working in a hotel here, the King Solomon, and I get three meals a day free in the hotel... if I can get down there. For the meals for which I have made the trip, the food has been quite good... some combination of salad, hummus, rice, potatoes, and chicken in buffet forms. Today we even had falafel there! And possibly the best part is a little freezer with delicious lemon popsicles you can take for the road.

I don't actually start work till the 25th, but much is going on between now and then. Tomorrow being Memorial Day, there is a ceremony we're attending tonight, and then a cemetery visit in the morning. Tomorrow night starts the celebrations for Israel Independence Day which is Tuesday. My new (temporary) home turns a ripe old 62! Time to par-tay!

Speaking of p-ar-tee-ying, we have had one night out and it was quite the team. There appear to be a bevy of nice clubs and bars in the city, and after a couple of drinks in the room, we went to a bar called Park Avenue and then a nightclub called Radio, both of which were a good time. The music here is a good mix of Euro and American popular hits which I'm definitely digging. Another night also had us checking out one of the bars down on the beach called Golden Beach, and sitting on a couch in the sand sipping a beer is not the worst way to spend an evening!





Until next time, may all your seas be Red! Not that the Red Sea is actually red or anything. Cause it's not, if you were wondering. But I already knew that... I swear!

P.S. Sorry for the lack of quality pics, but again, no camera yet!

And so here we are...

Hellllloooo out there, we're on the air, it's hockey night tonight! That's right, game 1, Caps-Habs, begins this evening. Being pretty tired, I doubt I'll make it up late enough to watch much, but we'll see.

With a few minutes to spare, I figured now would be a good time to check in and let any blog followers know that I did in fact arrive alive.

This past Saturday night, I boarded a plane in Montreal at 5 PM. By 11 PM Montreal time, I was landing in Charles de Gaulle, meaning 5 AM Paris time. I then had a fairly uneventful 5 hour layover (highlighted by a demo PS3 station), leaving Paris at 10:00 AM local time, or 4 in the morning for my internal clock. Of course, as of this wasn't enough, after boarding, they made us sit in the plane on the ground for 45 minutes before finally taking off for Tel Aviv, and touching down at around 4:45 PM local time, or 9:45 AM Montreal time. How's that for messing a person up?

Yet, strangely, my body has adapted quite well, and I've been busy out here ever since. That very night was filled with meeting people, dinner, orientation/intro sessions, and an evening stroll along the Tel Aviv beach.

The next day was Holocaust Remembrance and Heroism here in Israel, so we attended a ceremony at a local high school... which would have been really interesting if either 1) I spoke Hebrew, or 2) Any of it was in English. But still, it was good to be here for it I s'pose.





We next left for the north of Israel where we had a short hike around Mount Carmel (no, this is not where caramel is made... yeah, I know, I was disappointed too...) before pulling into the kibbutz where we enjoyed dinner and spent the night just chillin'.





The following day was an early wake-up for a 4 hour hike... yes, that's right, 4 hour hike... through the Golan Heights. And it wasn't just your typical 4 hour hike either. After starting off with a beautiful waterfall, we were told there would be an uphill (which was essentially climbing up a steep rock path) and then... all downhill from there.


What they DIDN'T tell us was that the downhill was going to be an extremely narrow path, much of which was leaping from stone to stone through streams and mud, with barbed wire protecting us from potential mine fields on one side, and prickly thorny plants jabbing at us from the other. Oh and of course low thick branches overhead that for relatively tall people like myself, can get quite annoying. BUT at least it wasn't ridiculously hot out (you know, like, only mid-20s Celsius), and it was actually a really fun time.

After the hike, we drove up another part of the mountains back to the same spot I had previously visited on Birthright in order to look down the hill at Syria. Our tour guide told us stories of the wars that won and preserved the Golan for Israel, and then it was off to begin our long drive south towards Eilat. The drive would first include a stop for ice cream at an awesome place with all kinds of crazy flavours. My selection was a chocolate Nutella-flavored frozen treat which tasted just like its spreadable namesake.



Next it was a stop at a kibbutz somewhere near the Dead Sea for dinner and sleep... well not much sleep in actuality, since the kibbutz bar got going, meaning a third late night in a row to kick off this fataberific 5 month adventure. On that note, let me just say that Israeli men are extremely direct and aggressive when it comes to women... even moreso than the French boys I got to witness in Rouen and Paris. Actually, even moreso than the cross-dressing (and/or trans-sexual) prostitutes on the streets of France. So if you are reading this and are a young female planning to come out here, please do be careful with that.

The following day was finally our arrival in Eilat, but I'll have to save the description of that for next time!

There is one piece of bad news which has me very bummed... my brand new camera that was a very generous going away / early Birthday gift from some very sweet folks is already broken. :( The inside of the LCD was smashed when I went to take it out of the case one morning. Sooo I will be mostly picture-less for a little while until I get a new one, as apparently fixing it won't be an option here.

But DON'T FRET!!! I promise more pics will eventually come along with more news from what I promise has turned out to be an absolutely beautiful city!

Ani Lo Medaber Ivrit

If you were looking for a reason to follow my trials and tribulations of adapting to life in another country once again, look no further than this...

Have I mentioned I don't speak Hebrew? Like, at all? Granted, I did take a course this year where I was taught the alphabet, and some basic greetings... and I just started brushing up with Rosetta Stone Level 1... but I'm pretty sure this will guarantee some hilarity and/or frustration at some point or another, and YOU wouldn't want to miss THAT, now would you?!

So here are some fun facts about the city I will soon call home, Eilat:

Eilat (Hebrew: אֵילַת‎) is Israel's southernmost city, a busy port as well as a popular resort, located at the northern tip of the Red Sea, on the Gulf of Eilat. Home to 65,000 people,[2] the city is part of the Southern Negev Desert, at the southern end of the Arava. The city is adjacent to the Egyptian village of Taba to the south, the Jordanian port city of Aqaba to the east, and within sight of Saudi Arabia to the south-east, across the gulf.

Eilat's arid desert climate is moderated by proximity to a warm sea. Temperatures often exceed 40 °C (104 °F) in summer, and 21 °C (70 °F) in winter, while water temperatures range between 20 and 26 °C (68 and 79 °F). The city's beaches, nightlife and desert landscapes make it a popular destination for domestic and international tourism.

Population: 65,000 (includes 10-15K foreign workers like myself)
Area: 84.789 km2
Location: South of Israel, bordering Jordan and Egypt, on the Red Sea
Weather (Average High by Month): April - 31.1 °C
May - 35.4 °C
June - 38.7 °C
July - 40.1 °C
August - 39.8 °C
Oh, and NO rain. Tee-hee.

7 Days till Paradise

Hyello.

Jak sie masz.

Welcome to my world. Don't be scared.

I assume everyone reading this knows very well who I am, so I'll spare you the basic introductions, and treat this just as a journal / travel log.

On the afternoon of April 10th, an important happenstance will occur in the life of one Dan Kramer. Now, normally, nothing that day could rank ahead of the Habs-Leafs game that night, especially given that it's Montreal's last game of the season, and, depending on how other games go this week, may or may not decide the fate of their playoff lives.

But alas, this April 10th is not just any April 10th. No, it's not JUST 11 days till my 24th birthday either (don't remind me... sooo old). Ok, enough with the suspense.

On April 10th, I will be boarding a flight from Montreal to Paris, France. Now, you may remember me from my Study Abroad blog when I spent a semester in France, and if you do, this phrase may sound mighty familiar. But here's where this one is different: after a layover, I will then be boarding ANOTHER flight!

Yes, that's right, your faithful hero will be getting on a second airplane, and this one to take him to Tel Aviv, Israel.

ISRAEL! AAAHHH! YAY! So excited. I'll be doing a program organized by Oranim which will have me living in the southern city of Eilat. I'll be working shifts in a classy hotel there 4 days a week, taking Hebrew and Hospitality Management courses, tutoring some English, and learning about the country and local culture.

While I've never been to Eilat, I hear lots of great things about it, so it should be pretty fan-friggin'-tastic.

I'll update later with more, but this should get the ball rolling and give you an idea of what's up / to expect!

Until next time.... Laylatov!