Flashback Series: Israel Final Part 3

Tel Aviv

July 2014

Tel Aviv was the absolute perfect way to end my trip in Israel, relatively speaking. Part of the reason I had wanted to go to Israel was so that I could visit the beach. No joke. I had been beach deprived for a year and I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I planned to hit Tel Aviv last. I figured if I started with the beach I would be reluctant to leave and see what the rest of Israel had to offer. So, to go all in, my choice of accommodation for Tel Aviv was: The Beachfront Hostel.

A real picture from the rooftop! The sign was posted above the railing. 

Yes folks, I spent my last three days in Israel on the beach. Not the entire time, of course. It’s not every day you’re in Tel Aviv. But it’s not every day you’re at the beach either, especially when you’re from Minnesota.

Tel Aviv Beachfront

Tel Aviv itself is a modern city, created only in 1909, though it was built on the banks of the port of Jaffa, a city which has existed for at least 4,000 years. Tel Aviv, meaning ‘Hill of Spring’, was a primarily Jewish city in an Arab-dominated town. It was a part of the Zionist movement, for Jews to return to their homeland which they had been banished from so many centuries before. The Jews turned Tel Aviv into a modern, urban center with running water among a wasteland of dust and dirt. They did a pretty great job. The Beachfront Hostel did not disappoint: there were nice, clean rooms right across from the beach, with a lovely rooftop and common area with a view right to the water. I chatted with some of my hostel roommates, who were girls from New York City (Brooklyn) spending a few weeks in Israel with the Birthright program, the same organization of young people I had seen on top of Masada.

Views of Old Jaffa from the beach promenade

Though it’s a new city, the area has been around and well known for a long, long time. Do you remember in Jerusalem I entered the Old City via Jaffa Road and the Jaffa Gate? The Port of Jaffa is historically the port city of Israel, and it was right down the road from my hostel. As a bonus, there were fantastic paved sidewalks along the beach promenade for walkers, joggers, and anyone in between. (Fun fact: when Cody visited Tel Aviv during his station in Egypt, he he participated in a half marathon that took place along the same beach promenade I'm discussing). 

I spent many many hours on those paved trails, but I quickly learned to go only early in the morning, and once the 9 or 10 AM sun hit, it was either stay inside or put on tons of sunblock and go swim in the ocean, because the July heat was extremely hot. However, around 5 or 6 pm things started to cool off a little again, and the evenings were very pleasant for walking and exploring.

Old streets of Jaffa

Though Tel Aviv is supposed to have a cutting edge nightlife, I wasn’t too interested and instead limited my exploration to the areas around the beach and down to Jaffa, which held more to explore than I could see in weeks. I took a free walking tour of Jaffa (read more about its history here) and enjoyed wandering up and down the small hills, peeking into some of the galleries and shops, and even sampling from one of the city’s most famous bakeries. There was a fantastic city market that stretched for blocks and blocks, with beautiful handmade goods and brightly colored fabrics. It was good my backpack was near to bursting by then, or I would have been in trouble. 

During the days I laid out, read books, and swam in the turquoise waters to my heart’s content. Aside from the Jaffa tour, I didn't visit any museums or do any learning other than my books, as I simply needed some time to relax, especially after my jam packed few days in Jerusalem. It was a perfect way to end my time overseas. 

View of Tel Aviv from Jaffa

 However, as most of you know already, that wasn't exactly how my time in Israel ended. 

Here's the story:

All throughout the Israel posts I've been updating you on the then-current situation in Israel, in regards to the public tension between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The childrens' deaths, from both sides, that happened just before and during my time there turned out to be fuel to the fire. Ashamedly so, as I was traveling in Israel, I did not keep up with the news as well as I should have, because I was in for a big surprise. 

I headed to the airport on Tuesday, July 8th to wait for my afternoon flight to Budapest, where I would have two more nights and fly home on the 10th. (I was actually supposed to fly out on the 9th and spend a night in Amsterdam, but the day before I went to the airport I discovered there had been a mistake with my booking, and after an hour on Skype with the company they ended up rerouting me and gave me the extra day in Budapest). As I went to the Israeli airline to check in, the lady informed me that there was an overbooking situation, and she asked if I would be interested in giving up my seat in exchange for a hotel stay, a $600 voucher, and airport credits to use while I waited to hear if everyone checked in for the flight. Now, this is a typical overbooking situation that has happened to Cody I don't know how many times, but had never happened to me. At that point, I had the extra night in Budapest anyway, and I would have a free hotel stay, so I said why not? Sure, I'll give up my seat if everyone checks in for the flight. She said excellent, gave me my airport vouchers, and said to come back in two hours to see if I will be able to fly or not. 

So, I trotted over to the coffee shop and treated myself (my journal reports I had a free coffee and pastry), before finding a place to sit on the floor next to an electrical outlet to charge my iPod and hang out. I put my headphones in and started listening to music. 

There were frequent muffled announcements, which is typical for an airport, so I paid them no mind. However, about a half hour later I looked up to see a large, red-faced man dressed in a uniform yelling at me and pointing to my right. Alarmed, I took off my headphones to see what the problem was. I don't remember exactly what he said, but it was something along the lines of "rockets, airport, go to shelter!" All I could ask was "who?!" He replied, "Hamas, from Gaza! Now go!"

At this point I noticed the airport lobby was nearly empty, and everyone was heading to the doors down the stairs. I tried to put two and two together, and realized that the Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, must be firing rockets and aiming at the airport. I guessed the trigger had been the incidents with the children, which was partially true. 

I thought the stairs down to the bottom of the airport would never end. Clearly, they had something like this in mind when they built it, because I went down no less than thirteen flights of stairs under the airport. I was with a multitude of people, most of them looking rather calm and even laughing with each other, others of us looking fairly terrified. I wished I had stayed on the wifi long enough to message my parents and tell them I was okay, but it was too late at that point. We just had to wait. 

It turned out we were only down there for about fifteen minutes. As we went back upstairs, I went straight to the desk, and was informed that everyone was checked in for the flight, and they were going to take off as soon as possible. I was staying overnight. I asked if she thought we would even be flying out the next day and she said we would have to wait and see. She said that the missiles had stopped firing, and that they were going to try to get as many planes out as they could. I had a 6:45 am flight the next day. Once again, there was nothing to do but wait. I filled out the paperwork for the voucher and went to the transport desk to arrange for my airport transfer. As it turns out, I was put up in a very nice hotel, in a suite, which I tried to enjoy as much as I could.

As soon as I got into my room, I connected to the wifi and was able to catch my mother on Skype, who had luckily only heard the news a few minutes before and didn't have too much time to start worrying. I told her all I knew, and that we would just have to wait it out. The news was sounding pretty bad on her end, and after we spoke I turned on the TV to find the news announcing the attacks, and that the leader of the Hamas was quoted to say "we are not going to stop." Ten minutes later, the alarms went off in the hotel. Back to the shelters. 

Wednesday, July 9^th

I woke up the next morning after an uneasy night of sleep. We only went into the hotel shelter once, for about half an hour, but I had anticipated needing to go back one or two more times. I stayed up to watch the news, and just kept hearing about the attacks and that there was no sign of ceasefire. I tried to think about what might happen if I had to stay in the country. Should I go to the embassy? Should I book more nights at a hostel? I didn't know what I would do if my flight didn't get out, but I knew it was a real possibility. At one point during the night, I opened up the window and looked out into the sky. Though my view was blocked with trees, I could hear faint booms, like thunder. Later I learned what I had heard that night were the missiles from the Iron Dome, Tel Aviv's defense system, firing back at the missiles coming from Gaza, to intercept them and keep them away from the city.

I dressed, packed, and went down to the hotel lobby, where I was greeted with a lovely breakfast bag and directed towards the coffee while I waited for my pickup. I spoke with the taxi driver on the way about the situation, and he said that it is sad, but this is the way of life in Israel. He said this wasn't anything new, that they were so used to bomb shelters and potential attacks that it seemed normal to him. This explained why it hadn't seemed like people were too concerned in the shelters. I tried to imagine living a life in constant threat and danger. 

When I got to the airport, the lady at the desk informed me that again, they were going to try to get as many planes out that day as they could. The airport was busy, and I headed through security to wait for my plane. Everything went seamlessly, all the way until we were buckled in and waiting to taxi to the runway. Then, the captain got on the intercom and informed us that "due to the current situation, we will have to wait a few moments before we try to take off." My heart sank. It was one thing to be worried at the bottom of a bomb shelter, but it was quite another thing to be buckled in a plane outside of the airport, like a sitting duck. That next half hour was the most scared I had been the entire time. 

Finally, after what felt like an eternity (45 mins), we began moving. We crawled to the airstrip, began accelerating, and lifted into the air. Many people began clapping, and I'm sure I breathed an audible sigh of relief. Once we were a reasonable distance away from Israel, I relaxed, put in music, and slept. 

Budapest. 

From my journal: “I’m safe – in the literal, true sense of the word. I don’t think I’ve really gotten it all together in my head, but now that I’m out of Israel and can relax, I’m processing.”

When I arrived in Budapest that day, I made my way to my hostel, dropped my bags, and headed to the modern shopping and tourist street – I just wanted to sit and relax. I got a coffee and did some writing – along the way I checked Twitter updates and discovered that the airport I had flown out of had been evacuated and closed just three hours after I took off. I never felt like I was in immediate danger, but I hadn’t been sure if I would be able to leave the country. Waiting on the runway exacerbated this anxiety, but when we landed in Budapest it was all over. From my journal, I recorded some of the Twitter updates, and ended with "The one good thing to come out of this is that I'll be paying a lot more attention to Middle Eastern politics. I travel to learn, and now I have a much more in-depth and personal perspective of so many places. I must remain aware of the world."

The End. 

I still enjoyed the rest of my time in the city, and ended up doing a little bit of shopping and even got a haircut. One of the World Cup finals was on that evening, so I walked around and found a place to sit down and watch – tons of young people were out gathered around outdoor TVs and screens, socializing and enjoying the game. I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you who played and who won.

From Budapest, I had a layover in Amsterdam, then a hop across to Reykjavik, Iceland. I had grand plans to get out and walk all around the city during the midnight sun hours, since I had such a long layover, but as fate would have it, it was cold, rainy, and pretty miserable outside the entire time I was there. Instead, I inspected every item at every gift shop and restaurant in the small airport and had a few successful naps on some benches.

When I finally boarded the plane for my direct flight back to Minnesota, I was ready. Reykjavik was the last stop of my unbelievable journey around the world, and as much as I would have loved to stay and continue exploring for the sake of adventure and knowledge (in any city along the way, for that matter), I knew it was time for me to go back home for a while. United States, here I come. (written July 2014)

P.S. If you'd like to read more about the situation that unfolded in Israel during my time there, it is now documented (I can't say how credibly) on Wikipedia as the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, link here.

February 2016. Savannah, Georgia:

Thank you for checking back in with me! So ended my time overseas. Aside from a quick trip to Canada last summer, I've stayed in the States for nearly two years now. I'm so glad to have finally caught up with these blogs, but of course I have more that are half started/finished. I'll follow these up with some from my time in New York, some of my travels in the States the past year, and catch up to living in the South. Take care ya'll!