A secular Jew visits Israel

I recently returned from a 10 day trip to Israel provided by Taglit Birthright, with the Shorashim (Israel with Israelis) trip provider on Bus 127. It was an incredible experience, and a wonderful opportunity, since the trip was essentially free and everything was planned out for us. The particular trip I took was one for DC area young professionals, which was a good group to travel with since we are all in the same age group and live in the DC metro area (with a few exceptions). In addition to about 40 Americans, there were 6 Israelis who joined us on the trip, and it was great being able to experience things with them, rather than in a more isolated bubble of foreign tourists. Add in the tour guide, medic/guard, and the two American group leaders, and we filled up our tour bus completely. The ten day trip was packed with activities and there was very little time to sleep. Luckily it was bookended by two Shabbats, days dedicated largely to rest. I will do my best to recall everything we did on the trip below. (Although some of this was written while I was still on the trip, and I will refer to the trip itinerary throughout).

I turned 26 this year, which is the oldest age you can still be eligible to go on a Birthright Israel trip. After researching and discovering that the trips can be pluralist and are not religious pilgrimages but are open to even non-believing Jews like me, I decided to take advantage of my Jewish status and go on the trip. As an atheist, I do not believe in God, but as a Jew (who has had a Bar Mitzvah) I still think of myself as belonging to the Jewish culture. I think that Judaism is not simply a religion, but is a heritage, and a people that one belongs to regardless of personally held beliefs. I haven't been very connected with other Jewish people since I ceased going to Hebrew School after my Bar Mitzvah, so this would also be an opportunity to travel to a land amongst my own kind, where being Jewish no longer puts me in a minority.

Thursday, June 14

Every trip has a beginning, and this one starts with a ton of travelling and very little sleep. The night before the trip I did not sleep very much, having spent the evening frantically packing my bags and preparing for the trip. I think I probably overprepared, I was spending time ripping new CDs to my mp3 player, and packing a few too many portable electronics (mp3 player, ps vita, psp, 3ds, tons of games, kindle) for the anticipated long periods of traveling and boredom I foresaw.

Christina's Mom took me early in the morning to the BWI train station. I was very happy and surprised to see that Christina came with us, and we got to say goodbye at the train station. I took the Amtrak up to Philly, then transferred to their regional rail, the SEPTA train, to get to the airport. Being a fan of Game of Thrones, I was amused by the name. Anyway, once at the airport about 6 hours before our flight, I realized I had no idea where our group was meeting. I had not gotten an email for this. So I wandered over to the international terminal, and finally found a group of young people sitting around with their luggage, and recognized a few of them from the orientation. I sat with them, introduced myself, and we chatted while waiting to pick up our tickets in a couple hours. (We had to be at the airport over 4 hours in advance of the flight!)

Finally, after getting our tickets and going through security, we went to get dinner. Most of us ate together at a restaurant with a bar, where I enjoyed my last non-kosher cheeseburger (which was actually somewhat interesting, it had some unusual gourmet-sounding ingredients in it. But then the "parmesan" fries were literally regular fries with some powdered parmesan sprinkled over them, which was really amusing.) Then a couple hours prior to the flight we had to head through a special second security at the gate, where we had our waiting area. The flight departure was at 9:15PM and the flight was 11 hours to Israel. Unfortunately, my seat was in the dead middle seat of the middle row, there was a woman with a young toddler to my left, and our row was behind a wider row so our trays could not be used. We instead had smaller trays that pulled out of the arm rests. I had to look to the left for my tv, but I mainly used it for the GPS and instead relied on my new Playstation Vita for entertainment. I played a lot of Lumines, and tried the beginning of Gravity Rush, and enjoyed both games immensely. Michelle, one of the 40 American Jews in our group, sat on the other side of me, so we chatted for awhile. I didn't really manage to sleep on the flight, even though I had my pillow with me. I was cramped in the middle, the seats recline about 2 inches, and the toddler kept kicking me at inopportune times (and another toddler nearby started crying at one point). I was really glad to be off the flight once we arrived, but sadly there would be no rest for awhile, because it was the middle of the day on...

Friday, June 15

Once we arrived at the Tel Aviv Ben-Gurion airport, soon after we got our luggage, we went to meet our tour guide and the Israelis that would be joining us on the trip. They were singing to us and had everyone join in a circle, put arms around the shoulders of those near us, and hop around in a circle. I was too tired for that kind of shenaniganery, but participated reluctantly.

We exchanged money in increments of $100 for Shekels and picked up water bottles and Israeli snacks outside the bus. I exchanged just $100 and got 370 shekels for it, and this was almost enough (towards the end I would use my debit card for some things, and take some more shekels out of an atm for shopping on the last day). The bus was completely packed, and throughout the trip they would ensure that everyone was present simply by asking if anyone had an empty seat near them. I sat near the front, but was asked to move so the leaders could all sit together at the front, and sadly the only seat left was the very last row in the dead center, so I went from center seat on the plane, to center seat on the bus that day.

We drove to the Neve Shalom Guest House, which is somewhere near Jerusalem. We were all assigned roommates. Each hotel we stayed at we would get new roommates. This night I was with Fred, one of the Israelis, and Sam, and they were both friendly decent guys. After unloading at the rooms, the group hiked out to a scenic vista above a valley where we were properly introduced to the land of Israel, where the guide, Iftach, told us "welcome home", and had us close our eyes and come up with a word that described how we felt. (Mine was "history"). Every night of the trip the group got together for silly ice-breaker games, kicking off with "riding the pony" this night. (Jenny, a kindergarten teacher in our group, was already familiar with most of the activities, and was able to demonstrate this one by going first). I was really glad I never got picked for this one.

We went to a large dining room for an enjoyable Shabbat dinner. I could definitely get used to always having lots of hummus and pita available. Then more activities, which we would do basically every night after dinner, and finally time to sleep.

Saturday, June 16

Shabbat. The day of rest. How little we appreciated being able to sleep in on the first day of our trip. I skip breakfast, which I would end up doing every day, since my stomach doesn't wake up with me and can't handle food in the morning. We have a free day until sunset to do what we want, so I join a large group that is going hiking. We end up splitting into smaller groups, and wind our way back to the vista from the day before. We then get lost on the way back. I foolishly took my backpack (with all my valuables) with me on the hike, so am very tired, but it turns out we'd be doing a lot more hiking this trip and it was a good warm up. It was incredibly hot, and I got very sweaty.

We then spend the rest of the free time in the pool, which felt amazing in the heat of Israel. I didn't even have to get used to the water temperature here, it just felt great to slip in. It was very crowded with lots of people, so our group hung out at the deep end, where there was a ledge that you could stand on around the edge.

Once it got dark and Shabbat ended, we got on the bus and went to a mall for dinner and shopping. Outside the mall they had everyone get into a circle to assign us numbers from 1 to 47 so we could count off to determine if anyone was missing, something we would do a few times during the days to come. Realizing that 42 was contained within this number, and that they had started counting fairly far down the circle from me, I hoped that I would get this number - even thought maybe I could switch spots with someone near me to claim it. I know I would probably be in the low 40s at least, and as they continued counting up it seemed more and more likely I'd be very close to 42. Then, without me needing to change spots at all, they ended up reaching me and assigning the number 42 - the meaning of life, the universe, and everything (see: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams) - and I had my first spiritual experience of Israel. For the rest of the trip I felt a certain geeky pride when I called out my number, even though only a couple other people got the reference. (But that's what being a geek is all about).

Sunday, June 17

Sunday was the first day packed with activities. On this, and most subsequent days, we had to wake up at 7, eat breakfast at 7:30, and leave on the bus by 8:15. I always chose to sleep in a bit instead of breakfast. First, we traveled to north to the Golan Heights, to an ancient city called Tzfat, which is where the Kabballa (Jewish mysticism) originated. Our tour guide Iftach shares a lot of history, and has a good sense of humor in addition to being very knowledgeable. The stone streets, buildings and passageways were beautiful. I bought some of the most incredible truffle-flavored ice cream I've ever had, it was very fresh and creamy and really hit the spot on such a hot day when my stomach had been upset.

After touring the streets and hearing about history, including a really thin alleyway where a woman used to wait every day with tea and cookies to greet the messiah because she believed he would come down that alley, we headed to see a store where they hand-make candles. We saw a demonstration of how to make the twisted woven candles used in some Jewish ceremonies. We also saw an ancient Jewish synagogue which was really beautiful. During an attack from Syria, much of the city was burned, and many pacifists were praying in that synagogue. An extraordinary coincidence (what some might call a miracle) occurred when a grenade was thrown into the synagogue, right as everyone inside was in the middle of a prayer that had them bow, so nobody got hurt.

For lunch I had the best falafel i have ever tasted. It was very inexpensive (around $4 when you convert it), and incredibly flavorful. I ended up picking up a truffle ice cream milk shake to wash it down.

We visited a young man named Avraham who emigrated from America to study the Kabballa and interpret it into abstract paintings (which he sells). I enjoyed the air conditioning, and being able to sit down for awhile, while he regaled us with his story, and talked to us all about Jewish mysticism, an aspect of Judaism many aren't aware of. The main point is that the world was once all good, and it shattered, and our goal in life is to do as much good as we can to bring the world back to that state. Which is definitely a noble ambition, even if Kabballa is based on some very bizarre ideas. The guy acted just like a Jewish hippie, he said the Kabbala 'blew his mind', and the deeper understanding he had gained made him 'totally blissed out', and that your true name, your Hebrew name, has an incredible significance. (Coincidentally, my Hebrew name is Abraham too). He was a very entertaining character.

After this very full day of touring Tzfat, we boarded the bus again and headed to the Jordan River for rafting. We broke into groups of 6-7 to raft down the river, and got very wet, but it felt nice in the heat. At one point we had to avoid cows in the water. Rapids were very mild, and actually a bit disappointing in that regard, but the rafting trip was very pleasant. I definitely want to do more rafting or tubing back home based on how much I've enjoyed it back in Jamaica and now in Israel. (And I live right near places to do so in the Potomac!)

This night we drove to the Kibbutz Afik Guest House in the Golan Heights, which was absolutely gorgeous, the walkways were filled with lush greenery. The bathroom wasn't very nice though, since there was no divider for the shower besides the curtain that wrapped around it, so the floor of the entire bathroom was constantly wet. I roomed with Simon and Ilan (another of the Israelis), and we stayed here for two nights as well.

Monday, June 18

We traveled to an old bunker on top of Mount Har Bental, near the border with Syria. It was cool exploring the bunker, and interesting learning about the history of attacks on Israel and how they prevailed despite being surrounded by enemies.

After this we went for a long hike that was mostly in an ankle-deep stream. The water was very cold, and felt great on such a hot day, and it was nice that the hike was in the shade. At times the water felt a bit too cold, actually! My water shoes came in really handy for a second time after the rafting! Most of the other hikers used old sneakers that they planned to throw away, and they got pretty gross, so it was great having shoes that were designed exactly for this kind of activity - they are comfortable, have tread like sneakers, but have mesh and rubber and drains so they let the water back out and dry very quickly and cleanly. I love them.

We stopped at a mall for lunch and I finally got to try shawarma, which I've been excited to do after seeing it on The Avengers. (Seriously, very effective product placement there, and it wasn't even intentional!) Shawarma was really tasty. I'd have it a couple more times on the trip, with varying degrees of quality. It makes a nice meat alternative to falafel.

Pictures of the base cannot be posted, so here's Shawarma!

Tal, one of our Israeli participants, was able to organize a very unique visit to an active military base, and a visit with his squad along the border with Lebanon to see a tank. This is not usual for a Birthright trip to do, so we felt incredibly fortunate to have this very rare opportunity. We got to talk with the soldiers, peer at the Lebanon border with powerful binoculars from a watch turret (with a machine gun), and see their jeeps, and tank-like pumas. They even let us take a group shot on top of a puma, although we aren't allowed to post any pictures online from the bases due to security concerns. It was really remarkable thinking that you could basically be in a base and looking across the border at an enemy in Israel - they are surrounded by unfriendly countries (although they have peace with some of them now, they've been at war with all of them in the past). This is very different from America where we need to pick fights halfway across the world, but our borders (drug and alien trafficking aside) are basically safe. It was a bit scary riding in the bus on the road that was right along the Lebanon border as we went to visit Tal's squad in an undisclosed location on a dusty road.

On top of the bunker (since photos from the base cannot be posted)

Tal's squad was very happy to greet us and talk with us, and show off their very modern Israel invented tank. It was very impressive. They let us climb on it and go inside. It was really amazing to get that kind of opportunity, and the technology was very impressive. I was able to appreciate everything, despite being a pacifist. Israel needs to defend itself, and this technology is key to keeping the land safe.

At this point I was already very tired. Luckily I managed to avoid sunburn the entire trip, with lots of applications of sunblock. While my stomach bothered me sometimes, I wasn't one of the people they needed to pull the bus over for.

Tuesday, June 19

Tuesday after waking up bright and early at 7AM as usual, we went straight to a long hike down a cliffside of Mount Arbel. It was very hot, even in the early morning, and got hotter as the sun rose and we needed to keep hydrated. Apparently the two water bottles I brought that fit in the pockets of my cargo pants wouldn't be enough, so I purchased a large 3 liter one and Zach offered to carry it in his backpack for me since we needed our hands to be free. The hardest part of the descent had a rope you had to hold and rungs to climb down where the path was very thin and you were practically clinging to the side of the mountain. This was pretty scary, but ultimately everyone made it down safely.

We then went to Tel Aviv and took a tour of the fairly new Rabin center. It was super modern, we all had listening devices that either broadcast our tour guide or sound from whatever screen we were standing in front of (or sometimes randomly played clips of old music based on where you were standing). The museum told the history of Israel in context with Prime minister Rabin's life and world events. Sadly, we had to rush through and skip things to get through the museum in the time allotted, but everything we did see was very informative. If I find myself in Israel again I may need to revisit this museum and take some more time there.

We next went to the Independence Hall where the Israeli declaration of independence was signed, in a relatively non-descript small art gallery, which was chosen largely for safety and secrecy. After dinner we had a concert with Israeli musician Udi Krauss, who introduced us to Israeli rock music and played a number of songs for us. We then had just over an hour out in Tel Aviv on our own. Most of the others went to bars, so I ended up exploring on my own.

Once back at the hotel we weren't supposed to leave again, we basically had a curfew despite all being adults. The birthright trips are fairly strict in herding us, and we generally aren't allowed to do anything on our own. This was disappointing because this was our only night in a big city that never sleeps. Also, it turns out our hotel was two blocks away from the beach at the Mediterranean. The crazy idea to break away and go to this beach was brought up, and somehow I got roped in to going. So several of us snuck out late at night to walk the two blocks to the Mediterranean and wade in. The weather was cool, the sand felt incredible, and the water was warm. I'm not one for beaches, but I really enjoyed the experience. Unfortunately, my nice pants got soaked and I had my wallet with me, so decided to head back to change. Dan, one of the other guys went with me, and we agreed to convince more people (who were up late partying at the hotel) to join us. Since our feet were covered in sand, we had to walk through the city barefoot carrying our shoes. What the heck, we were already dirty. The pavement was cool and for some reason it didn't hurt to walk on at all. But then we got lost... we were lost and barefoot in Tel Aviv. Despite the hotel being a mere two blocks from the beach, we kept going in circles on every wrong street. I even had grabbed a street map from the lobby, and we tried to make sense of it, but couldn't quite figure out where the hotel was. We almost decided to retrace our steps back to the beach, but decided to try one last street. Finally we saw the hotel, and we were quite relieved. Luckily for us the others had actually beaten us back by this point and gotten reamed for it, apparently. People still hanging out in the lobby warned us to go straight upstairs, and since it was late, and since we didn't want to court any more trouble, we didn't end up going back to the beach that night after all. It may have been a brief experience, but it was a memorable one, and I'm glad I decided to take a chance and have an adventure.

 

 Wednesday, June 20

Getting back so late the night before meant I got very little sleep once again. In the morning we stopped at Rabin Square, where the Prime Minister trying to make peace with the Palestinians was assassinated by an extremist Israeli after a peace rally. We broke into groups to interview random Israelis about what they thought of the controversial leader, how the assassination changed Israel, and whether they thought something like that could happen again. It was interesting getting viewpoints from random citizens on the street, and while many were busy and had no time to talk, others were more than happy to share with us.

From there we went to Beit Shemesh, which is a sister city of D.C. We visited an elementary school to spend part of the day doing activities with the kids. I ended up with fifth grade students painting in a mural on the wall outside the school. The school is very interesting architecturally, due to the weather there it is basically all outdoors, the halls are basically outdoors passages that lead to the classrooms, which each have heavy bunker-style doors. It was interesting interacting with Israel's younger generation, and the kids were very happy to play with us, and many knew a good deal of English. One kid asked me what bands I listened to, and when I mentioned Porcupine Tree, he said "Gavin Harrison is the drummer", and I was very impressed that he knew this!

We stopped at a strip mall for lunch, and I had shawarma again. Then we finally headed to Jerusalem. First we stopped at a lookout point just outside, the Jerusalem Overlook at Haas Promenade. We could see the entire city beneath us, and the guide talked about it. Then we went inside the old city and got to see some of the excavation of older and older parts of the city, which had been destroyed and rebuilt by many different empires throughout thousands of years of history. It's interesting to speculate how this one city, not even a trade port, managed to be so important to so many different civilizations, and continues to be considered a major holy site to many of the world's modern religions.

The old city was fascinating, we walked down passageways built with cobblestone everywhere, cutting through walls, and winding around buildings - and then would have to step to the side to let a car through! There were also several cats hanging around, seeming totally at home out in these beautiful, ancient passageways. We finally got to the western wall. I hadn't originally planned it, but I decided to put a note in the wall, even though I know it won't be read by anyone or answered. I decided to just leave a hopeful note for humanity in general. We are alone on this Earth, and we need to make peace ourselves.

The wall itself is in a plaza surrounded by stone buildings. There is excavation going on at one end of the plaza, and the loud noises of modern life threaten to invade the ancient site. A great mosque with a golden dome dominates over the top of the wall, an ever present reminder of the divisions that exist in this city and in the world. It is actually quite beautiful, while the wall is plain, old stones piled together, with moss and vegetation growing from cracks. Notes are crammed into every crevice, and even small crannies in the rock face. The visible section of the wall is divided into an area for men on the left, and an area for women on the right. Kippah's are provided to wear, so I put one on, but the wind keeps blowing it off, so I put my hat back on above the kippah. As I approach the men's section of the wall, a hassidic Jew pulls me aside and asks if my mother is Jewish. Answering affirmatively, he invites me to try on tefillin, a set of small Jewish prayer boxes that are affixed to the arm and the forehead. I agreed to put them on for the experience, and he led me through some hebrew prayers and put them on me. Then he offered to take my picture with them, and told me to promise him one thing before he took the picture, "marry a Jewish girl". I was a bit taken aback by this presumptuous demand, so I gave a noncommital "sure" response, with no intent on following through on this promise.

After ridding myself of this ceremonial accoutrement, I finally approached the wall itself. I found an empty spot in front of it. A man approached to my right, and prayed quietly, pressing his head against the wall and kissing it and crying. I handed my camera to one of the guys in our group, and took a few pictures in front of the wall. Then I turned my attention to the wall. I don't believe in God, and therefore don't believe in a place being holy, or in it having wish-granting powers. But I find that a place can have significance. So many people attribute significance to this wall, therefore it is significant. I placed my hand on the cool, smooth stones, and reflected.

The word I had thought of when I closed my eyes on day one was "history", and here it was, thousands of years of the history of my people. The wall is a mere remnant of our temple, once a true marvel that would have rivaled the greatest cathedrals today, the pyramids, and other ancient grand sites; and yet all that remains of it today is less than a ruin, all that we have left that indicates this great structure ever existed is only a wall of a foundation of a ramp. Our greatest accomplishment was destroyed, and yet one wall stands, and we remain. How symbolic of the plight and resilience of the Jewish people this one wall is. As I kept my hand against the wall, I felt connected to all this history. Thousands of years have passed for my people, and here I am. Thousands of years of exile, numerous attempts to destroy us or erase our identity, and yet the Jewish people have survived, and a Jewish nation stands in Israel once again. The ancient Egyptian civilization that once enslaved us is no more. The Roman empire that destroyed the temple long ago collapsed. Numerous empires, civilizations, conquerers, enslavers, exilers, and destroyers are all gone, and we remain: a people with an incredibly ancient history still thriving in the modern world against all the odds. I had never before reflected on just how far back my heritage stretches, and as I held my hand against this wall, I felt the weight of all the millennia of my Jewish ancestry. I felt a sadness for what we lost, and a pride for what we have retained, and a sense that we would always survive, as we have survived from ancient times. No matter my beliefs (lack thereof), I am still a Jew, and I belong to the Jewish people, and this is something to be proud of.

Thursday, June 21

We started the day by going to the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. I have been to other Holocaust museums, but this one had an interesting architecture with videos of past Jewish life prior to the Holocaust playing on one end, and a window with a beautiful view to Jerusalem on the other, always reminding us where we come from, what was lost, and that there is light at the end of the tunnel. It was another emotional experience, but it was a good museum. I decided that I should ask my grandparents more about our family's losses and stories from the Holocaust. It was a dark time, but a time that we must all remember, even if it is painful for us. I also reflected on the fact that as a descendent of both Germans and Jews in some way I represent a resolution to the conflict. My German grandmother married my American Jewish grandfather directly after the war when he was stationed in Germany. My great grandfather had been a soldier, although he died young and it is unknown if he was a member of the Nazi party.

After the museum, we spent several hours driving to the Negev desert. We stopped at a scenic overlook in the desert, where the whole group was told to close their eyes and lead each other down the path, so we could be surprised by the amazing view. This is where Ben-Gurion was buried, and the guide told us his story.

We continued to a tourist replica of a Bedouin village designed to simulate the Bedouin lifestyle. We got to ride camels there. Two people sat on each camel, on either side of the hump, then the camel walked down the dirt street. I was having fun, and was ready to head off into the desert for a long trek on camel-back, but the guides looped us right back, and the ride was little longer than a pony ride you might get as a kid. When the camel kneels back down, first the front legs, then the back, which fold in different directions, you have to hold on tight to stay in your seat, and that is the trickiest part of riding a camel.

We were introduced to Bedouin society by a modern Bedouin and asked him questions. They are desert nomads but now they can't migrate between international borders and they have become Israeli citizens. (Their integration into Israeli society is one of many problems being faced by the land). They served us special Bedouin sweet tea and coffee with certain herbs in them, which are traditional to drink in their society. When you visit another Bedouin, drinking or not drinking with them conveys significance, and if you want to have an important discussion (like "I request to marry your daughter") you would hand back one of the cups. They have a very interesting society, but modern nations have made the migrating lifestyle almost impossible.

We ate a traditional Bedouin meal sitting on mats on the floor and eating with our fingers from a shared table. The food was pretty good, consisting of rice, a naan-like flatbread, chicken, and of course tsatsiki sauce (sadly we ran out early, only later did I see that other tables got two bowls of sauce when we only got one.) After eating, our Israelis had prepared the evening's activities for us. First a game where they picked someone to hold a stick above their head, spin around while looking up at it a number of times (which increased as the game went on), then drop it, jump over it, put on a uniform, and eat wafer with a spoon. This ended up being a pretty nasty game, and I was conscripted into it last - by this point they were up to 20 spins, and they gathered around me and pushed me around faster and faster than I wanted to spin myself. By the end I felt the room spinning around me and careened towards the floor very hard, scraping my elbow. Thankfully after this they moved on to performing skits, breaking everyone up into groups and assigning us a skit to perform based on different aspects of the trip (my group did arriving at the airport and meeting the Israelis), and everyone else had to guess what the skit was about. They ended up being really excellent parodies of the trip, including many in jokes and references that only these 40-odd people would get.

We were supposed to sleep under a massive Bedouin tent, with mats and sleeping bags provided, but with the plan to leave at 4am to see the sunrise the next day from the top of Masada, there wouldn't be much of a sleep. Many of us decided not to bother, and hung out late at night, sitting around with a guitar playing several rock/pop songs (generally only the first verses, because we didn't know much more than that for most songs). I ended up opting for a short nap for the last hour. This time that was all too quickly over, as they turned on the lights and forced us up.

Friday, June 22

Sure enough after barely napping in the tent we had to head to the bus dark and early so we could climb Masada and see the sunrise. We grabbed a small cup of that delicious Bedouin coffee to get us going, and headed to the mountain. It was exhausting on a whole new level. Tired, no sleep, trekking up a mountain, running so we wouldn't miss the sun coming up. The site was absolutely beautiful in the end, but I'm still not sure it was worth pulling an all-nighter for, which I haven't really done since college.

Yes, I'm including multiple pictures. I hiked up a mountain on no sleep to get these shots!

That's the Dead Sea, below.

After sunrise we toured the ruins of the fort on the mountain where all the Jews committed suicide rather than let the Romans, who were having their Jewish slaves build a new ramp up the mountain, reach the top and enslave them. The ramp we took up the mountain had been the one the romans built. We took the snake path back down the mountain after touring the ruins, this was the original way up, and it was much longer, steeper, and windier. And now, with the sun high in the sky beating down upon us, and having still gotten no rest, it was even more exhausting traveling down the mountain. There is a cable car that ascends that we could see above, as if to taunt us about how much easier the trip could be while we descended one more set of steps over a steep ravine that would kill you if you fell into it. At least I got a lot of exercise this trip.

We had a boxed breakfast at the base, which includes the best plain yogurt I've ever had, it was cold and really sweet and creamy. Then we got back on the bus and drove to the Dead Sea, sadly too brief a ride to sleep on. We made a stop at a place that makes (and sells) lots of different Dead Sea products, lotions and salts and such. I ended up buying some liquid bath salts for Christina, and hand lotions for myself (since I have dry hands).

Finally we arrived at the Dead Sea itself. The beach is stony rather than sandy, luckily I had my water shoes with me. Unfortunately the Dead Sea water was very painful for me because the salt gets into any chafed, irritated or scraped skin. Chafing was inevitable with the one-ply toilet paper they had at our stops. I had to get out in pain before even getting to float, and wash off in the on-beach shower they had, trying to get all the salt off of me so I would stop burning.

Instead, I decided to try lathering myself with the famous Dead Sea mud, which they had sitting in barrels off to one side. I was hoping it would be soothing after that stinging experience. It did feel good on my skin, but then when the time came to wash it off, I kept finding more mud in different places (and still found it later in the day after we had left.) Since we were running out of time at the Dead Sea, and this was one of the stops I had been most anticipating for this trip, I decided to try floating once again. This time I managed to lay back and float for a few minutes. You really can't help but float on this water, it is so dense that it's actually very difficult to sink any of your limbs to stand back up again. If you somehow ended up on your front, and nobody else was around to help you, you might drown before you managed to flip yourself back over. Floating around was fun, and I wish I could spend more time there, but the stinging from the salt became too much again, and the time had come to change and leave again anyway. Yet again I regret how little time we are allotted for each activity due to packing the itinerary so heavily, but hopefully one day I can come back to the Dead Sea, better prepared to enjoy it.

The bus took us back to Jerusalem, and with still no time to rest they stopped at a large street market for lunch. The market was really crowded since it was just before Shabbat, and everyone was out doing their shopping now, but it was really interesting. I would have appreciated it more if I were more awake, I'm sure, but I got some inexpensive falafel to enjoy for lunch anyway.

Finally, after the very long day, we went back to the hotel we had stayed at in Jerusalem before, which is the nicest of the places we'd stayed at. We would have two more nights there. This time I was assigned to room with Mash, getting the double room I had been hoping for, rather than a triple. Thankfully there was some time before Shabbat to shower and relax, but not really enough to sleep. I lay in the room playing my Vita. Some people, like my roommate Mash, slept and were late to the next activity when they couldn't wake up.

We were spoken to by the Israel advisor to the Secretary of State. Unfortunately, he was so monotone that most of us couldn't really pay attention due to the intense sleep deprivation we were all suffering from. Things he would say would cause images to spring into my mind, and before I knew it I was looking at them through closed eyelids and I was somewhere else, suddenly shaking myself back into reality. Over and over, as I haven't experienced since early morning classes back in college and high school. It was ashame, because I really did want to give him my full attention, but I didn't have much attention available to give to anybody by that point. After he wrapped up what I'm sure was a very interesting discussion on the state of Israel and American relations, some people from Birthright spoke, and we were joined by a group of Birthright alumni and the other D.C. bus for Shabbat. We had a choice to go to an orthodox service, a reform service, or a non-religious discussion group for Shabbat services. I opted for door number 3 and we discussed how to make a change in the world, with quotes from various leaders to reflect on. Shabbat dinner followed, but I sadly couldn't really enjoy it, since I was running on fumes by this point, and my stomach was getting quite upset as well. The food was excellent I could tell, and I made myself have a few bites of everything. The rest of the night is a blur to me even now, I think there were more activities getting to know the alumni and the other bus, and at some point there was finally sweet sweet slumber.

 

Saturday, June 23

Luckily we didn't need to wake up till 10 the next day, due to the Sabbath. I took full advantage of sleeping in, but still was so tired I ended up using my break after morning activities to take a nap in the room. I had intended to go swimming at the hotel pool, where most of the others went, but I just couldn't get back out of bed until the next activity.

Once the sun fell and we could travel again, we took the bus out to the German Quarter of Jerusalem, to find a restaurant to eat at. That night would be our very last night together as a group, so some of the guys had the idea to throw a toga party at the hotel. Zach convinced me to don a toga as well, so we ripped the sheets off my bed and he helped me tie it up. Everyone said I looked like Jesus, and they were surprised to see me in white rather than black or other dark colors.

 

Sunday, June 24

The final day of the trip, and by this point I finally am ready to go home. I've seen a lot, and done a lot, gotten a ton of exercise, very little sleep, made friends, enjoyed good food, and now I'm missing my girlfriend and my bed at home and the familiarity and comfort of America. I had an amazing trip, but I'm ready for it to be over at last.

Our Israelis. Iftach, the guide, and Dudi, the medic, are in back. Left-to-right in front: Tal, Ilad, Snir, Elan, Fred, Inbal, Liz

Our last major activity was traveling to the Military Cemetary up on a hill outside of Jerusalem, where we heard heartbreaking stories of loss from all the Israelis with us, losses in war or in acts of terrorism. It was a very bittersweet ending to the trip, but a stanch reminder of the challenges Israelis face every day in a region that wants them wiped off the Earth. They survive, and they defend themselves, but they suffer terrible losses, and every Israeli has lost dear friends to the strife.

We made a stop for souvenir shopping at Ben Yehuda street. I ended up getting one last delicious falafel, some delicious ice cream, and bought a lot of things for Christina back home. We stopped back at the hotel for dinner and final discussions reminiscing about the entire trip, and were each given a map of Israel to trace the varied locations we had traveled around the country.

Finally, we got to the airport, and said goodbye to the Israelis who had taken the trip with us. I feel they have all become friends with all of us. Security took a very long time to get through, but we made it on board the plane. Luckily I had a window seat! I did manage to sleep on the plane this time around, at least, although it was still a cramped and uncomfortable sleep. I watched the movie "In Time", which was a great scifi concept, although had lousy one-note acting (from none other than our leading man, Justin Timberlake). Ultimately it was still enjoyable largely due to the concept, but not a must buy. I played a bit more Gravity Rush on my Vita, and slept for much of the 12 hour flight. My last Kosher meal was the breakfast they served me on the plane.

 

Monday, June 25

I finally arrived home as the plane landed without incident after a 12 hour flight (it's longer going back) in Philadelphia at 5:10AM. Although for me it felt like about 7 hours later. But my trip was not yet over, I was not home yet! First we had to get through customs, then get luggage, then take the SEPTA back to the train station. I found out that my Dad had to go into work that day and would need to pick me up at Union Station, although my ticket was for BWI, so I had to pay an additional $17 to get my ticket changed. Once in DC, Dad and I had to pull my luggage from the station, to the Library of Congress so he could clock out, then to where he was parked - which was quite a hike, especially as tired as I was and with such heavy bags.

We ended up eating at Urban BBQ on the way to his house, and I got to break my kosher diet on bbq pulled pork. Yummy! Then Christina picked me up from his house an hour later and took me home, where, exhausted, I ended up falling asleep fairly early at about 9PM. (She made me stay up that late, even going as far as washing the bed sheets after I got home.)

Unluckily, I had to go right back in to work on Tuesday, there would be very little break for me. This trip has used up all of my paid time off and a little bit of borrowed time, though, so I couldn't afford an extra day off.

In the end it really was an amazing trip. I don't know if I can qualify it as "life changing" like so many people say it will be, because my life returns to normal now. But I can say it was an experience of a lifetime, something that has broadened my horizons. I have learned a lot about my heritage, reconnected with my people, and made several new friends. And since the group is mostly native to the DC area, I will have opportunities to see many of them again. Even the Israelis who traveled with us developed such a bond with us that they are all planning on making a reverse-trip to visit DC and the USA now, and are very excited about coming over here.

By the way, the official trip blog is here: http://www.shalomdc.org/bus127

JoCo Cruise Crazy 2: Cruise Crazier!

On the beach in the middle of February!

In late February I was on a week-long cruise on the Holland America Westerdam in the Caribbean with over 500 fellow geeks, featuring a 24 hour game room; stops in Half Moon Cay (Bahamas), Aruba and Curacao; entertainment by Jonathan Coulton, Paul and Storm, Wil Wheaton, John Hodgman, Marian Call, Vi Hart, David Rees, Paul F Tompkins, John Roderick, Chris Collingwood, John Flansburgh and MC Frontalot; and plenty of unofficial events created by our fellow "sea monkeys" (what JoCo cruisers call ourselves. The other passengers are officially dubbed "snorks"). Like last year, the other seamonkeys were the highlight of the trip: a wonderful community of intelligent, friendly, geeky, awesome people that I wish I could spend more time with. Words cannot encapsulate how incredible this experience was, but I will attempt in this post to describe it as best I can for posterity. Warning: this will be long. TL;DR: the JoCo Cruise is incredibly awesome and all geeks that also love travel should come on the next one!

JoCo Cruise Crazy 1 and 2

The JoCo cruise is most easily understood in terms of a convention. It has some celebrity guests, performances from them, Q&A and other events, and there is a large group of fellow fans who are all "my people" - the afore-mentioned sea monkeys in this case, who are all intelligent, funny, courteous, and sharing many common geeky interests like games, scifi, computers, and so forth. We engage in plenty of gaming and other activities. Only instead of being at a hotel or convention center for a weekend, we're all on a huge floating resort that travels to exotic destinations in the tropical climate (which is nice in the middle of February) and we're all hanging out together for an entire week, celebrities included. There is plenty of space for a lot more interaction with the guests, plenty of time for the development of tons of memes, and every night a sit down dinner where you get to eat with a different group of sea monkeys each night and discover that every single one of them is a really awesome person that you have a lot in common with.

The Performers!

The Sea Monkeys

I brought Christina on the original JoCo Cruise with me last year, intending it to be one big expensive vacation that we couldn't repeat for a long time, but we both had so much fun that when they announced the second one I just couldn't stomach the thought of not being on it. Thankfully there was a deal to add a third and fourth person to a cabin for $100 each (not including entertainment package or other taxes and fees), so we found another couple, Christina and Simon, to room with via the forums and facebook group, and ended up going again for much cheaper this time around. And yes, having two Christinas in one room was sometimes confusing. Having roommates worked out fairly well except that it turns out the room only had one large bed, and single-size sofa bed and pull down berth bed. Since we found out they replaced the linens halfway through the cruise, we ended up compromising and switching beds at that point. As luck would have it, our roommates were extremely nice, considerate, and friendly people and there was no drama despite cramped quarters and little time for sleeping. We did all agree that if we return next year, we'll get cabins of our own though, because it's nicer not having to share. But having roommates this year allowed us all to afford the cruise, and it worked out well, and we are happy to count our roommates amongst the good friends we made on the cruise.

Finding the ship in Aruba

The second cruise was able to build on the success of the first, and make improvements on all fronts. For instance, prior to this cruise inventive seamonkeys came up with a solution to the communication problems from last year. Last year lots of spontaneous events were organized, and the only way to relay information besides word of mouth was the "morning" announcements prior to each concert at 4:30pm. Disconnecting from internet-based communication was a challenge for the tech-savvy crowd on the ship, so this year a statusnet server was setup on a laptop and connected to the ship's wifi (with permission). Since it was intranet, rather than internet, we didn't need to pay to use it, and it generally worked great. Just before the cruise, a poll was setup to vote on a name, and I nominated Twitt-arrr as an additional option, and my name won the vote, a point of pride for me. :-) If you've ever seen Paul and Storm live (perhaps as JoCo's opening band) you'll get the reference. (Or if you use an unhealthy amount of pirate-based puns.)

There are many more things I want to discuss from the cruise while the memories are still relatively fresh. So that I will remember as much as possible, I will attempt to organize the memories by day in a recap.

Sunday, February 19: Fort Lauderdale departure

Christina and I spent the night at her Mom's house, since she was driving us to the airport bright and early and taking care of our animals while we were gone. I had crazily booked a flight for the morning of cruise departure. Luckily any impending snow wouldn't be until the afternoon, so our 7AM flight on Southwest went great. This is my first time on that airline, and I loved not having any baggage fees, but disliked that seating was open, since it made it a mad scramble to ensure Christina a window seat (due to her anxiety with flying) and myself a seat beside her. Everything worked out, we landed and arrived at the cruise port in plenty of time to get checked in with the cruise and then wait to be allowed to board.

Posing at the Pasta bar

Fooooood!

Before going to our cabin, we headed to the Lido deck to eat at the buffet, before realizing that as returning Holland America cruisers we were entitled to a luncheon in the main dining room, and leaving for that. I had shrimp cocktail and a delicious avocado burger and fries there, and got Christina a plate of fries as well. One of my favorite things about cruising is the fixed price dining. You can order whatever you want, and however many things you want, and it's all already covered by what you paid for your room. This ability made the cruise a wonderful value, and it is something I would take much advantage of over the rest of the week. Instead of spending a long time agonizing over menu decisions, I simply ordered everything I thought sounded good, or even like it might be something I'd enjoy that I wouldn't normally risk trying. Often I was pleasantly surprised. Since I've already digressed on the subject of food, I'll say that overall the food was pretty good, but not everything was spectacular, and a few dishes were disappointing (including the entire "Chocolate Extravaganza" Dessert Buffet). Overall there was enough good food that the cruise meals felt indulgent. And (jumping even more ahead of myself now) I ended up not gaining any weight at all on the cruise this time. (Last year I gained 5 pounds which were quickly lost again.) I think all the excess calories were offset by all the additional physical activity.

Once we had eaten, we went to pick up our badges in what would become the 24 hour game room of the cruise, and finally went to our room. I don't want to dwell on any negativity, since overall the experience was largely positive, but there were a few problems with the room that clouded the experience (peeling wallpaper, stained linens, lumpy pillows, broken faucet handle, peeling toilet seat, and annoying noises at night and in the early morning, mainly resulting from the room being fairly old or poorly maintained). Over the course of the cruise we complained to the front desk a few times about these and other problems (breakfast orders arriving incomplete), and they did their best to resolve the issues, although not everything was taken care of in a timely fashion. Basically, it seemed to me like they weren't quite the 5-star resort that they thought they were, and the Westerdam was a bit poorer in condition than the Eurodam the year before was. There was only one other real complaint about the ship, which is that while they had limited the smoking sections, the smoke easily escaped from the casino and made certain hallways and sometimes even the gaming room itself, on a deck above it, unpleasant. But these issues did not detract too much from our experience, just like the psychedelic carpets at the Hunt Valley Inn didn't detract too much from having a great time at Farpoint.

5:30PM: Sea Monkey Orientation was our first event of the cruise, and Paul and Storm and Jonathan Coulton managed to make it highly entertaining. Here is the awesome orientation film featuring Storm and some towel monkeys:

6:45PM: "The First Transport is Away" Cocktail Reception was at the sea view pool. Drinks and appetizers were provided for free, and we met other seamonkeys, including some old friends from the last cruise who we reminisced with. We also hunted down Randal Schwartz to claim a spot at one of the Pinnacle Grill dinners he was gathering sea monkeys for, and reserved Friday. Randal cruises often and is a 4-star mariner on Holland America, so gets half price meals at the Pinnacle Grill (the fancier up-charge restaurant on board), and he offered to book the largest table for several nights and invite seamonkeys to join him and treat everyone provided they buy his drinks.

Dinner!

8:00PM: Dinner was every night in the Vista dining room. There were a bunch of tables, on both floors this time, set aside for sea monkeys. Within these sections there was open seating (except for a few groups who requested to sit together the whole cruise). The open seating with other sea monkeys was one of the great things about the cruise. Each day we sat with new people, and found everyone we talked with to be uniformly awesome. Dinner is the perfect way to sit down with a bunch of fellow sea monkeys and really get to know them and have geeky conversations. Plus, as stated above, the food was mostly very good, and had the cruise advantage of being able to order whatever you wanted, as many things as you wanted, and not pay any additional amount for it all.

We spent some time unpacking at this point, since the cruise line took us a very long time to get our luggage to us (which was a problem since Christina's meds, including sea sickness medicine, was packed away).

10:00PM: You Know, Just Chillin' by the Sea View Pool Every night at 10:00PM the sea view pool was designated as a hang out spot for sea monkeys. Unfortunately, the cruise line closed the pools and hot tubs earlier than this, so we couldn't actually take advantage of them. We stopped by very briefly to see if anyone was hanging out, then went to the game room, where we would often spent our free time on the cruise in the week to come.

Monday, February 20: Halfmoon Cay, Bahamas

JoCo shared a tender with us to Half Moon Cay

The first port was Holland America's private island in the Bahamas, Half Moon Cay. It's basically a great big beach with not a lot else to do, although there are numerous pricey excursions you can book through the cruise line. We had booked snorkeling by boat, and brought our snorkeling gear with us. Last year we tried snorkeling without an excursion, and there was nothing to see but sand and the occassional sand-dollar. There weren't even many shells. We hoped to see more with the excursion. Since we had booked the latest possible time for it in the afternoon, we journeyed to the unofficial "Nerd beach" section, all the way at the end of the beach. We ended up walking down with another sea monkey, who I found out was the creator of an online multiplayer game (I think it was Kingdom of Loathing) and had a great chat with him.

Digging out a channel for the moat to "Skullcrusher Sand Fort"

Last year Half Moon Cay was very boring because there was no designated place for the sea monkeys to hang out, and there were two large HAL cruise ships docked at the same time, so it was basically a standard beach experience and impossible to find our group to hang out with. This year was a massive improvement. Vi Hart was doing some kind of activity with a large group of sea monkeys in the water where they were making shapes with their bodies or something, but we ended up joining a small group of sea monkeys who were building a massive sand fort. The group ended up growing as more and more sea monkeys joined the project, and we built a moat, and towers were constructed nearby.

Waving the Star Wars Parts over the completed sand fort

We had to leave to head to our excursion. When we asked at the desk where to go, we discovered that our excursion was cancelled due to poor conditions. We were disappointed that we had lugged all our snorkeling gear around with us and wouldn't get to actually use it on this island, but decided to do some snorkeling at one of the other stops and save money (we got refunded this excursion). Ultimately this worked in our favor, since this excursion was $50 each, and we spent a lot less to snorkel in Curacao later on.

Since our excursion was cancelled, we were able to participate in the sea monkey group photo at the pirate bar. You'll see the shot at the top of this blog with all the sea monkeys and the Westerdam in the background.

Christina wrote "JoCo" in the sand

After hanging out here for a little while, we headed to the BBQ lunch provided on the island. We sat with some other sea monkeys, including one couple, Christopher and KC, who had apparently been confused for us by mutual seamonkey acquaintances. Can you see the resemblance?

Lunch with our "doppelgangers". You can't tell in the photo, but both of us guys have long hair in ponytails.

4:30PM: Concert: Paul and Storm & Chris Collingwood The first show of the cruise featured our intrepid hosts and eternal opening band Paul and Storm, followed by Chris Collingwood (of Fountains of Wayne fame). Paul and Storm opened with a hilarious song about George RR Martin.

8:00PM: Dinner we ate in the "Monkey Pit" this time, which is the nickname for the lower level section that is in a circular part of the dining room surrounded on all sides by snorks. We had intended to locate a Twitt-arrr announced DC/MD/VA-area seamonkey table, but unfortunately couldn't find it so instead ended up joining another random group of sea monkeys for more food and geeky conversation.



11:00PM: Joseph Scrimshaw and The Comedy of Doom was one of the unexpected highlights of the cruise. Joseph Scrimshaw had been an unannounced guest performer on the first cruise, and played opposite of Bill Corbett in the play My Monster. This year he was an "official" performer, and put on his own comedy show in the Culinary Arts Center this evening. He parodied every geek property from Star Wars told entirely in a twitter feed, to Lord of the Rings if Dumbledore was the wizard telling Frodo what to do. Wil Wheaton was seated behind Christina and me, and a joke was made by our host Paul Sabourin that we needed to keep the aisles clear so that they could get drinks to Wil. I quoted "This feels strange, but also good!" and got a guffaw out of Wil himself from the line.

Wil himself volunteered to play Star Trek: Oregon Trail during a segment of the comedy. This is worth watching.

Also here is the rest of Joseph Scrimshaw and the Comedy of Doom:

12:00PM: Rifftraxed Star Wars: The Holiday Special was foolishly voted by the seamonkeys as the movie we wanted to watch for our movie night rather than the original unadulterated version of Star Wars: A New Hope. Yes, I was one of the fools. I had to see just how bad it was, and what better way than with the Rifftrax commentary and a crowd of fellow geeks around me. After having seen most of it now, I don't fully understand what I have just seen. I'm not even sure if I was really awake or just having vivid trippy nightmares. Christina gave up part way through and headed back to the room. I walked her there and then returned again, and felt like I didn't really miss anything. Also, they left the commercials in the recording and riffed those as well, and they were just as crazy as the special itself. Was everyone high in the 70s, or was there just some special brand of crazy? Unfortunately the movie ended at 2AM and there was little time for sleep. Fortunately, despite reports to the contrary, we didn't actually lose an hour that night due to timezone shifting (that would be the next day instead).

Tuesday, February 21: At Sea, First Formal Night, Mardi Gras

We had breakfast delivered to our room so we could wake up early in time for....

 9:00AM: Q&A with JCCC2 Performers. All the performers sat on stage, rearranged their chairs into a semi-circle of sorts, and managed to be very witty while answering questions on very little sleep. I'm sure this will be on YouTube somewhere, so I'm not going to try to recount the questions and answers here.

11:00AM: Official group photo directly after the Q&A all the seamonkeys headed to the bow of the ship to get our group photo taken.

Where's JoCo?

4:30PM: Concert: Marian Call & Paul F. Tompkins Christina got seasick and was very tired so left the Marian Call show early. During intermission I went to check on her, and she decided to sleep and skip Paul F. Tompkins as well.

Formal Attire!

8:00PM: Dinner - FORMAL this was the first of two scheduled formal nights, so we dressed up in our formal wear and headed to dinner. Unfortunately, once we found our table, Christina was feeling too seasick to stay, and I had to take her back to the room again, where she ordered room service and a movie to watch (both complimentary, the wonders of cruising). I had let my tablemates know my order (two orders of the Land & Sea, Filet Mignon and Jumbo shrimp that had been my favorite meal on the prior cruise), and returned to eat with them. Unfortunately, the dish that had been the highlight of my meals last year was mostly a disappointment this time, overcooked, flavorless, tough in parts, and fatty too - not the way Filet Mignon should be at all. Fortunately I would be getting much better steak at the Pinnacle Grill on Friday.

10:15PM: Molly Gras (Concert: Molly Lewis) Christina ended up staying in the room for this as well, but I went to this sea view poolside concert and watched Molly Lewis play a small set and hung out with other seamonkeys all wearing formal wear. Molly gave out beads to anyone who brought a ukelele, and at the end of her show had all of the other ukelele players join her to play Something.

When I returned to the room Christina and I ordered a movie (Get Smart with Steve Carrell) and ended up watching about half of it before getting too tired and turning it off to go to sleep.

Wednesday, February 22: Oranjestad, Aruba


Thankfully, today was a good day to sleep in and recuperate, since we would be docking in Aruba in the afternoon and staying there all day, with no official events planned.

Our submarine

We all (don't really) live on a yellow submarine

2:00PM: Atlantis Submarine Adventure Last year we had done a scuba diving introductory course in Grand Cayman which was great, except that Christina ended up having to snorkel above us for health reasons, and I couldn't see very well underwater since I couldn't get contacts in and don't have a prescription mask. So I thought that the Submarine excursion being offered in Aruba this year would be the perfect solution to both of these problems - we could both go underwater to see cool sea life and a shipwreck (and I could actually see it clearly)! Also a good number of other seamonkeys were coming with us on this excursion. We went down to 130 feet under the sea and saw a couple shipwrecks (a metal one that had been made home to much aquatic life, and a wooden one that had almost entirely decomposed and was mainly evidenced by the broken mast and a few planks). There was some sea life to look at, but they used only natural light, so we couldn't see the vivid colors, and frankly the reefs here were far less impressive than those at Grand Cayman were. Also unfortunate is that Christina started to get seasick in the sub (once we resurfaced they ended up letting her out first). In the end this ended up being a fairly expensive let down, at $90 a person, due to the sickness Christina felt and the relative lack of interesting things to look at, but it's cool to have been under the sea in a submarine.

The photos from the sub didn't get much more exciting than this

Natural lighting only on the sub tour

After the submarine we decided to wander the city and check out shops, but were fairly disappointed to find that all the duty-free-souvenir shops basically sold exactly the same inventory. Christina did buy a nice hat and a wooden mortar and pestle for crushing everything. Once we got bored of the series of souvenir shops, all alike, we spent a bit of time wandering the twisty passages, trying to find our way back to the ship.

Arrr-uba! Hey look, they sell Rolex

We headed to the game room to find the first Dominion opponents that were lined up for us to play against in the tournament we had signed up for. Christina and I lost our respective matches to Matt and Lisa, but had a lot of fun, and we then played a four player game with them both that I ended up winning. While we have all the expansions at home, we haven't played with them all yet, so many cards and strategies were completely new to us. We would play more Dominion on the cruise, as we were participating now in the losers bracket of the tournament. Spoiler alert: Our first match was versus each other, which I won. I then won another match against my next opponent before losing. This was on Friday, I believe.

8:00PM: Dinner We decided to eat this night in the officially dubbed "Peninsula of Lookie-Lous", which is the small subsection of sea-monkey tables that stretched around the outer edge of the celebrity table section. Since we were in Aruba until the night, and no official events were scheduled on this day as a result, there weren't many famous people there that night, but we got to chat with a nice family about board games, and exchange 3DS friend codes, and had a great meal with great company once more.

After dinner, I played Exits Are Out, a Parsely Engine game run by the Nathaniel, the writer of the game up in the lounge we had renamed Ten-Forward (which was conveniently literally on deck ten, forward). Parsely games are basically old school-style text adventures where one person takes the places of the computer (parser), and a group of participants take turns issuing a single command to the parser (push red button, go left, examine goo gun with bicorder, save game, etc.) Christina opted out and played her 3DS while I joined the large group in solving the mystery of what was going on in a spaceship where we were playing the only surviving crewmember. The game had lots of great humor, and some truly challenging puzzles, but we ended up escaping in the end, after dying and reloading our save numerous times (including when music being played in the cantina caused an alien inside us to grow and burst through our stomach, the bouncy ball that hit us in the head, the giant alien on the bridge that killed us, the gash in the bulkhead to space on the tactical level, and the many times we kept shooting our dissolve goo cannon and laser to create holes into space.) The game was very entertaining, and afterwards we went to the game room to try and play some Telestrations, but couldn't find any players so ended up playing Cards Against Humanity, which was a constant fixture of the game room. This is basically Apples-to-Apples, only all the cards are really evil (often very inappropriate and adult in nature). Since going for the joke answers in Apples-to-Apples is my favorite way to play anyway, I really enjoyed this version of the game.

Thursday, February 23: Willemstad, Curacao

Curacao was the last stop of the trip, and it ended up being the best island experience of the cruise and featured the most memorable highlights of the trip.

Since we had missed out on the snorkeling excursion in Half Moon Cay, we really wanted to do some snorkeling. Our extra bag that we checked for free on Southwest was mostly filled with our snorkeling gear, watershoes, and sandals, and it would be a disappointment to not get to use them. Since we had booked no excursions on Curacao, we decided to find a place to snorkel on this island. Once again, Twitt-arrrr proved it's value, since I logged in and found a couple mentioning they wanted to share a cab ride to the beach for snorkeling. Thanks to the service we met up with Laura and John and headed to the dock to find a taxi.

Just as we got a van and determined our location, a small group walked up also looking for a van to the beach. This group consisted of Wil Wheaton, his wife Anne, son Ryan, and performance stage manager Dammit Liz. Christina and I sat in the first row of back seats, and the others filed in. Wil was the last to board, and the driver pulled down an extra seat in our row for him to take, so we ended up sitting next to Wil Wheaton. I opened a conversation with him by mentioning that his performance with Scrimshaw the other night was great, and we ended up conversing for the entire trip to the beach. Wil was incredibly friendly and down to earth and if he weren't one of the celebrities on the cruise, I could easily see him as just another geeky seamonkey with a lot in common with us to discuss. We talked about improv, how Paul and Storm manage to have an almost 'telepathic' link from working together so long that they can read each others signals, why Felicia Day wouldn't come on the cruise (needs to stay connected to the internet and doesn't like beaches and the sun), but why her castmates on the guild might be a good fit. Christina asked if any of the castmembers of the Big Bang Theory were actually geeks, and ironically it turned out that Kaley Cuoco was a big scifi geek, the other castmembers who actually play the geeks on the show weren't actually geeks, although they could be considered theater geeks (as most actors are). Christina said Kaley should come on the next cruise, but Wil said she was too famous, and that you needed a certain lower level of fame to do this, which makes perfect sense. I asked Wil how he was enjoying the cruise, and he said that it was like all the good parts of a convention, without any of the bad things. It was great to hear confirmation that all the performers were having as great a time as the attendees. Wil is blogging about his cruise experiences here.

Time flew by as we drove around the island to the beach, and I was proud that I managed to hold a conversation without once becoming star struck or awkward. Once at the beach our snorkeling friends discovered they had accidentally forgotten to bring cash with them. Wil Wheaton offered to loan them any money they needed, which was incredibly generous of him, but they ended up borrowing the money from me. The cab ride cost $5 per person, and beach admittance was $3. With a return trip also to cost $5, this ended up being a tremendous value compared with official excursions. Luckily I had carried just enough cash to cover all of us. The van driver said she could pick us up again to take us back to the boat if we picked a time. Wil said because he had a show that night he'd have to leave a bit early, at 2:30, so we all agreed that would be plenty of time for us and we'd share the van ride back as well. (It was about 4 hours from that time).

On the beach with Wil Wheaton and co.

Christina Snorkeling

Once we got to the beach, the Wheatons went their separate way, and we got into our snorkeling gear with Laura and John. There was a line of rocks that you could swim out to, and according to the staff at the beach the best snorkeling was on the other side of it. We swam out to it and saw all kinds of fish and coral. Christina foolishly tried (and succeeded!) to get to the other side by climbing the rocks, and got cut on them. I tried to follow and gave up much sooner, and Christina had to come back. Eventually we all realized we could just swim to the end of the beach where there was a nice gap in the rocks to get to the other side. So we swam with Laura and John in a group and saw lots more cool sea life. There were schools of fish, sea urchins, coral, bizarre aquatic plant-life, and things I don't really know how to describe because I'm not a marine biologist, but which were amazing to see up close and personal. It felt like swimming inside an aquarium tank, with all the interesting life you see there continuing as far as you can see. You can move freely and explore this unearthly environment. It was truly spectacular.

From John's snorkeling pictures, notice how much cooler this is than anything we saw from the submarine

Passing a school (Christina swam through them!)

Unfortunately, I eventually started having a bit of difficulty continuing, my nose and head were really starting to bother me, especially since I couldn't really take a break to stand anywhere - so I signaled to Christina and we swam back to the beach. Sure enough once I removed my mask a huge amount of mucus poured out. I decided to take it easy for the rest of our time on the beach, and had seen and enjoyed enough while snorkeling. So Christina snorkeled around in the shallower areas looking for sea shells, and I swam and waded around, eventually discovering another sea monkey and his family, who live in Switzerland and work for Google, which is pretty cool. He was the one that had two very rare puzzle pieces on the Super Mario 3D land puzzle that we had collected in Streetpass puzzle swap on our 3DSes, apparently he got them on a trip to Japan. (Now Christina and I were missing only one piece to complete all the puzzles). I talked with him and his wife, who were there with a toddler, for awhile, before taking a 'long walk on the beach' with Christina to explore.



Neither Christina nor I are beach people. One trip a year is more than enough to get our fill, generally. But this beach on Curacao we both really enjoyed. There were fish that swam all the way to the shallows, the sea life was plentiful and gorgeous way beyond what we had seen in the submarine the day before, and snorkeling was wonderful. Laura and John had ended up snorkeling much longer than we had, and had apparently even seen a lion fish (an invasive species) out there, among other cool sites. They had an underwater camera and took plenty of pictures. The climate was very hot, which ended up giving me bad sunburn despite applying sunblock liberally both before and after snorkeling. That was the only downside, generally it was a great time. Next time we're going to invest in better sunblock and take even more care to apply it everywhere.

Curacao Cabana Beach

Towards the end of our time there, we encountered Wil Wheaton and Dammit Liz in the ocean, and chatted with them again. I ended up being asked to take the Wheaton family+friends picture for them on the beach with their camera. I had set my watch alarm to let us know when it was time to go, and informed them as it approached, and we all set back to the entrance to meet the van again. This time because Christina, I and Wil had wet bathing suits and towels, the driver made us sit in the back row on our towels. So I ended up sitting beside Wil yet again for another cab ride, and we had another long awesome conversation, about clock alarms we can't figure out how to turn off (my watch alarm kept going off again, it turned out I was hitting snooze rather than disabling it), about how great a time we had on this island, about beers he enjoys (he's a connoisseur, he didn't really like what they had on Curacao, and yes I had to look up how to spell connoisseur), about his book series Memories of the Future, and how well he's sold on Kindle. Generally it was great to be able to have a standard geeky conversation with someone who just happens to be a famous actor (/writer/blogger/podcaster). That, coupled with the amazing beach experience and wonderful snorkeling, made Curacao the best part of the entire vacation, even with the sunburn that would still plague me for weeks to come.

While we waited for the show that evening, we hung out in the game room, and played some games.

5:00PM: Concert: Wil Wheaton & MC Frontalot Wil Wheaton read several of his stories. MC Frontalot sang nerd-core rap, and included Marian Call memorably as a backup singer in one of his songs (joking that he was wasting her singing ability in a rap song). I dislike rap, but found myself enjoying MC Frontalot in spite of myself.

8:00PM: Dinner due to exhaustion and my painful sunburn, we opted to eat dinner in the room today. We took advantage of the complimentary room service to order dinner, and watched the rest of Get Smart.

Not really that good

After relaxing, we headed back to the game room and played more Cards Against Humanity until it was time for the Chocolate Extravaganza, which was a great big chocolate and dessert buffet on the mid-ship Lido Pool area. It ended up being mostly disappointing, as there were long lines to get desserts that weren't actually that good. Sorry, but Bananas Foster shouldn't just be scooped out of a bucket into a bowl. Disappointing. Eventually we made our way back to the game room and attempted to engage a few other players in a game of 18+ telestrations, and played a few rounds of that before moving on to other games.

11:00PM: A Night at the Empty Orchestra: The Rees/Tompkins Karaoke Invitational we could hear going on and decided to check out some of it despite our exhaustion, since we wanted to give our roommates a bit of privacy. What we saw was more entertaining than Karaoke has any right to be, including John Flansburgh singing karaoke.

Friday, February 24: At Sea, Second Formal Night, Mustache Formal

9:30AM: Concert: David Rees & Vi Hart was crazily early, and Christina didn't want to get up for it, but I went. David Rees did a very entertaining bit on artisinal pencil sharpening, and Vi talked a lot about wave forms mathematically and formed volunteers from the audience into shapes, and played a piano in patterns that mimicked wave forms and were incredibly beautiful. I was so tired and the music so pleasant, I sat back and closed my eyes a few times. After the show I collapsed back in bed and ended up napping for much of the afternoon, and missing a couple of spontaneously organized shows for Marian Call and for Scott Barkan, her very skillful guitarist, which I heard good things about afterwards. We dressed up in our formal wear after I finally awoke from my napping, just in time for the afternoon tea.

Tea with Marian Call and Yoda

Marian Call posted (on Twitt-arrr and the game room boards) about doing a fancy hat tea party and gathering to take advantage of afternoon tea in the main dining room. I had no idea they served afternoon tea on the boat! Seamonkeys in hats ended up taking over a small section of 4 large tables in the dining room and having tea and East Asian inspired snacks.

4:30PM: Concert: John Hodgman & John Roderick John Hodgman was introduced by a performance of TMBG's "Yes, The Deranged Millionaire", which was sung by John Flansburgh, finally putting in an appearance in one of the concerts. There had been several TMBG covers done by other performers with no involvement from him, so it was nice to see him contribute. Since Christina and I didn't make it to either of the dance parties he DJed, his presence on this cruise was greatly diminished for me, only seeing him at the Q&A, karaoke, and this small performance now. Hodgman was hilarious in his persona of deranged millionaire/expert on all topics. It's all on YouTube. We only stayed for a few songs of John Roderick's. While we enjoy his presence on the cruise and like Roderick as much as any of the other famous people, we aren't really fans of his style of music, so ended up leaving early to play some games in the game room.

Pinnacle Dinner group. Randal is the one who looks a bit drunk ;-)

8:00PM: Pinnacle Dinner we ended up squeezing about 14 people into a 12 person table, probably because Randal forgot how many people he invited to dinner that night, but the more the merrier. We ended up having a small section of the restaurant to ourselves, and had a wonderful time, enjoying some of the best food the cruise had to offer, plying Randal Schwartz with drinks, and having many great discussions amongst fellow geeks. I enjoyed a lobster bisque, filet mignon and jumbo shrimp so jumbo I actually had to take bites out of them. Dessert was a delicious baked Alaska with cherry garcia in it that they lit on fire for us, amazing dark chocolate (and white chocolate) truffles, and my favorite, the creme brulee that Christina ordered, which had three flavors, coffee, custard, and a very rich chocolate. This was a truly amazing meal, and Randal was incredibly generous to treat everyone. We didn't all end up getting to buy him a drink, so I sent him some virtual drink money over Paypal after the cruise as thanks.

Mustaches were provided!

10:00PM: The 2nd Annual Paul F. Tompkins Memorial Moustache Formal and Feztravaganza was conveniently scheduled this year for one of the formal nights, so everyone gathered on the sea-view deck in their finest, put on some fake mustaches, wore fezzes and other fancy hats, and engaged in villainous conversation. I had wanted to meet up with other DC-area sea monkeys and had mentioned a meet-up at the Mustache Formal on Twitt-arrr and on the scheduling boards in the game room. At first we couldn't find anyone, but finally Paul Sabourin announced that we would be gathering for a photo op, so luckily we got to be in a picture with a bunch of other DC-area seamonkeys (I have yet to see this picture online). It turns out that there are a lot of seamonkeys from our area! There was also a Canadian seamonkey gathering, and a photo of the Beardalos (all bearded gentlemen, I was in this photo), followed by Paul F. Tompkins and Paul Sabourin (I think?) judging of best natural mustache and best supernatural mustache from their 'stage' on the elevated hot tub areas. They made one contestant shave because his mustache wasn't disconnected enough from his beard for them. The best supernatural mustache ended up being a fancy steampunk mustache holder+mustache that was very impressive.

Mustaches for everyone! With Andy Looney of Looney Labs, Yoda, and Oboewan

This unfortunately bled in to the timeslot for...

11:00PM: Open Mic Night we ended up being a bit late as the Mustache Formal ran late, and we couldn't stay for the entire thing because Christina wanted to go back to the cabin, but what we did see was highly entertaining. The sea monkeys are very creative people, and there was a powerpoint presentation of a robot cat feeder (feeding the attendee's cats back home), several comedy and music and dance performances, and more! A human zendrum / a capella group performing Jonathan Coulton's Mr. Fancy Pants was a highlight, especially when JoCo himself was called to take over conducting them:

Saturday, February 25: At Sea, Last Night

9:30AM: Live Podcast: Paul and Storm (featuring Web-comic artist guests, Joseph Scrimshaw, and Paul F. Tompkins) was bright and early, and we missed the first 10 minutes or so, but the podcast itself can now be downloaded here, and I recommend giving it a listen to get a sense of some of the sense of humor from the cruise (and an explanation of "the burn").

Over the Edge with Keith Baker

11:30AM: Over the Edge RPG with Keith Baker Keith Baker, the designer of several pen-and-paper RPG campaigns hosted a couple of games during the cruise, with limited slots and sign-ups conducted prior to the cruise by email. Christina and I signed up for this one. Unfortunately there was a time slot mix-up so we missed the beginning of the adventure, but we ended up being able to jump in with no problems. There were several pre-made character sheets we used, and a lot more role-playing than dice rolling, which is something I really enjoy. I was the meddling kid, a young boy that loves adventure, is very sneaky, and can usually get away with anything for being so darn cute. I had a lot of fun with the role. Christina was a female private eye who got very drunk and enjoyed going against the rest of the group whenever she could. Everyone ranged from different tv archetype characters, and we were all in a very unusual bar where the main entrance opened somewhere new every time. I narrowly avoided death when the door opened to a volcano, and we all held a "survivor" vote to determine who went into a volcano that resulted in a tie between me and the non-player-character annoying kid who ate everything in sight (whom the guy playing "Santa" had stuffed into his sack and beaten up). I ended up using an ability that let me get several random words and having to work them into a story that explained what I did (as if those words are my dice), and the DM judged me the victor when I distracted the other boy with a cookie, then stabbed him with my pocket-knife and kicked him to the volcano. Fun times!

Playing Ascension, a deck-building game like Dominion, with Creighton and Cassidy after lunch

4:30PM: Concert: Jonathan Coulton finally, after 6 days worth of opening acts, Jonathan Coulton himself takes the stage for two sets. He brought along a bassist and a drummer for his first set, this is the first time we've seen him with a band. They rocked pretty hard! Then the second set was acoustic, although Paul and Storm provided additional back-up on a couple songs as they usually do during his shows, and Molly Lewis and John Roderick joined in on different songs. In order to do the "First of May" without cursing, JoCo decided to sing the song as "It's the first of May/Sluice box mucking starts today" in reference to the worst job John Roderick said he had during the Q&A (A sluice box mucker for a gold mine). It's references and memes that develop from them like that which make the cruise experience so special.

With the (randomly chosen at the beginning of the cruise) Monarch of the Seas, Troy, and his royal consort. They received the Stepto army, a group of bald men with goatees (and one bald woman) to escort them to the nicest seats in each show, and passed rulings such as whether crunchy or soft tacos are the best kind.

The last supper

8:00PM: Dinner was back in the Vista Dining Room this day, and we sat with the last group of sea monkeys we would eat with that cruise, and all took extra advantage of cruise ship menu ordering.

Farewell Cocktail reception with Matt and Lisa (from Dominion)

10:00PM: "So Long, and Thanks for All the Drinks!" Cocktail Reception everyone and all the performers gathered for free drinks at the Lido midships pool area. There was a very strong wind, and the ship was tilting to one side to the extent that the wading area of the pool on one side was completely dry. I talked to Paul, and later Storm, who I got to sign their cd which I had hurriedly purchased from the ship store minutes before it closed prior to dinner. (A couple days earlier I also got Marian Call's cd and got her to sign it when I saw her in the game room). I also got to thank Wil Wheaton again, and he actually mentioned Christina by name and said to tell her goodbye from him (she had gone back to the room). I hung out with other seamonkeys after they took away the free drinks, trying to drag out the moments so that the cruise didn't have to end.

Sunday, February 26: Fort Lauderdale arrival

This airport has a Sea-monkey infestation!

Alas, it was disembarkation day. Somehow we ended up picking the slowest of all lines at customs, and ended up being passed by all the other lines. Wil and his family were in one of the lines and waved to us. JoCo's bassist was near us in line and we talked with him a bit. Christina awkwardly told him that he looked much older in person than she thought he was on stage, which embarrassed everyone. At customs we found out that the ship neglected to give us our customs forms, so we had to step out of line to fill them out.

Waiting in line for a cab, a van became available to go to the airport, so we ended up getting in a van that was then boarded by John Roderick and his adorable baby daughter. We really had a lot of good luck with vans that cruise! Roderick was very kind and friendly and we enjoyed talking to him on the ride to the airport.

Unfortunately, our flight out wasn't until 8pm, so we had a long time to wait. We couldn't get an earlier flight, and we couldn't check our luggage until 4 hours until the flight, so I found a luggage storage service that would hold on to our bags for us for a fee. We kept our carry-ons and boarded the airport shuttle to head to a terminal that I knew seamonkeys were hanging out at (thanks to 3G reception and the Facebook page.) The Chili's Express was there, but Christina wasn't feeling well, so I got her a donut while she waited in line for a table, and we ended up getting our own table and eating alone, even though other seamonkeys were in the restaurant.

After eating we found John and Charlotte, a couple of seamonkeys we had met on the cruise, and claimed a section of seats to attempt to gather seamonkeys for some gaming. Unfortunately, other seamonkeys had moved on to yet another terminal to eat at a hamburger place there, so we staked out the territory, took advantage of outlets to charge our phones, and I played Gin Rummy with Charlotte and John cause we didn't have any games other than the deck of cards I found in my backpack. Christina took a pillow out of her carry-on, borrowed my jacket, and napped while we played. Eventually more seamonkeys found our small group, including our doppelgangers and we chatted until it was time to head back to our terminal, taking a break to check our luggage and then return once more to hang out until it was time to actually head to our gate. We used the airport shuttle bus many times during our stay.

Once more due to Southwest's open seating policy -- and Christina's nervousness about flying -- we were worried about getting a window seat for her, especially since this time our boarding number was near the end. By a stroke of luck, we ended up getting the very last window seat at the very back of the plane. The flight home thankfully went smoothly and we got picked up very late at night at BWI by Christina's Mom, who generously drove us home. I was so exhausted I slept in the car, and was incredibly thankful that I took off work on Monday. There was not enough time for sleep on this crazy cruise, and I needed a vacation!

JoCo Cruise Crazy 2013!?


We had such an amazing time on this trip, got to be part of such an amazing community for the second time now, and I cannot imagine not being part of the next cruise now. I've pre-registered with a deposit for the next trip, and I really hope we get to go back!