Accelerated Adolescence

Honeymoon in Haifa

First Impressions

Last night, Kristen and I arrived in Haifa around 3:30. Customs took about an hour but was as easier to go through than was U.S. customs. We pretty much just walked right through. They don't really care how long we're going to be here, etc... Maybe they stamped my passport, I didn't look. We got back to Mara and Mark's flat at about 6:30 and chatted about stupid stuff, got unoaded, looked and felt exhausted. But, it was magical driving into the city, we saw the shrine of the Bab from the circle at the bottom of the terraces (on Ben Gurion). It was intense and spiritual seeing it for the first time that was not two dimensional! After getting cleaned up, we went to the shrine, which was also intensely spiritual and very moving. It was a magical experience. Our shower, dinner, and sleep last night were the best I've had in a long time but it's probably only because we were travelling for approximately 24 hours before we got in.

Today, while Mara and Mark were at work we went to the terraces, walked down them, and into the Wadi. It was pretty cool to wander around with many ancient looking buildings everywhere. The general form of architecture reminded me of Gambia, as did the smell, the stray dogs and cats, and the iron gates and accompanying compounds. I imagine that all of Gambia would look like this if it were wealthier, in general. It's about 2:30 in the afternoon right now so I'm pretty sure that the jet lag is really going to kick in in about three or four hours but we are feeling pretty good right now. We slept in until nine this morning after we went to bed last night at approximately 9:30.

It feels strange that this is my honeymoon. It feels strange that I have been dreaming of visiting Haifa for so long and so much only have the experience be entirely different from what I thought it would be. The drivers are definitely not American (crazy but good as opposed to not crazy but bad) and the roads are pretty much as good (so far as I know) though the wadi has many brick roads. It is important to remember that different is not bad. I'm loving it (all eighteen hours that I've been here). I'm going to hop off the machine now so that Kristen can blog about her first impressions. We're staying away from one another's blogs in order that you can have different viewpoints and read about what is salient to each of us. I suspect that Kristen will write something about the street artwork, though.

Someone tell Gramma that I'm posting my impressions on the blogs:) Thanks

Posted by Mendon at December 19, 2005 7:15 AM