Swimming in the Dead Sea

Today I took a day trip to the Dead Sea with my new friends Rachel and Kevin. Rachel and Kevin are from the U.S. and have basically been paralleling my journey here in Israel. They were at the hostel in Haifa where I stayed, but we didn't actually meet or speak there. When I was waiting for the bus from Haifa to Nazareth last Wednesday, having already missed the bus I intended to take and having to wait for the next one, I noticed them walk up and stand near the bus stop with their luggage. I thought they looked slightly familiar, and Kevin's blonde hair and casual look made me think that perhaps they were Americans, and I started to say something to them. But then I noticed Kevin's shirt, which had a bunch of Hebrew on it. "Ah, well, they're probably Israelis and don't speak English," I thought, and didn't say anything to them.

When the bus to Nazareth came, they got on, and when we got to Nazareth, they got off at the same spot. The three of us pulled our luggage out from under the bus at the same time, and I heard them speak English to each other ("Ok, let's look at the guide book," I think Rachel said), but I didn't say anything or really acknowledge them. I just set off down the road, thinking I knew where I was going from the map that I had copied down from another girl's guide book at the Haifa hostel.

Rachel

After wandering the streets of Nazareth for a while and getting confused and lost, I finally arrived at the Fauzi Azar Inn. When I arrived, I was talking about how lost I'd gotten, and the person at the desk said, "Ah, hi! Are you the one who called me?" "No," I said, "I didn't call..."

As the receptionist was checking me in, who walked up the stairs and into the reception area but Rachel and Kevin! We looked at each other and smiled, clearly recognizing each other. There was no getting around some communication now.

"Hi!" I said. "Were y'all at the hostel in Haifa, too?"

They said they were, and we laughed at how random it was that we were all headed from that hostel to this hostel at the same time. After we got the orientation tour to the Fauzi Azar, we all went to put our stuff in our rooms. I went into the kitchen to eat some of the free cake that the staff provides there each day, and pretty soon Kevin and Rachel appeared to do the same thing. Over cake, we started talking and got to know each other.

I asked where they were from, and they said the U.S. -- Rachel lives in NYC and Kevin in Philadelphia. I told them how I hadn't approached them because of Kevin's shirt with Hebrew on it, and Rachel laughed and said she'd gotten him that shirt as a joke because the Hebrew is all incorrect and the math equations that were on it were all messed up as well... so it looks really intelligent and whatnot, but it's really a joke.

Kevin talking to some "monkeys"

Rachel and Kevin are both anthropologists working on their Ph.D.s... Rachel in Jewish studies, which was part of why she was on this trip -- she is interested in Israel and the phenomenon of Jews "making aliyah" -- that is, choosing to immigrate to Israel as their homeland, even if they weren't born and raised there -- and Kevin in "primatology" -- that is, he studies monkeys. Who knew monkeys' social lives were studied under the academic discipline of anthropology? Rachel was going to be in Israel for a month, and Kevin was joining her to travel with her for two weeks.

We had several conversations over the course of our time at "the Fauzi," as people called it. We were staying there for about the same amount of time, too -- I was leaving on Friday morning and they were leaving on Saturday. Thursday night I saw Rachel out in the courtyard checking her email and said we should keep in touch, so we exchanged contact information -- or rather, friended each other on Facebook -- and that was that.

When I arrived in Jerusalem, I got on Facebook to send Rachel a message about the fact that I'd been to Safed, which she had said was where she and Kevin were going after they left Nazareth, and it was the first I'd really heard of the town, from her. I noticed on her Facebook wall that she'd posted something about going to Jerusalem just a few days before, so I sent her a message and said, "So, are y'all in Jerusalem now, too??" Turns out they were, and would be in Jerusalem until the 4th (I'm here until the 9th). She invited me to come along with them to the Dead Sea on Thursday.

I wasn't quite sure what the plan was for the trip -- if we were going to observe the Dead Sea, or learn about the Dead Sea, or swim in the Dead Sea, but I brought my swimsuit and towel just in case... and it was a good thing I did, because basically the whole point of the trip down there was just to swim in the Dead Sea and spend the day on the beach there.

We swam and then ate lunch on the beach under the palm trees and then took the bus back to Jerusalem, where we had dinner together at a great vegetarian restaurant in the market close by Rachel and Kevin's hostel. It was a wonderfully relaxing day and a great way to decompress after all the hecticness in the city the day before.

I'm really glad I went with them, because swimming in the Dead Sea is an experience I'll never forget. The water's salt content is so high that you naturally float, without needing a raft or life jacket or anything of the sort. And when I say you naturally float, I don't mean the way you can "naturally float" on your back in "regular" lake or sea water. I mean, it is physically impossible to press your legs down into the water -- it's like trying sitting on a basketball or a raft in a pool or lake -- how the basketball or raft keeps wanting to push itself back up to the surface, no matter how hard you hold it down -- that's what your BODY itself naturally does in the Dead Sea. It was a crazy feeling. We also got to give ourselves a little natural spa treatment with the mud from the Dead Sea -- which is packaged and sold in spa shops around the world, but here we could just grab a handful of it and start rubbing it on ourselves. It was definitely a unique experience that I'm glad I had... and I'm glad I had people to enjoy it with and share it with. This is definitely an example of something that would NOT have been much fun to do alone.

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures with Kevin and Rachel. I thought we were going to get together on Friday as well, so I thought I'd be sure to get a picture then. But that wound up not working out, and we didn't see each other again before they left Jerusalem... so the pictures you see here were snagged from their Facebook pages... ;o)