Israel Travel Diary Part One

Day 1 | 15.6. 00:39
Or should I say Day 2? Just a few hours ago, I landed in Tel Aviv. Life is so interesting. When I told people back home about spending my vacation in Israel, they all asked me the same question: ‘Are you going by yourself?’
Seriously? You people still don’t know me? After all the trips I made? YES. I’m going by myself. What those people don’t understand is that you’ll always meet people when you travel by yourself. So you are never alone unless you choose to be. When I boarded my plane, I was seated next to a girl. We both heard the sign for “boarding completed”, and since all the seats around us were still empty, we both switched to window seats. After about 10 minutes, more passengers arrived, and we both had to switch back, so we sat next to each other again. We both said,’it was too good to be true’ to each other, and that was the beginning of a conversation that would only end when we went to sleep in Tel Aviv around midnight.
We separated to go to our hostels, and as soon as I entered the room and said ‘Hello’ to the girl, that was still awake, another conversation started.
So since I arrived a few hours ago, there hasn’t been a minute in which I’ve been alone. Funny, isn’t it?

Day 3 | 16.7. 9:11
Wow. I don’t remember ever doing as much on a trip as on this one but still having enough free time. At least it feels like that. Since the conversation with my roommate last night, we pretty much spent the whole day together. After breakfast in the hostel, we went to the beach and spent a few hours there. What a feeling it was for me to go for a swim. While I enjoyed the water, I was thinking: For this moment alone, it was worth it to do this trip. I can’t say often enough how much I love the sea.
Around 12:30 p.m., I started noticing that it was getting too hot for me, and I went back to the hostel to take a shower and freshen up. Then I went to a pharmacy close by because the hostel staff told me that they sell tickets for the public transport there and I wanted to book my ticket to Eilat. I entered the pharmacy and asked the first employee about it. She couldn’t speak English, so she got another staff member. This one could only speak a little English, so she got a third one. This one started the process of selling me a card for the public transport and topped it up with money. It turned out to take a long time, because the machines weren’t working properly. I repeatedly asked her if the seat on the bus would be reserved, and she said yes. I was sceptical but didn’t want to question her. I had the feeling, her English wasn’t really good either. At some point, she got a fourth staff member. This one’s English was very good and it turned out that my seat wouldn’t be reserved with the topped up card. So they had to cancel the transaction, and then she googled how to get a reserved ticket. It took some time, but finally, we found the right website. Unfortunately, it wasn’t available in English, so she helped me to fill it all out and even put her own phone number in, when they didn’t accept mine. After altogether about 40 minutes, we finally made it, and I had my tickets. The ladies all quickly went back to work, so I wasn’t really able to thank them as much as I wanted to. So I went after them but I couldn’t find them anymore. The only person left was the one at the cash desk who couldn’t really speak English. I tried to tell her that she should choose some candy for everybody so I can leave at least a small thank you. She understood, but she wouldn’t accept. So I had to leave but I didn’t feel good, to be honest. I was amazed by how helpful people are in Tel Aviv because this wasn’t the only helpful encounter I experienced. And I’ve just been here for a day.
Later, my roommate and I went for lunch and enjoyed a few drinks at a beach bar. At night we went for another drink at the hostel bar, where I met a local, who showed me a very nice spot at the sea later on.
Aftet literally no sleep, I got up in the morning to start my tour to the Dead Sea. I’m currently sitting on the bus, but I am a little annoyed, to be honest, because it turns out that the bus also took people who want to visit Jerusalem. After dropping them off, we picked up some other people to take them to the Dead Sea with us. I wasn’t annoyed by that, I think it’s nice to connect tours if possible for the sustainable aspect. BUT what was annoying was as soon as the bus left in Tel Aviv, they started talking about Jerusalem and obviously Religion. Exactly the reason why I didn’t want to visit this place.
Anyway another thing was that the guide told us we would arrive around 10 a.m. and leave again at 2 p.m.. Though I think that 4 hours is plenty of time, I would have preferred it to not be there in the hot midday sun, which was already too much for me the day before. So all I can hope for is that it won’t be too hot at our arrival and there’ll be shadowy places, but I will see.

13:02
Correction. We actually only had 3 hours and are ready to leave now. BUT! It was more than enough time. Seriously, the Dead Sea, special as it is, is, in my opinion, overhyped. Yes, it was a unique experience to enter a sea, in which you can’t actually swim, only float. But you’re not gonna do that for 3 hours. A good thing was that there weren’t a lot of people. The beach itself was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s quite hard to put it in words, to be honest.

The tour guide warned us before entering to not put our heads under water, which was lucky, because I didn’t know that that would make your whole face burn and would definitely have done it. I did bring some water earplugs, though, and so instead of floating with my whole head outside of the water like everyone else, I laid my head into the water, my ears covered in it. I went swimming like this three times and at the third time I thought to myself, this would be my final swim here. And soon enough, a small wave made water come onto my eyes. As long as I kept them close, I was fine, I just knew that. But at some point, I tried to open my right eye, and it was a nightmare. I couldn’t see a thing. It was burning like hell. I floated blind for a minute or so, sure that my eyes would heal themselves a little bit. I knew I was close to the mooring buoys, so I blindly kept looking for them and found them very quickly. Then, I blindly let the rope lead me towards the little bridge, where people entered the water. I felt my right eye tearing up a lot and felt like I’d give it another try. So I opened and was able to see again, thanks to the healing tears. My left one, though, was still a disaster. But one eye was enough to get out of the water, to the showers, and wash all the salt out. Everything was good again.
After that, I changed back into my clothes and ate my prepared lunch. Soon enough, it was time to leave, and right now, we’re already on the road again.