Journal excerpts from trip III
Dear ****,
I fell asleep writing last night and now it is about 11:45 the next day. Finishing up with yesterday, the hotel we’re in is gorgeous. We’re staying in זכרון יעקב, a city a little south of Mt. Carmel. The hotel is built on a small mountain and it’s floors rise up the mountain like a huge staircase. Each room has an enormous terrace that overlooks the land, and the first day (yesterday) when everyone was shown to their rooms, if you stood on your terrace and looked up you saw 39 other college students staring out over the land, stunned.
I have my own bedroom in a suite that I share with two sisters Michelle and Amy that live in Jersey (one of them actually goes to school at American in DC) and remind me of me and Naomi in their relationship. The elevator to get to our rooms is a cable car that rises up the mountain so that when you look down you see a marvelously long tunnel.
I awoke today at 10:30 and went downstairs to find a traditional Israeli breakfast -yogurt cheese, vegetables, more yogurt, more cheese, tzetziky ( don’t know how to spell that, but you’ll figure it out), and tang. It made me wish my mother was here terribly, as it was always her that had loved Israeli breakfasts the most, and I felt as though this should be hers instead.
Right now I am sitting on the lobby terrace, a huge one with a pool and a 200º view of the land surrounding us. It is gorgeous here, something in the 70’s with a light breeze and the sun pouring down through a crack in the clouds. I am lying on a lounge chair next to Dave and if I look in front of me I see my bare feet in the foreground and all of Israel (or at least what seems like it) behind them. Lunch is at 1:00 followed by a two hour walk of this city and then a tour of the Carmel wineries (don’t worry, I’ll wine taste for you and Jeremy).
Sitting here right now with the most perfect view of the world around me that I could imagine, I find myself for the first time not separated from environment by the feeling of either an internal or external world. Rather, I feel that everything that I am seeing I am also innately part of, and that is incredible.
My only devastating news to report is this: I came to Israel and unpacked my bags only to find my camera broken. If I dwell on this too long I will cry so this is the most I will say of it. It is a shame for so many reasons, but most of all because I think I have finally witnessed moments were using it would not be a tool for distance.
I miss you terribly and wish I could let you see this.
Love,
Joanie
01/03/04
Dear ****,
I’m more than a little tipsy so I’m gonna keep this short. Downtown זכרון יעקב, Carmel winery with wine tasting (I bought a bottle of dessert wine for you and Jeremy as a souvenir. I don’t know much about wine so I hope it’s good but I asked the tour guide and he said it’s their best dessert wine), and then back to the hotel. Split a bottle of wine and a Cuban cigar with Dave, then went downstairs and partied with the rest of them. Good times. I’m gonna quit while I’m ahead. Getting up at 6:00 am tomorrow to bike some mountain. Holy shit.
I love you,
Joanie