Noelle's Visit

In March my friend Noelle came to stay with me. 

As usual, there were a lot of crazy and bizarre things that happened. Here's just a small sampling:

*We spent some time up at the Sea of Galilee. One day we stopped by the "Baptism of Jesus" site (the one on the Israeli side--the Jordanians have one too) where pilgrims often visit to be "reborn" and baptized, even if they have already been baptized. They put on these (incredibly see-through) long white t-shirts, all get down into the water, sing and pray, and then do some sort of immersion in the water. Just make sure you look away when they get out.

I was taking advantage of Noelle's willingness to be a subject for a photo shoot, because the lighting was perfect and, well, she's stunning and much more photogenic than me.

And then, we saw beavers swimming in the water. BEAVERS! They became the new subject of the photo shoot.

I think they liked getting their picture taken, because they came up out of the water and came right up to Noelle to play with her!

It was crazy! They played with Noelle for several minutes, but we quickly attracted a large crowd of curious tourists and so the beavers left (or maybe they just realized that we didn't have any food!).

*We stayed at this very cheap hotel in Tiberias. I'm pretty sure we were the only guests that night. We made the booking while we were at the "free wi-fi" national park of Caesaria, and we just picked the cheapest hotel we could find while searching the internet on our phones. At about 6 pm, I got a call from the hotel. "Hey," they said, "what time are you guys planning on coming by tonight? We've got your room all made up and ready for you!"

It was only a little creepy. When we got to the hotel, the two hotel managers were sitting at the front desk. Before they showed us to our room, they were telling us about the attractions around town and, as it always does in conversations with me, the fact came up that we're Mormon. These guys were just floored and super curious as to what we do to "have fun" if we don't drink coffee, tea, or alcohol. One of them asked, "So what do Mormons do when they just want to lose all control?" I thought it was a rather odd way to ask such a question, so I answered with some snarky remark about ice cream and barbeques. They were pretty hilarious, though, and definitely added to the culture of the rather ghetto hotel.

They gave us the "best room in the hotel"--one of only two with a balcony overlooking the street (and a few blocks away, the sea of Galilee!). And the back of the hotel was full of character--just go up those creepy metal stairs and you're in the lobby!

Like I said, Noelle is much more photogenic than me. While a jumping picture of her turns into an excited, "look I'm on the shore of the Mediterranean!", mine just turns into "I love disco."

I introduced her to the finer Middle Eastern cuisine. And by that I mean pita and hummus. :) My coworker Rakheli met us for dinner one night, where Noelle could finally eat real food: tuna steak.

I wanted to take Noelle to see the Dead Sea, but I didn't want to drive all the way to the beaches by Masada. As a poor student, I am opposed to paying much for anything, but I am especially opposed to paying Israeli institutions for things in the West Bank on moral grounds. You might disagree, and that's fine. The fact of the matter is, we stopped by this beach on the Northern edge of the Dead Sea. I really just wanted to be able to walk down to the shore so Noelle could see it, so when I saw a security guard walking by, I asked him (in Hebrew), "Can we just walk down and see the sea from around here?" He looked me up and down, glanced over at Noelle, and then said, "Come with me."

He walked into the beach area and we followed, where he pointed us down to the water. It was an awesome beach, with delightful mud and old people who were definitely not averse to changing out of their swimming suits right there on the beach. The whole time I kept telling Noelle, "I can't believe this beach is free! I totally would have brought my sister here if I had known!"

After several minutes, we were ready to be done. As we were walking out, I happened to glance over at the sign hanging on the wall of the reception desk. The normal admittance price was 50 shekels per person!!! I told Noelle the security guard let us in for free because she's Asian, because I never get freebies like that!

And of course, no visit to see me would be complete without deep discussions of and visits to controversial areas, like the Kidron Valley and the Herodian.

I can see the Herodian from my house, but I've never actually been. It was freezing cold and super windy when we went, which might explain for the lack of visitors. While Noelle was distracted by the rock piles, I was distracted by the settlements.

*I've always wanted to go shopping with someone that spoke another language besides English, Arabic, or Hebrew (meaning Chinese, since that is the only other language I speak), so I could bargain with the shopkeepers in Arabic and speak Chinese to my friend and we would NEVER have to speak English. And we would get a super cheap deal. (Everything is more expensive in English.) Well, when Noelle was here, I finally had my chance. And it was AWESOME. We went shopping in the Old City and I would bargain with the shopkeepers in Arabic and then tell Noelle in Chinese that it was way too much and she should shake her head no. And it totally worked, too. One guy dropped the price of a silk scarf from 200 shekels down to 65, so Noelle decided to buy it. He totally had his son chase after us with the scarf when we walked away because the price was too high and offer us a better deal.

It was great fun, Noelle, and I'm so glad you had a chance to come and visit!