With the following lines I’ll try to explain my last trip to Israel and Palestine. It was for 11 days during the end of August and beginning of September. The truth is that the trip as a whole was a fantastic experience, I just had a couple of troubles but everything finished alright. I traveled alone but anyway I had a great time.
I started the trip landing to Tel Aviv the economical capital of the Jewish state. Before going to Israel I was pretty scared, the main worries were my own security and also if I had any problem at the airport while I had to be asked for the typical questions: What’s your purpose ? Do you have family in Israel? Where are you gonna go? Almost anything else… I must admit that I was absolutely surprised because I thought I had to pass a long interview to enter into the country. Imagine if I was scared that I had different theories to explain to the Israeli police. My purpose is just for religion reasons, I’m a catholic and I’d love to see all the places where my lord Jesus lived. Don’t you believe me ? Look, here I have a bible and all these catholic cards… I wanted to fake as I was a religious person but then I realized that if they had asked me any religious question, probably it had been obvious that I am religious as an egg is circular. So I decided to say the truth, I was in Israel just on holidays, although it seemed a bit unbelievable as it was just few days after a war against Lebanon. I have to say that I had to go to Israel one month earlier, in fact, I already had the flight tickets, but I had to change them for one month later because of the war. I wanted to go there anyway as where I had to go was a quite area but my friends and family told me that if it was necessary they would call the police to don’t let my flight take off from the Dublin airport. Therefore I changed the flights for one month later, fortunately the war was already over and everyone was more calmed with my flight. The only problem at the airport wasn’t due to the police questions, it was one of my bags that was a little bit broken, I just filed a complain and they told me that if I went to an office they have or in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem they would or repair the bag or either pay me the value of the bag, but I was on holidays and I didn’t want to waste my time repairing a bag, so the bag is still broken…
After the few questions at the airport I just asked some tourist questions at the tourist office and in the very morning I was already in Tel Aviv. Well, in fact I had to go to Jaffa, where I had booked the first two nights in a hostel. Having some problems to be orientated I got Jaffa and my hostel after an hour landing, I left my luggage to the room, I had a shower and I wore a proper trousers, bathing costume in order to get over the high temperatures we had already at 8 o’clock in the morning. I have been living in Ireland for the last year and half and even if it’s summer time I’m not used to this sort of temperatures. After leaving the luggage I still had a mission, I had to call to my job and say that I was sick! Yes, I know I was on holidays but on that day, Monday, I was supposed to be working! The same for the day before, Sunday, that I had to call from the Dublin airport while I was going to departure direction to Paris. I had over 40 Euros of credit on my Irish mobile and also a Catalan mobile, just in case the Irish failed. Do you know what happened? The Irish, as it’s a very bad company (Meteor, the third of the country), had no coverage, no line to call at all… The problem with the Catalan was that I had no credit to call, it was a vodafone but with just few cents, not enough for an international call. I still had time as in Ireland had 2 hours less than in Israel. I needed a plan B. That was a public phone. If you are in Europe nowadays it’s not easy to get one of them but after walking for a while you eventually get one. I was in Jaffa, it is a kind of Muslim quarter outside of Tel Aviv, so it was pretty difficult to get a public phone. Finally I got one, but it didn’t work with coins, it worked just with prepaid cards. Then I had to find out where could I get one. I was near to a post office, I went in and I asked, a guy said, you can get one here but you’ll have to queue, the queue was quite long, at least there were 15 men. I was told it was the day they got paid and they were withdrawing the money. The same guy told that I could try just in front, crossing the street, where there was a boutique which might provide prepaid phone cards. Indeed it was true, I paid for the card and I went to the public phone. I tried at least 20 times dialing all the international codes, without them, the Irish , the American,… nothing I wasn’t able to use a phone! The day before leaving the country I understood how to use it. You must dial one of the Israeli telephone companies to get line and call the number you want. Then I saw I just had two solutions, or do not call and once back into my job I had said that the company’s line phone wasn’t working or send a text to a friend in Dublin 15 minutes before he started, explain him the situation, give him my personal code and password and allow him to call. He got my sms and could call just before when I was supposed to start. In order to don't confuse who read it I've to say that in my company (an American multinacional) employees don´t need to talk to anybody when calling sick, you just need to push few numbers and you are already oficially off.I can say I was saved by an sms. What a fantastic century the XXI!
After that I had already started my holidays. The first day I did nothing, basically I laid down into the fantastic sand of the beaches, I forgot to take the sun cream and I got burnt as I had been cooking myslef, Imagine if I got burnt that two girls had to come to me and they said: Aren´t you from here, are you? No, I´m not, I´m from Catalonia. We advise you to protect yourself against the sun as here it´s very dangerous and we have seen you are already very burnt. Fair enough, I went quickly to the nearest shop to get after sun cream, I bought one bottle and I put it to my body several times, however it was already too late, my skin had already been absolutely burnt. The next day I wasn't even able to walk.
