I miss the Bisli
All the blogs I read are full of New Years Resolutions. I don't do that sort of thing so you aren't going to find any of it here. I just hope to be happy in 2007. That is all.
I just got back from a family trip to Israel and Jordan. When I say family, I mean my immediate family plus 6 cousins. We had our own minibus. 7 out of the 11 of us were under 26. The trip actually wasn't as crazy as it sounds, and we had a good time and stayed safe and all that...
I want to talk about an incident that occurred during our one night stay in Eilat, which is a small city at the very southern tip of Israel, on the Red Sea. I was so excited about going there because it's supposed to be a beachy resort where Israelis go during the winter. WRONG! There was a beach, but there wasn't anything "beachy" about Eilat besides the sand and the crappy boardwalk vendors that we have in Ocean City. And I heard way more English than Hebrew. Also, it was FREEZING. Colder than it is in New York! How does one reconcile wearing a down jacket (and still shivering) and being surrounded by palm trees and turqouise blue water? Last time I was in Eilat, which was in May 1998, the sand was so hot I couldn't walk on it, and I went snorkeling and thought the water was too hot.
Anyway, we checked into our hotel, the Eilat Holiday Inn Patio. We had been warned about this particular hotel, but the warning came from an unreliable travel agent and contradicted what we'd read in our guidebook and on trip-advisor (can you see where I'm going here?) We picked it mostly because all the other hotels required a week-long stay and cost over $200 more per night.
Among the various problems at the Eilat Holiday Inn Patio: First, the hotel rooms are atrium style, opening onto a central area featuring a pool table, a ping pong table, a koi pond, and a tv. This means it is LOUD in the rooms. The cups and mugs in my hotel room were all filthy. There was foreign hair in the shower. The bed was clean, but there was a cot set up in the room for unknown reasons. The reservation was listed for 15 people instead of 11, and it took us around 30 minutes to check in because of this error.
Then there is the location: The Eilat Holiday Inn Patio is adjacent to BOTH the bus station and the Airport. To get to the boardwalk, one must walk past the bus station, turn the corner, walk through a red-light district (okay, there was one store called Sexy Shop or something like that, but it adds to the effect here), and then go around the airport to the beach. It takes about 15 minutes unless you are one of the over-age-26 members of your group, in which case it takes all night because you will get lost.
Javert and I went to dinner with my parents and a cousin and then walked around the promenade. We contemplated getting coffee (we contemplated this at just about every single place they sold coffee in Israel, but only ended up getting it like 3 times because we are lazy and cheap) and walked to the end of the promenade and back and then decided we were bored. I'd heard that Eilat was so much fun and so I called my brother, who'd gone to dinner with the other 6 people in our group, to see what he was doing. Unfortunately for me, he was about to go to sleep and said Eilat was "less fun than advertised."
As we headed to the hotel, I said to Javert "You know, I'm going to sound old, but that music is just too loud!" Javert responded with a crotchety "It's eardrum damaging loud." (And I knew I had picked the correct spouse.) The music emanated from a tent set up on the sidewalk near a mall and around it were bunches of drunken American teenagers (maybe they were older, I'm terrible at guessing ages). Clearly we had come across the advertised fun.
Deciding that watching Spider Man II in the hotel room was more fun than partying with these people, we went to a minimart to stock up on bottled water and Bisli. We also decided to buy a Goldstar beer, which we'd seen advertised all over the place. In the minimart were at least 10 drunken Americans actually-literally--screaming about how they needed to buy more beer or more mixers ("the mixer is for you, Debbie, I have my own mixers.") or more vodka or the cleverly designed vodka and red bull combo pack.
I am usually not embarrassed to be an American tourist. I live in New York City and see that most tourists, no matter where they're from, are stupid. You can't help it. You don't speak the language, the culture is foreign and different, you don't know the area. And I get annoyed, but most of the time I just think it's funny. I like to watch tourists on the subway trying to figure out if Times Square is the same as 42nd street. I happily give people directions. I like living in a place that attracts tourists from across the country or from halfway across the globe.
However. I was terribly embarrassed to be an American tourist when I was in that minimart. Luckily I wasn't dressed like a skank or screaming about liquor, but I still fumbled with the Shekels I needed to pay for the groceries and spoke in English to the cashier (I don't know why I did this since I speak enough Hebrew to get by--and this happened the entire trip). I suppose it's a combination of being on vacation and being too young to drink at home and being surrounded by Jewish people of the opposite sex (meaning mother-approved for dating and marriage) that made these people act this way. But it still made me want to kick them.
Back at the hotel, we realized that neither the heat nor the hot water worked. I consoled myself with half the Goldstar beer--which incidently we opened using the bottle opener attached to the bathroom wall, which I guess was the one good thing about this hotel--and with the pizza flavored Bisli.
Luckily both Javert and I slept well despite the cold. I woke up early enough to have a lukewarm shower and warm up with fake coffee at breakfast. Unfortunately, my parents and cousins had not had as comfortable a night. My mother wore every item in her suitcase in order to stay warm. One of my cousins saw a cockroach in her room (which thank god she did not mention until we had left the city altogether). We all piled into the minibus after breakfast and waited for 30 minutes as the four over-26'ers argued with the front desk about a refund for our crappy night. I think they ended up getting 10% back which if you ask me was not worth 30 minutes of sitting on a minibus, but it's their money so I can't really complain.
Anyway, I won't be returning to Eilat any time soon. The rest of the trip was great, but really who wants to hear about how wonderful someone else's vacation was?
I just got back from a family trip to Israel and Jordan. When I say family, I mean my immediate family plus 6 cousins. We had our own minibus. 7 out of the 11 of us were under 26. The trip actually wasn't as crazy as it sounds, and we had a good time and stayed safe and all that...
I want to talk about an incident that occurred during our one night stay in Eilat, which is a small city at the very southern tip of Israel, on the Red Sea. I was so excited about going there because it's supposed to be a beachy resort where Israelis go during the winter. WRONG! There was a beach, but there wasn't anything "beachy" about Eilat besides the sand and the crappy boardwalk vendors that we have in Ocean City. And I heard way more English than Hebrew. Also, it was FREEZING. Colder than it is in New York! How does one reconcile wearing a down jacket (and still shivering) and being surrounded by palm trees and turqouise blue water? Last time I was in Eilat, which was in May 1998, the sand was so hot I couldn't walk on it, and I went snorkeling and thought the water was too hot.
Anyway, we checked into our hotel, the Eilat Holiday Inn Patio. We had been warned about this particular hotel, but the warning came from an unreliable travel agent and contradicted what we'd read in our guidebook and on trip-advisor (can you see where I'm going here?) We picked it mostly because all the other hotels required a week-long stay and cost over $200 more per night.
Among the various problems at the Eilat Holiday Inn Patio: First, the hotel rooms are atrium style, opening onto a central area featuring a pool table, a ping pong table, a koi pond, and a tv. This means it is LOUD in the rooms. The cups and mugs in my hotel room were all filthy. There was foreign hair in the shower. The bed was clean, but there was a cot set up in the room for unknown reasons. The reservation was listed for 15 people instead of 11, and it took us around 30 minutes to check in because of this error.
Then there is the location: The Eilat Holiday Inn Patio is adjacent to BOTH the bus station and the Airport. To get to the boardwalk, one must walk past the bus station, turn the corner, walk through a red-light district (okay, there was one store called Sexy Shop or something like that, but it adds to the effect here), and then go around the airport to the beach. It takes about 15 minutes unless you are one of the over-age-26 members of your group, in which case it takes all night because you will get lost.
Javert and I went to dinner with my parents and a cousin and then walked around the promenade. We contemplated getting coffee (we contemplated this at just about every single place they sold coffee in Israel, but only ended up getting it like 3 times because we are lazy and cheap) and walked to the end of the promenade and back and then decided we were bored. I'd heard that Eilat was so much fun and so I called my brother, who'd gone to dinner with the other 6 people in our group, to see what he was doing. Unfortunately for me, he was about to go to sleep and said Eilat was "less fun than advertised."
As we headed to the hotel, I said to Javert "You know, I'm going to sound old, but that music is just too loud!" Javert responded with a crotchety "It's eardrum damaging loud." (And I knew I had picked the correct spouse.) The music emanated from a tent set up on the sidewalk near a mall and around it were bunches of drunken American teenagers (maybe they were older, I'm terrible at guessing ages). Clearly we had come across the advertised fun.
Deciding that watching Spider Man II in the hotel room was more fun than partying with these people, we went to a minimart to stock up on bottled water and Bisli. We also decided to buy a Goldstar beer, which we'd seen advertised all over the place. In the minimart were at least 10 drunken Americans actually-literally--screaming about how they needed to buy more beer or more mixers ("the mixer is for you, Debbie, I have my own mixers.") or more vodka or the cleverly designed vodka and red bull combo pack.
I am usually not embarrassed to be an American tourist. I live in New York City and see that most tourists, no matter where they're from, are stupid. You can't help it. You don't speak the language, the culture is foreign and different, you don't know the area. And I get annoyed, but most of the time I just think it's funny. I like to watch tourists on the subway trying to figure out if Times Square is the same as 42nd street. I happily give people directions. I like living in a place that attracts tourists from across the country or from halfway across the globe.
However. I was terribly embarrassed to be an American tourist when I was in that minimart. Luckily I wasn't dressed like a skank or screaming about liquor, but I still fumbled with the Shekels I needed to pay for the groceries and spoke in English to the cashier (I don't know why I did this since I speak enough Hebrew to get by--and this happened the entire trip). I suppose it's a combination of being on vacation and being too young to drink at home and being surrounded by Jewish people of the opposite sex (meaning mother-approved for dating and marriage) that made these people act this way. But it still made me want to kick them.
Back at the hotel, we realized that neither the heat nor the hot water worked. I consoled myself with half the Goldstar beer--which incidently we opened using the bottle opener attached to the bathroom wall, which I guess was the one good thing about this hotel--and with the pizza flavored Bisli.
Luckily both Javert and I slept well despite the cold. I woke up early enough to have a lukewarm shower and warm up with fake coffee at breakfast. Unfortunately, my parents and cousins had not had as comfortable a night. My mother wore every item in her suitcase in order to stay warm. One of my cousins saw a cockroach in her room (which thank god she did not mention until we had left the city altogether). We all piled into the minibus after breakfast and waited for 30 minutes as the four over-26'ers argued with the front desk about a refund for our crappy night. I think they ended up getting 10% back which if you ask me was not worth 30 minutes of sitting on a minibus, but it's their money so I can't really complain.
Anyway, I won't be returning to Eilat any time soon. The rest of the trip was great, but really who wants to hear about how wonderful someone else's vacation was?
posted by Emil at 2:21 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home