Israel and Jordan

After more than a month relaxing and recharging in London, I was ready to hit the road once more. My first destination was a whirlwind trip to the middle east. I only had 9 days to visit Israel, Palestine, and Jordan, but since this was about twice the time usually invested by visiting politicians and heads of state on their frequent yet fruitless trips here, I thought I had a pretty good chance of solving the middle east crisis once and for all.

To be honest I was a tad nervous about what to expect in Israel. It's very rare that you hear media reports of anything but war and terrorism coming from this part of the world, but having known quite a few people from Israel, and many travelers who had visited this area, I knew there had to be something more to this area than just suicide bombers and border disputes.

My first stop was Tel Aviv. After being pulled aside for special questioning right off the plane (if you smile and remain happy they never suspect a thing), I made it through customs and avoided the dreaded passport stamp of death. An Israeli stamp means you can't visit a whole bunch of Islamic countries, and even though I only have two more years on my current passport, I didn't want to limit my travels in that time, as you never know where you might get a chance to go. Israel, however, are very civilised about the matter, and issue you with a print out card, rather than stamping your passport, which I thought was a very grown up way of dealing with the issue.

I was lucky enough to be Couchsurfing with a truly awesome local called Patrizia. On top of being one of the most laid back and fun people you could ever hope to meet, she also proved to be the perfect example of why Couchsurfing gives you a totally different level of immersion into foreign cultures than other forms of travel. Patrizia is a PhD student doing a thesis on European perceptions of Israeli Defense policy, and on my first night in Tel Aviv, after sharing a bottle of wine, she casually mentioned that the next day she would be attending a Defense summit on Urban Warfare Ethics and Policy, and that if I wanted, I could tag along. It was an unbelievable opportunity, and naturally I jumped at the chance (hell, even if it was boring, there were free sandwiches, it'd be irresponsible backpacking of me not to go).

The conference started hilariously if a tad alarmingly. We arrived just in time for the ethical discussion regarding Urban warfare. In our conversations the night before, and on the way to the conference, Patrizia had already given me a very vivid picture of the complexities of Israel's position, and had informed me of some things you just don't hear in western media. For example, many Hamas rockets are strategically placed on schools and hospitals. This of course gives Israel the dilemma of firing upon these targets and saving their own population but risking international condemnation and taking a hit in the hearts and minds of the west, or attempting to curry western opinions and not eliminating these targets, and risking losing more Israeli lives in the ongoing conflict. Their solution was quite clever, and something that needs to receive far more publicity. The Israeli Defense Force hacks into the Gaza phone system, and sends out exact details of their targets the day before, and also drop leaflets around the areas of their targets, again informing the time and date and location of any missiles to be fired. When you hear of Israeli missile strikes that kill civilians, a lot of the time, these are strategically placed civilians, sacrificed to draw sympathy for Hamas' plight. It was really interesting to hear just how complex a war the Israeli's must fight, as they must not only win the physical war, but also the publicity war.

Anyway, having heard Patrizia talk passionately but intellectually about the ethical considerations of urban warfare, I was ready to hear more of the same at the conference. The first speaker then got up and singled out every extremist Muslim cleric and quoted them in the most conflict inducing context, leaving me dumbfounded. It was all true, Israel were crazy warmongerers. The guy moderating the session then got up and was greeted with half the conference attendees raising their hands insistently, and was forced to inform the now quite agitated crowd that there will be no questions, but a few angry words in Hebrew were yelled out, and Patrizia then explained, with a big smile, that the speaker we'd just heard was an Arab Israeli, and like many expats, this subset of the population was among the most vocal and extremist opposition of the Arab muslims, and that the crowd were quite angry at his extremist position. The next speaker then got up, and before beginning his own presentation, briefly explained that he could easily produce a speech which cherry picked Jewish idealogue quotations to produce an equally damning picture of the Israeli position, and that quoting extremists elements did absolutely nothing to draw the middle east towards peace. This was met with the warmest round of applause of the day.

The conference presented many different theories and approaches to modern urban warfare, and there was even a retired Aussie General who presented on Australia's involvement in Timor, concluding that the future of soldiering required young soldiers in the field to be far more intelligent and politically aware of their actions, as winning the physical battle was now only part of the job. The biggest lesson I took from the conference was that Israel deliberates every one of their militant actions with great ethical consideration. The nation is, just like every other democracy, filled with people across the political spectrum who have conflicting ideas of the best way to deal with what is an unbelievable complicated conflict, and while it is easy for us in the west to criticise and judge Israel's actions, Israel is well aware of both the political and the physical repercussions of their actions, and the way we tend to paint some of these actions are ridiculously one dimensional.

'DEATH, DEATH TO ALL....what? There's a foreigner here? I mean peace, lots of peace.'

After my first 24 hours in Israel being pretty much all defense policy and security checks, I decided to actually see what Israel does when it's not fighting Palestinians. Turns out the answer is: being awesome. It should be of no surprise that Israel's culture is amazing. Pretty much every main religion except for Scientology has major roots in this area of the world, and it has been inhabited by many of history's most influential societies. But what surprised me was just how vibrant and modern Israel is, and how effectively the nation functions, despite dedicating a majority of their taxes to defense. When I finally get some time up my sleeve, I would love to study Israel's start up culture, because it seems to contradict everything that is classically believed about small business. Israel does start-ups like Italy does pasta, and yet their tax rate is one of the highest in the world. Confirming what I have believed for years, Israel seems to profit from their high level of education, and this seems to materialise into innovation and profit. This directly contradicts the traditional conservative line of 'Lower taxes are good for small business', and I'd love to see exactly how they do it. On top of this, the nation has brilliant infrastructure, albeit sometimes still under construction. From free internet being widely available, to innovative farming methods, Israel is like the anti-Australia when it comes to investing in the future (the irony that peaceful, benign, Australia can barely look past the next tax collection, while a nation which is threatened weekly with being wiped from the face of the Earth manages to invest decades into the future, doesn't exactly reflect kindly on the political maturity of my home country).

Anyway, I'll stop boring you with political rants, and get to the things that interest people other than myself. Tel Aviv, while not much of a tourist stop, would be a great place to live. I ended up walking around the city until my feet hurt, and while I didn't really see anything that blew my socks off, it was a really cool, diverse, city, and the people seemed very friendly and at ease. With the exception of the security checks going into pretty much every store, and the frequent gun wielding teenage soldiers passing you by, it could have just been an American city.

The view from the hill in Jaffa in the south of the city.

Central Tel Aviv

Actually, the young adult soldiers and the security checks probably deserve a bit more than a one line mention. Israeli's are all required to do national service, and for the most part this involves military service. During their service time they are on call 24/7, which means their gun always accompanies them. It's not loaded unless they're on active duty, but at first it is a bit unnerving seeing a whole bunch of kids barely out of puberty wielding assault rifles. But the funny thing is that for the most part they just seem like kids at summer camp. If you ignore the death machines dangling from their shoulders, it's just a bunch of 18-21 year olds, hanging out and socialising while doing something their parents forced them into. It's very rare you get the power tripping idiots you get in other nations in armed services, or policing forces. The kids just do their job, concisely, but not overzealously, then get back to doing what anyone that age does: trying to figure out how to see the opposite sex naked.

The security checks are another feature. They are absolutely everywhere. Every supermarket, mall, office building, or public building, features a metal detector and multiple security guards there to check everyone who comes in. At first it's a little disruptive, but if you can't see the point in them, you're so obsessively libertarian as to be practically insane. Like any security feature, you just accept it, and move on, but it does make you acutely aware of the shocking terror campaign the Israeli's weathered, when even popping out for a litre of milk was a risky endeavour.

After spending a day bumbling around Tel Aviv, Patrizia and I were joined by a Couchsurfer from Switzerland, and the next day we went for a drive around Tel Aviv's surrounding countryside. Actually, I think we covered about a quarter of the nation, as Israel isn't exactly big, but we had a great day, and ended up climbing up a mountain that overlooked the west bank. Seeing it in real life, instead of on a map, made the dispute of borders all the more silly, as all you can see are beautiful rolling hills, but the seriousness of the area now sweeping in front of us was made real again when a military unit showed up with high powered observational equipment, and got angry at me when I tried to take their photo.

I think this photo made sense at the time, but I have no idea what it meant now. But in the background is the West Bank.

After a brief, but thoroughly enjoyable time with one of my favourite Couchsurfing hosts, I was off to one of Israel's big drawcards: Jerusalem. Before arriving in Jerusalem I learnt of a hilarious condition called Jerusalem Syndrome. This is the ailment where a visitor to Jerusalem, having been surrounded with so many sites of religious significance, begins to believe that they are a prophet. Luckily for me, I already had delusions of Deification prior to arriving in Jerusalem, and so was immune to this disorder. Being agnostic, leaning Atheist, Jerusalem, perhaps unsurprisingly, held very little magic for me. This actually shocked me a little, as while I don't believe that Jesus was magic, I still consider him a historical figure of note, and I understand the importance of Jerusalem as a historical city. But overall Jerusalem felt like a combination of Marrakesh in Morocco and just another clean, pretty city. I really enjoyed my time there, but the city didn't really capture me in the same way as places like Rome or Dachau.

Having said that, I still really enjoyed Jerusalem. No matter what your denomination you can find some site of personal significance. From the wailing wall for the Jews, to the church of Christ's execution for the Christians, to the very lovely Italian restaurant in the medina for the Pastafarians. I even heard that Tom Cruise might build a penthouse in the old city. The Church placed around the (believed) site of Jesus' crucifixion was interesting, if not a tad dubious. It's called the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and it contains the location of Jesus' crucifixion, where his body was prepared for burial, the rock that sealed his tomb, and his Holy Sepulchre (I have no idea what a Sepulchre is but Jesus' was fricken holy as). Anyway, it's a little bizarre watching people go around kissing various parts of the church, but it's nice that they made the church so interactive, I even got to touch the cross, or the stone the cross was upon, or something like that (they didn't really have much information in the church), and I can attest to the holiness of whatever I touched, because as I was standing up after taking a cheeky photo and making a joke to my friends who were there with me, I bumped my head on the bloody table standing over me. He truly is a cruel and vengeful God.

Sometimes God uses Brimfire to punish the sinners, sometimes a strategically placed table suffices.

Through this hole lies history, or just some rock. Whatever.

Surely jeans would've been a better choice if you knew you'd be kneeling down kissing stuff all day.

Jesus' prison cell grafitti?

The wailing wall was another highlight, though again, the religious significance was lost on me, and I couldn't help shake the feeling that videoing a bunch of the wailing Hasidic Jews nodding their heads back and forth, and then setting this video to heavy metal would be hilarious (Tiernan, get on it). It was also interesting to see, once again, religion dividing the sexes, with the women and men separated by a partition. Having said that, ever since I've worked at a Jewish summer camp in America, I have had a warm spot for the Jewish faith, and seeing them all come together on the eve of the Sabbath to sing and dance, wasn't the worst thing I could imagine doing. At least the Jewish religion seems to celebrate their faith on their once a week get together, and then have a big old meal together, rather than sitting in church for 3 hours hearing why you're going to hell.

The wailing wall front and centre, and the gold domed building is the Dome of the Rock, a Muslim shrine that they don't let non-Muslims visit (selfish).

Cue Slayer

Sexist

Outside of the old city's medina, there are plenty of other sites to check out. Two of my favourites were the Mount of Olives, which gives you a great view over the city, (as well as a convenient place to Prophecise to your followers) and the Holocaust museum. The Holocaust museum was pretty incredible, and had many touching memorials, with the children's memorial my favourite; a single flame turned into millions of flames by an array of mirrors.

The view from the Mount of Olives

The children's memorial

A memorial with information files relatives of those killed in the Holocaust filled out and submitted to the museum.

As much as I enjoyed Jerusalem, it was my two day trips outside the city that were truly memorable. The first was a trip down to the Dead Sea. I had expected a salty lake which I would float in for a few minutes, say 'Yay I've been in the Dead Sea', and then return home. But the surrounds on the Israeli side are quite spectacular. The Dead Sea is surrounded by sandstone cliffs and the occasional oasis, and the drive down was probably as much fun as jumping in the sea and smothering myself in mud (although covering the Queen with mud, and then getting weird looks from the tourists in the change room who watched me put her in the hand dryer, trumped both of these).

Israel: Where religious sensitivity is paramount, but you can still dress in black face and no one cares.

Not One's finest moment.

On my way back from the Dead Sea I managed to hitchhike twice with two different guys. Both were cool, and gave me separate insights into Israeli life, with one guy being a career soldier in the Airforce, and the other a tour guide doing Segway tours around Jerusalem. The common theme between the two of them was how hospitable they were, and how, despite the history of the country, which could've bred mistrust and introversion, how unbelievably friendly and open Israeli's are.

My other day trip was to the West Bank. It started off as just a trip to Bethlehem to see the church of the nativity, but it escalated into a full blown tour of the surrounding west bank region, when I was joined by two British tourists, and the three of us hired a local taxi driver to show us around. The taxi driver ended up being really cool, and as well as taking us to religious sites such as the Nativity Church, and the site of the Shephards' who saw the star, and Herodium - the believed burial site of Herod, also took us to see the wall dividing the West Bank and Israel, the border crossing (which we didn't have to go through on our way in thanks to being tourists), and to visit his family and have some tea.

Herodium

Church of the nativity. Notice the baubles present. This is why we decorate our trees with baubles at Xmas time (unless this is just some tacky ruse for tourists...surely not!)

Nun at the birth site of Jesus, God I'm a good photographer.

More touch a feel religious sites. The Christians really know how to make religion interactive.

Banksy piece near the wall.

View of the wall from one of the West Bank's refugee camps.

Our taxi driver on the roof of his house, with the two (three) Poms. 

As cool as all these sights were, the bit that stuck with me the most was when he took us to the house he was building for himself. He was literally buying it brick by brick, with any extra money from his taxi business immediately being invested in as many bricks as he could afford, and it was getting very close to completion, with the walls up to neck height. The house was located about 500m away from Israeli territory, and I asked him what he'd do if the Israeli's moved the border again and his house was no longer somewhere he could access. He just shrugged and smiled, but it really hit home just why this territory dispute resonates so strongly. I can't even fathom the anger of seeing something built so tangibly off hard work, be destroyed, or taken away from me, in one stroke by a foreign government for a religious or political cause. You add into this the lives that have also been claimed, and I fully empathise why generations later, the hatred is still running as strongly as when the conflict first started.

This sign was a few hundred metres from his house.

One other place we traveled to that brought home the anger that must be felt by the Palestinians, was Aida refugee camp. We only entered it briefly, but the place is surrounded by soldiers armed with assault rifles, and while not the most decrepit place I've seen, was definitely a terrible place for the many many children there to grow up. I did have one slightly awkward moment there when our driver decided I should get a photo with one of the guards. There is nothing like posing with a forced smile next to a humourless lug holding a killing machine for a timeless memory of one of the worlds bleakest spots.

Memories.

The entrance gate to Aida

On the streets of the refugee camp.

What made the place especially tasteless was the Four Seasons five star hotel literally located next to camp. Just in case the Israeli people displacing them wasn't enough, their fellow Arabs thought that rubbing opulence in their face would finish the job of imposing misery on them.

Pictured: Tact

To complete my whirlwind middle east tour, I wanted to quickly head into Jordan to see Petra, and check out the nearby desert valley called Wadi Rum. This meant heading down to the southernmost Israeli town of Eilat, which is located on the Red Sea, wedged in between Egypt and Jordan, with Saudi Arabia just to the South East as well. It's a fairly odd place, with an airport cutting the town in two, and a row of glitzy hotels, malls, and casinos ready to take American tourists' money when their cruises come into town. It was a good place to spend an afternoon, and I was lucky enough to be there for a clear day, so that when I climbed the mountain located just to the south of the city, I could see all 4 countries, which was quite novel.

To the right, Egypt. Across the sea, Jordan, and to the right of that Saudi Arabia. The rest, Israel.

After one afternoon in Eilat I was off to Jordan. Sadly, as I was pushed for time, I had to join a tour group. I could've probably still done the trip by myself, but relying on local transport in a country I knew nothing about would have been pushing my luck too far, so I made like a German, and joined a tour. After a lengthy border crossing ceremony (no less than 5 different immigration agents and security checks had to be passed), I finally made it into Jordan, and our waiting tour bus. For the next two hours I plugged my head phones in as our tour guide spoke ridiculously loudly through an extremely fuzzy speaker system in Hebrew, telling us 'interesting' facts about buildings we were passing (Oooh, a bank, what a modern metropolis this is). When we reached Petra, it took me about half an hour to convince our tour guide that I could be trusted by myself, and I could finally break away and explore Petra by myself.

Petra is about as impressive as you'd think it would be. It's quite crowded, which makes sense since it is one of the wonders of the world. I had an extremely limited time to see it all, and so I spent most of my time legging it around. One of the reasons I broke away from the tour group is that they weren't going to make it out to the Treasury, the largest of the rock face carvings. With some serious hustle I was able to get up there to see what was quite an impressive sight, with an even better view over the valley below. Sadly this left me with 20 minutes to get back to the tour bus, a journey with had taken me about an hour on the way out. And so I had the pleasure of going for a jog through one of the wonders of the world, and turning up sweaty and smelly to a packed tour bus full of old Israeli tourists. One highlight of this was running faster than the horse and carts transporting tourists back up out of the valley, and having one of them try to race me, to the horror of the old American couple in the back of the rickety cart.

It was a good day, and I can see why the site is a wonder, but it's so much like a museum, and so ready made for tourism, that there's not much else to tell about Petra, so here are some pretty pictures:

The first glimpse of the facade from Indiana Jones

It's a miracle this photo isn't blurred, as I was probably on the run when this was snapped.

On the drive back to Israel, the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere and dropped me off, as I was the only person who was going to rough it in the desert that night, and so I gratefully ditched the tour group, and headed off in a packed ute with a bunch of Bedouins (Jordani desert gypsies) for Wadi Rum.

Wadi Rum ended up being far more fun and beautiful than Petra. The main reason for it being more enjoyable was that instead of crawling along at pensioner pace I was now hurtling through the desert with a bunch of crazy Bedouins, and I had replaced 50 septuagenarians with two extremely cool dutch girls who were traveling from their respective middle eastern refugee camps at which they were coordinating the medical relief. We were to spend the night in tents in the middle of the desert, but before this we had dinner at their house which was in a small town near Wadi Rum's entrance. Here I had a short but memorable encounter with a Palestinian/American lady who had been living in Jordan for a few decades, and had starred in a documentary called 'An American Bedouin'. She was definitely a character, and she announced herself to us by storming in, with her short cropped grey hair, and ragged quasi-punk clothing, looking like someone out of Mad Max, and shouted 'Have they been fucking with the goddam internet again?'. We ended up talking to her (actually she ended up monologing to us) for about an hour, during which she explained how she'd spent years by herself in the desert, that she'd written a whole bunch of articles and books about her time out here, and how the Bedouins kept on fucking with her internet and how she'd strangle them if they screwed it up again. To be honest, she was exactly the kind of person that tends to annoy me. Very self absorbed, living in a very foreign culture yet still maintaining the perks of the culture she'd left, and verging on being a idealist hippy, but there was something really genuine about her, and despite it only being a brief meeting, she's one of the most fascinating people I've ever met.

After our dinner entertainment, we hurtled through the dark desert at about 100km/h, with headlights that seemed to throw light only far enough that by the time your eyes detected what the beams had hit, you'd already passed over it, and yet our driver managed to get us directly to our camp, despite following no real roads. After messing around with some night photography, we settled in for a cold nights sleep (although my sleeping bag plus 3 blankets made me snug enough).

The camp at night

We awoke to spectacular surroundings, and after a quick breakfast rushed off to explore the desert. Like Petra, Wadi Rum is best explained with pictures, but it was a great day climbing up canyons and arches, taking jump photos, and laughing at the fact that one of the Dutch ladies was afraid of heights. This in itself isn't that remarkable, but she was working in Oman, a place overrun with Al-Qaeda, where westerners are viciously targeted, and probably one of the scariest places for a white lady to work. To think that she could live and work there, but be too scared to get on top of a 15 metre high rock was pretty funny.

Our desert basher.

Old rock carvings. There are so many that they just sort of mention them as an afterthought.

View from a tea hut.

After a fun but sandy day, I caught a taxi back to the border, and thus began 24 hours of travel hell. I was due to fly out to Berlin where I would spend a few days in civilisation before throwing myself into India, but Berlin was still a couple of taxi rides, three bus rides, a quick car trip, two Israeli security checks and two flights away. Add to this that I hadn't showered since my sweaty jaunt through Petra, and the fact I was going to show up to my friends Ronja and Sarah's place in Germany smelling like a vagrant, and you can see why I wasn't looking forward to it. The first bit of the trip was fine, and then when I got to Tel Aviv, things went a little pear shaped.

First of all, I had to meet up with Patrizia, but she'd just gone to Jerusalem for the night. This meant I had to wait for her friend for about 3 hours at Tel Aviv's central bus station. Tel Aviv is almost without fault, and pretty much the whole city is beautiful, and extremely safe. The central bus station is the city's one exception. With the exception of sitting next to the Gaza strip, there are no worse places to be in Israel, and I spent my time there competing for the two functional power sockets, trying to dodge the saliva of people walking past and spitting near/on me, and generally having to be mega alert so that none of my stuff got stolen. It got especially tense when I had to leave the station, as it was closing for the night, and venture out on the street for the last hour of waiting. Luckily all was fine, and Patrizia's friend picked me up and took me to the airport. Then I got a taste of Israeli airport security.

Here's a top traveler's tip. Don't arrive at Tel Aviv airport early for your flight. They will use every second of that time to search and scour every inch of you luggage and person. After being questioned by two female profilers in the line for the security check, I was identified as a person of suspicion. The profilers are pretty funny. They basically try to intimidate you and to push your buttons to see if you'll snap (terrorists always snap). The funniest bit for me was when they looked at my passport for about two minutes, passing it back and forth, and then asked me if I had any other forms of ID. Having sent my drivers license away for renewal I was only left with my old work ID, which was so severely scratched and faded that it could have been anyone. Upon handing it to them, the lead profiler said 'That's better, thanks' because clearly that illegible piece of plastic was far better than the universally accepted passport I'd just tried to fob off on her.

After this, it was off to have my bag searched. They literally scanned everything that wasn't clothing. I tried to curry favour by warning them off opening my dirty sock bag, but this just made them more suspicious, and I was lucky not to have been charged with chemical warfare. This process was especially time consuming as I have about 15 different chargers in my bag, as well as a laptop, three cameras and a knock-off chinese i-pad. This took quite a while, and I tried to keep a cheerful face the whole time, as I know exactly why this was necessary, but when your entire bag has been emptied in front of you by a humourless security guard, you begin to feel a little violated. However, this then produced one of my favourite memories from Israel, when they found my Queen Elizabeth doll. Unbeknownst to me, but knownst to the security scanner, Queen Lizzie had a solar battery powered hand waving mechanism, and had at some point been broken, and then glued back together. Having been asked whether any of my cameras had ever been sent off for repair, I knew they were looking for anything that could have been made into an improvised explosive, so Lizzie was definitely suspicious. After scanning it four times, two other security officers were brought over and I was presented with the spectacle of three extremely serious and concerned looking security agents all staring intently at a doll of Queen Elizabeth. With a big smile I asked 'Can I take a photo of this?' and after they curtly replied 'No!' I said 'This is very funny'. After that they all cracked up laughing and the rest of my baggage check went pretty smoothly. They even began chatting to me, instead of coldly rifling through my stuff.

After packing my things away, I thought it was over, but then I was led away to a backroom where I feared I was to be searched in the same way as my bag. After donning a hospital gown like robe, and bracing myself, a burly male came in and began wiping me down with an explosives detecting cloth. Mercilessly it wasn't much more invasive than what a 14 year old at a blue light disco undergoes, but after about 30 minutes of having everything about me tested and searched it was starting to get a bit much. I'm also miffed about why the hell men get searched by men. If someone is going to gently rub my genitalia (the big guy was disturbingly tender) I'd rather it be a female. Mercifully this was the last gauntlet, and I was no longer a suspect. One thing that is nice is that if you have to undergo the full blown security check, they then expedite you through every other aspect of your check-in (I hadn't even gotten to the check in desk at this stage). It would've been nice if they gave you a voucher for a whiskey to settle your nerves again, but I guess I should just be grateful that my plane got away safely and bomb free.

I really loved my time in Israel, and it has irreversibly stoked my desire to see the rest of the middle east. Sadly I'll have to wait a few years as I got the stamp of death crossing the border from Jordan to Israel, so until my new passport comes in 2014, no Iran, Saudi Arabia, and a handful of other countries for me. As far as solving the middle east crisis, I, like so many before me, failed. Turns out 9 days wasn't long enough for me to solve the problems of this region. All I know is that both the Israeli and the Palestinian populations are both immensely likeable people. You can't solve this problem by demonising one population. Despite how low it seems humanity has sunk when kids are being used as martyrs, I actually think the fact this conflict is being carried out over such a long time in petty squabbling over a kilometre here and there represents progress. Each population has a very legitimate claim to the land. A Zionist state has a definite claim to this land. The Jewish people are the original settlers of this land and after WWII they needed a place to settle. However there weren't many places to put this state (I still think Florida would've been the best spot) and so someone was always going to be displaced. In a place where two populations have equal claim to the land, words are always going to eventually fail and violence will ensue. However in the past this would've led to war until one population was extinct or expunged, but the border remains semi permeable and while things may seem painfully slow and seemingly lacking in progress, at least both populations still remain. Anyone expecting this situation to be resolved without bloodshed is mistakenly thinking humans are good, whereas the reality is that humans are human.

What I took from my time here was that the terms pro Israeli or pro Palestinian are redundant terms. There's nothing special about either population, the majority of each just want to live in peace and make money and be happy. Maybe this just needs to play out until people in the region are more passionate about peace than defending their 'birthright'. It may seem impossible now, but if the head of Sin Fein can shake the Queen's hand, then anything is possible.

After visiting Israel, and being deeply affected by the presentation at the Holocaust museum, I headed off to Germany to emulate Eric Bana in the movie Munich, and get some good old fashioned Jewish revenge. Unfortunately when I arrived I remembered how much I love Germany and the anger escaped me. Like London, my trip to Germany was more about relaxing and catching up with good friends, and so there's not much to blog about. I met up with three of the Von Trap/Brady Bunch gang who I stayed with last time in Germany (apparently they quite liked that analogy and there are now six people in Germany who know who the Brady Bunch are), and apart from eating delicious German food, drinking amazing German beer, and also meeting up with my high school friend Ruby, it was just nice to rest up and prepare myself for India, and my Asian leg of my trip. The one touristy thing I did was head to the Reich-stag, which has to be one of the coolest modern historical sites, and which reminded me just how interesting Germany is, and how much more  of the country I have to see and learn about.

The inverted mirrored spire above the German Parliament. If this hasn't been exploded and plunged into the below auditorium in a sensational blockbuster movie scene, then what the hell are German directors doing?

Ronja on top of the Reichstag wearing a Russian hat (she's not very good at being German)

But my German education would have to wait, as I was headed to Asia. All I had was three flights to catch, and my European and middle east leg of my trip was done. This almost didn't happen though. For those who have read my first blog post, you'll remember that I almost didn't make my Etihad flight from Australia to Finland, and I managed to check in with literally 2 minutes to spare. Well, I broke that record for my flight to Mumbai. I think I'm cursed when it comes to Etihad flights, because this time I somehow managed to check in 10 minutes late.

This all happened because I had to fly from Berlin to Istanbul and then recheck in for my flight to Mumbai (I had booked the flight from Istanbul to Mumbai in a panic at the airport in Sydney because I needed proof I'd leave the European area to let the Australian immigration let me on the plane. Istanbul was just a random guess as to where I'd last be in the European region). Anyway, I had 4 hours to play with between landing in Istanbul and departing, so I figured I was safe. Cue the first bloody snow in Berlin for the whole time I was in town (I didn't even get a chance to make drunken snowmen) which ended up delaying our flight by 4 hours while they poured pepto bismol all over each plane. We managed to make up one hour on the flight, but this still left me the task of clearing the tediously slow Turkish customs, and then having to sprint through the Istanbul terminal the few hundred metres to my check in desk. This was made all the more difficult by the fact that Turkish people are some of the most spatially oblivious people in the world, and the amount of middle aged ladies I sent sprawling due to them vacantly staring at me as they casually stepped into my path, was almost enough to make me feel a bit bad. Getting to the Etihad desk, I just yelled 'Mumbai, Mumbai, Sorry, Mumbai, Delayed, Sorry', which was greeted by two saintly Etihad staff who rushed me through, despite being ten minutes after the cut off time for checked luggage, and expressed me through the security checks to my flight, even managing to have my bags make the plane, and be there when I got to Mumbai. I know they're cheap, and a very good airline, but screw it; I can't take the stress of flying Etihad anymore.