What do festivals, annunications, and ugly sweaters all have in common? Nazareth.

For the final class trip in my program our colloquial Arabic teacher took us to her hometown of Nazareth to experience the Christmas Market there. Essentially, she released nearly a dozen students on the town of Nazareth to explore and immerse themselves for two days. 

The first stop was an old ceramics factory in the city. It was a third generation business and the owners gave us a cool cultural lesson on life in Nazareth years ago. They also provided us with a delicious local lunch and had a bunch of fun Arab-related clothing to relate to the little history lesson.

The guys messing around in traditional headdress (worn not so traditionally in this photograph).

Lisa and I trying out different Arab headdresses. I'm gender-bending a bit culturally and wearing the traditional male head piece.

After lunch we checked into our hotel which was originally an Arab mansion but has now been renovated into a guesthouse. We settled in and prepared for the main event of the trip: the Christmas Market. Hundreds and hundreds of people showed up for what was the opening night of the five day market.

The girls on the balcony outside the apartment at the guest house.

(From left to right: myself, Ilona [our TA], Kati [my roommate], Melanie, and Lucia)

My classmates and I ran into some festive friends in town.

As the evening went on more and more people filtered into Nazareth. It was the first night of the market and at 8:00pm the official opening event was going to start. Hundreds of people packed into the center of town to see the lighting of the Christmas tree and lights.

The crowd in front of me at the main square.

What came next was easily a highlight of my trip. I stood pressed against friends in the crowd grinning as we shouted the countdown along with the crowd in Arabic. All at once the town light up: all of the Christmas lights illuminating simultaneously with the giant Christmas tree. At the same time the Church of the Annunciation's bells began ringing. Amongst all the spirited cheers, lights, and bells, the town of Nazareth set off one of the best firework shows I've seen. Standing only feet from where Mary was informed she was going to have a son I stood next to people from all over the world as the sky filled with festive light and music.

 Fireworks being set off from the Church of the Annunciation.

After the celebration, being the rambunctious students we are, we headed back to our housing for the night to continue with heated games of backgammon and some casual conversation before an early bedtime. After all, we had another whole day to explore in Nazareth. On Thursday we woke up and our teacher took us through the Old City and to the Basilica of the Annunciation.

Shops all decked out for Christmas in the market.

A side view of the Basilica. The main entrance is on the left. 

Just a tiny part of one floor of the inside of the Basilica.

One of my favorite parts of the Basilica was actually the structure around it. There's a sort of walled alcove surrounding the Basilica that has unusual pieces of art all throughout. The church asked people from all over the world to create mosaics to hang at the Basilica of the Annunciation. The only rule was they had to depict Mary and something regarding the Annunciation. It was fascinating to see global perspectives and art pieces and was such an interesting and beautiful place to walk.

 The mosaics from Indonesia and Thailand at the Basilica.

Lisa and I walking around the area with the mosaics.

A funny note about the sweater in the above picture: I obtained this sweater on our class trip to Jaffa. When we were walking around my roommate Kati and I discovered the sweater in a little boutique shop while we had some free time. We later showed our new purchases to our teacher from Nazareth who was absolutely speechless. After explaining to her the American concept of 'ugly Christmas sweaters' she seemed incredibly relieved because of how hideous she felt it was.

Anyways, it being a holiday sweater I stashed it in my wardrobe waiting to pull it out for the Christmas market in Nazareth. I packed it in my bag and was so excited to pull off my new tacky sweater for the day. In case the photos don't do it justice, it is a heck of a sweater: there's wool, black mesh, sequins, and bedazzling all on top of one another.

The second morning my teacher came knocking on our door to see if me and my roommates were up and ready. Since my roommates were occupied getting ready I answered the door to be greeted by my Arabic teacher. The exact words out of her mouth were: "Sabah al-khair-OH-GOD! You're wearing that thing?!" when she saw me standing in the doorway in my beautiful sweater. Over breakfast anytime someone would take a picture she'd rush over to me saying, "I'll stand next to the one with the ugliest sweater!".

All I can say is, I don't think ugly Christmas sweaters will be catching on in Israel anytime soon. Still, I had a blast wearing it and the stories were well worth it. Plus despite being incredibly absurd and over the top, the sweater itself is starting to grow on me aesthetically... although my mother insists the only appropriate place to wear the sweater is by myself on a train downtown in the dead of night so that hopefully something will happen to me so no one with ever have to see the sweater again.

Me standing at a beautiful vantage point nearby the Basilica. Also a closer up look at my crazy sweater.

Rooftop view of Nazareth.

A panoramic from the roof with the Basilica on the left.

Nazareth was an absolutely awesome trip. I'm so glad that our teachers decided to treat us to a little holiday spirit and take us up north for a few days. It was an incredibly beautiful area and another amazing place I'm glad I got to explore in Israel. 

Spending Time at the Shuk

I wanted to spend my day off in the city. However, with Hamas calling for a "day of mobilization" and Fatah calling for a "day of rage" today* (on top of the fact it's a Friday, which is already usually tense in the Arab quarter downtown) I figured the Old City was probably not the best place to go. So after waking up this morning I decided to head downtown to the Mahane Yehuda market (aka "the Shuk") for a slightly safer location to spend my free time.

After scoping out the market for a good place to hang out, I found a espresso bar on a corner in the busy market with seats looking out onto the booths and people. With strong coffee in my hand and smooth jazz playing in the background, I sat and people watched for a good portion of my morning. 

Literally sitting at a corner in the market enjoying my morning coffee.

And the people watching really was fantastic. Sitting at the coffee bar gave me the perfect spot to become a part of the Shuk experience. I watched locals and tourists wander amongst the piles of products and became a temporary part of the madness.

"See this fish? You want this fish." - the dialogue in my head

This guy.

And this guy.

Soldiers with machine guns buying bread.

Another fish vendor.

I may not speak Hebrew but I was running a constant dialogue of body language, gestures, and facial expressions with each vendor I passed. I was sitting across from the fish vendor pictured above this paragraph as I sat at the coffee bar. Between scooping more ice on top of his displays of fish we exchanged a variety of looks while I sipped coffee across from his stall. I walked past him once I was finished and his otherwise serious face lit up with humor and he pretended to throw the huge scoop of ice at me instead of his fish. We both laughed and I set off to browse the market in the midst of my caffeine high.

Challah for tonight's Shabbat.

I loved the color and texture of these sweets piling out of the store front of a bakery stall.

When I was done at the Shuk I decided it was too nice of a day to just hop on the train back toward campus. So, assuming it was impossible to get lost as long as I walked along the train tracks, I wandered downtown. 

After a passing a few train stops I found myself at a plaza downtown. There a guy around my age sat on a stone barrier playing guitar as everyone meandered about their day. Surprised by his actual musicality and impressive voice I paused a few benches down and sat for awhile enjoying his music. As I sat continuing to just take in the day the weather decided to switch over to a torrential downpour. Continuing I still didn't move he much figured out I was sitting there listening to him so I just gave in and moved next to him. So there I sat in Jaffa square, in the middle of the pouring rain holding an umbrella over a street musician and dueting to pop hits with this stranger in downtown Jerusalem.

Eventually we both ended up soaked through and he gave up on playing guitar. In apprication of my umbrella he joined me in my walk up until the next train station and chatted about his experience in Jerusalem. As he turned back two girls nearby me looked over and asked if he was bothering me. I answered no and before I knew it I was walking with them into exactly where I was avoiding in the first place, the Old City. There I sat making new friends and enjoying fellowship over lunch. 

Eventually I had to wander back into the rain and made my way one train stop further before I finally got on the train and finished my trip back to my apartment.

It only took me 48 hours to get crabs in Indonesia.... hermit crabs, that is.

This morning our Indonesian buddy Tanto took Suraiya, Sarah, and I to the Sunday morning market nearby campus. Which is seemingly innocent enough...

Except we decided to pick up a little house warming gift for ourselves... a house pet. Or rather, pets...

....which Sarah immedately dropped....

And of course, they needed classy accommodations...

So we bought them a house. With a pool, umbrella, slide, and swing. Because we could. So, much to our program coordinaters' amusement, we are now sharing our house with three hermit crabs. I named mine Stroberi (the Indonesia word/spelling of "strawberry"). 

I think you can see why.

So we're just making ourselves at home in Yogyakarta! One hermit crab at a time...

Just Another Day in Chiang Mai

Kate and I are spoiled.

After living in Thailand for a month we’ve seen a good variety of temples. Gold roofs and Buddha statues are awesome, they really are. But we can see those back “home” in Bangkok. We wanted to take full advantage of Chiang Mai.

We decided to forgo any of the tours. They cost a lot of money and took us to see temples and different hill tribes. The native hill tribes are really cool, but Kate and I didn’t have it in our hearts to be able to go and participate in giving money toward what Thailand has essentially made into a human zoo. So instead we decided to use the help of some locals, the Internet, and a very kind hotel employee to organize the rental of a private taxi to take us out into the rural areas of the mountains. We wanted to go outside of the well-traveled circuit.

We walked into the lobby of the hotel at 8:30AM to meet our driver. He was extremely nice and led us out to his vehicle. We paid for a taxi. We got a private 10+ person van with comfortable leather seats, a large television (which we didn’t use, the view through the windows was way more exciting), foot rests, cup holders, and it was entirely to ourselves. Kate and I. We had a private chauffeur and amazing transportation for an entire day, flat rate.

First we visited Bua Thong Waterfall. It’s really hard to put what we experienced into words. First off, we were the only ones there. Kate and I had a three level waterfall to ourselves. Even cooler though, is that Bua Thong is a limestone waterfall. So because of the grip from the limestone, you can walk and climb all over it, even when it’s particularly steep. So Kate and I climbed around our own private multi-story waterfall for an hour and a half.

Besides the waterfall itself, we were just experiencing the tropical Thai forest out in the middle of the mountains. Everything’s different from the States: trees, plants, bugs, fish, and animals. We saw frogs and crabs, as well as a large variety of insects. It was so much to take in. It was so overwhelming and absolutely, amazingly gorgeous.

Part of the falls. 

A view from near the very top of the falls. 

 Part of the stream above the falls.

This is what every path in the forest looks like.

Hazardous. 

When we finally felt like we could part with the falls (which still was not easy) we hiked back to where our driver had dropped us off. Before we knew it we were on our way to yet another stunning waterfall. Or, I should say falls. The next one was in the middle of a national park and had 10 levels. It was a long hike to the top, and sadly the top level was not very rewarding, but it was another awesome experience.

One of the levels of the falls.

The best part of the Mae Sa falls was the fact that you could swim under parts of it. That’s right, Kate and I got to swim in the waterfall.

The waterfall that we swam at. 

Underneath a waterfall.

Oh, and it started pouring when we were hiking up at the top of the falls. Slightly inconvenient maybe, but it got people to start leaving the park. So when we hiked back to where we decided to swim it was empty. So we got yet another waterfall to ourselves. I repeat, we’re spoiled.

When we finally decided it was time to head back we dried off and hiked the rest of the way to the van. We made it to the hotel around 5:00PM, just in time for a swim before dinner.

One of the two pools at our hotel. Again, we had it to ourself. 

The view of our hotel from the pool.

Oh, and dinner was awesome. We ate riverside in downtown Chiang Mai. Kate and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Lanterns, candles, river. It was rather swanky.

And clearly, all that is not enough to do in one day, so we hit up the famous walking night market in Chiang Mai.

Except it was way over-hyped. It was super crowed, the vendors weren’t particularly kind, and it was just overwhelmingly large with little variety. So we decided to ditch and head back to a slightly more local night market we knew of near our hotel.

It was very pretty and a much better market. Kate and I enjoyed shopping a little too much and we managed to head back to our hotel only when the market started to close (roughly between 10 and 11 PM).

We slept really really well that night.

Attack of the Flesh Eating Fish

That is what I stumbled upon while walking through Ayutthaya. A fish spa. You stick your feet in a fish tank full of garra rufa (also called "doctor") fish. And they eat all of the dead skin off of your feet and legs. 

I was so excited. I had heard of such a spa in America, but in most States the practice is illegal (sanitation issues or something... you know, nothing to be concerned about...). But I love fish, so this was definitey on my Bucket List. The fact I got to cross it off while I was in Thailand? Even better!

Sitting with my feet in one of the tanks. 

This is right after we put our feet in. 

So it's really hard to explain what it felt like. I've read descriptions by other people who said that it feels a little like being shocked at first. Which is a little true; like little pin-pricks of electricity. But then they also say after you get used to it it becomes relaxing "like a foot massage". I beg to differ on this part. I was worried about being able to mentally take it for the full 20 minute session. It never became "relaxing". The best I could do was just try to forget they were there, which is pretty hard to do. I did enjoy it though. It was super fun to just try something so different. And it does make your feet softer, so that was a cool bonus.

A close up of the fish devouring my toes.

So while you were sleeping Friday night I was sitting on the other side of the world while fish were literally eating my skin. Bucket List success.