Letter from Germany

Nazareth and Tiberias

Chris — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:40:51 +0000

The first day of my trip started in Tel Aviv. Two of my three roommates and I, Joe and Felix, set out for Nazareth.

That morning I managed to earn the nickname “Cockroach Dundee”. Over the past few weeks I had had a few run-ins with cockroaches. That morning I was surprised by a cockroach nesting in the back pack I wanted to use for the trip.

Joe

After picking up the rental car my roommate Joe, who rented the car, earned the nickname “Wrong-way-Joe”. Not even ten minutes out of Tel Aviv he missed the exit for the highway we wanted to take that ran north, highway 4. So Joe takes the next exit.

Felix

I look at the map and say “the highway we want is to the left of the highway we are on.” Joe, however, thinks otherwise. “The exit for the highway was on the right, so I’ll go right.” After 45 minutes of no highway Joe finally gives in and turns around to go back the way we came. As it turned out, had we gone left the on-ramp to highway 4 was not even 300 feet from where we turned right. Live and learn.

From there we made it to Nazareth without incident. Once there we had to figure out where to park. Nazareth is known for its horrendous traffic, so we ended up parking at a meter. (We could have parked in a lot for 10 shekels, or $3, or 3 dollars, but Joe went the wrong way). Unfortunately, the meter only gave us two hours time to see Nazareth. Undaunted, we set off to see the sites.

If anybody does not know the significance of Nazareth, then check out the wikipedia page about it here.

The Basilica of the Annunciation

There are many religious sites to see in Nazareth, but because we didn’t want to stay overnight in Nazareth, we decided not to see too many churches. Our first stop was the Basilica of the Annunciation. The basilica is the largest church in the Middle East and obviously very important to Christianity. It stands atop a 5th-century Byzantine church, which is build around the Grotto of the Annunciation. This is traditionally taken to be the spot where Mary’s house was located.

The entrance to the basilica building

Despite the history of this site, the basilica that stands there now was consecrated in 1969.

The court yard of the basilica.

I found it to be a rather strange building. It has a modern-art sort of feel to it, which I didn’t like. Add that to the fact that I have lived in Europe for the last five years and seen tons of old churches, I was not impressed by this. Being on such a meaningful historical site was much more interesting.

After the basilica we did not feel like spending our time walking through even more churches, so we headed to the Souq and then to the White Mosque.

Another view of the court yard of the basilica.

A souq is just an open air market. In Israel these open air markets are permanent fixtures, the small shops located in the buildings lining the narrow pedestrian areas through the hearts of the cities. Because it was a Monday there was not much activity, and to be honest, most of the stuff they sell there is junk.

The main sanctuary of the basilica.

So we headed to the mosque. I don’t know the significance of the mosque, we just wanted to see the inside of a mosque, as none of us ever have. They would have let us in, except they were about to have a burial, so we were respectfully turned away.

Since we had gone through our list of sights to see we decided to head to Tiberias. When we got back to the meter, there were still ten minutes left!

Tiberias is one of the four holy cities of Judaism and is located on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Alongside the tombs of Jewish sages are tacky resort-like hotels. The town has a long history, starting with its founding by the Romans under Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great. After a revolt the Jews were exciled from Jerusalem, so Tiberias became the center of Jewish life.

The 5-th century Byzantine church.

The Crusaders also took the city in 1099 but lost it almost 200 years later, marking the downturn of the Crusader empire in the Holy Land, the Latin Kingdom. The Ottomans also played a role in the cities history, and the population of Tiberias has waxed and waned with the conflicts between Arabs and Jews. Today it is predominantly Jewish.

When we got to Tiberias the first thing we did was go to the lake, looking for a place to swim.

Me demonstrating how the cavemen opened their beer bottles.

The water looked kind of nasty so Felix and I let Joe swim by himself. After Joe was done we went and found our hostel and then turned around and headed back to the beach. This time with food in hand. This time Felix and I swam while Joe made a fire. We then dined on hard boiled eggs (we brought them with us), apples, pita, humus, and peanut butter. And I showed the boys how cavemen opened their beer bottles many thousands of years ago, before the advent of the bottle opener or the lighter. We stayed there on the rocky beach and enjoyed our fire for a few hours after it got dark. The wind and the feral cats finally drove us to leave at 7pm (it gets dark at like 4:30 here).

Back at the hostel Felix and I headed over to the adjacent hotel (which was somehow a part of the hostel) and used the internet. We ended up sitting and talking to the guy working the front desk, an Arab Israeli named Amir. It was pretty interesting and nice to get a view of Israel from someone who is not a Jew and not religious. I know plenty of non-religious Jews, but I don’t know many non-Jews here. We talked a little about politics and religion, and he helped clear up some misconceptions about the relations between Jews and Arabs here. We were however interrupted during our conversation. A Jewish family lived in the house next to the hotel, and at about 9:30 the woman of the house wandered into the lobby and asked Amir if he could come turn out the lights for them. With the setting of the sun that evening, the last day of Sukkot, a Jewish holiday, began. During Jewish holidays the Jews are not allowed to operate electronic devices. This means they get their Muslim or Christian friends to come and turn on and off their lights. Judaism is a very legalistic religion, but to me such a practice seems like they are following the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law. Oh well, we got some crazy stuff in Christianity as well.

At about 10pm we turned in for the night, and ended our first day of travels through Israel.

Catching Up

Chris — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 18:52:59 +0000

Hey everyone!

I’m back in Israel, and have been since the first of October. I got back after a wonderful, relaxing vacation in Konstanz. I promptly came down with a cold when I arrived and spent the first few days sick in bed.

The most depressing thing about the situation is that there was no one here. After the Ulpan ended everyone took off. So I was bored, sick and lonely.

I slowly got better and on the first Sunday of the month I went and met with the professor I am doing my internship for. Since I was still feeling a little under the weather we agreed that I would come and start the following morning.

I worked all of about two days. In those two days the extent of my achievement was the successful installation of a program on my computer. Doesn’t sound like much, but this is a very specific piece of software used for a very specific type of problem in nonlinear dynamics. As such, the documentation is horrible and the amount of information to be found on the internet leaves one wanting.

I then had two weeks of vacation. That Thursday was Yom Kippur, which is one of the most important Jewish holidays. Because the Jews are not allowed to use any electronics or any sophisticated technology the streets are empty. This means that the streets of Tel Aviv are then filled with cyclists, especially little kids, and just about everybody else. I joined in the fun and walked down the main highway into town and back.

That night one of my roommates, Joe, got back. It was actually a surprise for me, because I wasn’t expecting anybody for over a week. I spent the next couple of days trying to stay sane. A little over a week ago Felix also got back. With the three of us here, and one more week of nothing to do remaining, we decided to rent a car and go to the Golan Heights.

The trip was amazing, and will be the subject of my next five posts. My plan is to do a post a day, each post describing what we did that day along with pictures. I am doing it like this because there is a lot to tell, and a lot of pictures to sort through.

Tomorrow I’ll post about the first day of the trip. We saw Nazareth and went on to Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that I had a few visitors while I was alone:

The first cockroach I found in our appartment

Good Morning Hangover

Chris — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:41:38 +0000

Last night I celebrated tests that were passed this week with a few friends at the Konstanzer Oktoberfest. If it’s not clear already, I am back in Germany for ten days, as Monday was my exam in Particle Physics.

I flew back last Friday. That in itself was an adventure. I took a bus from my dorm in Tel Aviv into the city. From there I rode in a Taxi to the airport. After landing in Munich at 5am I had to take the subway and 5 different trains before I got to Friedrichshafen, which is on the other side of Lake Constance. The trip ended after a 45 minute boat ride across the lake in the port in Constance, where my girlfriend, Moni, picked me up.

I spent the weekend studying, however I was more interested in spending time with my girlfriend, who I hadn’t seen in 7 weeks, than studying. None-the-less I was able to study, and in two days crammed enough information into my head to pass my test on Monday with a decent grade: 2.3, or about a B. I was hoping for a better grade, but given the circumstances (being in Tel Aviv up until three days before my test) I am pleased with the results. This was my first exam that will count towards my final grade in physics.

Since my test I have been eating and relaxing. It is slowly starting to sink in that I am done with university stress until classes start up again (for me) next April. I will be working an taking some classes in Tel Aviv, but that is going to be much more relaxed. The classes do not count towards anything in Tel Aviv, and I am only taking classes because they are offering interesting subjects. I fully expect to fail all of the classes, because I will not be doing homework or taking any of the tests. My priority in Tel Aviv is to work at my internship and travel.

Last night I went out with my girlfriend and five other people. One of the others also had the particle physics exam on Tuesday, so we had good reason to celebrate. I was most excited to drink good German beer (I had 3 Mass, or 3 liters) and eat good German festival food (half a chicken).

The rest of my time here in Germany will be spent eating well (my girlfriend is making Schnitzel tonight, and I am making Bratkartoffeln with bacon tomorrow) and relaxing. There is also a wine fest this upcoming weekend, so more good food and drink! Life’s rough, isn’t it?

Update

Chris — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 19:30:11 +0000

Updated my “About Me” page. It’s boring, but still take a look. And leave comments.

Lots of Happenings

Chris — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 19:19:27 +0000

Lots to post about, and not a lot of time (story of my life).

First, the LHC in Geneva started without a hitch. Everyone is cheering because the world didn’t end, but it’s a little premature. All that happened was that a packet of protons circled the ring a few times in each direction, but not simultaneously. The tests for simultaneous packets circling in opposite directions will happen sometime soon. Once that is a success, then they’ll start smashing protons together. However, they will not get up to full power (a total of 14 TeV) until sometime next year! So that’s when the world ending will happen.

Second, I was in Jerusalem last weekend. I was actually there on the first Friday of Ramadan and was also in the streets as all the Muslims made their was to the Al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount for the afternoon prayer. That prayer is one of the most attended prayers of Ramadan, which meant there were 90,000 Muslims crammed in the streets at that point. I have pictures and I will describe the trip more later. It was an incredible experience!

The purpose of this post, however, is mostly just to keep in touch. I’ve been studying my brain into mush these past few weeks as I have an exam on “Modern Experiments in Particle Physics” on the 22nd. (That’s also why I feel that I can somewhat speak as an expert about the goings on at CERN.) Which reminds me, I was at CERN and took tours of both the CMS experiment and the ATLAS experiment. I forgot to take my camera, but the whole group pooled their pictures together on one DVD. I need to get my hands on a copy when I’m back in Konstanz for the exam.

Anyway, there were some interesting happenings here at the dorms tonight that I wanted to share. I was sitting eating dinner with my roommate Joe (dinner was a scrambled-egg-filled pita) when we notice the lack of commotion outside. The street our dorm is on is usually pretty busy. That’s when we notice that the corner that the dorm sits on was completely blocked off! The side of the apartment that faces the streets unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) has virtually no windows, so we were climbing all over ourselves trying to see out and see what was going on. That’s when I came up with a great idea: “Hey, let’s go outside to see better what’s going on.” (Smart, run towards the danger! I remember learning something about “survival of the fittest” in school . . .) No sooner had Joe agreed that I had a good idea than the air was filled with a loud bang. “Shit, we missed it!” I said. But we still went outside to look anyway. Turns out it was nothing. Someone had called in a suspicious package sitting on the sidewalk across the street and the police came and blew it up. Pretty standard procedure here for suspicious packages. Actually, I kinda like that philosophy: don’t know what it is, so let’s blow it to smithereens!

So all is safe and sound here . . . and exciting!

I’ll post more info on everything later this weekend. Need to sort my photos first.

Chris