Thursday morning, we're all set and ready to leave to Sinai with the car. My mom is just getting the last things from home, and Rob and I are already downstairs waiting. I put my sun glasses on my head- to be able to see in the hallway- and they break. hmmm... can't drive without sun glasses all the way to Eilat! not in Israel! My mom says she'll drive to Tel-Aviv until we get to my sisters who's joining us 2 days later, but forgot her passport at my moms place- so we had to go through TLV. I find a good sun glasses store where my sister lives, a chain store in Israel, they have sales for the end of the summer, I find there a nice pair of glasses for only 104 NIS, I'm happy, we go on our way to Eilat. We get to the border with Sinai at about 17:00, cross it, someone we know is waiting for us to pick us up to our usual beach (where we know the owners and we always go to). The place is beautiful and charming as usual. The days go by, The heat isn't so terrible, there are just some really strong and hot winds at night, but we go through it. There's no electricity, so we live according to nature, wake up with the sun (and the flies all over us buzzing and driving us crazy) and go to sleep early, after watching the billion starts and the milky way in the sky. I saw so many shooting starts (always wished for the same thing- not gonna tell you - so it comes true), and was almost relaxed- couldn't stop thinking about my little and annoying country that decided it wants to bomb something in Syria (stupid stupid stupid). A vacation with your mother could sometimes be too much, and I must say that I wouldn't have minded if we went there for a little bit less time. 5 days were a bit too much. We did go see a Bedouin village, and then walked around those amazing red mountains a bit, and one day the sheikh of the tribe there took us with his jeep to the mountains to see some nice colored sand (red, yellow, white, purple, orange...). There was one dog fight at the beach we were staying in, and while I was deciding that I shouldn't be next to it, the dogs pushed me (while fighting each other) I ran and tripped, and got lots of bruises all over. At the same time my glasses, who were laying on the floor (coz the beads jewellery lady was there showing us her stuff on the floor) got stepped on by someone (could be anyone there- there was a big mess) and there went a new pair of glasses to the garbage... I was very annoyed... The rest of the time we just tried to pass the time in the shade, swim in the sea (Rob went snorkeling a lot- I tried once and was too much of a chicken- afraid of all those fish!) caught a tan, ate good food and read a lot.
There's one main thing I got to realize there, even thought it's such a cliche: Being relaxed and quiet comes from inside of you. No nice beaches, no good food, no silence outside will make you happy and peaceful. It must come from you. It can help bring it out, but it'll never happen if you're not really interested in it. And one more thing: Those beaches there can be very deceiving: it's all so beautiful, and almost virgin, and so mesmerizing, but the Bedouin culture, once you're not just a tourist there, and you are exposed to all they're ways, is very complicated and very very chauvinistic. I think I couldn't live in such a culture, coming from where I do.
Tuesday morning we drove back to Israel, I bought the same glasses (but different color) in Eilat (might wanna go change the color here, if they'll have it), and we drove to TLV to drop my sister off. Got home really tired, but still went to meet Yifat who came to Haifa today (needed to have a nice night out in civilization!).
Tonight is the Jewish new years eve- that we celebrate having a big dinner with our family (how can we celebrate something without food??? we're Jewish), and we're spending it at my aunts house.
Everybody: have a SHANA TOVA! (which means- a good year in Hebrew)
