Quiet comes from inside

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)

Pictures from Sinai

I can't help it- I must put some pictures here- coz I think you all should see what everybody's missing out on... I know I know, the Egyptians aren't really being very safe, but I assure you that I felt very safe on the deserted beach we were on. The owners and the workers there made me feel like nothing can happen to me there. I can say that they have leaned something from the terror attacks there. Maybe the government of Egypt didn't, but the ppl who lose their living coz of it did. At least a bit.

So here are a few pictures. Taken in Heaven.

The view from my hut's window.

Imagine seeing this every morning when you wake up.

A walk on the beach.

The silence, the tranquility.

A fox, a camel and a dead hog

Charles called on Friday night. He said they were in Jerusalem for 2 days, and asked if I wanted to come meet them on Saturday in Tel-Aviv. I agreed happily, and the next day I drove off. I met them at Charles's cousin's house- a really nice renovated apartment in a very popular area in TLV. It's very rare to find a good apartment there, so I asked for details and was told that her parents bought it for her. Lucky girl! Immanuel, Charles's cousin is a really nice and interesting person. She came to Israel alone, from France, at the early age of 17.5, studied here in uni later on, and now works for the french edition of The Jerusalem Post. Impressing.
It was so great to see Ana and Charles in Israel! Well, just seeing them was great... We all went to the beach, and cramped up on the TLV beach like the rest of the Tel-Avivian species. I really don't like Tel-Aviv, the only nice thing it has is shopping... We made plans for the next few days, and so it happened that on Sunday they took the train to Haifa, we toured around the city for a couple of hours, and in the evening we took the car to the Kineret (The Galilee sea). We put up 2 tents (one for me and one for the happy couple) and played cards (lost a "7"- the good finder will be rewarded - coz these are really nice cards), drank some beers and generally had lots of fun together. I really missed Rob on that situation, but they were such nice company that it made these feelings became a bit more subtle. On Monday morning we woke up and went straight to the lake- to swim. That day we travelled all over the Gollan heights with the car, and in the evening we went to the Kineret again to camp for the night. The next day we stopped in a winery in Kibbutz Amiad to Charles and Ana's request, and were really surprised to find out that they only make liqueurs from all kinds of fruit and other ingredients. They let us taste some and I ended up buying a really good dark chocolate liqueur... Yami!!!
After that we went to eat Humus in Akko, and wonder the old city and market, and then we went to Rosh Hanikra, to see the grotts, made by the sea. The view there is always really amazing... After that we went to my moms, for a shower and dinner before the bus to Eilat at 23:30. It took us 5.5 hours on that bus (was really fast!) and we arrived to the little oasis that sits on the red sea. We took a taxi to the Taba terminal border cross with Sinai. We arrived a bit too early for our ride on the other side- so we watched the sun rise over the red mountains of Jordan. We crossed the border and Charles and Ana saw the difference between Israel and Egypt: new and advanced vs. old and conservative, Efficiency vs. laziness and taxi drivers brotherhood. Our ride got there and we drove to the beach. It was (and still is) hard for me to accept the tranquility and silence while knowing that this society is such a men's society. There's hardly any women around (they're all home with the kids) and they are all business men with lots of kindness and serious faces (I know, it sounds ironic- but it's true). Sinai is so empty these days that Charles and Ana who fell in love with it, got really upset. The Bedouins there just told them that that's the way it is, and when tourism is so slow they just look for other business opportunities, and that as long as they have their health they feel rich. My European friends had a hard time accepting that, but in the end I think they almost did.
I left Sinai this morning, after 2 days, knowing that I really should go back soon- it's just so beautiful there... And so relaxed and quiet. Ana said something that really made me think: on a normal day anywhere else (and especially in China- where we all came from lately) you see hundreds or even more ppl a day. In Sinai you tend to see about 5 ppl a day... It's amazing what it does to you. After the first day- when you get used to it- and all your thoughts have settled and stopped bothering your brain- you hear the silence. And it's great. And so peaceful...
Pictures soon...

Oh! and the title is what it is coz it's all animals we saw when traveling (well we saw much more)