Wadi Musa, Jordan, Asia Last night was by far the worst sleep I have had so far. It was absolutely freezing in the desert, and sleeping in a tent didn’t help at all. I made good use of my base layers that I brought with me, but that didn’t help my nose and ears from almost freezing off. I hardly slept at all through the night so I decided I might as well get out of bed at 6am and…
Wadi Rum, Jordan, Asia Today went so much smoother than I had expected, it was really nice surprise! I left my hostel at 9:45am, got a taxi straight away and arrived at the Israel – Jordan border within about five minutes. I paid my exit fee of 107 shekels (about £20), and walked through the Israeli border without even one question! Everyone else said that they had a ridiculous hassle entering and leaving Israel, but I didn’t get asked one…
Eilat, Israel, Asia Today was my last full day in Eilat, last day in Israel, and last day diving. I’m not happy to be leaving so soon, but I had an incredible day! I woke up this morning still dealing with a cold that’s been bothering me for about a week now. Because of this I wasn’t able to equalise my right ear since last night. This made me really nervous because my first dive for today was a deep…
Eilat, Israel, Asia Today was my first day of diving in Eilat, and it was awesome! My instructor, Yaniv, picked me up from the hostel at 8:45am and we headed straight down the South Beach. Yaniv is awesome. I was lucky enough to be the only person on my Advanced Open Water course, it was excellent. Every other course I’ve been on has been with six to twelve other people, so you don’t get that personal attention that might be…
Eilat, Israel, Asia I got up this morning to say bye to the Zimmermans. They have been so awesome to put me up for the last nine days, I can’t thank them enough. I wanted to get the whole family together for a picture, but Kinerit was already gone, Ori was studying and Eitan was not feeling the picture. So I got a picture of Gilad, Emitai and Amir before they headed off to school. I packed up all my…
Hod HaSharon, Israel, Asia I got up today at 7am and got ready for a big day out. I hitched a ride into Tel Aviv with Gilad who had to go into the city for work today. I got to see first-hand what the traffic is like going into the city on a Sunday (Monday to all of us in the US and UK) morning. It was ridiculous. A 35 minute train ride took about three times as long by…
Hod HaSharon, Israel, Asia I had a great night’s sleep last night and woke up feeling much better than I had the last two days. We got ready for the day and Pnina and Marta picked us up at 9am. We headed north to Lee’s aunt’s house for the Bar Mitzvah. They live in a community like a kibbutz, but it’s a little different. It was a really nice house that Gillad had built a few years ago. I met…
Hod HaSharon, Israel, Asia I woke up today and still wasn’t feeling very well. I had taken some night time cold medication that Pnina gave me yesterday, so at least I got some sleep and wasn’t completely exhausted. Lee and I had a tentative plan to go to Tel Aviv today, but since I wasn’t feeling well and today is the start of the Sabbath, we decided to put that on hold until Sunday. We would have had to leave…
Hod HaSharon, Israel, Asia I woke up with a pretty awful sinus cold this morning and didn’t feel up for doing anything. I ended up spending the whole day in bed either napping or watching movies on my laptop. I think it was exactly what I needed. Pnina was nice enough to bring over some cold medication and pita breads for me. That saw me through the day and then I went out for dinner. Mark and Dikla treated Lee…
Hod HaSharon, Israel, Asia Wow! Today was amazing! It started with what felt like a late wake up call at 7:30am. We had a great breakfast at the Park Hotel which consisted of eggs, cheeses, cereals, yogurts and fruits, but no meat. Because we were in Jerusalem, no places can mix dairy and meat. You can only have one or the other at a restaurant. We checked out of our room and ended up waiting in the lobby for almost…