Imagine: 3,000 years ago.
Difficult, isn’t it? It’s hard enough for me to imagine my “five-year plan” let alone what life was like thousands of years ago. But I will say this: it’s a lot easier to picture when you are physically standing on ancient cobblestone streets.
Here in America, the “historic” areas are considered to be out East, the New England states and surrounding region. While five hundred plus years seems like forever in our minds, and the history recorded in those years is significant, it hardly stands against the amount of history recorded across the globe thousand of years prior to the “discovery” of our country.
The fascinating thing about history is that it’s constant. Every day that passes becomes a part of history, and certain places across the globe happen to have a lot more history (recorded that is) than others, solely based on the fact that time doesn’t stop; life doesn’t stop becoming history.
In the beginning of the summer, I got the opportunity to physically travel to an area of the world containing immense amounts of history, and walk on soil that people walked on over 3,000 years ago. Which allowed me to mentally travel back in time to the period where the footsteps of these people weren’t history yet, just life. Like I said, a lot easier to imagine when you are physically in the location than sitting in the comfort of your own living room in Salt Lake City, Utah.
That location was Israel.
My family and I, five sisters and my two parents, spent the better part of the month of May traveling around Israel, visiting various historical sites across the country and experiencing a culture and part of the world that is vastly different from what we’ve grown accustomed to.
We also spent a few days in Egypt and got to see the pyramids, which truly are a wonder of the world, and relax on the shores of the Red Sea under the Arabian sun.
As far as traveling is concerned, I strongly believe that it has the power to change your perspective and outlook on the world and the people in it. I don’t want this opinion to be mistaken as a statement of traveling being a necessity in order for one to be considered intelligent or cultured, because you can be both of those without time abroad. There are many other means in which one can learn and experience other cultures, but there is something to be said about forcing yourself out of your comfort zone and pushing your boundaries; personally and geographically speaking.
As cliche as it may be, it wasn’t what I thought it would be. That’s often the trend though; expectations are either exceeded, unmet, or more often than not, somewhere in between.
In regards to the political climate at the time and all the considerations that need to be taken into account when visiting the Middle East, I experienced a wide range of emotions. On one hand, I was shocked at the normalcy I felt in certain locations and on the other hand I couldn’t shake the overwhelming feeling that I had stepped foot on a completely different planet.
Feeling the wheels of our Delta aircraft touchdown on Israeli soil after a day and a half of straight travel, I was full of anticipation for the next two weeks I would spend in this foreign land. The warnings and updates of various news channels regarding the Israeli-Palestine conflict and the intense rocket fire occurring in the country in the days we were traveling to and in the area echoed in my mind.
My nerves weren’t settled any further as we walked off the plane, through the terminal hallway, passing sign after sign with directions of where to go in case bombs were dropped… not to mention hearing my sister recount the conversation she had with an Israeli-American man on the plane: “So you are a Christian family traveling through Israel without a full time tour guide?” says the man. “Wow, you’re brave.”
After making it to our Air-bnb in Tel-Aviv, we wandered the streets in a jet lagged daze, trying to evade sleep at 6pm and fill our stomachs with more than “complimentary” peanuts and ginger ale.
Not ten minutes had passed since we exited the house, complete with a bomb shelter and located adjacent to a lively street market that felt like you got dropped in the middle of a movie scene, that we heard a loud BOOM.
Mildly concerned and completely disoriented, we looked to the people around us on the street to gauge if this was cause for concern; it appeared that it wasn’t. This was just a normal occurrence on a typical Wednesday night. While we might be used to the sound of a car backfiring in the cities back home, the people here are used to the sound of rockets.
Welcome to Israel.
While this may sound alarming, despite the anxiety I felt when I woke up and read the news and saw that close to a thousand rockets had been launched from the Gaza Strip in attempts to attack Israeli forces within the first few days we were staying in Tel-Aviv, we were safe.
That’s one of my perspectives that was changed on this trip; not all of Israel is a war zone. Looking back on it now, it seems silly to have expected a hostile environment throughout the entire country, but that is what I expected, to an extent.
The news often makes it hard to see anything but the dramatic. Especially in North America where it feels like disaster and turmoil fill the airways and stations with a thick smog that clouds our senses with misinterpretations of worldly events and a debilitating sense of dread, making it seem like the world is going to end any minute.
That being said, I wasn’t expecting Israel to be what it was, what it is.
I wasn’t expecting to explore modern cities with developed infrastructure and tan on a white sand beach on the Mediterranean coast.
I wasn’t expecting to see local families at a neighborhood park enjoying a Sunday afternoon as the kids played on the swings and laughed with their siblings.
I wasn’t expecting to see so many gorgeous, flourishing flowers amidst the clusters of tall green trees providing shade for the many stray cats… so many cats.
Israel exceeded my expectations in many ways, but there was also a fair amount of culture shock, not all positive.
I have never been in a place that is so full of natural and architectural beauty, yet contains the most blatant displays of segregation I have ever seen.
I was expecting there to be tension in certain areas of the country, but nothing could have prepared me for the distinct, matter-of-fact, generalized separation seen, especially in the city of Jerusalem.
Not only is there separation and animosity between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but also between the Jews, Muslims, Armenians, and Christians, along with the societal differences/regulations between males and females.
Every single part of one’s identity is scrutinized to some degree. It’s your race, your ethnicity, your gender, your religion, your class, etc.
So as I was exploring this country full of such rich, deep, and fascinating history, there was an overwhelming, unavoidable presence of underlying hate between all these groups. It was honestly pretty unsettling and upsetting. This isn’t to say that every minute of my trip felt like this. Like any other place, there are many kind, generous and lovely people, but there’s no denying the many social issues that are so prominent.
These issues exist across the globe, but I have never seen them displayed so openly before.
We had to change tour guides just to go a couple miles to Bethlehem to visit one church because our main guide was Israeli and physically could not step foot in the city due to the Palestinians control of it. My sisters and I had to cover our heads and shoulders with a scarf to enter certain religious areas and temples.
I was also shocked to see how commercialized most of these religious/historical sites were; that wasn’t something I was expecting.
A joke that our tour guide told us was that if anything religiously significant occurred in an area, you knew because they built a church over it. Again, I wasn’t expecting that.
Regardless of the wide range of emotions and internal struggles with cultural differences I experienced while traveling through this country, I had an unbelievable time in Israel (and Egypt). I have never been on a trip that offered so much diversity, in literally every sense of the word.
Few can say that they visited some of the world’s oldest cities/structures, walked where Biblical/historical figures did, rode camels at the Pyramids of Giza, and relaxed on the shores of the Red Sea sipping piña coladas, all in the span of two weeks.
I feel extremely fortunate to have experienced a part of the world that I’ve only ever dreamed of, and I’m even more thankful to have had the opportunity for my perspectives to change because of it.
I never want my outlooks on the world to stop changing, and I never want to stop pushing myself out of my comfort zone; traveling helps me do that. It helps me to make my personal part of history more worthwhile.
Whether you’re scaling the summits across the Wasatch front, backpacking through the Unita wilderness, skiing the slopes at Snowbird or traveling thousands of miles to weightlessly float on the salty waters of the Dead Sea, keeping yourself open to new experiences is key to making the most out of your adventures. Local or abroad.
After all, history is written with every second that passes and every breath you breathe.
Make it count.
