New Jerusalem today. We saw a miniature model of Jerusalem in Roman times – more history. Boaz, our tour guide, was getting to know the group a bit better, and we decided he was pretty cool. (The other bus had more mature people on it, but a less cool guide; life’s a trade-off).
From there, we headed to Mount Herzl Cemetery and saw the graves of, of course, Theodor Herzl, Golda Meir, Yitzchak and Leah Rabin, and a multitude of other past prime ministers, presidents and fallen soldiers. Some of the soldiers were so young! Especially in the 1948 war, when kids would wander onto the battlefield and anyone able to fight was fighting. One was only 10 years old!
After that, we went to the Knesset and had a quick lesson in Israeli politics. Obviously, they couldn’t hope to do anything other than skim the surface, and our entire trip of people – mostly university students – all had our own preconceived notions when we came on the trip. But rather than focusing on the contentious areas of politics, we got more of a rundown on the (rather unique) Israeli Parliamentary system and how the Knesset operates.
Next, Ben-Yehuda street – kosher Burger King for lunch, and shopping in all the tourist traps. The merchants all seemed to be really hurting due to the sharp decline in tourism. I bought a bracelet, and we all had fun bargaining.
This was followed by a *LONG* brainwashing session back at the hotel, trying to convince everyone to make Aliyah to Israel. Boring, to be sure, and not a message I entirely agree with, then or now. But then, it’s kind of like a timeshare vacation – you have to pay your dues. And they did give us a free trip, so if that session was the price we had to pay, most of us were willing to pay it without too much complaint (and only a little fidgeting).
Dinner, then out clubbing to the Russian Compound, which was pretty much the place to hang out in Jerusalem at the time. The night began with a loud negotiation with a sherut taxi, with a little help from an Israeli girl that one of the guys on our trip was chatting/flirting with. Neve Ilan is kind of out of the way, so it’s tempting for the sherut drivers to charge a little more than they ought to, but as it was, we got a pretty good deal. We started off at an Internet Café for a quick e-mail check, and ran into some people from other Birthright trips there. Then we headed to a club with a bar and dancing and practically everyone from our trip. On the way back we had fun singing cheesy songs in the sherut.
The party atmosphere on the trip was only just beginning, but it wouldn’t stop for the full 10 days. There are a few reasons for this: the short length of the trip, the presence of a large number of 18-year-olds just barely out of high school, the circus atmosphere, and the general lack of observance of the traveler’s code of conduct. Slamming doors at 3am, offering swigs of whiskey right out of the bottle at 6am, stuff like that. (These days I think of it and shudder, but it was actually kind of fun at the time. I must be getting old. But I digress.) I got less than 3 hours of sleep that night, but it was all good