How 11 Stories I Experienced in Israel Led Me to a World I Never Imagined
By: Meiling Wu
Tags: Lebanon, Travel, Syria, Israel, The Ascent

How 11 Stories I Experienced in Israel Led Me to a World I Never Imagined

An 8-day panoramic & spiritual journey.

To be honest, go to Israel for a trip is a thing that I never imagined before. No plan, no expectation.

For students in US, we have a spring break around 10 days that we can spend some time to travel or have a rest. When I was meeting with few friends and two of them mentioned they are going to Israel for a Policy trek, which is held by a non-profit organization and few current NYU students. Participants mostly major in International Relations and MPA social innovation and non-profit management. Oh, ok, that is nice. I didn’t make any connect between Israel and myself at that time. Topic changes fast, you know, girls, we continued our conversation with other stuff.

Actually, for a quite long time, maybe because as an Asian, I always feel middle east is quite far and full of mysteries. The only two countries that I can picture them in my mind are:

Pakistan — Pakistan has a great relationship with China. Turkey — Turkey is famous for hot-air balloon. And every girl has a hot-air balloon dream.

That’s it.

Until one month later, March is approaching. I really need to seriously plan my spring break. When I go through the email box as usual, random clicks, I suddenly saw the email that my friends forward to me about the Israel trip. Why not give it a try! Though the deadline has already passed, I still tried to write an email to the group leader and ask for the possibility to join in. When I was told that I still have the chance to catch the final round if I can get my flight tickets and VISA documents within two days and send them to the embassy. I quickly prepared everything at that night and took a day off next day to hand on the visa application to Israel embassy.

One week later, I got my passport with five years multiple entrance visa in my hand.

I was nervous, anxious, uncomfortable and worried. Going abroad has never be my source of fear, but this time, I feel like I jump into a maze and I don’t know where it will lead me to.

I was expectant, after all.

The four days before departure, I was occupied by work at day time and classes at night. And plus I planned to move to a new apartment so all my stuff are packed and storage in my friends’ home. There are not much things that I can took out of because I don’t want to experience again the process of packaging. So I just throw some shirts and pants into my trunk and went to sleep right away.

Next day is the departure day to the adventure!

There is a fun fact that Aeroflot, the Russian airline always has some problems with luggage delivery delay. So it is quite easy for me since I only have two carry on luggage..

My transit is at Moscow. Actually, it is my second time to been to Russia. Four years ago, I stayed in Saint- Petersburg for more than one month for global volunteer. Time flies, I still remember the moments four years ago, that is my first year to go abroad and every day comes with new challenges. After four years, many things changed, but some thing never. I appreciate that I am still take adventure after such a long time.

After the transit, I successfully arrived at my destination: Tel Aviv.

Some heads up so that you can better understand the situation in Israel .

Israel (/ˈɪzriəl, -reɪəl/; Hebrew: יִשְׂרָאֵל‬; Arabic: إِسْرَائِيل‎), officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Middle East, on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. It has land borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan on the east, the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the east and west, respectively, and Egypt to the southwest. The country contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area.Israel’s economy and technology center is Tel Aviv, while its seat of government and proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, although the state’s sovereignty over Jerusalem is not recognized internationally. (According to Wikipedia)

I admitted that I always hold a stereotype about the situation at middle east region. War, guns, and boomed buildings. And I can not tell what are the countries that located in middle east and how are their economic situation and politic stand points. So, I was shocked when I arrived at the Herods hotel in front of beach. It is amazing.

Despite its small size, Israel is home to a variety of geographic features, from the Negev desert in the south to the inland fertile Jezreel Valley, mountain ranges of the Galilee, Carmel and toward the Golan in the north. The Israeli coastal plain on the shores of the Mediterranean is home to most of the nation’s population. East of the central highlands lies the Jordan Rift Valley, which forms a small part of the 6,500-kilometer (4,039 mi) Great Rift Valley. The Jordan River runs along the Jordan Rift Valley, from Mount Hermon through the Hulah Valley and the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on the surface of the Earth. Further south is the Arabah, ending with the Gulf of Eilat, part of the Red Sea. Unique to Israel and the Sinai Peninsula are makhteshim, or erosion cirques. The largest makhtesh in the world is Ramon Crater in the Negev, which measures 40 by 8 kilometers (25 by 5 mi). A report on the environmental status of the Mediterranean Basin states that Israel has the largest number of plant species per square meter of all the countries in the basin.(According to Wikipedia)

Second shock point: Israel people really speaks very nice English ……. After I met with our group leader.

We had a pretty standard but fun get-to-know session to understand the back ground of participants, why people come here and objects of each days, The common goal for everyone is to have a deeper understanding of the whole country from our own eyes rather than from TV screen. And I think this is also the reason for travel.

You will never know if you don’t live it.

The distance between Tel Aviv and Jaffa is quite close, around half hour drive. The whole city is build along with coastline. Our educator spend quite long time to explain the timeline of history about Israel. Every seconds I spend in Israel tells me the world is much more larger than I thought.