Meteora

July 26th, 2008 Onboard train from Kalambaka to Athens, Greece
We awoke early on Wednesday and packed, eating breakfast on the roof. We then walked past the Blue Mosque and the Haghia Sophia on our way to the tram, which took us to the metro. With the help of a friendly passer-by we found the bus station and were soon on our way out of Istanbul. We had wanted to get a night train from Istanbul to Greece, but the travel agent at the Orient Hostel told us that there wasn’t one. We were going to lose a day of travel because of the change in plans, which meant that we could no longer hike Mt. Olympus. But, having a day to relax on a bus (in whatever way you can relax folded up in those tiny seats) would be nice.

I sat next to Melissa, a jovial fair-haired Irish lady who had been doing marketing and public relations in Bulgaria for the past four years and was now on her way to Spain via bus. She was a lot of fun to talk to, and bit scatter-brained, and we discussed everything, from travel to politics to the landscape out the window.
“Bulgaria’s very interesting,” she said, “but a hard place, yeah, yeah, it’s . . . yeah.”

We also met a hilarious German family who was on their way to a vacation home on the northeastern coast of Greece. The three of us spent a lot of time goofing off with the kids, Helena and Paul, quoting movies and talking about our homes and what we liked and disliked.
“Do you like Bush?” Paul asked.
Michael, his dad, turned slightly and said, “Ask a different question.”
Paul paused for a moment.
“Do you like . . . bikes?”

The question about Bush was one of the most common questions we received in the West Bank. People would welcome us and then say “Bush?” When we answered in the negative, they would smile and say “Okay, you are welcome.” I told Paul that I liked bushes in fields more than I did in the Oval Office.

I need to come back someday and explore more of Turkey. The country is vast and beautiful. We drove alongside the Marmara Sea for awhile, and we entered countrysides of bowing sunflowers. We drove past little towns built around minarets. I thought of little towns in Western Europe built around steeples, which made me think of the role of culture in religious beliefs and the positive and negative effects of such an inevitable synthesis. But, I will exclude those thoughts here.

We all exited the bus at the border into Greece, briefly having our passports checked. The bus then took us into Hellas, and the driver turned on the music of the bouzouki, and I was very happy. I had not been to Greece in seven years and I was close to ecstatic that I was returning. I had missed it. The road, lined occasionally with olive trees, skirted along the Thracian Sea. I was glad to see land that was not under the threat of being burned and robbed and water that wasn’t being diverted to illegal settlements. Adam and I hadn’t seen so much green in quite some time, and it was refreshing. Rain even fell on the windows. Water falling from the sky seemed a bit strange, and I wished that more would fall in Israel and Palestine.

We left Istanbul at 11 and we arrived in Thessaloniki at 10:30. For some reason, we were dropped off beside the train station. We needed to go to Kalambaka, but nothing was leaving that night. We got a city bus to the nation-wide bus station, but we encountered the same situation there. The three of us were getting more and more tired as it got later and later. After a brief debate, we decided to camp out next to a wall across the parking lot from the station. The spot was fairly sheltered, raised about a meter off the ground and mostly covered by a series of gigantic advertisements. We spread our sleeping bags on the level place between the wall and the signs and soon fell asleep without even having to pay.

(written July 28th, 2008 Lois House, Kifissia, Greece)
I actually slept rather comfortably on that concrete slab. We awoke to the noises of a busy bus station. Through the gap between the large signs and the concrete floor I could see the bustle of people hopping on buses that sped quickly away. People looked at us strangely as we tossed our bags down to the ground from behind the barrier and crawled out. I think we felt pretty hardcore. We got our tickets to Kalambaka and, after a short wait, were on our way.

Not much can be said about some bus rides . . . so I won’t. We changed buses in Trikala, and Adam and I almost missed it because we were busy emptying our bladders. Michael looked at us with disdainful worry as we climbed on the bus just before it pulled away. It’s a natural process, man. We all have to do it.

A short drive brought us into the village of Kalambaka, lying in the shadow of giant stone fingers reaching out of the earth known as Meteora (from the Greek which means “suspended in air”). I had been to Meteora once before, in 2001, and since then it had been one of my favorite places in the world. Weathered over millions of years, these incredible natural pillars appear as if they were punched out of the ground. High above the ground, perched atop the peaks of the dark rocks, are Greek Orthodox monasteries, almost rising out of some fantastic myth. At one time, twenty-four monasteries were suspended in air, but now only seven remain, six of which are open to the public. Monks began inhabiting the caves of the region as early as the eleventh century, and evidence still remains of their hermitages; Turkish invasions into Greece in the 14th century created a need for safer refuges, and immense Meteora met that need. Early on, the only way to access the heavenward sanctuaries was by ladders lowered to those below. Pulleys were later employed, but now stairs carved into the face of the rock, and serpentine roads, make climbing much easier.

We got off the bus in the city center sometime after noon and walked a kilometer or so into the neighboring, and much smaller, village of Kastraki where we found the very cheap and very nice Vrachos Camping. We chose a secluded site and dumped our bags, hiking up into the mystical forest of stone around us.

Everywhere we looked, the clear blue of the sky, the vivid green of the trees, and the deep gray of the stones filled our vision. I couldn’t get enough of it, and the weather was perfect and cool. The first monastery, Moni Agiou Nikolaou Anapafsa (or St. Nicholas for short), came into view, its walls neatly fitting to a modest column emerging from the trees, set before an expansive rock awning. We ascended its winding stairs and ducked inside, climbing through the multiple levels. The churches of all the monasteries are filled with magnificent frescoes, turning the walls and ceilings into canvases. We stood for awhile on the lookout of the monastery, providing an awe-inspiring view of Meteora and villages below. Some of the ruins of abandoned monasteries were visible.

Once we climbed down, we hiked up a trail through a wooded canyon that led to the largest of the monasteries. Through the branches, we could see St. Nicholas rising like a fairytale against the white-streaked sky. The path ended just beneath the large monastery, but we decided to first visit Varlaam down the hill because it closed sooner. However, we soon found that it was closed on Thursdays, so we promptly turned around and returned to Moni Megalou Meteorou (also known as the Grand Monastery).

The 14th-century Grand Monastery deserves its name, being the largest of the mones as well as being built on the highest peak in Meteora, some 613 meters above sea level. We entered through a door in the face of the rock and up the stairs through a tunnel to the main entrance. The monastery felt like a small village, with little alleyways running back between buildings and rising layers of the community. We journeyed into the storeroom and peered through a hole in the door at the ossuary, containing hundreds of skulls vacantly staring back at us from shelves. The doorway to the church was faintly lit with small candles. Like St. Nicholas, the walls were adorned with incredible mosaics; these were called The Martyrdom of the Saints, gruesomely depicting the persecution Christians suffered at the hands of the Romans. We craned our necks inside the main sanctuary to the see the twelve-sided dome, containing the Pantokrator, the figure of the Christ. We continued through the courtyard to the terraces, providing another angle of the awesome landscape beneath us.

As we prepared to leave, we met a Greek Orthodox priest and his wife who were visiting from near the border of Turkey.
“I know in the States, priests cannot have wife,” he said, and then added smiling broadly, “but in Greece, we can!”

They were huge fans of the television show Prison Break and he and his wife excitedly interrupted one another as they explained the intensity of the show and the fact that they watched the entire first season in three days. That’s just not something you expect to hear from a bearded, pony-tailed man dressed in a black robe and tall hat. As we walked out, he told us some interesting facts about the monastery, as well as explaining that when Scripture says that John the Baptizer ate locusts, the writers actually were referring to the rim of certain leaves, and not to insects. They offered us a ride down to another monastery, and we piled into their car as he talked enthusiastically about the history of Greece and of the monasteries as his wife would nudge him to pay attention to the road and occasionally remind him of the word he was searching for in English. They dropped us off at the foot of another pinnacle and we shook their hands warmly and said goodbye. Michael thought that they might have been the highlight of his trip. You meet amazing and diverse people when you travel.

(written July 30th, 2008 Onboard Lufthansa Flight 418)
We climbed the steps up to Moni Agias Varvaras Rousanou, sitting on a peak similar to that of St. Nicholas. The interior of the monastery was small, but the frescoes in its chapel were beautiful and the view from the patios never got old. We hiked up to a lookout point above the monastery and then returned to Grand Meteora by way of an under-construction road. A narrow dirt path diverged from the parking lot, and we followed it over the ridge and down through the hills.

As we came around a corner, Meteora Slope came into sight, thrusting out from the main part of the landscape. The view was breathtaking. Golden grass carpeted the deep gray stone, which fell dramatically down into fields of green that led into light brown patches spotting the earth until the mountains rose once more. No one else was around. The only noise we had was the musical wind funneling through the cracks in the summits of the hills. I stood on the edge, and thought of one of the most beautiful quotes I have ever read, from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit: “ . . . long ago in the quiet of the world, when there was less noise and more green . . .”

The wind threatened to rip us off the slope. We looked around and, realizing that no one was anywhere near us, we stripped down to our underpants and leaned into the wind, spreading our arms out wide. And we weren’t ashamed at all.

We continued down and turned alongside a ridge that ran back down into the plains. Another monastery, called Ypapantis, was hidden away in the cleft of the rock. This particular one was not open to the public, so we stood beneath and stared up at it for awhile. Ruins of an older haven rested on the rocks nearby, in front of a misty mount of green. We hiked down, along a longer route to Kastraki, picking blackberries as we went and watching the sun catch the yellow grass on fire with its light. I kind of envied the monks and their solitary lives there in Meteora. We ate souvlaki in a little restaurant on the way to our campground and visited an Internet café before turning in for the night after a very full day.

Our hiking began again the next day, returning back up the road to Varlaam, which had been closed the day before. We then hiked and bushwhacked a considerable distance to Moni Agias Triadas, where part of the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only was filmed. I don’t like Roger Moore, so I haven’t seen that one. The monastery didn’t take up the entire rock on which it sat: some of the stone rose above the roof and we sat on the edge, looking down onto Kalambaka and back in the other direction to the monasteries. I feel refreshed and renewed whenever I sit in the mountains and look out at the world below. Every time.

The last monastery, Moni Agiou Stefanou, sat around the bend, so we walked along the main road, but found that it was closed for the afternoon. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to wait because Michael had to catch a train to Thessaloniki later in the afternoon, so we backtracked to Agias Triadas and found a trail down to Kalambaka through the trees and the valley. We marched on to Kastraki, picked up Michael’s things, and turned around to go back to Kalambaka, stopping along the way for a delicious gyro (pronounced year-oh). An older man sat at a table near us and stared at us the entire time we ate. He whispered something to the waitress, who told us that the gentleman wanted to pay for our meal. He then began speaking to us in Greek, motioning up to the peaks. Every now and then, he would stop and start crying, looking at us tenderly. We asked the waitress if she had heard anything that he said. She told us he said something about Germany invading Greece and coming into these mountains. During WWII, the Nazis invaded Kalambaka and completely destroyed the village. We stood to leave and thanked him, and he grabbed our hands and kissed them with tears in his eyes. We really didn’t know what to say.

We found the little yellow train station on the outskirts of town and waited until Michael’s train left. He was flying out of Thessaloniki early the next morning to meet his family in Ireland for a week. I was a little jealous. We waved as he pulled away and then went back to Vrachos Camping and went swimming. Adam and I then decided that we really wanted to camp up at Meteora Slope. So, we grabbed our sleeping bags and backpacks, bought some pastries for later, and rapidly climbed the path up to Grand Meteora as the sun began to set.

Even in the fading light that spot was spectacular. We journeyed back out to the edge, where the wind was still whipping through. Again, we were all alone, so we decided to go all ancient Greek statue this time. We felt pretty alive. We were the gods of the mountain that night, and we made our beds in the golden grass and ate our cheese pastries and fell asleep underneath the brilliant embroidery of stars and a glowing moon. I have seldom camped in better places.

(written August 6th, 2008 Jellico, Tennessee, USA
We woke up early to the sound of my little alarm. We crawled out of the shade of the large bush that we slept next to and packed our things, making our way back to the parking lot near the Grand Monastery. We then hiked back to Agiou Stefanou and arrived at the gates before it opened. Soon, a little nun ventured out and unlocked the door, allowing those gathered to enter. The most impressive parts of the monastery were the green gardens and the frescoes in the chapel, some of which were still in the process of being painted. I loved the contrast between the new artwork and the fading frescoes of the other churches. As I walked into the katholikon, a nun stood in front of the altar, rhythmically swinging an incense container. The fragrant smoke slowly billowed over the images of saints, rising to the dome where it spread over the Pantokrator.

We hurriedly hiked down the Kalambaka Trail and returned to Kastraki. I was pretty proud of the fact that we hiked all over Meteora. It’s no short distance between some of those monasteries, and getting up to them is a good little jaunt as well. We were picked up by a Christian couple from Tennessee (the husband was from Nashville, and the wife was from Maryville, which is only about an hour from Jellico!) who, as former backpackers, took pity on us. We had a very brief, but very good, visit with them. I like meeting people like that.

After a quick shower, we packed our things and paid for the camping spot before briskly walking to the train station. At 11:55, the train pulled up and we were soon on our way south to Athens.

Jerusalem in the Morning, Istanbul in the Afternoon, and the Case of the Missing Computer

July 24th, 2008 On a bus from Thessaloniki to Meteora, Greece
My alarm sounded at 4:30 on Sunday morning. Adam and I grudgingly got out of our sleeping bags, showered, and began the long walk to the central bus station. We boarded a bus to Tel Aviv and, an hour later, we were at the airport.

Israeli airport security is an interesting thing: you never really know what will happen. Some of my friends who have spent several months working in the West Bank have walked through without a problem; others who came to visit for a week were held and questioned for three hours. Adam and I experienced something in between.

We entered the line and were asked a few questions about our stay before putting our luggage through the X-Ray scanner. We then took our bags over to a desk where they were basically emptied and rubbed down by three different people. As this was happening, someone in a suit asked me detailed questions about my stay in the country. I said nothing about the West Bank except for visiting Bethlehem, filling up my nine-and-a-half week stay with the tour, Egypt, Jordan, the Golan, and a lot of time traveling by myself. He informed me that a problem occurred with my computer. Their scanners were detecting something very disturbing and the chief of security came down and began interrogating me. She wanted to know if I stayed in any homes in Egypt or Jordan and if anyone other than me and my traveling companions had access to my computer. I was taken into a back room two different times and asked to pass through a metal detector; the second time I was massaged by an Israeli security guard. When I returned back to the desk, the man in the suit told me that I could not take my computer. According to him, the tests they needed to conduct would take too long. He said all of this as they bubble-wrapped my laptop and stuck down in a white box, giving me the impression that they really weren’t going to check it. When I arrived in Istanbul, he said, I needed to go to Lost and Found and make a file concerning my laptop, which would be shipped to me on a later flight. Life was certainly going to be made more difficult, but very interesting, by leaving it, but I didn’t have anything compromising on it: I had deleted all of my stories for the Palestine Monitor a few days before and had deleted all of my pictures from the West Bank from my computer and buried them on my external hard-drive, which, thankfully, I was allowed to keep. They wrapped my power cord for the computer in bubble-wrap and shipped it as checked luggage on my Turkish Airlines flight. That was weird. They were very polite and apologetic as they took my computer away, checking us into our flight and escorting us through several other security measures so that we wouldn’t have to wait any longer. I suppose there are benefits to several hours in Israeli security.

I slept most of the two-hour flight until we touched down in Istanbul, Turkey. I love adding new countries to my résumé. We purchased visas (Australians are the only people who don’t need a visa, because of the Battle of Gallipoli in WWI) and filed through passport control, picking up our bags and heading over to the Lost and Found desk. After ten minutes, I was told that my computer wasn’t, in fact, on my flight. I thanked them for that information and carefully tried to make my case clearer. Someone eventually made a file and gave me a few pieces of paper.

Adam and I sat down near the ramp where all the new arrivals were entering. Adam listened to his iPod and I started Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals, by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw. So far, it’s really quality stuff, but that’s to be expected from the guy who wrote The Irresistible Revolution. After an hour, Michael Wright came through passport control, his fists raised in triumph. Michael is one of my very closest friends from Harding. A fellow English Literature major, he graduated in May and decided to join us in Istanbul and travel with us to Greece before meeting his family for a week in Ireland. We had been very excited about this trip and the opportunity to travel together and I was glad to meet up with him.

We found our way down to the metro where we met a guy named Matt from Birmingham, England, who has been teaching English in Taiwan for the last four years and just finished traveling West Africa for five months. He tagged along with us to the end of the line, where we hailed a taxi and drove to the square of Sultanahmet. The Haghia Sophia sat to our left and the Blue Mosque rose across a green lawn decorated with a flowering fountain. I was impressed by the city planning. A group of conservative Muslim women huddled together and smiled and pointed at me.
“Muhanned,” one of them said.

I think I might miss that when I leave. My self-esteem was given quite a boost when I discovered that I was every Middle Eastern woman’s Turkish soap opera dream.

We walked around the corner of the Haghia Sophia past Topkapi Palace, journeying down a winding street to the Orient Hostel, located on an attractive side street filled with small cafés and restaurants. Michael had made reservations for us and we threw our bags down in the thirty-bunk dormitory. We could see the Haghia Sophia and the Blue Mosque from the roof. We walked back up to the square and walked around, getting a feel for the city. The three of us wandered down through cobble-stoned streets to the Marmara Sea. Families grilled out on the grass and long fishing poles cast out to sea beside the fleet of ships floating off the shore. We sat in the square of Sultanahmet before having dinner at a restaurant on a corner near our hostel. The delicious taste of the food was dulled a bit by our check, but at least we were treated to authentic Turkish cuisine. We sat on the roof with Matt and a few Australians before descending into the furnace of the dorm room and sweating ourselves to sleep.

After breakfast in the morning, we made reservations for a bus to Greece and I began my quest to obtain the missing computer. The hostel had their own travel agent, and he called the airport for me several times over the next two days. We heard nothing new that morning, so Adam, Michael, and I set out to explore the vast city of Istanbul.

The Blue Mosque, adorned with its many domes and six minarets, was our first destination. The structure, which is one of the most famous religious buildings in the world, received its name from the colorful tilework decking its interior. Built between 1609 and 1616, some considered the impressive mosque to be sacrilegious because it seemed to rival the architecture of the holy city of Mecca.

(written July 26th, 2008 Onboard train from Kalambaka to Athens, Greece)
We went around the corner of Haghia Sophia to Topkapi Palace, a huge extravagant complex built as the primary residence of Mehmet II between 1459 and 1465. Four huge courtyards housed the many buildings that comprised the fortress. We first entered the Harem, and I think we all know what happened there. The labyrinthine series of rooms, some decorated by faded paintings, once housed the king’s wives, concubines, and children, all guarded by eunuchs. I would assume that they didn’t volunteer for that job. The three of us explored all four courtyards, browsing through the treasuries, the throne room, the armory, and the Circumcision Pavilion. Again, the name says it all. Balconies along the edge of the palace provided excellent views of the sea. I tried to imagine the place without all the tourists, and to see the sultans walking around in their exquisite robes, followed by scurrying servants with fans, gazing out to the untamed sea and the lands beyond.

The Grand Bazaar, also built by Mehmet II in 1453, was our next stop, so we hiked across town and walked through the arched doorway. The interweaving streets, closed on either side by shops and covered by arching ceilings, were similar to the Old City of Jerusalem, though much wider and fancier. I happen to enjoy the Old City much more, which is certainly much older and seemed less touristy in a way. However, the Grand Bazaar is still undeniably impressive. The venders sold a wide variety of things, from rugs to shoes to brass to meerschaum pipes, each shopkeeper asking how we were and where we were from before inviting us to peruse their merchandise. Michael enjoyed the souvenir-shopping more than Adam and I did. The only thing the two of us bought, besides Adam’s new pipe, were kebabs in a little restaurant.

We walked toward the sea, meandering through the Book Bazaar and making a quick stop at Süleymaniye Mosque, which also contained the tomb of Süleyman the Magnificent. We decided that we were tired of paying to get into things, so we skipped out on going inside and moved on to the Spice Bazaar. Built in the 17th century and shaped like the letter “L,” the market was filled with the smell of hundreds of different spices, all piled up in colorful mountains on tables. Soon, the sea was before us, and we walked onto the Galata Bridge near the New Mosque, passing over the Golden Horn, which has been described as the world’s greatest natural harbor, to the other side. We began climbing up the hill, eventually coming to Galata Tower. Dating from the sixth century, the tower, tipped with an upside-down cone, rose 196 feet and, unfortunately, cost 10 lira. The view from the top wasn’t really going to be anything different than what we had already seen, so we decided to continue on and simply explore the streets dripping down the steep hill. We stopped by Mevleve Monastery but it was closed for restoration “until a few months,” so we sat at the base of the Galata Tower and enjoyed sitting. Ah, the simple pleasures in life . . .

After we crossed back over the Golden Horn, we entered the New Mosque, which is a rather relative name, considering that it was begun in 1597 (though it wasn’t completed for another sixty-six years). The colorful tiles of the interior were reminiscent of the Blue Mosque. The architecture of the mosques in Istanbul was incredible.

We had a great kebab for dinner near the Sultanahmet square. The food was very cheap, which made us all happy. Michael and Adam turned in soon after we got back to the hostel; I sat on the roof for a little wile, watching boats pass through the moon’s glow on the water. Behind me, the Blue Mosque and the Haghia Sophia glowed like lighthouses.

The next morning, we saw the Haghia Sophia. Out of all the impressive structures that we saw in Istanbul, this was for me the most impressive and the most beautiful. The Haghia Sophia (or “Holy Wisdom”) was a Byzantine church converted into a mosque and then a museum, and is over 1,400 years old. Buttresses support the roof’s many domes which cover the cavernous interior: the main sanctuary, which was designed to reflect the expanse of the heavens, soars up to the ceiling 184 feet above the floor. A large mosaic of Jesus and Mary loomed behind the apse. We climbed a series of winding steps to the second level where we saw a series of exquisite mosaics lit by the sunlight from the adjacent windows, through which I could see the Blue Mosque across the square. As Michael and Adam walked around, I sat and looked at the mosaics and the vast sanctuary and the people walking and just listened.

We returned to the Grand Bazaar, following a path marked in Michael’s guidebook that took us to the oldest section of the market. As we ate a cheap kebab for lunch, we met some American girls and had a very interesting conversation. The two were Christians and had been traveling with a group in Europe, spending time with gypsies and “just sharin’ the love of God with them.” I was very impressed with their work, with the fact that they were touching people considered untouchable, but not so much with what seemed to be an overly “spiritual” (and I put that in quotation marks for a reason) Christianity. I grow uncomfortable when the only thing associated with “the power of Christ” or genuine spirituality is “miraculous” healings. I don’t believe that Jesus’ signs were the point of his message; rather, they were (go figure) signs pointing to and supporting his message. The girls talked about the need to feel the Holy Spirit moving in you and us using it to do powerful things. All I could think of was “Use the Force, Luke,” as if God is some sort of impersonal substance we tap into and use to make things all better. As we prepared to leave, one of them prayed for us and put her hands on our heads (which is something with which I have absolutely no problem, just so you know) in order to “anoint you with the Spirit that dwells in me and just for you to just pour into them, Holy Spirit God, just to fill with just your power and wisdom, Father God.” They were very friendly and I appreciated their desire to pray for us, but our versions of following Jesus certainly differed in some ways.

We walked all over Istanbul that day, veering off the beaten path to get away from the tourists. We walked through streets of decaying wooden homes squeezed between stained apartments. The three of us followed the road under Valens Aqueduct and ended up at a dilapidated mosque which had once been a Byzantine church, as many of the mosques had been. However, a man outside tried to make us pay to walk around, so we left.

After walking way out where no tourists have walked before (which might be an overstatement, but it felt like it), we entered the Church of St. Savior in Chora, dating back to the eleventh century and known for its Byzantine frescoes and mosaics. The church’s reputation was well-deserved: the walls and ceilings were arrayed with majestic art depicting the Scriptures and the saints, filling the dim church with color and life. The artwork, created by theologian and philosopher Theodore Metochites between 1315 and 1321, was grouped in series, such as the Genealogy of Christ, the Infancy of Christ, the Life of the Virgin, and Christ’s Ministry. The frescoes were housed in the pareclesion, the most stunning of which was the one called the Anastasis. The fresco centers around Jesus, standing above the Gates of Hell as he pulls Adam and Eve out from their graves: Jesus as the Death-conqueror and the Life-giver.

When I said that we walked all over the city, we really did. We continued from the church and strolled next to the ancient walls of the city and down through residential areas where, hallelujah, no tourists were in sight. After we visited the Haghia Sophia, I had returned to the hostel to call the airport about my computer. I was told that they definitely had it, but the travel agent at the hostel suggested that I go and pick it up, because I had no guarantee that they would deliver it on time. So, after we saw all of Istanbul, Adam and Michael graciously accompanied me to the airport. We had a very hard time finding where we needed to go, because each person we asked sent us to a different place until we felt like we were following clues on the trail of some mystery. Finally, I was allowed through the gates and back to the Turkish Airlines lost and found, where I had gone after we landed. I was then told that they most definitely did not have my computer. They took me inside the storage room and showed me that it wasn’t there. Perhaps, said the man working, my computer would come on the 10:45PM flight. I left feeling quite defeated.

Once we got back to Sultanahmet, I went straight to the hostel to see if, by some crazy chance, the airport had actually delivered my computer. I was greeted by another surprise.

“You’re Jonathan, right?” asked the guy behind the desk, holding a phone to his ear.
When I answered positively, he said, “Well, your mom’s on the phone.”
A little shocked, I took the phone and said, “Hey Mom: how the heck did you get this number?”

She then proceeded to tell me that my computer was in Istanbul. A white package showed up on the doorstep of some family and they called the number on the outside, which was my home phone number. They now had my laptop and would be returning it to me. I was sorry that my mom was on the phone and not there in person, because I really wanted to hug her for delivering that wonderful message (and for just being my mom, of course). She gave me the number for the family and after I hung up the guy behind the desk called them. The story got even more interesting: it turned out that my computer was actually sent to the home of the Prime Minister of Turkey. I’m not exactly sure how Israeli security confused me for that guy. The police now had possession of my laptop and were going to bring it to me and ask me a few questions. Apparently, an unknown box from Israel arriving at the Prime Minister’s home is a red-flag issue.

I waited for a little while and read, but no one came for a long time, so I met the guys next to the fountain and told them the story as we ate dinner at the cheap restaurant off the square. I quickly returned to the hostel to see if anyone came. I learned that I now had to go to the police in order to retrieve my laptop. The feeling that I was a part of some crime drama grew; you know, one that’s set in faraway places and involves exotic locales, dimly-lit basement rooms, and nighttime escapades in the city.

I got a taxi and sped off into the city. The taxi took me to the headquarters of the Istanbul police. I passed through security and left my camera at the entrance. I tried to explain my reason for being there to the guys sitting at the desk. Their English was better than my Turkish, but still a little broken. They asked me about my stay.

“Do you like Turkey?” asked one.
“Oh yeah,” I said enthusiastically.
“Do you like Turkish police?” he said, and everyone laughed.
“I do now.”

He made a few phone calls and one of the policemen led me through the doors and up a very wide expanse of steps leading up to a vast level place surrounded by three towering buildings. He took me into the building on the left, passing me off to someone else who took me down into the basement and through a long corridor to the room at the end. A man sat behind a large wooden desk facing a gigantic muted TV that was playing Police Academy 2. The man behind the desk was the Superintendent of the Istanbul Police.

“So, my computer was sent to the home of the Prime Minister of Turkey?” I asked, still finding the whole situation hard to believe.
He took a deep breath and smiled.
“Yes. Crazy, yeah?”

He was incredibly friendly and we swapped getting-shot-at stories and travel adventures while someone made copies of my papers from the airport. Then, a guy brought in a white box and set it on the table, my laptop sitting on the top. I laughed. I signed a paper saying that I received my computer, shook the Superintendent’s hand, and walked out. The guards at the entrance laughed and waved as I walked back through, holding the box above my head. They gave me my camera and called a taxi for me. And that is my incredible adventure with the Istanbul police and how the case of the missing computer came to an end. I went to bed a happy man.

The Last Week in Palestine

July 17th, 2008 Palestine Monitor Office, Ramallah, the West Bank
Adam came back to office while Sean and I were working. I did little that day, updating the website with a few stories. Adam and I went to the flat to gather a few things and then made our way to Jerusalem, walking the thirty-minute hike to the Egged Bus Terminal. We were on our way to the Sea of Galilee to visit the Harding group.

Our university has an excellent study abroad program, which was part of the reason why I chose to go there. As of now, Harding University takes students to seven different locations in the world: Australia, Greece, Italy, France/Switzerland, Chile, England, and Zambia. I went to Australia in the fall of 2006, Sean went to HUG (Harding University in Greece) in the summer of 2005, and Adam was on the first group to Zambia this past fall. Almost every year, the Greece group journeys to Egypt and to Israel, spending approximately a week in each place. The opportunity arose to meet with the group while they came to visit, so Adam and I decided to take advantage of it.

Three hours after boarding the bus, we arrived in Tiberias. We were ripped off by a taxi (everything is so expensive in Israel!) and were dropped off at the Hotel Nof Ginosar. Dr. Richardson and his wife met us there, and it was great to see familiar faces. My first Bible and Religion class at Harding was with Dr. Richardson, and I had been impressed with his humility and open-mindedness. This previous semester, he invited me to speak to his World Christian class about my plans for the summer and has asked me to come and speak to some of his classes this coming fall. We walked down along Lake Kinneret, catching up on their time in Greece before meeting the students for dinner. One of my close friends from freshman year was there; I love seeing people from across the world in a completely new place. I met Mrs. Myhan, who is the facilitator of the Greece program with her husband. She very graciously paid for our meal. The mother of one of my good friends came along with the group for their time in Israel and it was wonderful to catch up with her too.
“I’ve been reading so much about what is happening here,” she said in her fast-gear voice. “You can sign me up.”

A fairly large number of the students joined us on a grassy lawn. Adam and I were very excited about that: we have greatly missed grass. I think one of the first things I will do when I get home is sit on the grass beneath a tree. Adam and I then explained a little bit of the history of the situation here and the reasons why we came here for the summer. We then shared some of our stories, and they were shocked by some of the things we said. We told them they wouldn’t hear most of this stuff on any of the media networks, and we were right. A few people got up and left, but most listened very attentively, including the professors. People’s perspectives were broadened and minds were opened. At the very least, new questions were raised. We sat around for a long time afterward, telling more stories and answering questions.

(written July 18th, 2008 The Flat, Ramallah, the West Bank)
Mrs. Myhan’s husband was unable to come because one of the students was seriously ill in a hospital in Athens. Mrs. Garner moved in with Mrs. Myhan and Adam and I were given a free hotel room for the night. Our plan had been to camp out somewhere, so we were pretty grateful for the gift.

The room turned out to be quite handy because Adam spent most of the night spewing out of both ends. I met with the group for breakfast and said goodbye to them as they left for a day of touring. We remained at the hotel for a few more hours while Adam slept and regained a little bit of strength. The two of us walked out to the main road and stood next to a bus stop, attempting to hitchhike into Tiberias. Hitchhikers are very common in Israel, but we had a horrible time. Maybe we looked too imposing, because no one stopped to pick us up. Just as we were about to go back to the hotel and call for a taxi, a bus came along and took us to the central bus station. After a short wait, we were on our way to Jerusalem.

The ride back was much shorter and was made even shorter by sleeping most of the way. Adam and I split up at the Damascus Gate; he went to Ramallah and I went to Bethlehem. I met Anna in front of the Church of the Nativity and we walked through the market as she looked for a gift for another friend who was leaving. A lot of people I have met are leaving in the next few days. We passed a wall covered with photos of Mohanned, so I was forced to stand next to it and get a picture. Rachel met us at their flat and we sat on their roof for awhile before heading down to Beit Sahour to meet some of their friends, a few of which were leaving soon. One of the Palestine Summer Experience guys, an eighteen-year old from Vermont, was a pretty funny, albeit strange, guy. Thin and hawk-like, he was recently kicked out of the program for smoking hash. All the drugs in Quebec are funneled through his town into the States.
“We always have a white Christmas,” he said.

We wandered up to the Tent Restaurant and visited for awhile. I had a good time, but I continue to realize that I am much more drawn to smaller gatherings and quieter settings. I enjoy meeting people and hanging out, but I begin to feel a little crowded. Every now and then, I wish that this wasn’t the case, because I do love spending time with people. But, I enjoy the beauty of Silence. I grabbed my things at the girls’ flat and said goodbye to Rachel. I stayed the night once again in Jonathan’s room at Bethlehem Bible College.

I returned to Anna’s flat in the morning and had breakfast and coffee with her. We walked up to the beginning of the Old City next to Manger Square and I said goodbye to Anna, turning down through the market to catch Bus 21 out of Bethlehem.

I didn’t get to Ramallah until almost 11 because of the traffic in Jerusalem. Thursday was our last day in the office and we had little to do. Later in the evening, the three of us and Berenice met Kirsty at Pronto’s for drinks. Kirsty and José were leaving the next day for holiday in Scotland. She reiterated her praise of our work and we thanked her for the opportunity. Kirsty told me that Bahia, one of the bosses, was very impressed with my work, so I should keep in touch about returning post-graduation in January. We all hugged and went our separate ways.

On our way back to the flat, the three of us stopped by Anne Roberts’ home and sat with her on the veranda for a long time. Her house provides a beautiful view of Ramallah, and on clear days she said you can see the sun set over the Mediterranean.

(written at Citadel Youth Hostel Jerusalem, Isarel)
Anne has had an amazing life. She grew up picking peaches in West Tennessee, and worked with the Peace Corps in its early days, back when working with the Peace Corps was actually an adventure. She traveled extensively throughout the Middle East, studying in Beirut and working in Palestine, Egypt, Iran, and was in the Wadi Rum following the path of T.E. Lawrence when Lawrence of Arabia was actually being filmed. She also spent three years working in Indonesia. She is returning to the States for a month and will then hopefully come back. We all left wanting to have her life.

We did absolutely nothing on Friday, our last full day in Ramallah. We had planned on going to the protest in Ni’lin one more time, but our laziness overcame us and we hung around the flat the entire day, snacking, drinking our final bottles of the delicious Marawi fruit juice, and watching borrowed DVDs. We began cleaning and packing later in the afternoon, doing a little laundry. As we sat on the couches and watched the hilarious movie The Three Musketeers, I began to have very mixed feelings about the prospect of leaving. For a variety of reasons, I was ready to leave for awhile. But a huge part of me wanted very much to stay. Mahmoud told me today that it is because I am now a Palestinian. I am drawn to this place.

We finished packing and cleaning the next morning. Sean left before Adam and me. Once our laundry was mostly dry, we threw our stuff together and walked out of our flat and down the road to Al Manara. We boarded Bus 18 to Jerusalem.

The two of us stopped at Mahmoud’s shop and visited with him for awhile. He smiled as we told him about our love for the people here and our desire to return.
“It is in your heart now,” he said. “This is good, this is very good.”

He took us around the corner to a restaurant in a tiny crack and bought us Palestinian maklube, which is an incredible dish consisting of rice and chicken. We sat in front of his shop for awhile longer before making our way to the Citadel Youth Hostel, booking the roof for the night. Adam and I wandered up to the Tourist Information Office next to Jaffa Gate. However, the office was closed because of Shabbat, so we tried calling in order to reserve a sherute to the airport early in the morning. No one answered, so we walked back to the Citadel. Sean came in after calling me with Mahmoud’s phone. His bus to the airport leaves at 9 tonight. He bought a ticket for Greece a month ago; Adam and I are going to Istanbul. For some reason, Sean didn’t talk with us about splitting off before he decided to do so, which was a little frustrating. He met someone in Ni’lin who worked for an old lady picking olives on the island of Evia, and he will be spending a week there. Adam and I ended up becoming a little jealous.

We spent awhile hanging out at the hostel before meeting Mahmoud at Jaffa Gate. We joined a walkthrough of the Old City viewing contemporary artwork displaying a variety of aspects of life in the city. Sean soon left for Tel Aviv and we wandered through narrow streets and down into an ancient Turkish bath before ending on the rooftop of a beautiful old home near the Damascus Gate. We hugged Mahmoud, Svetlana, and their daughter Maria goodbye and grabbed our last shawarma.

I felt at home as we walked through the Old City back to the Citadel. I will miss the stones of Jerusalem, and the people of Palestine. I know that I will be back. At least, I hope so: we have to go through Israeli security at the airport tomorrow morning. We may get through with no problems, or we could be banned from entering the country again. I know some people to whom this has happened. I want to return.

Petra

July 15th, 2008 Palestine Monitor Office, Ramallah, the West Bank
Adam and I met Sean in front of the Damascus Gate on Thursday night and began the incredibly long walk to the Egged Bus Terminal on Jaffa Street. We planned on taking the midnight bus to Eilat, but once we arrived we found that the bus was already full and we were left stranded at the gate. Fortunately, we met a guy named David from Chicago who is studying for a portion of the summer at Hebrew University. A junior at Ohio State, he spent seven months working at a hostel in Amsterdam and two months working near the Canary Islands. He offered a place for us to stay, so we caught a taxi to the dormitories of the university on Mount Scopus. We sat around the kitchen table and told David about what we have doing. He hadn’t heard very much of the other perspective at all: during orientation for his studies, he was told not to travel in the Old City or East Jerusalem by himself. He had been in Israel for almost three weeks and had not yet been to Bethlehem.

We got very little sleep, waking up a little after 5 and returning to the bus station, buying tickets and hopping on the 7AM bus to Eilat. Four-and-a-half hour bus rides are not the most comfortable modes of transportation, but we got where we needed to go. I slept for part of the way and we had some interesting conversations with David about the situation here and about theology. David is a fairly conservative Christian and feels that people use what he called the “new” social justice/humanitarian Christianity to replace a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior.” I rarely understand what that last phrase means, which wasn’t even a part of Christian vernacular until the 19th century. For me, a personal relationship with Jesus is encountered when I follow him, and that is by serving others. I have heard people juxtapose “humanitarian efforts” with “the cause of Christ.” According to the dictionary, the word humanitarian means “pertaining to the saving of human lives or to the alleviation of suffering.” By that definition, the cause of Christ and humanitarian efforts are the same. That is the Gospel: the Good News that Jesus taught and lived was and is humanitarian. And now we will have the altar call and sing seventeen verses of “Just As I Am.”

We arrived in Eilat before noon and walked to the Shelter, a Christian youth hostel where some of David’s friends used to work. We were given directions and some suggestions about how much to pay before we hailed a taxi and drove to the Aqaba Border Crossing. I very much dislike this idea of paying a departure tax when you leave a country. We reluctantly forked over 55 shekels and entered the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan with no trouble. This was my second time to the country, the first being in 2001 when my family and I visited Petra. We met the friendliest taxi driver who took us into Aqaba and worked out an incredible deal so that we wouldn’t have to wait several hours for the bus. Another taxi got us to Petra in less than two hours for a great price. We were crammed very tightly, but the discomfort was worth it. The taxi took us to the Valentine Hostel in the town of Wadi Musa (“the Valley of Moses”), which sprung up because of the extreme amounts of tourists coming to Petra.

We decided not to stay in the hostel, opting instead to find a place to camp. We descended down the steep hill, buying a few groceries along the way. We came to the entrance of Petra and veered right, walking along a road that lined the park. The four of us left the road and began climbing. Massive boulders seemed to have been thrown together to form the landscape. We scaled the rock walls and scrambled over ledges, diving deeper and deeper into layers of stone. Eventually, we emerged onto a sloping rock face that fell away into the valley. The sun was starting to set between two peaks, so we decided to make camp there. The rays of light soon vanished over the mountains and we were left sitting on the rock tongue. We threw our sleeping bags down and fell asleep early, free of mosquitoes, surrounded by the wind and roofed in by the stars.

We made our way into Petra at around 8, entering the narrow corridor known as the Siq that led into the site.

July 16th, 2008 Hotel Nof Ginosar, Sea of Galilee, Israel
We could see a small sliver of sky above our heads, crammed between the edges of the high rock walls. After a kilometer, we turned a corner and, peeking from between the cracks, the Treasury came into view. This massive monument, originally built as a tomb for a Nabatean king, was carved out of the sandstone cliffs and almost glowed a faint red in the sunlight. Six columns, three on each side of the door into the small room, supported the artwork above, façades of sculpture nestled under ornate half-pediments and three-dimensional turrets. A stone urn sat high above the ground, pricked with holes from bullets. According to legend, the Egyptian pharaoh hid his treasure in the urn while pursuing the Israelites, and later people who believed the story attempted to break the gold free from its resting place by using their rifles. If none of this rings a bell, watch the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and you will be impressed.

We continued around the corner, splitting from the main path and hiking up to the High Place of Petra. An ancient sacrificial altar rose out of a field of stone that dramatically fell deep into the valley that rose once again into rounded peaks. The four of us were taking baths in our own sweat, so we sat down for a few minutes and drank some water while enjoying the view around us. Instead of hiking down the same path, we took a back road, which took us alongside a series of tombs. We came out near the magnificent Royal Tombs, which sat across the ravine from an 8,000-seat amphitheatre burrowed into the cliffs. The rooms inside the tombs, serving as mouths into the heart of the fiery stone, were ablaze with color: the walls and ceilings were streaked with red, white, and black.

A dirt road took us along a colonnaded street, passing by the Qasr al-Bint temple, one of the only free-standing buildings in Petra. We embarked on a long, hot hike up the eight hundred steps to the Monastery, or Al-Deir. The Monastery was similar in appearance to the Treasury, but, standing forty-five meters high and fifty meters wide, was much larger. Like many of the structures in Petra, Al-Deir was originally used as a tomb for a Nabatean king, but was later converted into a Byzantine church. We had our lunch of pita and an assortment of toppings sitting inside the huge entrance, raised a meter or so above the ground. We met a Mormon group studying Arabic in Amman and took some time to relax before making the descent into the valley.

We followed a small wadi far off the main path. Trees filled with pink flowers bordered the rocky trail that led down to a drying stream. We sat against some boulders beneath the shade of the trees and the shadows of the cliffs, talking for awhile. David seemed to struggle somewhat with some of our theological and political viewpoints. We talked more about what is essentially liberation theology and social justice. I think a lot of what we said was pretty new to him. Conversations like that can become rather frustrating, and sometimes a few of the people involved had a hard time maintaining a level of respect and humility. People won’t be transformed or opened to new worldviews if we attack them and beat them over the head with challenging ideas. Patience is certainly a difficult virtue, but a necessary one.

We returned to the wide road, passing the colonnaded street and wandering up an ashen hill to the Temple of the Winged Lions and a Byzantine church which housed what are quite possibly the world’s oldest Byzantine mosaics. We found our way back to the entrance and took more pictures of the famous Treasury before turning and exiting through the Siq. We spent almost nine hours in Petra.

We walked up to the Valentine Hostel and paid 6JD (Jordanian denar) for a spot on the roof and a huge buffet, which is a very good deal. We were able to shower and sit on the veranda that overlooked the wide valley down to Petra. We met Patrick the Canadian, who has been traveling for the last seven months, mostly living in India. A filmmaker, he was in the process of working on a doctoral thesis concerning humanism and postmodernity in contemporary media and entertainment. I liked it. We had some fantastic conversations about film and TV shows, the rampant sexuality and excessive violence, and the impact they had on culture at large. We told him about our experiences, and I think we changed some of his perspectives on American Christians. During his younger years, he said that he believed in Satan and smoked a lot of weed.
“Now,” Patrick said, “I am a humanist atheist.”

He had a lot of respect for religion and the good that is associated with it, and we spent some time talking about the mythology of religion and of the construction of the idea of God. He apologized a little for challenging our beliefs, but we told him we welcomed the discussion. Patrick told me that if I want to be a good writer, then I will have to question my beliefs. I agreed wholeheartedly.

“If we don’t question and challenge our faith, “I said, “then we don’t have faith. We don’t really believe if we don’t seek.”
We got along with Patrick very well.

The sun set through a deep orange sky while we ate from the extensive buffet, continuing to talk about film and literature and philosophers. As the light started to seep out of the sky, we decided to go into a little sitting room just off of the lobby and watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which they had on VHS. Watching that movie at Petra is probably one of the biggest clichés, but it was one cliché I was very happy to fulfill. I never get tired of Indiana Jones. Those are movies you watch to have fun and to enjoy the adventure and magic of film. One of the workers at the hostel said he has watched that movie every day for the past seven years. David asked him if he still liked it. He shrugged.
“Sometimes.”

Once the movie was over, we clambered up the stairs attached to the outside wall of the building and crawled into our sleeping bags, soon falling asleep after two long days of hiking and climbing.

We got up a little after 5 on Sunday morning, because we had a taxi that would take the four of us and Patrick back to Aqaba. We were quite literally stuffed inside: Patrick took the front seat, and the rest of us were jammed in the back, legs stuffed under our neighbor’s legs and our butts angled on the seat so we could all fit. Needless to say, the ride back was long and uncomfortable, but I managed to sleep some which made the whole ordeal seem shorter.

We had relatively little trouble crossing the border. My bag was checked (as usual) and we were on our way, returning to the bus station. David decided to hang out in Eilat for the day, so we said goodbye to him and sat next to the wall, waiting for our bus to Jerusalem at 11:30. Patrick sat with us before departing for Tel Aviv. The three of us had the entire back row of the bus to ourselves, so we stretched out and slept most of the trip back. We went straight to Bethlehem and walked up to Manger Square, waiting to meet the Awwads: they had invited us to eat dinner and stay the night at their home. They greeted us warmly and we picked up some falafel and pita and drove down to Beit Sahour.
“Welcome to my Paradise!” Mr. Awwad said enthusiastically as we entered the gate to their home.

We sat on the veranda, looking down into the valley. Mr. Awwad can trace his family back between seven and eight hundred years on this same plot of land. Their paradise was surrounded by fruit trees and gardens. Almost all of the food we were served was grown on their land. Apples, figs, grapes, and different kinds of vegetables were placed before us and all were incredibly delicious. The Awwads are deeply connected to their land.
“Believe me,” Mr. Awwad told us, “I am like a fish. If you take me out of the water, out of my land, I will die!”

They made us feel absolutely at home, ordering us to take showers (probably because of the smell) and gave us comfortable beds. We slept soundly that night.

Breakfast the next morning consisted of jams made from their fruit and we sipped tea on the porch. We said goodbye to Mrs. Awwad and Mr. Awwad drove us to the checkpoint, hugging us goodbye and imploring us to come back again someday. I know I will be back.

Once we arrived in Ramallah, we went to the flat and showered and changed before backtracking to the office. Adam went off to Salfit to say goodbye to all of his friends there. Berenice went to Nablus for the day and Sean and I stayed in the office until 5. We meandered to the flat and hung out for the rest of the night, watching some of the DVDs that Kirsty let us borrow. We turned in early.