Big barbeque

Quick post. It’s late.

Jerusalem. Tick. Beautiful city. Western Wall touched – 2000 years old - surrounded by hundreds of orthodox Jews, bobbing back and forth in the traditional black garb, leaving notes and wishes in the cracks in the walls. Intense.

An old lady there told Effie to cover up as God can’t talk to her if she’s inspiring sin in her brothers. (Big boobs).

Bomb in Rishon Le Zion, where Effie lives. Turns out it wasn’t terrorist or war related, just some mafia vendetta that obviously needed settling. So that’s fine then.

Have bumped into various India buddies in Israel. This trip is fast becoming a chance to see India hippies coping in their home territory. Conclusions? A heady mixture of reassurance and depression. For example, Ben is working for an AOL call centre (the devil) between the hours of 11pm – 7am. Think about that. And the weird thing is, he enjoys it.

Deep inhalation.

We are currently in the North, very close to the border of Lebanon. It’s probably where you’d be advised not to go by the Lonely Planet, but it seems rather lovely thus far.

Spent last night (and tonight) in a kibbutz. A big communal-based living settlement. Quite popular in Israel. This one is a lot posher than I imagined a kibbutz to be. Everyone mucks in to do all necessary jobs. There is shared possessions, group based living and decisions for personal circumstances decided by committee. A strange way of life. Could say a lot more about it. Perhaps I will later.

Needless to say, my first night in a kibbutz was spent with the young uns, at an outdoor rock concert with a band playing Led Zep, Queen and Pink Floyd covers. When they started on playing the whole of Dark Side of the Moon, I escaped and went to write postcards in some weird little village of the future affair.

Beautiful sunny day today spent in cold springs in a mountain valley.

Finished ‘The Corrections’. Ace novel. Currently reading ‘Girlfriend in a Coma’ by Douglas Coupland. Chilling but satisfying.

Met a bunch of English people today who have voluntarily moved to Israel to be in the army. One Londoner kept trying to rile me by calling my a ‘northen monkey.’ Seems somewhat irrelevant to me. It hardly bites to the core of my character. He then kept apologising for his sarcastic disposition. I told him I could handle sarcasm, just that I find it confusing when I meet people for the first time. Like, is this guy actually a dick, or just pretending to be, so I’ll like him.

I had the overwhelming urge, when asking them about their decision to join the army, to ask: did you just wake up one day and think “I want to kill some arabs?”

I managed to restrain myself. Sometimes it’s difficult getting to the heart of the matter.

Tomorrow is Yom Kippur, a Jewish holiday of feasting, then fasting. It is a nationwide event where no one is allowed to work, drive, eat or drink. The idea is that one must ask forgiveness from anybody they may have wronged in the previous year. It’s essentially a national day of meditation. I like the idea of wandering the streets and apologising to shop keepers for nicking grapes, and stuff.

Effie continues to light my fire.