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Monday, January 03, 2005

Israel, Part...What Part Are We On? Five? No, Four

I neglected to mention this before, so I think I’ll mention it now, since I’ve already given up all pretense of maintaining chronological order: Yana is extremely tall. Like, almost as tall as me, and I’m almost six feet, which isn’t anything special for a guy but pretty huge for a girl. Thankfully most of the activities on the trip discouraged high heels, or else Yana would have definitely towered over me and I would have felt horribly insecure. Strangely, Yana seemed to be ashamed of her height, and I was eternally amused. There’s one picture where she and Marina are standing next to each other with their backs to a rock wall; in it Yana is slouching so severely that if the photographer hadn’t caught her legs shooting WAY the heck off to the side, not the keenest observer could have told by looking at the picture that one of the girls is at least nine inches taller than the other. Yana later told me she had a picture with Marina where she didn’t slouch, the end result being that she looked like Shaquille O’Neal standing next to a midget five year-old. She cut that picture up, burned it, and fed the ashes to her lizard, despite my wailing, tearful protests.

Tuesday night a guy named Neil Lazarus came to speak to us about the political situation in Israel and the Middle East. As you may well surmise, said political situation is not a particularly happy or uplifting subject to dwell on for an hour, but Neil handily got around that sour point by not actually talking about the political situation, and instead cracking an endless stream of jokes; and at one point, making us stand up and give shoulder rubs to each other. From the little that Neil did speak on the depressing matter during the occasional pauses between one-liners, I got the impression that affairs in Israel and the Middle East are: very bad.

One of Neil’s keenest and most insightful points was that when Israelis say the word “peace,” it sounds like “piss.” Numerous potty jokes ensue: “We want piss in the Middle East,” etc.

After Neil’s speech, everyone was in a gloomy, contemplative mood, so we all dressed up and went to the disco to get smashed and dance. I don’t know what strings were pulled or sexual favors performed, but somehow Shabbat & Crew managed at the last minute to rent us a discotheque for a few hours — just us, a bartender, and a hot bartender. The itinerary says we were supposed to have a bonfire that night, but I’m pretty sure we ended up having it some other night. Or maybe we snuck it in there somehow. Anyway the bonfire, whenever it happened, wasn’t too exciting. We talked, cooked potatoes, roasted marshmallows, and chilled in front of the fire, but the meat of the evening lay in singing popular Jewish songs; and when we ran out of those, singing unpopular Jewish songs that nobody but one person in the group had ever heard of; and when we ran out of those, singing pop songs; and ever since then the United Nations has been in session heatedly debating which of the three was most torturous.

Also I had to pee really bad and ended up going in the woods. Sometime after I had returned to the fire, I talked to Ben, a cool guy who Yana wouldn’t admit to having a monster crush on, even though she clearly did, and I think he wanted her too, so there’s a brilliant opportunity lost forever to the whirling sandstorm of time; and Ben said he had to pee as well, so we had a really intellectual conversation.

“Just go over there,” I said, pointing in the direction of the vast, empty woods. “It’s far away from everybody. That’s where I went.”

“Yes, but if I go over there, I might step in your urinal.” By far the highlight of the evening.

Anyway, the disco. There was a nice patio area perfect for puking and escaping the loud music. Inside the club itself there were three rooms. The room to the right had a dance floor and sound equipment, well-stocked with hideously loud speakers and an overflowing repertoire of terrible music. The room to the left had benches along the outer wall, plus plush red curtains with which two (or more) lusty patrons could shield themselves from prying eyes whilst making sweet love. The middle room was simply a bar.

Quickly after our arrival, the music was pumped up to a volume that directly interfered with my heretofore formidable will to live. To talk to anyone you pretty much had to scream right into their eyeballs; I don’t know how people are supposed to be social at these things. For a little while I stood around idly, feeling terribly underdressed and wondering why my female comrades, who were elegantly dressed and looked very pretty, were willing to be seen with me.

I should probably add that the drinking age in Israel is 18. Actually, just about every other country in the known universe except for the United States has a drinking age of 18. Ours is set at 21 so that 18-, 19-, and 20 year-olds have something to be excited about when they visit foreign countries. And indeed I was excited, because that night at the disco was the first time I had ever consumed alcohol outside my parents’ supervision. Out of respect for my Russian heritage, I chose as my first-ever bought drink vodka. Actually acquiring the drink, however, took about half an hour, because there wasn’t really any sort of a line system at the field-goal shaped bar and both bartenders pointedly ignored me as I quietly sat there, slowly going deaf. My foul indignation reached a breaking point when I saw Brad arrive at the bar after me and get one, two, THREE drinks while I got nary a one; I then yelled or waved or did something crazy to get the bartender’s attention, and finally got my vodka.

I sipped the vodka because I figured if I was forking out thirty shekels (about five bucks) for one measly shot, I might as well draw it out. Marina saw me sipping and exclaimed, “Ew! You’re not supposed to sip shots! You have to drink it all at once!” So I drank the remainder all at once. I don’t know. I still like sipping.

Beginning many months before the trip, Marina had maintained constant pressure on me and Irene (and anybody else misfortunate enough to be within sight) to try absinthe. Absinthe is another one of those things that’s illegal in the U.S. but not anywhere else. It’s a green drink with almost one and a half times as much alcohol as vodka, which may be the reason it’s illegal here; that or the hallucinogens it contains. Anyway, Marina once drank absinthe when she visited London and has been talking about it ever since. She said the bartender sprinkled sugar on top of the drink and set it on fire, and then she had to blow it out and drink the absinthe really fast while it was still hot. “It’s the most disgusting thing ever,” Marina said. “You have to try it.”

In a rare display of backbone, I determinedly resisted Marina’s attempts to persuade me into what really did not sound like a good time. After it took twelve lifetimes to get a shot of vodka, however, I realized that if I was going to spend vast sums of time and money to get miniscule quantities of drink, I should probably get something that is (1) interesting, (2) unavailable back home, and (3) high in alcohol content. To my deep dismay, absinthe fit the bill to a T and possibly also a W. Irene, who was also initially opposed to drinking the green stuff, independently traveled down similar logical lines, and we both secretly decided to order absinthe. Marina was unaware of our machinations, however, and apparently she was so desperate to make us feel sick that she promised us she’d drink absinthe, too, if we did. The four of us (Yana somehow also got sucked in) then each ordered a shot and chugged simultaneously.

Our Israeli absinthe-drinking experience was not nearly as exciting as Marina’s London counterpart, because it did not involve fire. The drink was green; that was about the pinnacle of craziness. To my inexperienced taste buds, absinthe was nothing more than a mildly licoricey vodka. Marina, on the other hand, was truly revulsed by it: after downing her shot, she promptly went outside to the patio area and gazed intently at the rocks as her brain’s desire to keep her dignity fought with her stomach’s desire to vomit. Topping off this delightful spectacle was the gradual discoloration of Marina’s face, which slowly took on the hue of the absinthe she just drank. Her heroic effort to not barf was far and away the greatest moment of the evening and possibly also the entire trip.

I wasn’t expecting to have a high tolerance for alcohol. It was late when we got to the disco and dinner had been a long time ago; also, while I like alcohol, I have never consumed it in anything approaching large quantities. Still, I’m a little disappointed that two shots (vodka + absinthe) were enough to make me tipsy. My mouth didn’t close when my brain told me to shut up, and the world didn’t stop moving when my feet told me to stand still. Nevertheless, life suddenly became marginally more enjoyable and I found myself almost appreciating the darkness and the savagely bad music. I think if I would have gulped down another shot or two I might have actually had a good time. So I didn’t drink any more alcohol for the rest of the night.

After the absinthe, Marina and Yana and I were sufficiently under the influence to willingly dance in the small, dark dance floor crowded with smelly drunken Jewish people. Marina doesn’t like dancing; I hate it; I don’t think Yana’s a big fan, either; but evidently alcohol can really screw with people. Now, I’ve seen some scary stuff in don’t-drink-and-drive videos — one in particular showed a model’s face after she flew off a highway exit and it looked like a three-dimensional puzzle of a red zombie head that had been gnawed on by rats and then improperly put together — but by far the most frightening anti-alcohol picture I have in my mind is the image of somewhat drunken Marina that night screaming “GUYS, LET’S DANCE!!!” The fact that unreasonable alcohol consumption can make an intelligent person desire dancing — the most pointless, idiotic activity ever conceived of by mankind, except for perhaps watching C-SPAN — was, to me, excessively disconcerting, and I decided that night that I didn’t ever want to get drunk.

I had one shot of absinthe and it was fun; my roommate Jeff had five shots and it wasn’t quite as enjoyable. He spent a large portion of the evening moaning and periodically puking into a plastic bag. The following day, when I asked him what exactly was the train of reasoning which had led him to conclude that drinking five shots of absinthe was a good idea, he told me he “wasn’t really feeling anything” after the fourth shot and figured he’d try a fifth. Beyond that we don’t know what happened because Jeff’s memory reel seems to have been snipped, but I imagine he had some whacked out hallucinations. The lesson I can draw from Jeff’s experience is that if you don’t feel drunk after four shots of absinthe, then it is probably a good time to put your shekels away and leave the bar; playing some soothing games of Settlers of Catan might also not be a bad idea. Then again, playing Settlers of Catan is never a bad idea.

The holiest Jewish site is the Western Wall, also called the Wailing Wall, located in Jerusalem. The wall is the last remaining part of the holy temple which the Romans destroyed around the same time everything else in Israel happened: two thousand years ago. I think the Romans kicked our asses pretty handily in that particular war, so I’m not entirely sure why they didn’t destroy the entire temple; perhaps they got three fourths of the way done and decided to take a lunch break and then forgot. Whatever the reason, the Wailing Wall’s preservation was extremely fortuitous: the Messiah got the very last building permit from the zoning commission before it was dissolved, so now the Jews aren’t allowed rebuild the temple until he comes back.

In the meantime, Jews often go to the wall to pray, cry, and leave funny messages in the cracks. Every month a rabbi takes all the slips of paper out and either buries them or burns them, depending on what the guy said; he spoke kind of fast and nobody could agree afterwards on what word he used. The rabbi probably burns them, because fire is cool. As our group explored this sacred site, the most common deep and profound topic of conversation was: do you think the rabbi reads the notes before he burns/buries them?! I think he does. A lot of them are probably really serious and boring, like, “Dear God, we are sick of all this war and fighting. Please, please bring piss to the Middle East. Much love, — Ezekiel,” or, “Dear God, I was really good this year. Can I pleeeeeeeeease have a puppy? Your the coolest!! — Davey;” but I refuse to believe there isn’t at least one person who sticks in a real silly and hilarious one every now and then like, “Whut-whut whut up G-dawg! I don’t know if you rigged evolution or not, but if you did, I think you should have stopped it after monkeys. — You’re pal, Bobalicious.” I was thinking of writing an amusing note myself, but then I figured there was no point because the rabbi might not read mine (since it’d be in English) and god doesn’t exist, so there wouldn’t be anyone to laugh at my monumental wit.

I forgot to mention this before, but the Western Wall is actually such an amazingly holy place that we went there twice. One was on I think the third day of the trip, and the second time was on the last day, which coincided with a major Jewish holiday, and which therefore meant — according to a string of intensely complicated but nevertheless highly accurate logic which you’re just going to have to take my word on — that we absolutely had to go at four o’clock in the morning. Yana, Marina, and Irene were pathetic, lazy pansies, so they slept in and skipped the second visit. They were the only ones. They ought to die. Anyway, on the second visit, the place was absolutely packed: on the first day, I went up to the wall and touched it, so that I could later say I went up to the wall and touched it; but on the second visit, I got to within maybe fifty feet of the wall before I was completely blocked off by the heaving mass of bearded Jewish men wearing suits and black hats.

The atmosphere was so charged with fervor and religious passion that even I began to feel it. Notwithstanding my firm conviction in god’s lack of existence, I decided it was very important to write a note (a serious one) and stick it in the wall. In my shorts, sandals, and crusty t-shirt, however, I felt pitifully ridiculous forcibly squeezing past the mob of suited, singing, swaying Jewish men, so I eventually stuck the note back in my pocket and walked away. I guess my succumbing to the intimidation of the religious Jew crowd means I didn’t really believe what I wrote on the note. It stayed in my pocket for a couple of days before I finally threw it away in a trashcan in the New York airport.

.: posted by Boris 1:50 AM

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