2008 Woodie Awards
Wishing it was still summer
A recap of adventures in the Middle East
Nadia Beidas
Issue date: 9/23/05 Section: Tempo
|
Anyway, I'm back from yet another trip to the Middle East, visiting Egypt, Israel and Jordan with my mother, my father and my brother Shadi. We spent the first couple of weeks in Israel, then about two weeks in Egypt, followed by a week in Jordan. Then we concluded with a week's trip back to Israel.
We went to visit Tour Karm, a city enclosed in a wall. My aunt lives there in the city with her grown children and their children.
Once we reached the outskirts of the city we were not allowed to drive our car inside. Instead we had to park the cars and be transported into the city by bus.
Everyone gathered at my aunt's house for our visit. This is an aunt I met for the first time, as Israel does not allow people to go back and forth from the city my past two visits. I met a lot of my cute and bright cousins. It is sad they have to live where they are imprisoned in a wall and can be cut off from Israel anytime there's trouble.
On the way back, there was a lot of traffic as we had to go through a checkpoint. The Israel military police at the checkpoint said we were supposed to have a visa to go into the West Bank because it was a foreign country, but they let us back through.
How the West Bank is a foreign country when the Israelis have not officially handed over control to the Palestinians is beyond me.
Onward we went to Egypt and it was the beginning of what I shall term "the great suitcase adventure."
First of all, I will tell all of you to never fly Air Sinai. The food on the plane was not that great, and my father and aunt made fun of the fact we received only two olives with our meals, which became one of many jokes later on. But the food is the least of it. We went to baggage claim at the Egyptian airport and everyone's suitcase was there except for one. Mine!
Basically, everything in my closet that's most important to me right now was in that suitcase.
My mother, my father and my brother all said no one was watching baggage claims and the three of them were all sure someone walked off with my bag, When we got to the hotel, they said they would look into the matter for us. Two days passed and they kept telling us their system was down.
