Nine Ways to Skip (or Minimize) the Travel Adjustment Blues

When you move or travel to a new country where you don't speak the language or understand the culture, there is bound to be some transition-related stress. Prince Charming and I have not been immune. In retrospect, there are some things I personally could have done better, or could have tried to avoid to make the transition a little easier. I'll share nine of them.

1. Don't expect anything to be the way you expect it.

I had counted on all of our connections in the Middle East being, somehow, an easy 15 minute taxi ride away. However, they are scattered all over the place, and between the traffic and the checkpoints, meeting up with people can take hours, not to mention a hefty toll on the mood.

2. Don't start a new diet at the same time as moving.

I became a vegetarian shortly before arriving in the land of spinning cylinders of meat on every corner. I have stuck with it (although I  sometimes eat seafood) and I'm glad because I think it has improved my health. However, it would have been one less thing to worry about had I done it six months or a year before moving.  Every new habit or new activity you pick up before moving is just another new thing added to the overwhelming mountain of the unfamiliar that you are about to dive into.

3. Don't start a new medication before leaving.

In my case, I started taking a different kind of oral contraceptive almost immediately before leaving. My body needs time (about 3 months) to get used to a new hormone combination. Lesson learned. This lesson could apply toward any kind of medication, especially a long-term or brain chemistry altering medication such as an anti-depressant.

4. Go easy on yourself.

If you are like me, you want to jump into every possible activity, and understand where everything is, and be fluent in the language YESTERDAY! Celebrate the amazing victory of learning just one word a day. Eventually, you will feel like your normal, productive, fast-learning self, but for now, enjoy allowing yourself to not have any of the answers. This is a hard one for me, since I don't relish feelings of confusion and complete ignorance. In fact, they make me feel ashamed and sometimes humiliated. Those feelings lead to isolation and weight gain. So, I get lost. I learn to lean into the sense of freefall and disorientation, and just go with it, like jumping off a cliff into a cool lake.

5. Go easy on your travel buddy.

There is nothing like travel to get to know someone better. I went to a spiritual guide when I first began dating Prince Charming, and he recommended I travel with him to see if he was someone I wanted to spend my life with. I did, and I do, and here we are. The reason travel is so great for getting to know people is you see their worst and best sides. You see them exhausted and thrilled. You see them hungry and with tired feet. You find out how they lift their own spirits and if they are willing to lift yours.

6. Go easy on everyone.

This goes, of course, for everyone you meet in the new culture you are in. You might meet someone, and be highly offended by something they do or say. In fact, what they do or say might be the kind, polite thing to do in their culture. I believe that most people are doing their very, very, very best in life, even if it doesn’t seem like that.

7. Rely on the kindness of strangers.

There is nothing like travel to get you over "stranger danger" instincts. The truth is, most people are trustworthy, kind, and willing to help.  The people who aren't probably won't make eye contact. In fact, you probably won't even see them before they take off with your hand bag.  Get good at identifying friendly faces, and then ask for help without hesitation. The worst that will probably happen is they give you the wrong directions. See item 6.

8. Establish a Routine.

The sooner you can establish your new "normal day," the better. Get up at a regular time, go to bed at roughly the same time. Find out where and when you exercise and stick to your normal healthy habits. Don't stick to it like a machine, though. If there's a new adventure or social opportunity beckoning, be willing to bend your schedule.

9. Journal, Photograph, Blog, Email, and Skype.

Everything hard and everything that goes wrong, happens to be the stuff people find the most interesting. (We are mildly sadistic, we human beings. Or, more kindly, we enjoy learning from others mistakes). The wonderful moments that you document will be even more wonderful, because, like in a good adventure story, they are earned by the part where we fought the giant spider. Or the part where we kissed the frog. Or the part where we ate the poisonous apple. You get it.

Even though transitions can be more stressful when they come in batches - getting married and then moving immediately, for example - I don't regret our decision to start our marriage off in this way. This is priceless time together. It's incredible to be able to share each new challenge. It's exhilarating to be able to laugh off all the pressure we put on ourselves each day.

Thank you for allowing me to share my happy and challenging moments with you on this blog.

A Salty Birthday

Spa Club Dead Sea, Ein Bokek, Israel

We celebrated my birthday this weekend by floating in the Dead Sea and having relaxing, pampering, and unusual things done to our bodies.Charming scheduled a mud wrap, and I really tried hard not to sound creepy as I asked if it was okay if I... watched.

"No, " said the rather abrupt and brisk lass at the reception spa. She seemed very sure, until she changed her mind five seconds later.  I grabbed some great photos of Charming getting wrapped up in a mud enchilada, but to protect his privacy I won't put them here.

Later, I got oil dribbled all over my forehead and massaged into my scalp during an Indian treatment called Shirodhara.

When we arrived on Friday afternoon, I got right into the Dead Sea; I really wanted to feel the famous floating sensation. Sure enough, I felt like a was wearing floaties on my limbs as they popped to the surface of the  water.

 

I tested out a few different poses and angles, spending some time (as well as countless hours in front of bathroom mirrors over the course of my life) trying to take the most flattering bikini shot. Here it is.

 

Later I was playing in the water, finally able to live out my solo synchronized swimming dreams:

 

Before getting water in my eye. Ouch!

It kind of hurts.It really hurts!

The water has only gotten more potent with salt and dissolved minerals as it has shrunk in recent years due to the Jordan River, its only supplier, being siphoned off gradually. When you get in, you feel it sting any parts of your body that might be a little raw or red. After 15 minutes, (for me) it started to tingle and burn everywhere. If you get in in your eye, or if you have a cut somewhere, you better run out of the water and rinse it out.There was a ramp to help beachgoers enter the water, but salt had crystallized all over it, making it sharp and dangerous.

Anything that touched or hung in the water, such as the ropes on a large umbrella planted in the water, grew heavy with sharp salt crystals.

 

We reached down to the bottom, and pulled up not sand, but Charming's favorite cooking ingredient: salt.

 

The water looks like water, but it feels like warm oil, and beads up on your skin when you emerge. The warmth was strange, considering that it was very hot on the beach.  The double heat meant that a long, pleasurable day sunning on the beach was out of the question. We spent most of out time in the hotel.The next day, we woke up at 5 am to catch the sun rise on my birthday. It was a great way to start another year of life on this crazy planet. Thanks to my wonderful prince charming for this shot:

The morning was two or three degrees cooler than midday. That was my last float in the Dead Sea.What did we do for the rest of Birthday Weekend? There was eating, of course. Breakfast at Spa Club Dead Sea:

Dinner and lounging at Orjuwan Lounge in Ramallah Sunday evening.

 

And finally, the playing of the ukulele and the game of Risk.

Lessons With Mohammad

Cool Shey Tamaam

I've been taking Arabic lessons with this fabulous teacher named Mohammad:

 

Thanks to his patient instruction, good humor, and abundant provision of coffee and mint tea (shai bee nana), I'm on my way to polyglot-dom. Polyglottony, perhaps.The arabic alphabet is, thankfully, just about the same number of characters as in English.

My  favorite letter is "sha." It looks like this: ش I think it looks like a cup of  شاي "shai" (tea) that someone is sprinkling some sugar into. When it's connected to another letter, it loses the big scoop on it's left, as you can see in the word "shai." Look at that word "shai." It has three letters. "sha" and two vowels "ah" (looks like a 1) and "ai or ee." (ي )My favorite words and phrases so far are: (Arabic is written right to left)

My husband = Zowji = زوجي  No problem  = Mish Moshkilay = مش مشكيلة Tea with mint with sugar = Shai bee nana bee sukar = شاي بي نانا بي سكر Everything is perfect = Cool shey tamaam = كل شي تمام 

I'm still learning; I may have misspelled some of the words in Arabic.

I feel like I'm REALLY close to being able to read Arabic. I'm able to sound out many words on street signs if I give myself plenty of time. Knowing what the words mean is a whole different ballgame. But I have a fun feeling of a whole new world opening up. It's like being five and learning to read all over again.

Taybeh Micro Brewery in Taybeh, Palestine

A Beer for Jesus

This weekend, Prince and I jumped in the car, which had newly fixed air conditioning. AC, my friends, can save the world, or at least save a hot summer drive in Palestine. The AC was good for our marriage, and we actually enjoyed the drive to the tiny village of Taybeh, getting lost only a few times.

We arrived and drove almost straight into the microbrewery. It is tiny. No one seemed to be around. We left and came back. It looked like a garage with the door open. Should we wander around alone, we wondered?

Prince Charming thought not. We weren't even sure we were in the right place.

"You're right. This is weird." I said.

Finally, out of curiosity we wandered in, and we saw someone we had missed before: the daughter of the owner of the microbrewery, Ms. Koury. I'm sorry I can't remember her first name. Her family established the brewery in 1994. She very kindly gave us a tour. It was wonderful to see a successful enterprise where the owners obviously cared a great deal about the pristine quality of the product. We didn't get the free taste of beer at the end of the ten minute tour that the brochures promise, but it was rather early in the day and we also forgot to ask about it. We left with a box of beer and a couple photos of the brewery:

Taybeh changed it's name from Ephraim (of biblical fame) to Taybeh when Sultan Saladin passed through in 1187 and thought the folks in the village were hospitable and generous. Apparently, that's what Taybeh means, although we also heard that it means "delicious" so maybe the people tasted good too.

Jesus stopped by this village for a rest before his crucifixion. It's too bad the Taybeh Micro Brewery wasn't around in his day; I think he would've enjoyed the beer quite a bit, especially considering the series of really bad days coming up for him. Today, Taybeh is the only "Christian Village" left in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, although there are many towns with Christians in them.

After our tour of the microbrewery, we endured 2.5 miles of spiritual and physical testing out in the desert outside of Taybeh on a lovely hike under the blazing noon sun. In the middle of our death march, we took refuge under a large olive tree. Much to our delight, the tree did not shrivel and die, but provided shade for our half hour rest and consumption of water, dates, peaches, and almonds.

We took the tree, and the spray-painted rock markers, to be a sign that we were on the right path, both spiritually and geographically, and continued a short ways to gaze at the dark mouths of caves in the hills surrounding Taybeh.

When we got back into the village, we found Peter's Place, a brand new restaurant that was "soft open," meaning that is was so new it hadn't had it's official grand opening yet. Ms. Koury recommended it, and we are so glad she did and that we climbed up the hill to the middle of the old part of the village to find such an oasis.

It was also so new that the menu had just a couple options: salad, seasoned bread, and/or hot meal:

Although the inside of the restaurant was cavelike, cool, and beautifully lit,

We decided to sit outside where the patio offered cool breezes and nice views. To finish up this post, I'll add this video which captures my general fatigue and joy at sitting down with a cold beer after a hike on a hot and dusty day.

Shark in a Souk

Prince Charming and I drove a few hours up to Acre, Israel (also called Akko) this weekend.  Alternately exhausting, colorful, peaceful, exciting, and always hot, the Akko trip was worth my throwing together a quick slideshow vlog for you. Click below for a chaotic, colorful, and very brief glimpse (3 minutes) of our trip.

Packing Ideas on Pinterest

I've recently updated my packing list ideas board on Pinterest. It's a great resource that's updated as I find clothes and things that might be useful or beautiful for traveling. Check it out here.

Still Deeply in Labneh, I Mean Love

Warning: Cheese Factor High

I intend to get a little bit cheesy with this post, just to let you know that the romance is still alive out here, just a few days after our three month wedding anniversary.

Photo proof is a must, of course.

To the left is one of the gorgeous meals Charming put together on a recent low-key night in.

The white cheese slices are labneh, which we eat almost constantly. Labneh is a Middle Eastern cheese product so ubiquitous and so varied in its forms (yogurt labneh, creamy labneh, firm labneh, labneh with various seasonings) that we even made up a game inserting labneh into movie titles (ie, Rebel Without a Labneh) that was snorting good fun.

Apparently the proof of love is in the cooking. Here's another delectable light dinner Prince Charming prepared:

The fresh produce here this summer is the stuff of legend. As I write this, I am eating a Fuerte avocado that practically peeled itself out of its own skin. The pit smiled at me and jumped into the garbage on it's own. The creamy green meat is packed with flavor and is perfectly ripe.

Even though Charming does most of the cooking, lately I've been reciprocating with my latest obsession: green smoothies.

What have I learned in three months of marriage? Getting married and then moving to a land where neither of your speak the language or know anyone very well is a quick way to learn exactly how each of you respond to stress, loneliness, and a completely new environment. There have been arguments with very fast resolutions, as each of us quickly realize we better be nice to each other since we are each other's only friend here. The low times have been balanced out with the fun we've had together seeing wonderful new sights, eating delicious new food, meeting people together, and many shared frustrations, I mean adventures.

Wedding Bells in Ramallah

Charming's Co-Workers Tie the Knot

I love weddings. And I was so excited because Charming and I were invited to a local one last Sunday (July 1st). The couple were married in the Greek Orthodox church in Ramallah.Look how beautiful they look with their family and friends all around them in the receiving line:

Ooh, look how beautiful the bon bons were. Along with champagne, what  a great reward for sitting through an hour-long church service in a language we don't speak yet (Arabic).

The couple entered the reception hall maybe an hour or more after we got there: 9pm, and dinner had not been served (although we were doing just fine with drinks and appetizers) .Finally the couple begin to process in. And the process involved dancing with swords. Must be a tribal tradition.

The dancing with swords in the entry hall lasted at least twenty minutes, with the crowd sort of slowly summoning the couple into the reception hall.Once inside, the couple were announced and they began their first dance. Not a three minute slow dance, but a long, high energy, shake-your-tail-feathers type of first dance. They just kept dancing and dancing, being joined by the crowd. Actually, I wasn't feeling so well and Prince Charming had an early morning, so we left before the first dance (going on 20 minutes) was over. By then it was around 10pm, and the bridal party showed no signs of taking a break from dancing.

Some of Charming's co-workers were there, and told us about other local weddings. Apparently when it's a Muslim wedding (this was a Christian one) the men and women party separately.

Two days after this wedding, my prince got to attend a Muslim wedding in Gaza. The men got together to drink Coke, and someone announced that the couple was now married and made a little speech. He said it lasted about 15 minutes and he even got a little party favor gift. The women were celebrating in another room. No, the bride was not present at the announcement of her marriage to the men. But the groom did get to attend the ladies celebration.

Religion Evolving

Images and Thoughts on Religion and Conflict from Bethlehem and Jerusalem

I am indeed, living in the Middle East. Home of arguably the most famous ongoing conflict in the world. I write this partially to address the situation that hangs over every  single head here.  Although people live life normally, the situation is always present because it's a part of daily life: the ongoing, deeply rooted, bewilderingly complex state of affairs between Israel and Palestine.

After going through checkpoints a number of times now, and having visited a few of the holy sites in Jerusalem this weekend, I personally have to report a surprising sense of heaviness in the air in this part of the world. It really shouldn't be surprising, since there is so much impotent rage here, yet I also expected to find a spiritual feeling here. Places that are very spiritual tend to feel light to me. Another way of saying it is the air feels thin. These thin places  seem closer to awareness, awakening, or salvation.

Instead of finding that lightness, that transformative essence, in Jerusalem, my  spirit felt weighed down. Perhaps this was because of being denied entrance to a holy site because I am not Muslim (How could they tell? The color of my skin and the showing hair on my head, I think). Perhaps because of all the checkpoints, the guns, the soldiers, and the guards. Finally, it could have been the overwhelming crowds, heat, and incessant marketing of low-value souvenirs.

What I'd like to write here is coming from my own thoughts on religion, my own spiritual journey, and trying to gain clarity on how religion relates to the situation here.

It's true that I don't fully understand the situation, and I've heard the longer one lives here the less one understands it. If I don't understand it, it's going to be very hard to make any small steps toward doing my tiny little part to be a peacemaker, which is what I'm here for.  Actually, I am here because I said "Yes." Simply that. Peace is just one of the unmet needs here.

The land conflict here is certainly tribal. And religious. And those two are connected here in a way that is hard for me to understand. In the U.S. it's fairly common to separate our religion from our tribe.

There are a lot of problems with religion. Two groups very aware of these problems are thoughtful residents of the Middle East and thoughtful American religious believers. I was one of the latter group as recently as two years ago (I still consider myself a Christian, although my beliefs are such that many Christians would say that I am not one, but that's another story). Young, thoughtful believers are leaving the church in droves, leaving the remainder to ask why.

There's a common phrase people use to describe the state of their soul-beliefs. I heard it a lot in Los Angeles: spiritual but not religious. I believe that those who describe themselves this way are part of a cultural trend that will, I hope, result in the evolution of religion. In A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle writes "The new spirituality, the transformation of consciousness, is arising to a large extent outside of the structures of the existing institutionalized religions."

Religion is where spirituality and community come together.  The essence of spirituality is this: we are all connected to everyone and everything. The essence of community is this: we love each other no matter what.

Yet often religion, which should be the nexus of the two, separates us and makes it all too easy to define and differentiate between those who deserve our love and those who don't. Religion seems to specialize in black and white. Not grey.

What I know from my personal spiritual evolution is that for a long time, I couldn't handle grey area. The certainty of dogma appealed to me. Here is what is right, here is what is wrong. I still believe in absolutes truths, but I don't think any one religion has them all.

For me that moment when I could think "Ah! I don't have to actually believe, literally, that Mary was a virgin to learn from her example of purity of heart, faith, and maternal love.  She said yes. What a beautiful metaphor. Maybe I can say yes too," was a life-giving breakthrough. It freed me to have faith and spirituality without leaving my brain behind.

From that point, I realized most of what I had tried so hard to believe -- much of it unpalatable to the intellect --  were teaching metaphors, not absolute truths.  Taking them  seriously and intensely is very important.  I think this is why many people feel they must believe in such a literal way. If it's not true, it has no value for them. Yet there is great value in art, in literature, in many things created by humans to express  life-giving concepts.

I tried explaining this new paradigm to Christian friends and it didn't go over well. Finally, someone told me that religion is like a virus - its structure must stay the same or it won't replicate successfully.  Therefore, attempts to redefine it must be quashed for the religion to continue.

Perhaps the best hope for peace here in the Middle East is what Tolle calls "a large-scale opening of spirituality outside of the religious structures."

I'm not sure anything could have confirmed my decision to change my thoughts on religion a couple of years ago more than visiting Jerusalem this weekend did. When I was in Jerusalem, it was evident to me that all three monotheistic religions come from the same source, and therefore what they teach cannot all be true in the literal sense. What was also clear is that what people here are fighting for is not love, freedom, salvation, peace, or any of the things that their religions promise. What people are fighting for is the right to identify with a place and say that it belongs to them because of what they look like, who their ancestors are, and what they call themselves. It's not about spirituality. At best, the fight is about heritage. About history.  And I believe all the people in the world should be able to respectfully visit heritage sites and pray --or not-- in the way they choose.

I understand the good heart behind religion; it's about helping people have hope and peace, and in tribal cases, reminding people where they come from.

I think when spiritual leaders discover that they can offer the same hope, guidance for living, and sense of community without drawing lines in the sand and separating people, religion will evolve. Lines in the sand are exhausting to maintain. They must be drawn and re-drawn constantly. Sometimes, as here, they require missiles, rocks, and machine guns to maintain. The  lines are exhausting because they are arbitrary. We are all connected. We generally  desire the same things for ourselves and our loved ones.

I believe that about Israelis and Palestinians, and I believe that about you and me. Yes indeed.

"I imagine that yes is the only living thing.” - E.E. Cummings

Right now, I'm saying yes to watching the fading light of the glorious post-sunset twilight  here on my balcony in Ramallah. The air here, on the outskirts of town, is lighter than in the big metropolis of Jerusalem. Kids scream with delight as they play on the street several levels below. It is a spiritual moment, my daily bread today. You are here with me, as I imagine you experiencing your own diverse daily bread moments all over the world.