No, person holding a machine gun and cutting the line, after you. I insist.

by Ricky Mulvey

When you only see nighttime or late afternoon for over 24 hours, everything starts to feel like a blur.  Mix that with an Ambien fueled sleep on an 11-hour plane ride and normal things start to become difficult. It took me almost 20 minutes to write these three sentences.

I wish there was some romantic, wonderful moment where it really hit that I was going to be in the Middle East for two months. Touching the Western Wall or riding a camel sounds like a nice time for this to happen.  Really, it came when I was saying goodbye to my dog.

Two nights ago we stayed in the Jewish Agency. I had no idea what the place was or why soldiers were staying there with us. I was so jetlagged at that point that I did not want to ask lots of questions. I just figured that it would be best to not start anything with the soldiers that cut the food line since they carried semi-automatic weapons and stuff.  For the rest of the trip, we are staying in apartment style dorms in Tel Aviv University.  I have a very simple room. It’s not bad.

I ended up getting  two international students sharing the apartment with me and another guy from my trip. At least I have my own room. So far the international student’s only mark has been their dirty dishes that I have been told not to touch, along with all of the other dishes because they are kosher. However, I’m like ninety percent sure God wants you to do your dishes if you leave the apartment for four days, and I also eat food from time-to-time so I’m disobeying the post-its. I really hope this rooming situation does not turn into a holy war because I wanted to eat cereal.

Today was the Gay Pride Parade in Tel Aviv which was a great place to people watch and an awful place for me to pick up women. No, no, I did not actually try that. I thought about talking to one girl, but quickly after that thought she started making out with the girl next to her. That’s a pretty good hint. The parade was cool for the most part. Endless amounts of people decked out in rainbow gear is not an image you get in Cincinnati Ohio. It was like I was walking through Rick Santorum’s worst nightmare.

I’m all for the idea of the parade too. Go be you. Let your freak flag fly. I’m just against dancing in extremely crowded spaces, and a lot of people here were all for that. Let’s not mix sweat if I do not know you.

So far things are okay though. I want to get started on my job and settle and learn the neighborhood and get comfortable. It’s difficult to be over 6,000 miles from home, starting a new job, and know that you are not going back for two months. Time should make things better though.