One of the best things about living in Budapest is the location. From here you can use cheap airlines like Wizz or Ryanair to travel to exotic places like Tel Aviv, Baku or Dubai, and with a price that makes students happy. Since the beginning of the last semester went so quickly and I did not even get out from the crowded Kiraly street, I decided to use the beginning of this semester differently.
I was bored one evening and bought tickets to Tel-Aviv for an almost unbelievable 75 euros. The next day I went to school, and told my friend Javier about it and within five minutes he decided that he would join me. After that came the long-waited winter break and naturally we did not bother with arranging the trip.
After surviving Christmas and New Year’s Eve, I realized that the flight would leave in two weeks and it was time to start researching Israel. What was sure from the beginning was that I would use couchsurfing. This means that we stayed on the couches of people we did not know before, but who offered to host us. It’s definitely a cheaper option, but what is even better, it provides the possibility to see the life of a local.
Sunshine was greeting us!
Our flight departed on Friday morning and we were supposed to arrive back on Tuesday. We therefore decided to spend two days in Tel-Aviv and two days in Jerusalem. When we arrived in Tel-Aviv, we felt happy because it was so sunny and warm compared with Budapest. However, my recommendations would be to always take some time if you are travelling with a friend who is incidentally from Colombia. The security service in the airport tend to think that they are cocaine traffickers and they are usually invited to visit the airport’s special small security room, where they are all thoroughly searched.
This happened to my friend Javier, and I had to wait for him for over forty minutes before we could leave the airport. After that we took the train to Tel-Aviv and soon we were walking in a nice and sunny boulevard in 20 degree weather, feeling a little bad for friends stuck in my homeland of Estonia where it was snowing.
One thing that we discovered quite soon was that Israel is quite expensive. Small cokes were 2 euros and a sandwich with a drink was 13 euros. It was also funny that when we visited the local market, which was one of the biggest I have ever seen, a kilo of strawberries increased immensely when the seller realized that we are not locals. So I ended up getting back only two euros from my bill of ten. However, the strawberries were just delicious and soon we met our first host via couchsurfing, whose name was Eyal, a 30 years old aerospace engineer, who usually spent his weekends as a yacht instructor. With him we visited the beautiful beach and seaside of Tel-Aviv and just mainly sat down and talked. The view and the refreshing wind from the sea was just amazing. I don’t think I have ever met a guy as liberal as Eyal in my life, he had an indescribable sense of black humour. Our evening continued with some beers in the famous port of Jaffa.
The next day we visited Tel-Aviv’s Museum of Modern Art. To be honest, at first it was quite boring; only installations. However, before leaving we visited the last gallery where there were masterpieces from Picasso, Kandinsky and Klimt and this made it all worthwhile. At this point it was also clear that the 80 euros that I changed was not enough and I started using my credit card. Soon after that we moved to the amazing Jaffa Old Town. It was crowded and full of life. We sat down in a small street, enjoyed some waterpipe and relaxed as we watched people stream by.
Jerusalem was waiting for us…
In Israel people are surprisingly friendly, and have almost perfect English. Like our host Eyal said: “We fancy Americans and their lifestyle”. The two days in Tel-Aviv passed very quickly and it was soon time to go to Jerusalem. I have to admit that we were more than exited about it because it is one of the oldest cities in the world and holy for all three major religions. How much more special can one city be?
Another bonus that we did not expect was also that Jerusalem was much cheaper compared with Tel-Aviv. During the stay in Jerusalem we spent most of our time in the Old Town that is divided into four: the Muslim, the Christian, the Jewish and the Armenian Quarters. These quarters were like amazing labyrinths of markets and full of life. For me it was also cool how the bargaining styles and everything changed from quarter to quarter, from the more aggressive Muslims to more demure Christians.
It was also interesting that there were not many people around the Western Wall, which is considered to be the most sacred place (except Temple Mount) for Jews. On the other hand, I was thinking about Mecca, the holiest place for the Muslims, which is known for being one of the most crowded places in the world. Just the force relations are so different for these two religions… I was just hoping to see more people at the Western Wall.
At the Western Wall there is a tradition that everybody can write some questions about their future onto a piece of paper and stick it inbetween the bricks of the wall. We did it and now, hopefully, the answers will come at one point too.
However, when there, I would recommend staying away from people who are offering help with finding the sights. We thought that one old Muslim man was just polite but he ended up wanting money for his time of 30 seconds. He was not happy with cents and when I gave him two euros that did not please him either. He wanted more and also before that grabbed my hand strongly. I had to tear myself away from him and go away as fast as possible. He started shouting and swearing in his language and so I yelled “F**k you”! Fortunately that is a quite universal and understandable way of expressing emotions in this world.
Soon we met our other host Dor who was also a student and we spent the evening in a happy hour bar watching Barcelona’s match. Soccer is another thing that is truly universal in the world. Even though I am a Madrid fan and Javier and Dor fancy Barcelona, we found common understanding really soon and we were like old friends. During our last day we visited the tunnels in the Jewish quarter and also had a fresh lunch at the market place. And then it was also time to go.
I know that we have to study a lot at CEU. However, I would highly encourage students to travel during weekends when possible. I believe this is more useful than spending all your weekends in the dorm pondering ideas about your thesis topic. It is more helpful sometimes just to get out and experience something new.
Karl Haljasmets,
Estonia,
Public Policy
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