It’s summertime, which means several different things:

•  Variation in my normal routine  
• Travel 
• Karate courses    
• Actually writing blogposts 

I already missed blogging on a few of the adventures from June and the beginning of July, but considering my penchant for not blogging at all, I’m just going to let those ones go by, lest I get overwhelmed in my zeal and fail spectacularly.

Albuquerque Karate Course

My July travel adventures began with a road trip to Albuquerque, NM for a week-long Shotokai Karate course. The course was fantastic, and I felt like I improved even beyond my hopes for the course. 

In the last session of practice, we were doing a very intense exercise, and I accidentally punched someone in the mouth. Fortunately, he moved enough that the punch didn’t fully land. But there was a bunch of blood and a long wait (8 hours) for him to see if it needed stitches (it didn’t). I felt really, really terrible about the whole thing. I guess I had somehow thought that I could practice a martial art without actually experiencing the martial aspect of it. 

Anyway, after a long conversation with the course director, I’m feeling much, much better. The gist of what I learned is that the guilt I felt from hurting someone is actually a good thing, and that I should never get rid of it. Without it, I would turn into a monster: someone who hurts others without even considering their humanity or their pain. Even though I am practicing a martial art, I shouldn’t take pleasure from causing pain to others. I also need to learn to find that higher level of control so something like this doesn’t happen again. In the end, this was a big learning experience for me.

My knuckles--5 days out. I should have taken pictures right after.

They are mostly healed up by now. There is still some slight discoloration visible around the scabs. 

My knuckles are not indicative of how much blood came out of my sparring partner's mouth. He was much worse off than I was. :(

Palestine

 After course on Friday evening, I began my overseas trip, beginning with flights to Tel Aviv. Revelation: taking a red-eye flight immediately after an exhausting karate course was a brilliant idea! Also, melatonin pills are my friends on long flights. I generally don’t sleep well on flights, but out of my 19 flight hours, I slept for around 14, meaning that I didn’t feel like collapsing the moment I arrived in Tel Aviv on Sunday morning.

I spent the rest of Sunday with my Palestinian friends in Beit Sahour, a little town next to Bethlehem. Upon arriving in Bethlehem, I took a taxi from the checkpoint to meet my friends. I had an interesting conversation with my taxi driver. He has a degree in engineering, but since they built the wall separating Bethlehem from Jerusalem, he is unable to use his degree because he can’t get into Jerusalem anymore. Most of the economy in Bethlehem is based around tourism, and engineers are not really needed in this area. So he drives a taxi. I really felt for him, but was impressed by his optimistic outlook on life.

 

After arriving in Beit Sahour, I spent a lovely afternoon with my friends, ate a delicious dinner, and then got a great night’s sleep. Monday morning, I got up and had fun playing games with the kids—half the time I had no clue what was going on, because they are Palestinian games, and none of them actually speaks English. So I just did whatever they did, and it all worked out. We played a variation of musical chairs, called “halaka, halaka, stop!” I thought it was interesting watching how they decided who passed on to the next round. Usually it would be according to whoever sat down in the chairs soon enough. But sometimes they would decide that as the guest, I should advance (even when I didn’t get a chair), or that one of the kids should advance, particularly if they hadn’t advanced very far for the last few rounds. It was sweet and very fun.

I enjoyed lots of wonderful Palestinian dishes, which true to form, I failed to photograph. I will attempt to rectify this in the future.

Tsur Hadassah

After leaving Bethlehem, I walked to a bus stop near the checkpoint to catch a bus to Tsur Hadassah, a little village outside of Jerusalem. As I was approaching the bus stop, I saw someone vigorously waving at me. I was surprised, and as I got closer, I recognized H, one of the people I was going to visit! We hitchhiked to Tsur Hadassah together, where we had a lovely dinner of couscous with tomato sauce, chicken, carrots, and sweet potatoes. 

I got to meet Y and H's children, and I'm happy to report that I've struck up a friendship with their oldest, T, who is exceptionally smiley and active. We've read bedtime stories each night, and T even requested a goodnight kiss. I take my auntly duties very seriously, so I'm glad that we hit it off, even though I'm not technically her aunt. ;)

Tuesday was adventurous. I got to help Y build part of a garden planter for tomatoes and other plants on their balcony. Then we went on a hike. It was a beautiful hike, albeit a bit warm. 

We hiked up to some ruins in the area. They are crusader era, and more extensive than I expected.

The view the top

On the way back down, we passed by the spring that once fed the old fortress. There were fig trees growing near it, and we enjoyed the snack! Here is a fig that had ripened to the point of splitting open. I love the contrast of the red against the green.

For dinner we made homemade spaghetti with apple ravioli for dessert. Here is some of the process. (See? I'm improving. I'm documenting food.)

The dough we used. I had already pressed out the raviolis. This was leftover, and we made it into fettuccini.

Boiling the ravioli.

Some of the finished product. They looked better once I got the hang of it.

I felt a little bad--I was so exhausted from jet lag that I faded pretty quickly after about 5:30. So it was pretty lame being around me. But after a good night's rest, I was refreshed and ready to go again!