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On the plane home from Israel
Nov. 9th, 2019 02:39 pmSince I bought the wireless for work stuff, I might as well use it.
I've been in Israel for the last week for work - my team had a marketing summit thing. We're usually scattered across three continents, so it was nice to try to get everyone together. There have been some definite morale issues of late, a combination of extreme pressure and some clashing working styles and several decisions that seemed to make sense at the time but didn't really work out very well. We'll see how things go after this - the conference that's killing us all isn't going away until January, but it was good to remind ourselves that we really do like each other. Also, getting some face-to-face meetings did manage to at least temporarily iron out a bunch of issues I've been struggling with, with various people, for months.
Since I was halfway around the world anyway, one of my coworkers S and I decided to take two extra days and do a little touristing. (Rather, one day before the summit and one day at the end.)
- I spent all of the day I landed (after a red eye) working in a haze of jet lag and sleep deprivation (that's one way to beat daylight savings time). Did make it down to the beach in time for sunset, which was incredibly beautiful, and then fish dinner because Tel Aviv (or rather, Jaffa) has been a port for 4,000 years and when you're in a fishing town you eat fish. The fish was amazing.
- The next day S and I played tourist. Did a crazy combo day - we hit Masada (the ancient ruins where a bunch of zealots took over an abandoned one of Herod's palaces at the top of a mountain and held off a Roman siege for three years until the Romans built a big enough (holy shit so big) siege ramp to break in, upon which the zealots cooked an elaborate dinner, left it sitting on the table, and dramatically killed themselves to leave a bunch of bodies lying around for the appalled Romans). Then we did an awesome nature hike through Ein Gedi, a nature preserve with a ton of tiny but incredibly charming waterfalls. Ended at the Dead Sea. Which is deeply weird, because you can't not float. The actual tour company was not great - the guide miscounted and left S at the bottom of the gondola (I managed to get her reunited via a lot of texts). We were running late from the beginning and he was very stressed, but not handling it well.
- Tuesday was half presentations, but the second half was an amazing food tour through the Tel Aviv market followed by dinner in Old Jaffa.
- Wednesday was a lot of presentations and meetings and meetings crammed between presentations. Really long day.
- Thursday was a workshop followed by more presentations and meetings. Then I went to bed at 7 because...
- ...yesterday S and I went to Petra! Which was amazing! And also completely batshit insane. We had to get up at 2am to get the tour bus at 3am to make the border crossing into Jordan at 8am. Which took the better part of two hours and involved a somewhat alarming amount of barbed wire. And then got back on the bus to drive into the mountains of Jordan for another two hours. (There was a rest stop at an overpriced tourist trap full of all kinds of amazing things that I wanted to buy all of. I bought a few things. I'm not good at haggling. Especially in a foreign currency that I've only just been exposed to, after spending the better part of a week using a different foreign currency, while worrying if we take too long the bus will leave without us because this company was nowhere near as careful about keeping track of people as I would have expected.) When we did finally get there, we started down the hike. Which is packed with tourists, and you have to dodge out of the way of donkeys and horse carts every two minutes. But it doesn't matter. Because it's a half an hour trek through the most amazingly beautiful slot canyon. And then suddenly it opens up into this big round area with a soaring edifice carved into the living rock of the canyon wall. It's literally the temple from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - this is where they filmed it. And then I thought that was it - that was the part I knew about. No, this place is huge. It would take days to see all the ruins. A little farther through the slot canyon and then you're dumped into a rolling valley filled with ruins - giant tombs, an enormous ruined temple, a smaller ruined temple, colonnades, fountains, an ancient church. It's all dazzlingly beautiful and just incredibly well preserved. It was SO. COOL. (And then after about four hours of exploring, we got back on the bus to do it all in reverse.)
Anyway, we got back to the hotel after midnight. It was a completely insane thing to do. But it was mind-blowingly cool and I'm so glad I did it.
I've been in Israel for the last week for work - my team had a marketing summit thing. We're usually scattered across three continents, so it was nice to try to get everyone together. There have been some definite morale issues of late, a combination of extreme pressure and some clashing working styles and several decisions that seemed to make sense at the time but didn't really work out very well. We'll see how things go after this - the conference that's killing us all isn't going away until January, but it was good to remind ourselves that we really do like each other. Also, getting some face-to-face meetings did manage to at least temporarily iron out a bunch of issues I've been struggling with, with various people, for months.
Since I was halfway around the world anyway, one of my coworkers S and I decided to take two extra days and do a little touristing. (Rather, one day before the summit and one day at the end.)
- I spent all of the day I landed (after a red eye) working in a haze of jet lag and sleep deprivation (that's one way to beat daylight savings time). Did make it down to the beach in time for sunset, which was incredibly beautiful, and then fish dinner because Tel Aviv (or rather, Jaffa) has been a port for 4,000 years and when you're in a fishing town you eat fish. The fish was amazing.
- The next day S and I played tourist. Did a crazy combo day - we hit Masada (the ancient ruins where a bunch of zealots took over an abandoned one of Herod's palaces at the top of a mountain and held off a Roman siege for three years until the Romans built a big enough (holy shit so big) siege ramp to break in, upon which the zealots cooked an elaborate dinner, left it sitting on the table, and dramatically killed themselves to leave a bunch of bodies lying around for the appalled Romans). Then we did an awesome nature hike through Ein Gedi, a nature preserve with a ton of tiny but incredibly charming waterfalls. Ended at the Dead Sea. Which is deeply weird, because you can't not float. The actual tour company was not great - the guide miscounted and left S at the bottom of the gondola (I managed to get her reunited via a lot of texts). We were running late from the beginning and he was very stressed, but not handling it well.
- Tuesday was half presentations, but the second half was an amazing food tour through the Tel Aviv market followed by dinner in Old Jaffa.
- Wednesday was a lot of presentations and meetings and meetings crammed between presentations. Really long day.
- Thursday was a workshop followed by more presentations and meetings. Then I went to bed at 7 because...
- ...yesterday S and I went to Petra! Which was amazing! And also completely batshit insane. We had to get up at 2am to get the tour bus at 3am to make the border crossing into Jordan at 8am. Which took the better part of two hours and involved a somewhat alarming amount of barbed wire. And then got back on the bus to drive into the mountains of Jordan for another two hours. (There was a rest stop at an overpriced tourist trap full of all kinds of amazing things that I wanted to buy all of. I bought a few things. I'm not good at haggling. Especially in a foreign currency that I've only just been exposed to, after spending the better part of a week using a different foreign currency, while worrying if we take too long the bus will leave without us because this company was nowhere near as careful about keeping track of people as I would have expected.) When we did finally get there, we started down the hike. Which is packed with tourists, and you have to dodge out of the way of donkeys and horse carts every two minutes. But it doesn't matter. Because it's a half an hour trek through the most amazingly beautiful slot canyon. And then suddenly it opens up into this big round area with a soaring edifice carved into the living rock of the canyon wall. It's literally the temple from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - this is where they filmed it. And then I thought that was it - that was the part I knew about. No, this place is huge. It would take days to see all the ruins. A little farther through the slot canyon and then you're dumped into a rolling valley filled with ruins - giant tombs, an enormous ruined temple, a smaller ruined temple, colonnades, fountains, an ancient church. It's all dazzlingly beautiful and just incredibly well preserved. It was SO. COOL. (And then after about four hours of exploring, we got back on the bus to do it all in reverse.)
Anyway, we got back to the hotel after midnight. It was a completely insane thing to do. But it was mind-blowingly cool and I'm so glad I did it.
