Great Feelings
Reaching the peak of Masada before 6am
Watching the sunrise in the middle of a quiet desert with a group of MIT pals by your side
Floating in (salty, salty) water without having to do any physical work
Smothering the cooling, Dead Sea mud on your entire body
Not-So-Great Feelings
Waking up at 2am to hike Masada (on three hours of sleep, heh)
Climbing 400 meters in less than 45 minutes to catch the sunrise (biking across the country did not help with this)
Opening your legs in the Dead Sea
Having only two apples and a jar of salted peanuts to sustain you through a twelve-hour journey from the Masada to Ein Gedi to the Dead Sea (man, were we hungry after all that)
Growing up, I was never really an outdoors person. The sports I took part of were gymnastics and swimming (both indoors), and our family vacations were to big, metropolitan cities rather than national parks or the great outdoors. I was even convinced at one point in my early childhood that I was allergic to grass because I couldn't walk barefoot in it without scratching my feet.
The most outdoors-y thing I have ever done in my life was probably Spokes last summer, a.k.a. riding a bike through heat and humidity from D.C. to San Francisco, through the mountains and the plains and the desert (if you'd like to read more about the craziest thing I have ever been part of, you can read the entire blog in "Past Adventures"). After that trip came another big adventure this past January, when I went on my first real hike through a small portion of Patagonia on the Argentinian side with my two pals, Kate and Ava. It was the first time I had walked for over eight hours straight on not-concrete terrain, and the whole experience from the views to the company to the empanadas was incredible (you can also read about the hike in our joint Chile blog in "Past Adventures"). The point is, this past year for me has been a steep incline, if you will, of outdoors activities, and I have been loving it so far.
To continue the trend of outdoor immersion, last weekend, a large group of us hiked Masada at the crack of dawn, saw some wild ibexes at the Ein Gedi National Park, and learned to float in the Dead Sea. My favorite part was definitely floating in the sea; the water feels like baby oil, and the mud feels like clay, and the whole experience (especially after eight hours of sweating) was much-needed. We got back to Tel-Aviv around 2pm, and with the rest of the day to spend, you know exactly what we did.
Napped.
