So I just realized it was 23years ago this week when I landed in Tel Aviv for my very first super solo road trip. I was there about a (Jerusalem, Cairo, Eilat, Megiddo, Dahab, E Jeru, Gaza) for four weeks. The trip was formative and transformative. And I was a bebe. 1/n

When I got back here to the MW, a cafe that I had sat in a literal week before was bombed. That took my breath away. I met an amazing and lovely man who had taken right of return from Brooklyn. A Hassidic woman who had recently married sight unseen from Phili 2/n

I met some fab Palestinian Christians who fed me on a Friday because “dumb American;” some wonderful folks from E Jeru, who talked to me about their perspective on things. A passel of South African women, some of whom worked as house help, some just visiting. 3/n

I drank Kaddish with some men who, in my memory, seem very extremely sketchy and what was I doing?!? I visited the Wall, the Dome, The Mosque almost daily for a week. The soldiers knew me on sight. I slept in a Turkish monastery. Did Via Dolorosa. Holy Sepulchre. 4/n

Went to the purported Hill of Golgotha and the tomb. Entered David’s gate. Pyramids. Entered Khufu. Rode a camel (do not recommend). I stood beneath the Sphinx. Me. I did that. Alone. At “12!” (Narrator: she was plenty older.) I swam in the Red Sea and 5/n

Saw the rift where Moses is said to have marched. I saw a lineman (my father was an installer and lineman, so this mattered) who was so far away, stringing line across the desert, that he couldn’t be seen with the naked eye. But because it’s desert, you could just barely hear 6/n

His harness ratcheting. Unreal. I had a mouse in my hotel in Cairo. We negotiated. I fed him cookies on the other side of the room, he didn’t crawl over my face at night. Everybody wins. It was Ramadan and Christmas and Hanukkah that year. And my Hebrew is only as bad as my 7/n

Arabic. But I learned what quiet is like during that trip. I skipped Bethlehem. I skipped Haifa. I skip Petra (which I will forever regret. Forever!) I skipped because 97 was the year of the Luxor shooting. Do you remember? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor_massacre 8/n

I went to Egypt, Palestine and Israel, alone at 21, but I skipped these crowded places because that seemed to make sense to me(?). I told my parents less than a week before I flew. I didn’t want to fight. And I wasn’t going to be deterred. 9/n

I have never seen the Valley of the Kings. But I did go to the Egyptian Museum ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Museum) on the same day as Mubarak. I, of course, didn’t know that before I visited, but I passed him leaving as I went in. The place was deserted. Best museum experience ever. 10/n

I didn’t buy enough and I bought too much. I balked at the price of things I would weep over today (because I was extra poor), I met random people, shop keepers, moms, kids, students, people who I am still in awe of. I lost my inner monologue. 11/n

If you, like me, are constantly listening to your self analyze, assign and command your same self around, try solo travel for extended periods. While I probably never went a single day without exchanging some words with some one, I didn’t need to talk to myself nearly as much12/n

Of course, coming home was PAINFUL! So many people, so many words, so many questions and a really twisted internal clock. But, best use of student loans. Promise. And probably the root of my inability to GAF about a lot of things. I miss that girl. And that place. And that wonder