Matters Apple and Musical

Today, as I shall be on a school trip all day, and I have to get ready to go on said trip starting in five minutes, I will write this blog in five minutes, and it will be quite random.

Here are the top five ways to prepare apples:

5. Eaten whole

4. Shot off the top of someone's head with an arrow.

3. Cobbler

2. Crisp

1. Of course, pie, the world's greatest dessert

Tonight, at the end of my trip, I'll see Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, the Spider-Man Broadway musical, so tomorrow's blog will be my review of it. It may be scathing, or not, but based on what I've heard from other people it will probably be scathing. Here's a preview.

"Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark is"
"[actor who plays Spider-Man, whose name I am don't have time to look up right now]'s performance as Spider-Man was"
"Bono"
"Bono"


I probably will say Bono several times.

Goodbye now.

A Semi-Notable TV Show

My trip to Israel is over, thus the new title of the blog. I promised myself I'd blog today, and I have to leave my house in fifteen minutes, so I'll blog quickly, and I'll apologize for any spelling mishfhjk. What shall I blog quickly about? 3rd Rock From The Sun.

Airing from 1996 to 2001, 3rd Rock was an NBC sitcom about a group of aliens on a secret mission to Earth who disguise themselves as a human family, the Solomons. The stars were John Lithgow as High Commander/father Dick, Kristen Johnston as Lieutenant/Dick's sister Sally, French Stewart as Transmitter/Dick's brother Harry, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Intelligence Officer/Dick's son Tommy. Most of the show's humor came from the aliens' confused experience of human life. 

I call this show semi-notable. It's a funny sitcom. I watched every episode on DVD and thoroughly enjoyed it. The thing is, it's not very memorable. I can't remember too many funny jokes from the show, and it's not generally well-known, as contemporary sitcoms like Seinfeld and Friends were. Plenty of people watched the show while it was on, and it won a bunch of Emmys (mostly for Lithgow's great performance), but no one remembers it for being great. There are plenty of TV shows that have suffered the same fate, but this is the one I remember.

Interestingly, Lithgow was already very famous, and Gordon-Levitt has become very famous since, but their co-stars not only aren't, but are most well known for a mental breakdown and starring in the awful film Inspector Gadget 2. Not very inspirational legacies.

Home Again

Well, here we are. The Trip To Israel Then Jordan But Not For As Long Then Back To Israel Just For A Night And Then Home is over. I write this blog from my beloved couch in my beloved house, with my beloved computer plugged into a beloved American power outlet.

The entirety of today was taken up by the twelve-hour plane ride from Tel Aviv to Newark Airport. Also, it was my sister Jackie's birthday. Not a very fun birthday, but she was lucky. Because our plane was traveling West, her birthday was seven extra hours longer! The thing was, those seven hours were spent on a plane, and flying in an airplane is never a fun experience. Sure, you can do fun things on a plane, like read or play games, but you can do the same things off a plane, while sitting in a chair that is actually wider than your body.

Aside from eating the awful, awful food they brought us (the two meals being, for some reason, lunch and breakfast, in that order), I spent most of my time on the plane watching movies on the inflight entertainment system. I watched The Sound of Music, Forrest Gump, and Glee: The 3D Concert Movie. Suffice it to say, the last was the greatest of the three films.

Okay, obviously that was sarcasm, and normally I would just let that sit there, but I have to emphasize this point. I like the show Glee. I'm sure the concert itself was great, but the movie was terrible. It was composed of two main parts. The first was very badly produced concert footage, and the second was inspiring stories of Glee fans with disabilities. Some of the stories were inspiring, but some were troubling, because these kids were unhealthily obsessed with Glee. The movie was nothing more than an ad for the show.

Moving on from my anti-Glee movie tirade, It's time for the grand flashback to the trip. In the words of Maria Von Trapp (Sorry, I did watch the movie just a few hours ago), "Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start."

Well, we arrived on a plane, went to our hotel in Tel Aviv, and went to a Mexican restaurant. Then we went to sleep, and I woke up and started my blog. Then several more days passed, during which events happened which I detailed in past blog posts and am too lazy to repeat. Here are some fancy pictures to tell you about them for me.

The beach in Tel Aviv.

Tel Aviv street art. That message is real deep.

I actually have no idea what those words say.

Tel Aviv cemetery.

Jerusalem street market.

Steve's Packs backpack selection.

Very colorful.

Very, very colorful.

Western Wall, with partition dividing men and women.

Completely disgusting.

The division of men and women, I mean.

The wall is quite pretty.

Ayn Avdat National Park.

We all seem to be quite confused in this picture.

The ancient city of Petra.

This city is really old.

It's much older than cream cheese, which was invented in the 1890's.

In Wadi Rum with our guide, Ali, the greatest man to ever live.

He is so amazing the picture can only contain half of his body.

Well, that takes care of the witty captions I promised yesterday. Now for the takeout food. After getting home from the airport, we ordered pizza. It was good. The wings were great. We then ate my sister's birthday cake. That cake was probably the best part of this long, long day.

So concludes my tale of the Perlmeter/Hertzman clan's Trip To Israel Then Jordan But Not For As Long Then Back To Israel Just For A Night And Then Home. Tomorrow, although this is not a fact I am happy about, I have to go to school, and so my journal assignment is over. I don't have to blog anymore. But I will. Return to this URL tomorrow for a bold new blog, with a bold new title, a title probably shorter than my current title of Trip To Israel Then Jordan But Not For As Long Then Back To Israel Just For A Night And Then Home. The post will have nothing to do with Israel. Perhaps I'll post my top fifteen musical cues of the Back to the Future trilogy, or discuss the Satanic messages subliminally sent out by the Food Network. We shall see.

This has been a Trip To Israel Then Jordan But Not For As Long Then Back To Israel Just For A Night And Then Home. Mrs. Dominick, I hope you liked it.

The Greatest Man to Ever Live

Today was the last day of our Trip To Israel Then Jordan But Not For As Long Then Back To Israel Just For A Night And Then Home during which any activities happened. One activity happened, and it was pretty awesome. Still in the "Then Jordan" part of our journey, we had a buffet breakfast that had the potential for excellence, but was crippled by its lack of bacon. After eating, we set out for the jeep tour we were to take in the mountain range Wadi Rum. Driving us to the jeep was our guide for the day, Ali.

Sorry, wrong one.

There we go. Epic, just epic.

I say, sincerely, that Ali is the greatest human to ever live. He laughs in the face of danger. Seriously. There were several points during the tour where the rest of us were terrified and he just laughed and laughed.

We were driving through the desert when Ali randomly drove the car up the face of the mountain. It was at this point we would be taking our desert jeep tour in the Toyota Fortuner.

The greatest vehicle ever devised by man.

Ali drove this thing up an down the sides of mountains, through countless sand dunes, and into the bowels of my soul. (Not really, but I believe good writing comes in groups of three, and we didn't really drive through anything but sand dunes and mountains.) All along the way, he told us facts about the area, as tour guides generally do. The place was beautiful. 

Trip Highlights:

• My technologically-challenged mom attempting to take a picture of us
• The roller coaster-esque van experience
• Ali

Just look at him. Magnificent.

After the jeep [sic] tour, we went back over the border and started driving to the hotel, fifteen minutes from the airport, where I now sit writing this as we pack. Along the way, we complained about sore parts of our bodies,  stopped for peeing and ice cream, and listened to Billy Joel's badly-done cover of my song "Piano Man." (See? Three clauses!) My sisters also informed me that drugs make you eat people, and that all honeymoons have chaperones to monitor the couple while they're having sex so they don't mess up. I had not heard such things before, and am glad to have learned them.

Our hotel is above a shopping mall, where I went for a lovely dinner at McDonald's. It was the first time I'd been to McDonald's in months, because it's so unhealthy. The problem with McDonald's is that their food tastes delicious, so it made it very hard not to eat my entire burger-that-was-much-bigger-than-I-thought-it-was-when-I-ordered-it. I did anyway. Alas, no McFlurry.

Tomorrow my Trip To Israel Then Jordan But Not For As Long Then Back To Israel Just For A Night And Then Home is over. This means my English class assignment is done, and I can stop blogging, but blogging is fun, so I'm not going to stop. You high-double-digits-number-of-people-I-know-personally need my insight on the world, so I'll keep blogging everyday. If you like it, show your friends! Show your very literate dog! Show any famous people you happen to know, that I might become famous by association.

This is Nate Perlmeter, your tour guide to Israel Then Jordan But Not For As Long Then Back To Israel Just For A Night And Then Home, signing off.

Tomorrow, a retrospective on the trip, full of witty photo captions, and footage of whatever take-out food we get after getting home at 6:00 P.M.

Bathrobe Memories

This blog was originally going to start with the wonderful title of "As I write this, I'm wearing a bathrobe," but I am not wearing a bathrobe, and like George Washington, who never famously cut down a cherry tree, never said, "I cannot tell a lie." I would be wearing a bathrobe, but I had to take it off before going to dinner.

Let me narrate the events that led toward me wearing a bathrobe. It all started this morning when my family left our hotel in Eilat, Israel to go to the country of Jordan and tour the ancient city of Petra. After eating a breakfast provided by the hotel, we went to the border, got our passports checked, and walked into the no-mans-land between the two countries. For three minutes, I was walking on dry land, but I wasn't inside a country. It was a strange feeling.

We walked through the gate and came out in Jordan, thus necessitating the change of my blog's title from "Trip To Israel" to "Trip To Israel Then Jordan But Not For As Long Then Back To Israel Just For A Night And Then Home." On the Jordanian side of the border, we used some not-very-nice restrooms (Jordanian Tourism Board, get on the job), and met our tour guide, Aladdin.

Sorry, wrong one.

On left. Kinda looks like Dustin Hoffman, right?

Dustin Aladdin led us through Petra, an ancient city once ruled by the Greeks and then the Romans, with influences from both clear. The cool thing about Petra is that all the buildings of the city are built into mountains. All they had to do was take out some stone in the right places, and Voila! A building would appear right before your eyes.

Examples.

The people who lived in Petra were much more concerned with the afterlife than their own day-to-day lives, so tombs and religious sites stand out a lot more than living spaces. This is the Treasury, a temple. It's big.

Along the trail, there were many Bedouins (a native people) trying to sell us rides through Petra on donkey, horse, and camel. As Aladdin (the guide, not the fictional character) said, "They will say to you, 'my horse is named Shakira, my horse is named Michael Jackson.' Don't pay them anything." At first, the salespeople were annoying, but by the time we were going back to the hotel on the 2.5 mile walk in the ninety-degree heat, they were looking pretty good. Too bad we didn't have any Jordanian money.

Back at the hotel, sweating like buckets, we jumped into the pool, turned into icicles and climbed out. A couple hours later, I showered. I've discovered over these past couple of days of living in hotels that I have a love/hate relationship with handheld shower heads. They're annoying to use, but the water is so comfortable. Sometimes they even annoy other people, like yesterday when I sprayed water all over the bathroom floor before my sisters could shower.

So far, I have been meandering betwixt and between, but now I come to the meat of my story. After showering, I wore the bathrobe the hotel provided. It was comfortable.

Huh. That wasn't that exciting.

My Prognostication Was A Bit Off

[The least eventful] will be tomorrow, where the main activity will be sitting in a car and listening to music.


That was how I left it yesterday. So it had been written, so it was to be done. But, it appears my prognostication was off a bit. Things happened today. 


This morning we left our apartment in Tel Aviv and took a cab to the airport, where we got our rental car, a Mazda 5. In this sexy, sleek, sports car, we began the 3.5 hour drive toward Eilat, another Israeli city. A few minutes into the drive, we plugged an iPhone into the car's stereo system and shuffled the show tunes playlist. It was time for a grand Perlmeter family sing-along!


Highlights of today's sing-along included:

• "The Morning Report" from The Lion King
• "On My Own" from Les Miserables
• "Do Re Mi" from The Sound of Music
• "I Dreamed A Dream," Glee edition
• And most of the first act of RENT

An hour into the ride, we stopped at hiking spot Ayn Avdat National Park, a beautiful spot smack dab in the middle of the desert. We took in the lovely landscape.

We hiked across a pond while paying homage to The Beatles.

I showed off my terrible, terrible camera smile.

The hike was really fun, even if it was a wee bit hot outside. We got back in the car and set the course for Eilat, but we were soon distracted by a bunch of ibises blocking the road. Here's an ibex. The hike was really fun, even if it was a wee bit hot outside. We got back in the car and set the course for Eilat, but we were soon distracted by a bunch of ibises blocking the road. Here's an ibex.

There were lots of ibises, including two very dramatic looking ones that we realized were fake upon a closer look.

Soon thereafter, the cramped, back-pain inducing car ride was over, and we arrived at our very nice hotel. My dad and I were excited to go snorkeling. Here are some pictures I took of the snorkeling experience.

There was no snorkeling experience. It was closed when we got there, so we took a dip in the pool instead. In the pool, rather unsurprisingly, I got wet.

I toweled off and we went to dinner and . . . that was pretty much it.

I guess some stuff did happen today. Too bad, I thought my psychic abilities were getting pretty well honed.

"It Will Completely Change Our Understanding Of Cats"

This sentence popped into my head today.

"It will completely change our understanding of cats," I said to my mom.

"What will?" she replied. I shrugged, and we continued walking, but I began pondering the question. What would completely change our understanding of cats?

My first thought would be that a single cat would have to do something fantastic, like become a master chef or golf champion, climb Mount Everest, or direct an Oscar-winning movie. But such acts couldn't completely change our understanding of cats, because only a single cat would be doing it. A single human has glow-in-the-dark eyes, a single human invented penicillin, and a single human had the greatest name in history (Nathaniel Bacon), but these haven't changed our complete understanding of humans. So what would make such an impact on our understanding of cats? They would have to work in a group.

What would cats do in a group? They wouldn't do any benign activity, like synchronized swimming or curling. Cats are devious little critters, you know it from the look in their eyes. With the powers of all the cats in the world combined, they could take over the world, and that's just what they would do. They would take over the world, and become the new overlords of all humans, something that would completely change our understanding of cats.

I thought my investigation was done, but I continued to ponder, as we ponderers do, about cats. We feed them and give them a place to sleep. Some of us even give them clothes to wear, which repulse the rest of us. We are at our cats' beck and call. The cats already rule us. They are already our overlords. We just have to accept this. We have to completely change our understanding of cats.

Today, in Israel, I haven't done much. For the first time during the trip, I got to sleep in, and did so until 10:25. I was looking forward to not doing much today. This blog post would've been a wonderful companion to Bruno Mars' "The Lazy Song" and a nice brandy, or perhaps a Sauvingnon Blanc 1974, or some strawberry milk. Alas, my parents made me get up and go to an art museum with them.

I was looking forward to seeing some art (Carney, Garfunkel), but it turned out my mom had misread the website and as we got there the museum was about to close. We left, and I looked for some lunch, until my parents suggested I have ice cream instead of lunch. To most people, this would be baffling, a complete reversal of a classic sitcom joke, but my family follows the A.I.C.R.N policy (Always Ice Cream Right Now), so I understood. (I love commas.) We went for ice cream, and that was the day's grand adventure.

Even though we didn't go to the museum, we got in an hour of walking, so it was only the second-least-eventful day of the trip. (#1 will be tomorrow, where the main activity will be sitting in a car and listening to music. The blog post will be very exciting. Stay tuned.) Back at the apartment, I did some math homework (Rejoice!) and wrote this blog. There's still some of the day left, but I have a pretty good idea of what will happen, so I'll just blog it now:

We went to dinner. The restaurant was overlooking the sea. The food was delicious. The sunset was beautiful. We came back to the apartment and I went to sleep. The End.








Cats.

We Shall Overcome.