[Editors’ note: This is the first of what we hope will be numerous guest blog entries from friends and family members who’ve been brave enough to travel with us on some portion of our trip. Sarah and Ilan Gur are two of our favorite people from San Francisco, and they joined us (or maybe we joined them) for two weeks in Israel back in June. We’ll have more to share about our experiences there (like, for example, what the title of this entry actually refers to), but we wanted to give Sarah and Ilan the first crack at writing about our travels together. Thanks, Gurs, for taking the time to so thoroughly and publicly take the piss out of us! :) –Lustin]
There will be (guest) blog. (Man that line never gets old.)
Ilan and Sarah reporting for duty. We must say that we’re honored to be here, albeit a bit intimidated. As people whose names combine to the altogether unappealing “Slan” or “Iarah,” we really can’t compete with the smooth machinery that is “Lustin.” Alas, we will do our best.
In planning this post, we initially considered sharing our insights about the land and people of Israel. But that made our heads hurt too much. (For those interested, click here for an introductory treatise on the experience of touring Israel). Instead, we have decided to offer you, the faithful readers of WanderLustin’, a rare sneak peak into the on-the-ground daily life of the glamour and glitz that is Lustin mid-Wander. So, with no further ado, we present…
The Top 5 – or maybe 6 – most interesting things we learned about Lustin in Israel:
1. Lustin (forgive us for this) is surprisingly high-maintenance. They take a long time to pack (think in hours, not minutes here) due to an intricate packs-within-packs system of organization (make no mistake: we blame Dustin for this hyper-organization). They get hungry/angry (“hangry”) easily; like young children or delicate plants, they need to be fed and watered very regularly. Their brains are, by month six of their trip, too smushed full of ancient history to take more than about 45 minutes per day of archeological content before they run for the nearest lounge chair/pool/outdoor bar/wi-fi cafe/Magnum ice cream truck. Case in point: mid-hike through the historical and beautiful Galilee/Golan region, Laura decided that we absolutely must head to dinner immediately and attempted to rally the group with a none-too-endearing repetitive chant of “glass of wine and hu-muus”, “glass of wine and hu-muus!” Worst of all, the chant stuck in our heads for days. (Full disclosure: Sarah was hungry as well and fully participated in said chanting. Also, Sarah and Ilan may too occasionally take a long time to pack.)
2. Lustin’s marriage is very stable. They are getting along shockingly well considering that they are isolated with only each other for company, that they have no home or on-site support network to speak of, and that their marital bed has actually consisted of something like 200 different marital beds (granted, it appears many of those marital beds came with free honeymoon upgrades, a morally questionable practice that we learned Lustin continues to use frequently enough to merit a short tactical acronym: “THC”, or “The Honeymoon Card”, as in “don’t forget to play the THC when you’re checking in”).
Seriously though, we weren’t sure what to expect when we showed up, function/dysfunction-wise (who travels for a whole year, alone, together?) but were happily surprised to find a still-in-love but even-more-grounded version of the Lustin than we bid farewell to in January. The one point of contention they still seem to struggle with, and this will surprise no one who knows them, is Dustin’s love for/use of/reliance on technology. The most important question for Dustin upon reaching a new destination is not “where is the center of town so we can begin appreciating the sights?” or “to what year do these exquisite ruins date?” but “where is the wiffee?” (Dustin-speak for wi-fi). If you find that WanderLustin’ shuts down at some point, assume it is because Laura, at her wit’s end, threw the iPhones and computer out of the window of a moving train.
3. Lustin is patient. What Lustin may or may not have realized when we all agreed to meet up in Israel was that they were actually signing up for an intensive family reunion – with complete strangers. Ilan’s extended family lives in Israel, and they don’t get together with the American branch of the family very often, but when they do they make it count. In a big way. Like when someone squeezes you so tight you turn purple and pass out. As you fall to the floor, you definitely know you’ve been hugged. Their philosophy toward spending time together is just like that. Anyway, Lustin got thrown into the out-of-control family reunion milieu and were incredibly good sports about it. As they collapsed into bed each night, stuffed to the brim with Israeli food and reeling from 30 hours of activity packed into a 24 hour day, with occasional in-law drama added in just for good measure, they stayed amazingly sweet and well-tempered. When Budget rental car tried to overcharge us for a repair, now that’s a different story… but when it came to family and friends, they had all the patience in the world.
4. Lustin knows the value of a dollar (or a shekel, as the case may be). When watching the World Cup at a pricey beachfront bar in Tel Aviv, ever-chivalrous Ilan and Dustin sent Laura and Sarah to buy a bottle of Stoli from the nearest supermarket so the group could continue to watch the game, sneaking shots to avoid running up too high a tab of expensive drinks. (Note to future Wanderlustin’ vendors: this is what to expect if you deny Lustin the honeymoon upgrade!) Another example: rather than lose a single plastic die that fell to the ground from a dice game, Dustin wildly dug through piles of sand, on his hands and knees, using his flip-flop as a shovel, in order to procure the missing die. (Classy!) Note to astute readers: these two events indeed happened on the same night, and Dustin’s consumption of Stoli shots is quite directly related to the feverish digging act which concluded our night of grand extravagance. Another note: we don’t actually believe Dustin was after that die for the purpose of saving the cost of a new one – but had he let it go, the one missing die out of that box of 36 would have driven his organization receptors to a madness beyond repair for the remainder of the trip.
5. Lustin is learning a lot. Notwithstanding the short attention span described above, which seems pretty understandable given the sheer volume of information their brains are trying to process as they leap from country to country, they are incredibly engaged and curious about everything they see. Laura has a little notebook in which she writes down things, like dates and historical facts and names of emperors, and bits of wisdom she picks up from tour guides and taxi drivers along the way. Laura’s knowledge of Israeli history was, shall we say, nascent, upon arrival (a quote that comes to mind is Laura saying “What do you mean the country was only founded in the 1940s?”). But due to her natural inquisitiveness and love of learning, she could now compete in Middle East trivia with the best of them. They’re both very thoughtful and intentional about their travels, and it shows.
6. And finally, without question, the most important things we learned about Lustin while on the trip: 1) Laura still has anxiety dreams about not being prepared for a test at school (one of these happened while on the trip!) and 2) when Dustin was little, he asked his mom if he could throw his socks away each night and get a new pair so they would be perfectly fresh and clean each morning. (There! We’ve said it! With these two pieces of information you can pretty much skip everything else, not to mention blackmail them. What freaks!)
We hope you’ve enjoyed reading. We’ve enjoyed writing!
Lots of love,
Slan
PS: There is one more thing that all you fans should know, especially any of you planning a future Lustin rendezvous. Despite our best hopes, the “Frayzhe” appears to be unperturbed by time zones or foreign rule of law. Practically speaking, what that means is if, before bed, you talk about an early morning run on the beaches of Tel-Aviv (or whatever city you are in: Capetown, San Sebastien, or the Amalfi Coast for that matter…), don’t hold your breath. They may blame the jet lag, or Laura’s precious need for sleep (see #1 above), but let’s be honest, a “Frayzhe” is a “Frayzhe”, in Hebrew, Arabic, or any other language!
;)