Part Deux of Taba

Its been over a week since me and Channah returned from the Hilton Taba and all I want to do is return to paradise.

But sadly life gets in the way of the non uber rich and heaven here on earth.

So back to our trip..

Day Two -

We woke up at around 8sh and said today we are not going to make the same mistake we made (inadvertently) yesterday. We are going to head to the pool, put our towels and some personal items on our chairs so that when we make it out to the pool we have chairs.

Now if you didnt know this already- it is normal for people to place their hotel (aka identical) towels on beach or pool chairs and walk away for a couple of hours and return expecting their towels to still be there. Umm in what world can you walk away for two SOLID hours and expect your hotel towel to still be there? I got yelled at on the first day when later in the afternoon I removed towels from some vacant chairs and after two hours of using the chairs the previous guests using the chairs returned and told me to get off "their chairs". excuse me?!

so this time around we were not going to be "friers" and found empty chairs under the sun to reserve and off to breakfast we went.

After breakfast I had a meeting with Martin, the GM of the Hilton Taba. It was a chance to get a better idea of the hotel and the staff. I have to say it was quite interesting to hear information that normally one would not hear. For example - they have a staff of 415 but at max capacity 400 guests. That means that there will always be more staff then guests. And did you know that the staff all have degrees in hospitality management? No wonder they are so welcoming and accommodating - they had proper training.

The Hilton Taba is also eco friendly. Every piece of trash is recycled or sold -metal scraps to Bedouins, leftover and garbage food is fed to the animals in the region, dirty water is recycled to water the lawn, the pool is filled with seawater. Each room has a slot that activates the electricity and you remove the card, the electricity is automatically turned off. Makes me feel better about going on vacation when I know that the location of choice is being responsible to the environment.

Anyway the meeting was fascinating (will write another post on that) and I headed upstairs to change back into my bathing suit and go worship the sun gods.

We literally spent the entire day at the pool. I spent almost the entire time in the pool. It was too freakin hot to sit outside and as a former lifeguard - I believe that you tan better in the pool and not out of it (water reflects sun, etc). I spent hours just floating in the pool and it made me all nostalgic for the good old days when I spent my summers lifeguarding. I really miss being in and around a pool. Maybe next summer I'll lifeguard again - who knows?

Anywhoo... at 5pm Channah and I had booked massages. I booked a swedish massage (I have never had one) and Channah booked the Cleopatra massage. Needless to say they were amazing and parts of our massage experiences were unexpected but quite enjoyable. Especially when I exited the massage room and realize that it had been over two hours. I was told it was only an hour long massage.

We both exited feeling like wet noodles but we needed to eat food before heading to bed. We returned to the room, showered and changed and headed downstairs like zombies. After dinner I wanted one last hurrah and to check out the casino. I have never been in a casino and only once a long long time ago experienced a gambling boat (where I hung out in the disco room). In order to enter the casino you need to present your passport and I had to beg Chans to come upstairs and retrieve the passports and come back down. All she wanted to do was to go to sleep. Lucky for me she didnt really have the energy to argue with me and I got my way ;)

We walked around the casino fascinated by the activity and its audience. Most of the folks there were Israeli's who crossed the border just to gamble. This was the first place within the hotel that spoke Hebrew. It was kinda surreal. We watched folks lose (a lot) and win (not as much) money on the baccarat table. I wanted to gamble a bit but minimum bets were $10 and I wasnt spending more than $10 on gambling on the both of us so we headed downstairs and after watching a bit of Texas Hold'em (i still dont get it) I cashed in my $10 and we went to the slot machines.





Yeah we lost all the money (I did win a few coins but kept playing them). It was fun - I gambled and lost (and think its pointless) and we went to bed for our last night in Taba. sob.

Pictures from Taba

I have yet to write the second and third part of the Hilton Taba expeirience but figured I would share with you the pics taken over the trip. Most of them were taken by my partner in crime, Channahboo

www.flickr.com israluv's Hilton Taba, Sinai photoset

the only picture we unfortunately did not snap was the man greeting us with the glasses of mango/guava juice and the wet towels. next time!

Taba Baby, T-A-B-A (Day 1)

Last week I spent a few days lounging around the pool in the Hilton Taba and it was glorious.

I invited my friend Channahboo to join me as it is her birthday today and I thought it would be a lovely way to celebrate. We bought our tickets for the bus online and took the midnight bus from the Tel Aviv central bus station at midnight. The trip down to Eilat and then over the border into Taba is suppose to take around 5 hours but we arrived in Eilat at 4:30am after a long night of dozing. By the way, the weather in Eilat and Taba is **so much hotter** than Tel Aviv but it has zero humidity.

We arrived earlier than expected and the hotel check in was at 2pm so we figured we'd spend some quality time in Eilat. At 4:30am nothing except for Aroma is open - not even the Three Monkey's (Eilat's famous pub).

We sat outside Aroma and relaxed over cawfee and croissants for a few hours. By the time the sun rose we were both exhausted and desperate to take a nap so we figured we'd head to Taba and see if we could just check in early.

Now in order to get to Taba you need to catch a cab to the Egyptian border and the hotel is situated right on the other side of the border. As we were crossing border control on the Israeli side we were asked for our Israeli passports. Once we crossed over onto the Egyptian side they wanted to see our non-israeli passports. Lucky for me I brought my American passport (I had debated bringing it but thought it might be better to bring it than not to).

On both sides of the border our passports were looked at no less than three times so we just kept our passports in our hands. Once we exited the Egyptian side of the border it was a 2 minute walk to the hotel. The hotel is directly next to the border crossing but you can only enter it through their main entrance which boasts another metal detector and luggage scanner. Security is tight which made me feel safer.

We walked up the main path to the hotel and upon our arrival at the check in desk we were greeted by a waiter with two glasses of cold mango/guava juice and cold towels to wipe our tired grimy faces. First impressions are everything and I knew at that moment that the service at the Hilton would be incredible and boy was I in a shock. Their service was even better than I ever dreamed possible. We both had green bands tied to our wrists to verify that we were guests who "paid" for half board. That meant breakfast and dinner were included in our package but not lunch and all the food/drink we could consume.

Our room wasnt available but they allowed us to check in and told us that at 2pm we could change rooms. We ascended to the top floor of the hotel and our room held a glorious view of the pool and the Red Sea. The color of the water is an incredible blue and I couldnt wait to jump in but exhaustion kicked in and we both agreed a nap was in order. We both layed down and there was a knock on the door from housekeeping asking if we wanted our room cleaned and I laughed and said we just arrived and there was no need. He returned twice, once with robes for the bathroom and hung them the way Napoleon would have been proud and the second time to bring us toothbrushes and razors.

Finally a nap was had by all. We awoke and said - beach time! So Channah and I changed into our swimming clothing, doused ourselves with sunscreen (boo to skin cancer) and headed downstairs. The pool chairs were all taken so we headed to the beach instead.

We were greeted by a hotel employee who grabbed our towels and placed them for us on the beach chairs. No less than 4 people came over to offer different hotel services like scuba-diving, manicures+pedicures, newspapers and massages. Channah signed up for the scuba-diving and we both signed up for massages. If we are on vacation, we should do it "right". A few hours in the sun and we realized that we needed some nourishment and headed over to the Nelson's Pub (a pub in the resort) where we both enjoyed a Micky Mouse (vanilla and cola float) Exhaustion kicked in and we both agreed a late afternoon nap was in order but first we needed to check back in with the front desk to see what the story was w/ our original room. The room was ready but on a lower floor and we decided to stay where we were - the view was too divine.



We napped for a bit a then got dressed for dinner. According to the hotel guidebook you must be dressed up in order to enter the dinning hall. Lucky for us we both brought non-beach clothing and got all dolled up. Now in order to enter the dinning hall you need to squirt a bit of hand sanitizer on both hands. I am not a fan of that stuff but if it keeps the germs out- i am all for it.

I am not such a fan of hotel food or buffets but I could taste the difference between Egyptian produce and Israeli produce. You would think that the veggies would taste similar but they were worlds apart. Israeli veggies are so much better than anyone else.

After dinner we decided to take a walk around the resort and ended up swinging in the hammocks for a bit. The rocking left us wanting sleep and we headed off to bed.

stay tuned for day 2

Stunning - an off broadway play

I came across a review for "Stunning" on Joanna Wilson's blog called Gotham Gal .

The show is centered around a 16 year old Jewish Syrian woman from Brooklyn who gets married to a middle aged man. The story revolves around her growing up, trying to find herself but within the confines of her marriage.

Sighhhh.

This story hits home for me. I am not sure if I have ever publicly mentioned here on the blog that I was engaged at age 21 to a Syrian from Brooklyn. Thankfully for the both of us the engagement didnt last and we moved on. It feels like a lifetime ago (eight years is a long time) and I am so thankful I ended up where I was suppose to be - living out my dreams here in Israel.

I am not going to discuss on here or offline what happened (as it is too personal) but I really wish I was in NYC to catch "Stunning". Maybe it is a good thing I cannot see it as I presume it would bring back a flood of emotions from that period of my life.


Go see the show ..

Part of the Important Pro Zionist Lobby

Recently I was going through my blog statistics and came across a link to my blog that I did not recognize.

The link opened up to a wikipedia style website that "documents the PR and propaganda activities of public relations firms and the public relations industry engaged in managing and manipulating public perception, opinion and policy. SpinProfiles also includes profiles on think tanks, front groups funded by industry and industry-friendly experts who work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of transnational corporations or other special interests."

I have been placed in the "pro zionist lobby group" due to my involvement with Help Us Win - a joint effort in battling the War on Hamas using social media this past January. Now for all intentions and purposes I am just an individual doing **my personal** PR for Israel. I am not part of a Pro Israel Lobby, a PR professional and I am certainly not getting paid for my participation.

Yet somehow this site has decided to add me to the list of "Pro Zionist" lobby and PR people.

And you know what? I am PROUD to be on such a site even though I think the site is slanted/biased/unedited and not factually correct.

Theodore Herzel and Israeli Flag
kudos to Hadar for this picture

The one thing they did get right - I am a Pro Zionist. I believe in sharing my personal perspective and spin on the situation here. I hope that when people read my blog posts or tweets they realize what I write is MY opinion an not necessarily sanctioned by other members of my society. Its personal baby, personal.




Keep on enjoying my blog posts from this pro-Zionist blogger.


Ooh and you should read the back and forth with the editor of the site. My name was spelled incorrectly, the description of my job is incorrect and there are some lovely spelling mistakes.

check out my pro zionist profile here