Friday, September 26, 2008

mbatE2008 stories: part 2: signs of the times

Often, instead of taking pictures of exotic people and places, I take pictures of signs. What? They're funny.

This one's on the highway that runs along the Dead Sea. While the water is extremely salt, what I don't understand is why the sign must be on the highway --does salty water sometimes jump out at unsuspecting cars?

(ha HA, take THAT, car! Just watch what I'll do to your paint!)

At Petra (ha, Petra at Petra! Imagine that!), I was grateful for a sign that told me what I was seeing: a view. Oh, good. I wouldn't have figured that out otherwise.

Some Syrian sign-maker was having delusions of grandeur.

Most Syrians we met gave us a big thumbs-up when we told them we were American, but apparently not everyone feels like that.

Not all Israelis feel like that either.


If Jesus visited Jerusalem nowadays, he'd be casting out the souvenir shop owners. Seriously--selling the widow's mite?

If only it said "but call it Israel as you're trying to get across the border."

Pretty much as close as I want to get to the Golan Heights. (Note: this is not true. With a few more days, we would have gone.)

This one's my favorite sign picture of all, but it takes a little bit of explanation: like many children, I grew up playing Monopoly. Unlike many children, my family only owned Hebrew Monopoly, in which all the traditional properties (Boardwalk, Park Place, um, er, I don't know any of the other traditional properties--see that "my family only owned Hebrew Monopoly" thing above) were replaced with Israeli properties--the yellow, if I remember correctly, were streets in Tel Aviv, and other colors were streets in Eilat and Jerusalem. This means that as we walked around Jerusalem, I recognized street names, and was especially excited about Ben Yehuda Street, an outdoor shopping area in Jerusalem. Was that the Boardwalk of Hebrew Monopoly? Did I often try to get a monopoly on its color group? Or is my subconscious just enamored of the Hebrew language revivalist?

Who knows. But a picture was still necessary. Duh.

8 comments:

my name is amy said...

doh, i had the same idea for a blog post. but i'm sort of relieved you got to if first so i don't have to bother now. ohhhh, but i do have a variation of this sign theme to post soon...can you guess what it is??

ReaRiahRoa said...

you have no idea how much I love this post!

my grandfather was a traffic engineer, and collected pictures of signs - yours are awesome

and it is nice to see tales of your journey

while I would never have the nerve to do what you did, I'm glad you had fun and most of all returned home safely

Th. said...

.

Where the tokens the same?

Petra said...

Amy--

Make a sign post anyway! I don't think our readership overlaps that much.

(and sorry for stealing some of your pictures.)

reariahroa--

Glad you liked it.

th.--

No, but I don't remember what they were. I just remember being confused when people wanted to be the shoe.

padre said...

We come the full circle. We only had Hebrew Monopoly because when we visited Israel when you were little it was during the first intifada and we could not go out at night. So we bought the game and played in our hotel at night.

annie (the annilygreen one) said...

clearly, petra, it's not the salt that is dangerous, but the soul-less salt monsters who lurk in water with high sodium chloride content. or maybe it's someone coated in salt being dragged down to their lair at the bottom.

Phat Fiddle said...

Just happened upon your blog and I have to say that your posts are absolutely hilarious. Thanks for sharing your creative whit with the rest of us,

Aspiring and novice blogger.

Seagulljaap said...

Caution: Unsalty Waters Ahead.