"Middle East Adventure Fun"

            For winter break, I made up my mind to travel as far away from this law school as I possibly could, and as far away from Baltimore as well. It’s one thing to say you’re on break while you sit in your apartment that’s four blocks away from school and your old contracts textbook mocks you from its shelf; and it’s another thing to really go on break.

            The obvious choice would have been China , but unfortunately, my student budget coupled with my love of capitalism prevented me from going there. Where else could I go that was really far away and really inexpensive?

            Well, if you’re Jewish, the answer clearly is Israel . If you’re under 26 years old and have never been to Israel before, they just give you a free trip. It’s kind of similar to how if you’re Jewish and you don’t have a job, your parents make you go to law or medical school. Except that this seemed slightly more fun.

            So I dusted off my passport, and got ready to travel to one of the holiest places on earth. The trip was nearly entirely made up of kids still in college, who were really excited about the fact that the drinking age was 18 in Israel . “We can order a beer with dinner!” was a rallying cry for some. I worried that being 23 would make me the old man of the trip.

            I was tempted to be very vague about my identity, and just make up some small liberal arts school that I could be a super senior at. But the first several hours of the trip consisted of nonstop ice breakers and I decided to be honest. For one of them, we all had to stand up and say what school we went to, what year we were in, what our major was and why we decided to come on this trip.

            There were a lot of undeclared freshman, and a lot of people who thought that a creative writing major was still a good idea. Eventually it was my turn. “Hi, my name is Mitch. I’m a second year law student at Maryland. I’m majoring in law and I guess I want to be a lawyer when I graduate. I decided to come on this trip because I really like riding on buses and taking photos of things as we drive by them.” 

            For the first few days after learning my true identity, the majority of the people on my bus seemed a little afraid to talk to me, except for the kids who wanted to go to law school and asked me about admissions requirements. But after a while, they grew accustomed to my sense of humor (which mainly consists of telling jokes about menstrual bleeding and pooping) and then said things like, “there’s no way someone as immature as you can be in law school.”

            There were however some moments when I could feel the effects of law school on back of my brain, such as when we had a group discussion about how any of us could become an Israeli citizen if we wanted (if you’re Jewish, you can become a citizen in about ten minutes) and all I could think about was how complicated and difficult other countries’ immigration laws are. There was also a fun moment where I skipped some activity to sit and read my 1000 page Internet Commerce textbook in my room.

            Israel itself was a neat country, but I don’t really see what the big deal is. Sure Jesus, Mohammed and King David all used to hang out there, but the whole country is smaller than New Jersey. We drove through mountains, forests, deserts and beaches in a matter of hours. And everywhere we went, I couldn’t help thinking that although the landscape was nice, there are bigger mountains, taller forests, drier deserts and prettier beaches in America.

            The one really cool thing that Israel has and America doesn’t is the Dead Sea. You can literally sit down in the thing, like you’re sitting down on a couch. It’s really weird. If you wanted to, you could just sit in the water and read a newspaper. And if you walk out far enough, you can actually stand straight up in the water.

            We also got to explore some caves, climb Mesada (a neat/historic mountain), ride camels and go on a jeep tour. But mainly I really just had a great time riding across the country with a busload of college kids who didn’t want to discuss their Torts grade with me or ask me what firm I was working at. And it was really nice to know that I’m not too old to make fart jokes with eighteen year olds and that law school has not yet fully transformed me into the prototypical soulless lawyer.

            All in all, Israel was a neat country, even though the people looked different and scared me by not being American. And regardless, it was great to spend ten days remembering that there is life outside of these hallowed law school walls. Even if that life is in a strange country filled with foreign people who don’t speak English all that well.