Traveling vs. Moving

While I've been in Seattle I've spent a lot of time catching up with my past and defining my future. When I tell people that I am going to Israel for a year, I find it hard to decide if I'm traveling to Israel or moving there.

This only dawned on me when I was showing my sister pictures of Israel from my trip last year. We sat all cuddled up on my bed in Seattle, clicking through old facebook albums and indulging in travel stories. It only took a few minutes for me to proclaim my love for the land of Israel, "Oh Sophie, Israel is such an incredible place. I really want to move there someday, it would be so wonderful" I said to her.

Slightly perplexed, without much hesitation she said, "Ali, you are moving there." The exciting confusion sets in.

Am I traveling or am I moving? According to the World Tourist Organization, tourists are people who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited." Since I'm staying for approximately a year (I don't have a ticket home yet, but I'll come back to the United States sometime before September 2008), I'm right on the edge of the time limit for being a tourist.

I most definitely am traveling to Israel for leisure and business. I see myself sitting on the beach with a beer in hand, writing my fieldnotes and soaking up the sun. However, as many people can account, I tend to do something along these lines when I am in the United States, be it Seattle, Massachusetts or New York--no place can escape Alison and her intoxicated note taking sessions.

At some points, I will be in travel mode. Floating around as a tourist is an important contrast to what I intend to spend most of my time doing--sinking my feet deep into Tel Aviv's sand. However, in the beginning I intend to focus most of my efforts on crafting a life that is much more similar to that of a foreign resident.

For the first few weeks I will be making my home-base at my friend Shalev's house in Ramat HaSharon. We met last year on a Taglit-Birthright Israel Trip with Oranim and have become even closer friends via Google chat, Skype and JaJah. I imagine that we will spend a good deal of time exchanging stories, sips of Isreali beer and the like. However, Shalev is also going to be getting me settled in as a resident. He told me that he intends to have me, “fit in as quickly as possible” and is willing to show me the hott spots in the city, introduce me to his friends and get me set up in an apartment.

Unlike my life in the United States, where I have fully embraced the experience of a privileged student--living in fully furnished dormitories that are just a few steps from my classroom and eating the three meals a day that are cooked by an incredible cook staff-- I will be living in an apartment at some undetermined location in Tel Aviv. Without the aid of any institution, I will have to find and create my own home, assemble my own furniture, cook my own meals and commute to school.

This is a big part of my great adventure and something that I imagine many students, foreign residents and immigrants have embarked on—this moving to Israel bit. Although I do plan on returning to the United States (I started a degree there that I would like to finish), I am once again freeing myself from the notion of “home” and preparing to cultivate new soils.