How I Almost Quarantined at a Hostel in Tel Aviv
(The Raw Version)
This piece was originally published on the travel website Shut Up and Go on November 19, 2020. And while that piece was adequate in portraying my story, it was in actuality an edited version of the piece I had in my mind. While writing for the site I wanted to create work that I felt fit the audience, and I often avoided making pieces too long, too deep, or occasionally, too raw. But we’re in my house now, and I’m not holding back. This is the raw version of this piece, and I hope you enjoy.
Shot by Austin Dalley on iPhone XR
Around me the air darkened as afternoon faded into night in the city of Tel Aviv. The day’s warmth hadn’t yet dissipated, and I sat outside on a patio chair with my eyes fixed to my phone. I was looking at statistics of Covid 19, with the growing case numbers, the new countries closing, and it was finally sinking in that this virus was much, much more than simply a bad flu strain. My eyes began to glaze over from staring at screens for what felt like days, and turned my face towards the sky. After working so hard just to get here...what was I supposed to do next?
But I’m getting ahead of myself. For this story to make sense, we have to go back, more than a month before, to the coast of Morocco.
I was working with a boutique hotel in Morocco for the winter while my days in the Schengen Zone refilled. On the days I wasn’t getting lost in the winding medina, surfing on the Atlantic, or working with the hotel, I was making my plans for the spring when I would finally return to Europe. From Morocco I was going to fly into the UK and stay in London with a friend of mine for a week, but after that was still unplanned. I had sent out applications to various workaways and language schools, and while part of me felt like I should return to France where I had become comfortable, I knew in my heart yearned for a couple very specific places.
For those of you who don’t know me personally, I kind of have a thing for Ancient Greece. Ever since I was 7 years old and I found my first mythology book in my elementary school library, I was enthralled with the culture ever since, to the point that I would eventually get my Bachelors degree in art history and history specializing in Ancient Greece. Alongside this, I’m Italian by heritage, and grew up with essences of the culture throughout my life. So between these two things, Italy and Greece have always been the top of my list of places to at least travel to, if not live.
When I first attempted to live in Europe I went to France, because I had studied the language all of high school and it seemed the more “logical” and “safer” option. And though I enjoyed the country immensely, at the time I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn't where I wanted to be. Certainly I wouldn’t be disappointed living in France, but I really only dream of my two little countries floating in the Mediterranean. So during my time in North Africa, I sent out new applications daily, started teaching myself Greek, and basically did everything I could to manifest what I wanted so badly to happen.
In the first week of January, I got an email from a language school in Athens. I had been accepted to work for the entire spring, and an apartment in the center of the city would be provided. I was more than ecstatic. It was a sense of pure joy that I probably hadn’t felt since childhood, because I was finally, finally getting an opportunity to live in a place I had always dreamed of. There was only one problem: while this school helped with accommodation, it wasn’t paid. The fact that I had scraped by with my shrinking funds for as long as I did was already a gift from the gods, and I wasn’t sure how much freelance writing I would be able to get done and get paid for while also working at the school. Nonetheless, I kept preparing for Greece; I upped my language courses, scoured over maps, and devoted arguably too much of my time in Morocco towards my next destination.
The first day of February, I received another email, this time from a language school in Naples, Italy. I had also been accepted there, they would help with accommodation...and they paid. After a long day of thinking and many glasses of wine, logic won over my heart, and I decided to accept the Italian offer. It certainly wasn't a bad second choice, and I was grateful I was accepted to both in the first place. Besides, Greece wasn’t going anywhere. So I contacted the Italian school, booked my flight from London, and switched my Greek lessons for Italian ones.
But a few short weeks later, something new blew in from the east: Covid 19.
As we all know by now, cases and infections exploded in Italy, emanating out of the Lombardy Region. The situation only got progressively worse as it got closer and closer to the day I was supposed to leave Morocco for Europe, but I still wasn’t swayed away. Back in the early stages of the global outbreak I admit to being naïve about the virus, like many of us initially were. I didn’t believe it was that serious, and assumed that it was just a bad flu strain that mainly affected the elderly and immuno-compromised. Even the Italian representative of the language school I was communicating with didn’t believe in the seriousness of the virus, and joked that it was only the stodgy old northerners getting it. So even as I prepared to leave Morocco for the UK on the last day of February, my plans to go to Italy persisted, thinking at worst I would have to be extra cautious about being hygienic.
That was of course until Italy closed the country from outside travel.
I couldn’t go to Italy, I had turned down the position in Greece (which even if I hadn’t, Greece responded faster to the virus than many European countries and closed early), and I now only had only a week before my original scheduled flight left London. So paralleling my mad rush for a job in France months before, I cut my leisure time in London short and spent my days glued to my laptop trying to find something, anything, to land myself in the Mediterranean. Between my stubbornness and belief that the virus still wasn't that bad, I refused to fall back to the United States. I had gotten this far along in my attempts to live in Europe and I wasn’t going to go down without a fight. Before I had left Africa my Moroccan friends had consistently joked about me going to Italy, saying that I should just come straight back to Morocco to avoid the virus. In hindsight, they were probably right: as I sent out applications and tried to make connections, more and more cases grew across Europe, and more countries started to close public life. At that point, I began looking all over the Mediterranean and not just in Europe. North Africa again? Sure. Middle east? Why not. All I knew was that I didn’t want to go back to the states, I wanted to go somewhere, and I was going to do anything to make it happen.
A couple of days before I was scheduled to leave, I got an email. It was from a Workaway in Tel Aviv, with a job where I would work at the reception of a hostel in exchange for lodging. It was the first acceptance response I had gotten, and it was all I had. So I accepted, rebooked my flights, and in a couple of days (not counting some brief accidental time in Warsaw, but that’s another story) was on a plane to the middle east.
Shot by Austin Dalley on iPhone XR
I landed at Ben Gurion Airport late at night with a nearly dead phone and only the slightest knowledge of how to get into Tel Aviv. Managing to figure out the bus system right before the next one left, I arrived to the hostel some time around midnight. The manager who I had been in contact with greeted me, a pleasant guy in his early 30s. He immediately began telling me of his plans for the hostel, with his passion making me feel pleased with my choice and my future time here…until he opened the door and we went inside.
The “reception” desk was piled with stacks of papers, folders, wires, and other paraphernalia. Behind it, bottles of liquor at varying levels of fullness lined a shelf, as apparently this area also doubled as a bar, when they were in the mood. Turning left into the “lobby” area, if one could even attempt to call it that, was haphazardly arranged with folding plastic tables and mismatched chairs, one of the tables being a generous station to make your own instant coffee. The manager went on and on with this ideas and stories, all the while I smiled and nodded while inside I cringed at every step. But it only got worse as we walked into the staff kitchen. Used dishes, pots, and pans filled both sides of the sink, all the counter space strewn with half open spices, garlic cloves, and utensils. Their “pantry” shelves were a mix of pots, pans, plates, and dry food goods, also at varying levels of use, without any form of organization. On the floor a bucket of tahini (because yes, in Israel you can buy tahini by the bucket) sat slightly ajar. Entranced by the filth, I realized that the manager had asked me something. “But yeah, we’re working on the kitchen, don’t worry. Want to see the bedrooms?” Sweet Zeus no I do not want to see the bedrooms or any other part of this damn hostel I thought to myself, but went back to my smile and nod in approval.
The bedrooms were definitely an improvement from the kitchen, but still far from ideal. Each room was filled with one too many bunk beds, and had a smell which I couldn’t quite place but I knew I didn’t like. After finishing the tour of the property, I thanked the manager and began to settle into my bunk space. It had become pretty clear that I had been catfished. The ad for this position had used photos of some very clean, nice looking room and very scenic vistas, not the interior of the hostel. As it turned out, those were photos of apartments the owner of the building rented out as Airbnbs, but had really nothing to do with the hostel. Thousands of thoughts raced through my head. Maybe I can manage to convince him to let me sleep in the Airbnb instead. Would he charge me if I still worked? Maybe I can find another Airbnb to stay in. Is there anywhere else I can even afford though? I didn’t have much opportunity to make any decisions, because the fates did for me. The next day, it was announced that the coronavirus was globally spread. Two days after arriving in the country, Israel announced the closure of all indoor public spaces, including hotels and hostels like the one I was supposed to be working in. Many European countries had already closed their borders for incoming travel of non-citizens, and it probably wasn’t going to be long before Israel followed suit.
Which brings us back to where this article began, with me sitting on the back patio of a hostel on a balmy spring night, and finally coming to terms with the seriousness of the virus. Due to the circumstances, the remaining travelers in the hostel quickly became a ragtag friend group: me, one girl from the UK, another girl from Russia, and another guy from the states. We discussed the situation regularly. How long would the virus last? How much time did we have to figure out a plan before Israel or our home countries close the borders? I bounced my thoughts off others as well, my parents, my good friends in the states, even the guys I hooked up with in Tel Aviv. One of my hook ups, may the gods bless him, even offered to let me stay with him in his apartment rent free, which I would have accepted until his virus-paranoid roommate shut down the idea of letting an international traveler stay in the house.
A week after I arrived in the city, I stood on the rooftop balcony of the hostel, its only redeeming quality, watching the building lights switch on one by one till the sky was a deep purple-black and the city sparkled like the stars. It pained me to admit it, but I knew that I needed to go back. All the way back. I went inside, booked one of the last flights out of the country, and the next day was on a 12 hour flight to NYC, wishing luck to the rest of my international friends.
Shot by Austin Dalley on iPhone XR
As I write this, I sit outside in the sunlight of southern California, in my family home where I grew up. In a twist of irony, buying those last minute plane tickets from Israel to California drained me of the rest of the money I had left, and I landed back in California broke, at my family’s place, and back to what certainly felt like square one.
Except I know that it isn’t. Logically, I know that eventually the virus will end, and lives will eventually shift to some level of normalcy. What this experience reminded me, and really what my whole attempt at living in Europe reminded me of, is that no matter how much we try to plan, organize, and dictate our futures, we never really know how the fates are going to weave our lives. Inevitably something will come up, something will shift, and sometimes we may even change our minds. And I believe it's important for us not only as travelers, but as people, to internalize the notion that life won’t always be what we expect it to be. We have to learn to roll with waves, jump the obstacles, and keep going, no matter the circumstances. It’s easy to let uncertainty scare you and pull you back, but maybe we just need to change how we frame it all. Instead of looking at the mysteries of the future with anxiety, perhaps we just need to look at them as adventure, the great story of our lives, with action, triumph, and occasionally even tragedy, waiting to unfold.
So if you need me, catch me here in the California sun. But you better come soon, because before you know it, I’ll be back across an ocean, chasing where I know I’m destined to be...wherever that may be.