One goal of mine has always been to not stand out as a tourist. This whole trip we have carried around the classic camera satchel, the Fannie pack, the big bucket hat and have been taking an obnoxious amount of pictures and posing by everything and everyone. Standing out like a tourist and not blending in like a true Israeli always gives me weird vibes. But tonight of all nights……….. I felt just that.
Walking into this unfamiliar concert I could say all of us had no clue what to expect. Would it be an orchestra? Or would it be a dancing pump up concert ? We couldn’t tell by looking at this place. Walking into the Zavta Theater we finally take our seats. I was expecting a band to come on and start rocking out but instead an Arabic woman named Luna Abunaser came out and told us that this was an oriental rock festival. Still don’t know what that meant exactly but, we could tell it was a type of Mediterranean music with all different cultures combined jamming out. As she picked up her guitar it began to play the beat slow. As a group, we didn’t know how we felt about this. we watched the lights and smoke on the stage glisten in the dark as she was sang a soft song. We swayed to the quiet music. The second act comes out as she exits. Suddenly, different types of instruments appear, like an electric base, saxophone, clarinet and some drums. I think at this time we were all ready to jam out. The band members were shoeless and had a really cool vibe. Now, being the stand out tourists that we are, icnext cohort 4 gots out of our seats and danced crazy to this very exiting, upbeat and fun music. The whole room was staring at us. We were all dancing crazy – even Amnon was jamming to the music. Some others and I got a couple strangers from their seat to come dance with us. It was so funny. We were out of the norm but jamming and bumping to the beat of the music. At this time I loved being an obnoxious tourist. Standing out like this made me think about the mixed cultures in Israel and how different people with different identity make Israel what it is. This mixing of identities shows the culture of Israel in the music, the vibe, the life, the politics and everything. Standing out like a tourist was one of the funnest parts of the trip. It made me realize not only more about having fun as a group but also more about the mixing of identity in Israel.