First Vacation in Years by Zachary Merold

Life just gets better and better as time goes on and everyday has the potential to be the best one yet. This was definitely true for me this summer. Before I tell you why, I suppose you should understand something about family. We almost never go on vacation, and it isn't so much by choice that this is, but rather because of responsibilities, pets being a prominent one. Our family of five has owned some bizarre pets over the years, from parrots to chickens. And as you might think, it isn't the easiest to find a chicken-sitter in New Jersey. Since I hadn't ever been out of the country before (besides that time I went to China when I was like 2 and have no recollection of) I was so excited to discover that I was going to Israel, but less so when hearing my mother and younger sister had to stay home because of those "responsibilities". Then came the worst part of the trip: the airplane ride.  While I'm not afraid of flying, being on a 12 hour flight still rattled me a bit, especially the landing. Once we were there, there was so many things foreign to my everyday life in Sparta, like the cuisine, languages, and religions. Overall, I would say the best thing about the trip was our tour of Petra, the "Rose City," earning this nickname because of the reddish tint in the sandstone it was carved in. Just for a little bit of history, Petra is one of the 7 World Wonders and was the capital of the Nabatean Empire which went through its prime from 9 B.C. to 40 A.D. The people of this city were experts in water manipulation and when carving the city into the sandstone walls, they made many irrigation tunnels to trap rainfall. The most interesting building I saw during the tour was definitely the Treasury. Below there are some pictures of it, and just look at how well the carving in it were preserved over the thousands of year it's been around. To get the picture from above we had to climb a rock face, which was an adventure in itself. The most tiresome part of the trip was the sweltering heat, which reached 120 degrees some days. Maybe next year I will be able to have another fantastic experience, but until then I will have to focus on my school work.