Sprouting geysers in Iceland, where the venting ground is a dormant giant whale when not a volcano.

Travel offers an appreciation of nature’s marvels.

***

The ancient city engraved in pink stone— Petra, symbols and tombs the size of mountains— the Pyramids, a lover’s eulogy— Taj Mahal, an art collection’s most reveled sanctuary– Hermitage, and a once despised entrance arch—Le Tour Eiffel.

Travel gives an appreciation of Man’s marvels.

Travel is pilgrimage to holy places, Jerusalem, Lourdes, Mecca, Varanasi, catering to the mystical, the spiritual; magnificent temples immersed in gardens on precipices, often combining both nature’s and man’s marvels with a revered historical reference.

Travel enriches.

Travel is adventure, a suspension of reality, an escape to an unknown place, sharing an intimate moment with a complete stranger that feels familiar, under a clear night sky on a Greek Island, skinny dipping, fearless and daring.

Travel reminds us that we are born free.

Travel with someone reveals truths, exposes other sides, tests relationships.

Travel adds to a life’s experience.

Auschwitz, Hiroshima.

Travel reminds us of the horror and madness that man is capable of inducing.

But that is not the travel I wish to talk about today.

***

Working for a multinational consulting company in San Francisco some years ago, I was assigned a two week project in Ramallah, West Bank, Palestinian Occupied Territories.

Landing in Ben Gurion airport, Tel Aviv, I proceeded to immigration and security, feeling secure with my Canadian passport.

“First time in Israel?” the young girl behind the counter said. She must have been in her early twenties.

“Yes.”

“You were born in Jordan?” She leafed through my passport.

“Yes.”

After a few customary questions about the length and purpose of my visit, and after checking documents by my employer validating my assignment, she asked,

“Where are your parents from?”

“Here.”

Her eyebrows flinched.

“Where exactly?”

“My father is from Ramleh [not Ramallah] and my mother is from Jafa.”

“Please go to the office over there.”

She kept my passport and uttered something in Hebrew into her transceiver. I had arranged with my colleagues to meet at the airport, their flights having arrived before mine, and was anxious not to miss our connection. I had no experience navigating this terrain and my cell phone did not function.

After an hour’s wait with other Arabs, I finally got my turn.

“Are these your bags?” an officer said.

“Yes.”

He proceeded to ask me more questions, went through every boring detail in my bag, then took in his hands a book with music scores and flipped through its pages.

“So you play music huh?” he said with belittling amusement. I was reminded of the story of the Palestinian violinist, who was forced to play his violin before the guards at one of the check points in the West Bank. Luckily, piano is not a portable instrument.

Having found nothing suspicious, the officer ushered me to another check point where my bags and I passed through two X-ray machines. After being cleared by the machines, he had the chutzpah to ask,

“Do you have any bombs on you?”

I wasn’t sure of the purpose of the question.

***

Graffiti in Palestine. Photo: iStock

Up until then, I’d only met Palestinians in Diaspora. My first encounter with Palestinians in their homeland was in Ramallah, a run-down place that, compared to Gaza, I was told, is considered the San Francisco of the Occupied Territories. I felt a sense of belonging with the people and the land. It was a strange feeling that I could only approximate to what I imagined to be the feeling of an orphan meeting his biological parents for the first time. After completing my work assignment, I spent a couple of days traveling around Palestine-Israel. I made sure to get a taxi with a license plate that allows it to travel in and out of Israel.

We headed to Ramleh, which became part of Israel proper – not the occupied territories – in 1948. We asked people to point us to City Hall. That was easy to find.

An unmistakable edifice, looking more like an overgrown house, sat in a vast plot of green against the backdrop of olive trees. The taxi stopped and I stepped out. Green grass, well kempt, covered the spacious porch before the entrance.

The façade had pink undertones and was beautified by arches and columns wrapping around a large balcony. As I drew closer, the immense edifice towered over me, making me feel very little. Perhaps it wasn’t really that immense but it did make me feel little. There was no one else but the structure and I.

Security cameras plastered high on the walls gave me the sense that I was being watched, made me feel like a trespasser. I must have looked suspicious for I really had no business being there, walking around this municipal government building.

Except that this house and this land, covering an area of 29.34 dunams (7.25 acres,) belongs to Shukri Rizk, my late grandfather. He had built it in 1947 and had no time or chance to enjoy it or bequeath it to my father.

1948. Forced expulsion. Compensation: nil.

I was defeated by a combination of pain and helplessness. I quickly extricated myself and walked away, re-entered the taxi and took off, never looking back.

My father still preserves the property’s proof of ownership. Many other Palestinians still hold on to such documents, for what they’re worth, for mine is a world governed by the rule of power not the rule of law, and what is history but a fable agreed upon, as Napoleon once said. Except, it is not agreed upon.

Travel nostalgia— you ask?

Exile— I say.

Travel enriches and travel impoverishes the heart as well.

(Today, there are over four and a half million Palestinian refugees registered with the U.N.)

This thought visited me again most recently when I travelled to attend a conference and unpacked my favorite navy blue suit out of my suitcase, the one I usually put on when I am about to meet a bunch of very serious people.

Mankind, I said to myself as I examined the state of my official uniform, was able to squeeze billions of documents and complex data inside a tiny microchip, retrieve them at will, save them back and then retrieve them again in mint condition. All inside a piece of silicon the size of a finger nail. Mind-boggling stuff, almost like magic, we all agree.

However, we have not yet figured out a way to place a business suit inside the common suitcase and retrieve it at our destination without creasing the hell out of it. If that task is physically impossible, why can’t the federation of world manufacturers of travel bags come together and decide to rename the famous suitcase to something else, like underwearcase or sockscase, since it has been forensically proven that the worst item you can fold into a suitcase is an actual bloody suit?

You try to fix the problem.

Some hotels often leave you an ironing kit inside your room, assuming that you have just arrived in a luxury hotel and would want to start performing a tedious manual task, one you have not even considered attempting when you were a broke student, let alone the guest of a five star hospitality institution. This makes me wonder even more.

Mankind was able to invent machines whereby you insert a thin disc into an automatically sliding compartment and a crystal clear moving picture comes out on the screen. We perfected machines where you throw in a small sack of plastic, press a button, and a nice cup of espresso comes out of the other end, with a choice range from Bourbon Amarelo to Decaffeinato Intenso. Yet, we still cannot fix the creased shirts dilemma; we cannot invent a machine in which to throw all those garments with the nasty wrinkles and receive them crisp and silky at the other end.

Blindfolded, I’ll put my money on the inventor who starts drawing the designs for the next big thing: The Decreasinator, the portable device that is certain to outsell the entire world’s output of DVD players, suitcases and coffee machines, combined.

Such is the folly of scientific achievement in our world today, which is only a reflection of the inherent deficiencies in the evolution of our brains. We can send a rover light years away to reach and photograph planet Mars, but we still cannot reach out to each other to resolve our differences back on Earth. We can discover DNA and map the human genome, yet we are unable to find a cure for the common cold. We can peek at other galaxies with giant telescopes and google-earth our houses and backyards, but we still cannot locate Osama bin Laden’s hideout in the mountains of Terroristan.

We can remove a human heart and replace it with an artificial or even an animal equivalent, yet we cannot get rid of simple bad breath. We can afford to spend trillions on building enough bombs to turn Earth into dust in seconds, yet we cannot allocate a small fraction of our nations’ wealth to fund research to cure cancer.

We can invent technologies that enable us to talk to each other across continents at the press of a speed dial, yet we miserably fail to communicate with each other face to face to avoid waging genocidal wars against each other. We can build gravity-defying flying machines that serve Dom Perignon while crossing the Atlantic or send a man to the moon and bring him back, yet we cannot achieve peace between Arabs and Jews that would send a Palestinian child walking to school without the risk of getting killed.

Indeed, we can espouse many stubborn beliefs linking us to a benevolent, omnipotent Creator of this life, yet we are unable to recognize that the single most act this Creator would abhor is the unnecessary taking of this same life in His very name.

It is obvious that we have got our priorities mixed up somewhere along the way. For example, I could never understand how so many people can get overly obsessed with the prospect of certain species becoming endangered, all along oblivious to the impending extinction of our own kind in a man-made nuclear holocaust. Why are we so worried that killer sharks, for instance, are dwindling in numbers?

What possible inconvenience can such an eventuality add to our already complicated daily lives, apart from many divers and surfers feeling safer while frolicking in the oceans? What great loss to humanity has the extinction of dinosaurs brought about anyway, except to make Steven Spielberg much richer than he already had been?

I bet you if these giant lizards were running around today causing mayhem to lives and properties, we would make them extinct yet again, because all the arguments about protecting the eco-balance of mother nature would go down the green drains they came from when you or your child are being chased down the street by a hungry Tyrannosaurus Rex. You and I would kill the bastard without hesitation, even if it was the very last one walking the Earth, and so would all conservationist freaks, although they wouldn’t like to admit it.

The same goes for snakes and alligators. I, for one, am not going to lose sleep if none of these nasty reptiles are left to spread their venom and terror, and will be very happy if my wallet or shoes were made of raccoon skin instead. My children are not going to mind either, and are going to be equally happy poking fun at elephants or chimpanzees when they go to a zoo, because neither of them has yet complained that they cannot go Apatosaurus back-riding on the weekend.

Don’t get me wrong here, but I’ve had it with the fantasy world of the scaremongering green industry. Their alarmist tactics have gone too far, and their conviction in their trade has turned into zealotry, seldom relying on solid scientific grounds. For example, I’ve always had a hunch that Al Gore’s dabbling in documentaries had more to do with his apocalyptic mood after conceding the election to a monkey than him sincerely fearing the extinction of all monkeys.

I’ve always felt that his “Inconvenient Truth” was never really about truth as much as it was about the re-invention of Al Gore as the savior of this planet. I was right. Last November, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the best experts on global warming that money cannot buy and the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize along with Al Gore for their work on the subject, finally published their findings.

Contrary to the green lobby’s assertion that a 20-foot wall of water would drown low lying cities in the near future, the IPCC predicted that oceans would rise by no more than one foot over the next century, as they have also risen by one foot during the last 150 years, a natural phenomenon that we have hardly noticed when it did happen. Here is a conclusive quote from their report: “Catastrophic scenarios about the beginning of an ice age… are mere speculations, and no climate model has produced such an outcome. In fact, the processes leading to an ice age are sufficiently well understood and completely different from those discussed here, that we can confidently exclude this scenario.”

There is a lot more evidence out there to prove that Al Gore’s hysterical claims are not only unfounded exaggerations, but at points mere fabrications. I am not saying that we therefore should continue desecrating our environment and continue burning those fossil fuels as if there is no tomorrow. On the contrary, there is nothing I find more detestable than the black diesel fumes coming out of all those trucks and buses on the streets of Amman.There is nothing I despise more than a family not cleaning up every single piece of litter after a picnic in the Dead Sea.

But for Al Gore to make a movie telling us to start building Noah’s Arc because of carbon emissions, while ignoring the real catastrophe of his country’s intentional littering of Iraq with thousands of tons of depleted uranium – a substance so poisonous that its cancerous qualities have a staggering half-life of 4.5 billion years, a substance that has already caused a cancer epidemic for those Iraqis who were fortunate to survive the unprovoked war against their country – this I find to be the most immoral course of distraction from the real environmental evil facing our planet, and is in my opinion the lowest depth of unashamed hypocrisy.

My son will hate me for saying this, but to hell with all the sharks. Let us first worry about the well-being and survival of human beings. Once we’ve achieved that – and we are very far from doing so at the current rate – then, and only then, we can perhaps start dedicating resources towards saving the great white killers, and all those other man-eating beasts out there that we like to stare at as long as they are securely chained in captivity.

Take care, and if you ride – or scuba dive – do it safely.

This article was originally published in Jordan’s Living Well magazine

In the early morning, I took a walk across St. Petersburg that would take me all day, crossing the waters, landing on islands, and visiting both well-known and lesser-know tourist sites, not to mention discovering hidden surprises that the city still had up its sleeve.

I started on Nevsky Prospect and went up over two bridges, each adorned with a different sculptural theme. I saw a lovely church built in a style very similar to that of St Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow! Hmmm… Wasn’t the original architect killed? – I wondered

I then quickly realized that St. Petersburg didn’t even exist when he was alive. Whatever his destiny was, he and his vibrant style were revived when the St. Petersburg church was built in the late nineteenth century.

This Church On Spilled Blood, as it is called, was built on the spot where on the first of March 1881, Czar Alexander II was assassinated. His successor commissioned a magnificent church to commemorate his father in the Russian revivalist style.

A park nearby lead me to the Arts Square, where the Russian Museum is located and another weird story of murder was played out in the beginning of the 1800’s. The Mikhaylovskiy Castle was built on orders of Paul I, who was obsessed with the possibility of assassination. The castle was surrounded by moats and draw bridges and supplied with secret underground passages to help in rescue. Alas, all those precautions were futile in the face of destiny, and he was murdered only 40 days after moving into his fortified haven!

At the moat I saw many young Russians throwing coins at small statue under one of the bridges nearby, driven by the belief that their wishes could be granted if their coin balanced itself on the statue without falling into the river Moyka, a tradition that has endured since since long ago. I didn’t try my luck; after all, what more can I wish for?

I crossed a few bridges and passed through a park dedicated to the 1917 revolution up onto a another magnificent bridge and into the other side of town, Petrogradskaya, where the famous Peter and Paul Fortress is. On the way there, a small building hidden between grand empire style ones, stands where the most important house in St Petersburg once stood. This is where the orders to create St. Petersbourg were issued, inside a wooden hut constructed in three days for Peter the Great when he first stayed here. As the city started to grow, Peter ordered that humble wooden hut to be replaced with another stone building to preserve it for the coming generations. Preserving history is one theme the Russians are masterful at.

All along my journey I encountered stories of how they covered a whole palace in sand to protect it during WWII, or how they covered a certain historical statue in huge amounts of concrete for the same reason, and how they faithfully rebuilt everything as it used to be following destruction.

Now. another marvel of preservation is docked just around the corner from Peter’s old house, a testimonial to Russian pride and determination. The Cruiser Aurora entered active service in 1903. On the morning of October 25, 1917 it signaled the storming of the Winter Palace and the beginning of the end of the Revolution. The Soviets preserved it, then deliberately sank it to the bed of the river when the Germans approached to protect it. They rose it again as they rose themselves, reclaiming it as national symbol of not just the revolution, but persistence and determination in the face of danger as well.

After checking out the Aurora, I was approaching the Peter and Paul Fortress when I noticed a big blue dome. A mosque? Couldn’t be. Even if there were Muslims this far north, would there be enough to build a big mosque? Would the capital of the czars have a grand mosque among the hundreds of churches and cathedrals? No way. Curious, I took a detour, and saw a grand blue gate complete with calligraphic verses from the Quran and intricate mosaics and muqarnas. It is as if the genie of the lamp carried this mosque on the palm of his hand from Samarqand or Bukhara and brought it here in the blink of an eye.

It was not prayer time and that gate was closed, but I wasn’t going to leave without exploring. I found a rear entrance. There was a gathering of solemn people there, a funeral procession was on hand. These people didn’t look any different from the people I encountered on the streets, and they spoke Russian. They were Russian Muslims. As the funeral procession left, I walked towards the back door to find prayer times and the time of Iftar and Suhur and Imsak transliterated in Cyrillic alphabet using Arabic words. I saw a sign proclaiming, in Arabic and Russian, the headquarters of the Muslim community in St Petersburg and Northwest Russia.

I entered, and proudly using my clearly Arabic Asslamau Alaykum, greeted the men inside. Unfortunately, no one spoke Arabic, even though they were able to recite the Quran in its original language. Another language saved the day, it wasn’t Russian, nor the internationally esteemed English, but another important and influential Muslim language: Turkish. I found out that the Imam who answered me was from Turkey. He introduced me to the Tatar Muslim Imams.

I learnt from him that this mosque was built about a hundred years ago by the local Muslims in the capital of the Russian empire, significantly helped in its establishment by the Emir of Bokhara. I also learnt that there are about 800 thousand Muslims in St Petersburg alone, and they have their own local newspaper. By no means are the local Muslims only Tatar, there are Muslims from everywhere, including local converts too.

After that refreshing moment of contemplating the great Islamic civilization, I went back outside and finally arrived at the Peter and Paul Fortress. As soon as I went inside, I was transferred back to Europe after having my unbelievable sojourn to the lands of Islam. Many museums fill its old buildings; some dedicated to daily life in old St Petersburg, to the history of the fort and the navy. There are even torture chambers.

The main centerpiece is a little church with a huge golden spire than can be seen from all sides of the city. In this church lie the remains of the Romanovs, including those of the last czar and his family, that were transferred here a few years ago in an official ceremony. A lovely panoramic passage on top of the walls is sure to orientate any visitor to how this city is incredibly arranged around the delta of the Neva. There is a beautiful sandy beach where the people gather, swim, and tan in summer, and even enjoy the freezing waters in winter and New Year celebrations.

I proceeded to Vasilevsky Island. Facing from this side are two huge Rostral columns pierced by protruding boats, following a Roman custom to celebrate Naval victories. Just behind these columns is the Navy Museum, as well as the first and oldest museum in Russia: the Kunstkammer, home to Peter’s original cabin of curiosities and a more recent and very interesting ethnographic museum. And just in front of them are water fountains in the river and, of course, a long line of brides and grooms and their families waiting to take pictures against this national backdrop.

I took the suburban royal railway leading to Tsarskoye Selo, the magnificent palace of Catherine the Great. The palace is in the middle of a large estate, surrounded by rolling wooded hills extending for miles and miles, intercepted by streams and ponds in the middle of which are nice islands you can reach in Gondolas. The sun was shining on the fallen autumn leaves, making the pathways leading to the palace appear to be paved with gold.

Real gold did blind my eyes as soon as I entered this baroque palace. Reconstruction works are still going on since it was destroyed during the Nazi invasion. In every room there are pictures showing the stages of its life before the war, after destruction, and during the ongoing restoration. The most magnificent of all these rooms is the Amber Room, where verything is made of amber of different shades, arranged like a mosaic from the floor to the ceiling.

The next station on the same royal track was Pavlovsk. I didn’t even enter this palace because I lost myself to the charms of its densely forested grounds. I just kept on walking through the fairy tale forest.

The next day I discovered that I didn’t need to leave the city in order to reach the wilderness and enjoy nature. The Kamennyy and Yelagin Islands can easily reached by metro and a short stroll. They are like sanctuaries within the city where no cars are allowed. I spent my day there walking, resting, and marveling at the surroundings, while thinking that I understood why the Russian people are so great at art and music and literature. Such nature is bound to inspire, and the proof is the multitude of peopl who fill these parks: painting in oil, or playing the guitar, or reciting Pushkin love poems to each other.

I showed pictures of Jordan to the people I met; they marveled at my home country, and I marveled at theirs. And with such warm thought of home I started my return journey by taking train back to Moscow.

I had one day to spend in Moscow before my flight and had a hard time deciding what to squeeze in on my last day in Russia. To avoid disappointed looks when I arrived home, I decided to get gifts. Ismailovo park is the local flea market where traditional arts and crafts, furs and hand woven woolen scarves, matryoshka dolls and numerous other memorabilia can be bought at a nice price. All of that you can find in middle of an architectural park with huts, palaces, and markets made of wood in the traditional style.

I then took the metro to visit an unfinished palace of Catherine the Great. Tsaritsino was a lovely venue to end my visit. A romantic chateau in the middle of a lovely landscaped park with a huge lake and choreographed water fountains. History, nature, people, tradition and, naturally, many brides and grooms too. A good summary of my visit and what I enjoyed during my stay.

Russia is neither a mystery nor a riddle to me anymore. After being there, meeting its people, understanding its history, acknowledging its huge expanse and variety of cultures, I recognized it as a beautiful mosaic of people. In this, the largest country in the world, ethnicities are woven together to create a collective motherland each individual can be proud of.

In the cold, Amman is a quieter place. Sound carries. Sunlight is milky and diluted. The nights are more energetic, now that new bars and restaurants are welcoming residents and travelers into their cavernous, smoky insides. For myself, I have now discovered Loki, the place that everyone started talking about a long time ago. As an infrequent traveler, I hope I can be forgiven for my lateness and general un-hipness.

The joke goes that Jordan is stuck “between Iraq and a hard place.” And yet for a nation literally bordered by conflicts, Jordan has done fairly well for itself, all things considered. It remains a favourite with tourists who are particularly keen on history and nature (although international brand-name luxury certainly has its presence in Amman, the Dead Sea, and beyond). The economy has been growing, and the currency is pretty strong.

The Islamic Action Front, a conservative political party, has suffered losses in Jordan’s most recent parliamentary elections. This may have something to do that the economy appears to be a top priority to the electorate, but personally, I’m not sure either way. Jordanian society as a whole is still pretty conservative, but Amman in particular has mellowed out some. I used to feel my foreignness keenly in Amman. Perhaps I’ve mellowed out as well.

In many public places, hotels especially, metal detectors are a reminder of the bombings of November 2005.

The metal detectors have a dual effect: they both inspire a feeling of safety, and remind one that there is no such thing as safety. Although, where in the world is really safe to begin with? I suppose I could bundle up and stick it out in my old ancestral lands in the Ukrainian countryside, or else in the North Carolina mountains, but then there would be people-smugglers and fundamentalists to fear, respectively.

Today, the threat of terrorism in Amman is a whispered threat. Upon a casual observation, it doesn’t quite seem real. You want to relegate it to the ghost-world, to the realm of the Chupacabra and the Abominable Snowman. Desire doesn’t always correspond with reality, however, and in the Levant this is especially so.

But you don’t want to think about these things in the waning days of winter, when women in niqab look badass in leather trenchcoats and shawerma places stand with their doors propped open, exhaling hunger and heat. It’s perilous to try to guess the future, but hope reverberates here, like adhan in those hours when a lazy bum like me has to stop for a second and marvel at how people manage to get up while all I am capable of doing is burrowing further under the blanket and away from the lingering cold.

The olive trees creak on the wind and sleepy cab-drivers honk irritably as a new day presses upon Amman. It’s gorgeous and unfussy, like the women stomping their cold feet at the bus-stops, like the gentle curves of the hills. After I finally come awake and face the music, a Ukrainian woman who dyes my hair tells me, while laughing, a story of her husband beating up her old boss when the latter tried to solicit sex from her. Throughout the day, different people relate the same grim suspicions about the famous Abdoun suspension bridge, a marvel of modernity, that’s “probably built with crap-materials.” Why? Who knows? And anyway, the bridge is so, so pretty that the doomsday talk surrounding it reminds me of a Morrissey lyric: “to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.”

I wish I could stay for weeks, eat mansaf until I’m fat and happy, listen to tales of terror surrounding gas prices, talk about the apparent plans for the prettification of Queen Alia International Airport (hey! I like it just the way it is! Oh wait, no one’s asked me…). I wish I came here more often. That’s the thing about Amman. It may not be obvious, it may not be in-your-face, but it is subtly, dangerously charming, even as it changes and morphs and breaks apart and comes together, like a craggy kaleidoscope before your eyes.

Like most people, I have heard a lot about the Hermitage, but never in my wildest dreams expected it to be as stupendous as it turned out to be. Everyone knows the Hermitage is grand, not everyone realizes what “grand” truly means.

The museum is located on the waterfront, surrounded by statues. Behind it is a vast open square in the middle of which is the largest podium made of a single piece of granite in the world. The palace itself was built to host the collections of art and sculpture and curiosities that the Russian Empire both produced and collected, beginning at the time of Catherine the Great.

Nothing was spared as successive Russian monarchs tried their best to benefit their country by sending agents to gather and assemble precious collections of art, as well as commission Russian and international artists and architects to design and build. The mere size of the St. Petersburg museum made me realize that at least several other world museums can easily fit inside this gargantuan wonderland.

Once you enter the maze of the Hermitage, even a compass or the latest GPS system, even a laser-guided tour, will not save you from getting lost in its vastness. Your mind will wander in its labyrinth and your heart will jump in every new room you encounter. It is simply endless.

The Hermitage boasts huge exhibits centered Romans, Greek, Egyptian, and Babylonian civilizations, rooms that not many people know about. Add to that precious collections of paintings from every epoch and every school of art. Add carvings, sculptures, artifacts, tapestries, and so on. This is beside the fact that the presentation itself is just as priceless:

Each new hall and gallery has a different theme. The floors vary from marble mosaics to wooden parquet of every conceivable color and design, created with loving care, like a painting that you can walk on. The ceiling decorations vary from oil-paint to gold decorations, while the walls are adorned with lamps, curtains, and accessories. Every hall is also furnished with huge vases, lamps, or tables made of precious and semiprecious stones.

Days and days, if not lifetimes, can be spent in the Hermitage. I tore myself out of there and into the outside world again with considerable difficulty.

The city of St. Petersburg greeted me with islands, canals, and bridges. It’s no wonder they call this place “the Venice of the North.” The people who built Petrograd, as some Russians affectionately call it, didn’t economize on anything.

The only real problem of exploring St. Petersburg is the weather. It was too cold to walk much, and as the sun set, I had my Iftar and conserved my energy for a new day.

The next (chilly) morning, I went to the Hermitage waterfront and embarked on the hydrofoil river and sea cruise, crossing the delta of the famous Neva River into the sea, working my way into the heavily forested shores on the outskirts of the city. In an hours time we reached a small quay that lead in to a long canal, disembarking just in time for the sun to shine briefly between the clouds. One begins to miss the sun in St. Petersburg, I can promise you that much.

The canal itself was built for the royal family to approach the Peterhof Palace. This palace was built for Peter the Great, the despot and dreamer who pushed through reforms that modernized Russia. He was the one who established the Russian navy, and was described as helping tp building ships with his own hands. He bought collections of curiosities from Europe and central Asia and founded the first Russian museum, the Kunstkammer in Moscow, housing his “cabin of curiosities”. Above all, he is the father of St. Petersburg.

Peterhof was built to celebrate Peter’s victory over the Swedes and his annexation of this area into his realm. Again, no expense was spared. The gardens are actually forests of trees, flowers, statues, and water fountains crisscrossed by elegant pathways, beautifully designed so that one suddenly finds oneself walking upon hidden houses, huts or palaces, places Peter hosted guests.

The surroundings are dreamy, yet in his unique sense of humor Peter made sure the visitors wouldn’t surrender completely to fantasies by waking them up through a series trap fountains like water guns. These devices shoot jets of water onto passers-by if they step on a certain tile, sit on a specific bench, or even if a certain path has too many visitors.

The entrance to the upper gardens and the main palace is nothing like I have seen, anywhere. Golden statues and water fountains by the hundreds fill the grand plaza leading to the palace. Most prominent of all is the statue of David, forcing open the mouth of a lion with his bare hands. The lion is Sweden, and the muscular David signifies Peter himself.

After a lengthy exploration of the striking palace itself (how many adjectives can I dig up to describe it all? I am beginning to run out of words), I spent the rest of the day in the gardens, enjoying the newly re-emerged sun and the fresh air. I planned the next day to be one of urban exploration.

The sun graced Moscow with its presence on my fourth day in town, and so I therefore decided to stay outdoors and visit the open-air memorial known as Park Pobedy (“pobeda” means “victory” in Russian).

This place commemorates what the Russians refer to as the Great Fatherland War, or what we call the Second World War.

The vast open passage to the memorial park is absolutely breathtaking:

There are rows and rows of water fountains gushing dramatically upward and a giant obelisque piercing the air, topped with sculptures of angels of peace.

There is the sense of beauty here, and violence; violence that remains in Russian memory.

Inside the park are various exhibitions showcasing tanks, fighter airplanes and jets, battleships, cannons and all types of heavy and light weaponry of the war. The exhibits are scattered beside ponds and forest groves. Here, fountains bristle with golden sunrays and falling leaves. Attached to all this are places of worship representing all three Abrahamic religions as a way to pay respect to the millions of different soldiers, those who joined hands during the defense of their shared Homeland.

Following this dramatic excursion, I went to the Kievsky Train Station and proceeded towards the house of Leo Tolstoy, a place not to be missed by literary buffs arriving in Moscow. I then crossed the river on a magnificent glass bridge and walked towards the famous Gorky Park (listen for a mention of it in the Scorpions’ “Wind of Change”).

Close by, there is another peculiar park, this one dedicated to fallen monuments. Some call it the “statue cemetery” as it also now home to many sculptures that were neglected or removed from their podiums after the fall of communism. This is a haunting (if not haunted) place.

There I was able to get a very close look at the modern statue of Peter the Great commemorating one of his many feats (this one, I believe, is dedicated to his establishment of the Russian navy). Walking along the river, I reached a pedestrian-only area that leads to the prestigious Zamoskvoreche neighborhood and the famous Triyatkov Gallery. To reach the gallery I had to cross the river again over a small bridge, this one planted with metal trees bearing fruits that looked, to my eyes, like locks. I was initially bewildered by this.

There, brides and grooms were making champagne toasts, and taking pictures with the lovely backdrop of tens of dancing water fountains embedded in the river itself. I quickly realized that, on the metal trees, thousands of locks were inscribed with the initials and dates of the lovers and couples who put them there, as a means of symbolizing their union and unbreakable bond. Well, that finally made sense.

As for the Tretiakov Gallery, it proved to be even bigger than the others I have seen so far. And entire history of Russian art is contained within its walls. Once again, I was amazed at just how much art, in all its forms, Moscow has to offer. It’s a continuous visual onslaught, and one surprise after another, relentless and vivid.

On my fifth day and last day in Moscow, I went back to the Red Square, now that it was open again. I stood and marveled at the beauty of the architecture and its historical significance.

Who doesn’t know the colorfully domed St Basil’s Cathedral? And yet, who knows what price was paid for its beauty?

St. Basils’ cost the architect his life. Ivan the Terrible, who commissioned the church to celebrate his annexation of Kazan (the Tatar capital), ordered him dead after seeing his work. This was done to make sure that the architect would not create anything like it again, that St. Basil’s would remain unique and unsurpassed. Amazing, the sort of logic the ancient tyrants had.

One of the Red Square’s less known attractions, is the podium where the Czar used to speak. Yet the Lenin mausoleum, opposite the GUM Mall, is nearly as famous as St. Basil’s, I believe (although it doesn’t show up as much on postcards).

I then visited more of the main metro stations, that were, and still are, the pride of communist architecture, built to impress the world with the mighty new Russian order. It was convenient and cheap to utilize the metro to get to the railway station, where I caught the afternoon train headed to the the ex-capital St Petersburg (or Leningrad, as it was called during Soviet Times). This city was awarded the status of Heroic City following WWII and the horrifying Nazi blockade. Its legacy of perseverance lives on to this day.

The great distance to St. Petersburg was covered swiftly by the Aurora Train that zipped directly from the capital to the former capital. I spent five hours enjoying the endless and deep forests, glittering, rivers and vast expanses of green landscapes studded with elegant wooden summer houses (better known in Russian as “datchas”).

I reached St Petersburg around ten at night and took the underground to my strategically located hotel on the famous Nevsky Prospect street. Right across the street was the stroganoff palace where the original beef stroganoff was developed. And yet, what excited me more was the fact that I was now only five minutes away from the Hermitage, one of the greatest museums in the world.

I had a slow start on the third day of my Russian adventures, but did finally make it to the Moscow History Museum.

This place tells the story of human civilization through four million exhibits, spanning thousands of years from the Stone Age and on. The museum puts a lot of emphasis on the various peoples and cultures that comprise the Russian Federation.

For that matter, a stroll down any Moscow street can be a very informative ethnographic experience. Russian citizens’ backgrounds are extremely varied. My friend Renata for example has Russian (Slavic) and Tatar blood running through her veins, while other friend Dzera is half-Russian and half-Ossetian. On my trip, I met people of German, Baltic, Swami, and Central Asian heritage, among many others.

All of these ethnic groups and more are represented in the Museum. It was peculiar to see the personal belongings of past czars and church patriarchs next to shamanic tools and flint stone daggers, such contrast!

However, one of the exhibits that especially moved me was devoted to the late Imam Shamel of the Caucasus. There was his portrait in oil, as well as his personal dress and kamas (daggers) next to official letters handwritten and signed by him. To my astonishment, the language of these documents was Arabic and not Chechen, despite the fact that they were official written orders and directions to his followers and agents. The history of interaction between Russian and Arab cultures had never seemed more tangible to me as it did when I stood next to that exhibit.

Suddenly feeling even more at home in Russia, I decided to try my newly-instilled confidence and maneuvered the Moscow underground on my own. I traveled to the outskirts of the city to a place called Novodevichiy Convent. This five hundred-year old establishment is heavily fortified, like most convents in Russia. The wealth of the convents, coupled with unstable politics, made them a target for all sorts of unwelcome attention.

The Russian church’s wealth dazzled me throughout my trip. I should not have been too surprised, though, as my parents and grandparents always mentioned rich, Russian-made adornments in the churches of Jerusalem. I myself witnessed the Orthodoxy’s exuberance, when it donated the golden dome of the Baptismal Church on the river Jordan.

It should be noted that the convents were originally fortified against the Tatar threat in particular. The Tatars of the Golden Horde kept on receiving tribute from the Russian principalities and kept on raiding deep into Russia up till they started getting defeated themselves, their territories falling into Russian hands. Yet the Russians didn’t eradicate their occupied nations upon their expansion towards the Pacific Ocean. They definitely didn’t subscribe to the ethnic cleansing or reservation policy applied to the Native Americans, for example.

In fact, the Tatar city of Kazan is still the capital of Tatarstan, where the residents are still Muslims, still speaking their language and celebrating their traditional holidays. Furthermore, despite being conquered, the Tatars themselves conquered a part of Russia’s collective culture. There are many names and words in the Russian language that come from Tatar origins. There is even a saying: “scratch a Russian and you will find a Tatar underneath”.

Meanwhile, inside the seemingly impenetrable walls of the Novodevichiy Convent, there are multiple old buildings: museums and churches worth visiting. The surrounding area outside the convent is dominated by a large lake, ringed with romantically shaded sidewalks around, bustling with children and old folks, all gleefully feeding the ducks.

Death and the afterlife are celebrated in the adjacent cemetery. Leaders, thinkers, musicians and writers, in short the crème de la crème of Russian history and society, are buried here. Here lies Chekhov. Here lies Tupolev. The various monuments, some simple, some elaborate, some religious, some secular, are a history lesson in and of themselves. Together they stand as a single reminder that even at its most beautiful, the world, to us, is a temporary place.

The second day in Russia started out gloomy too, yet it was significantly brightened up by my friend Dzera, who works in the fashion industry. Together we scouted Tverskaya, another fashionable location in downtown Moscow, walking past famous locations such as Café Pushkin and past neighborhoods with beautiful Arte Moderne houses. There we saw the Gorky House Museum that was built about a hundred years ago.

We also saw the world famous Bolshoi Theater (still closed for restoration then) and the Moscow conservatory. We did some shopping for chocolates in the elegant Yeliseev food hall. After this lengthy walk we opted to visit one of the most important artistic landmarks in Moscow: the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum.

I was overwhelmed with the variety of exhibits spanning thousands of years of human civilization in art, sculpture, and painting. The Greeks, Romans, even ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians were represented. Large life-size reproductions of famous classical sculpture or temples were done faithfully. Slowly, from room to room, I was taken through different epochs and generations of painters and paintings: Dutch, Italian, Russian and more. Seeking rest from all the exuberance, we walked out of the museum to find a café near the river, but as soon as we were out I was distracted by the huge cathedral nearby and couldn’t resist dragging my tired body towards it.

This was the visit’s recurring theme: Whenever I decided to have a rest I found something else to feast my eyes on and struggled to reach it, like travelers in the desert struggling to reach that mirage of water. Yet in my case, there were no mirages, just more and more hidden treasures.

Anyway, the massive Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer has an interesting history as it was built in celebration of Moscow’s deliverance from the occupation of Napoleon. Yet it was blown up on orders from Stalin to make a space for an outdoor swimming pool. God then redeemed it in 1995 when the Orthodox Church and ordinary people gathered a huge amount of money to rebuild it back to its original magnificence.

Beyond the cathedral, across the river, was another huge statue of Peter the Great and more sites that I decided to explore on my own later. I was tired and hungry and desperate for some respite but had to raise enough energy to head back towards the Kremlin and choose my Iftar (Iftar is the evening meal that breaks the daily fast during Ramadan, if you aren’t in the know) restaurant. Surprises, however, kept popping up out of nowhere.

Just as I stepped out of the underground I heard the faint noise of the bagpipe, and in a few moments I was face to face with a Scottish Highlander troupe, next to them were were Russian Cossacks. The military parade that had kept the Red Square closed on my arrival was not a Soviet-era bonanza of tanks and missiles, but a parade of international traditional army groups. Instead of finding a restaurant to eat I struggled on to inquire about the tickets and times for the parade to start. People directed Dzera and me to a booth in the street with the word “Kacca” (in Cyrillic), i.e., “Kassa” – just as in Arabic. These are small offices with catalogues listing what is on offer culturally around town: theaters, plays, classical music concert, ballet, opera etc. People young and old are always queuing around these booths leafing through the catalogues.

It was amazing to be somewhere where both young and old race each other for the last seats left in the Bolshoi Theater or the Tolstoy Orchestra, instead of just standing in long lines at the cinema, the latter being a rare in Russia.

Around Iftar time, just like the day before, I found myself in a place outside of the busy downtown. I was not hunting for fallen apples this time, but stood on a hilltop overlooking the Olympic stadium and the river and just in front of the magnificent Moscow State University, watching the young ones speed on their bikes and cars, just as the lights of Moscow sparkled to life.

I just had to pack and explore that massively huge country spanning half of the globe, encompassing hundreds of ethnicities, religions, and languages. A country that pioneered the space age and made great leaps in medicine and other fields of science, while its still-existing shamans practice their own medicine. A place that has historically believed itself as the successor to the great Byzantine Empire and eastern orthodox Christianity yet has a Muslim minority of about 20 million strong, not to mention Jews, Buddhists, Pagans, and Animists. A nation that contributed to the human civilization countless works of art, literature and music, science, the spirit of discovery and that colonial drive that put Europe in the lead for the last two centuries of human history. An empire that died and disintegrated then regenerated and reinvented itself over and over again. Who could resist? Not I.

A truncated version of the story of Russia goes something like this: some Vikings reached the Russian heartlands in Novgorod and Kiev via the mighty rivers that crisscross this part of Eastern Europe. These Vikings intermarried with Slavic Russian princesses thus creating and establishing the first Great Russian Empire and ruling Dynasty. The Kievan Rus dominated the whole area between the Baltic and the black sea to the point of even threatening the Byzantines themselves. Alas all that might and power was to be destroyed by the Mongols in the 13th century. The Mongol khanates ruled over the scattered Russian cities and principalities for a few hundreds of years till Moscow rose up and conquered the Tatar dominions one by one, culminating in their conquest of Kazan in the 16th century. That core of an early Russian empire collapsed for a hundred years of The Troubles with the death of Ivan the Terrible. This guy had killed his own son and thus left the throne without an heir. Charming.

The Troubles ended when the Romanovs succeeded in consolidating power and influence and started a mightier empire that would eventually reach the pacific and dominate central Asia as well as the Caucasus and Baltic. Even though Napoleon conquered Moscow and the city was nearly all burnt to the ground in the beginning of the 19th century, the Russians were to eventually triumph and their empire rose again and kept on growing for another century only to be decimated by the First World War and the Bolshevik revolution. Like the phoenix the Russian empire rose from the ashes to build a new state prophesying the triumph of the proletariat and embracing communism. Like all the empires before, it, predictably, collapsed. Yet what I saw in my trip were not the sorry sad scenes of defeat and after-effects of destruction, bur rather than the healthy signs of revival and steady build up of strength and confidence of a new entity that no doubt will be as mighty and modern as before.

Russia’s growing power was not the only misconception that was shattered when I reached Russia in person. My circle of friends and family and even my patients had many varying stereotypes in mind. Many of course mentioned the Mafia that will rob me the moment I step into Russia!!! Of course I wouldn’t have found it even if I looked for the mafia myself… after all I’m not a lucrative object. There are many outrageously rich Russians to target rather than run around pick-pocketing random backpacking foreigners. Others mentioned lack of security or the large number of drunkards I would face. Again, I can comfortably say that I felt much more safe walking around in Moscow and St. than in many other famous international cities I have been to before including some famous American cities. There were instances when I was taking the last underground train at night and sitting beside me was a boy at most 13 years of age, alone going back to his home.

Once while I was walking near the Kremlin around 1 am two girls blocked my way and smilingly asked me to please hug them. Of course so many gangster movies and assault and robbery scenarios crossed my mind at a flash of a second yet I couldn’t resist their smiles and decided to accept the invitation. Thank God I haven’t regretted my courageous response! Especially after making sure that I wasn’t missing a wallet or a watch or mobile afterwards. Later on several others crossed my way and I didn’t hesitate again to open my arms and welcome the affection, later to discover that this was a special hug festival and I was fortunate enough to encounter it. What I did regret was that I later learnt that the hug night was followed by a kissing night!

As for Russia’s famous drunk people, well, yes I have seen a few, but it definitely wasn’t annoying nor were they more in number than other drunks I have seen in Istanbul or New York or even in downtown Amman in rare incidents.

Poverty also was one of the things I was mentally prepared to encounter: poverty materially, and poverty in lack of national pride. But what I also saw was a booming economy with young people working hard to earn their living and pay for their studies.

While many people warned me of poverty, others warned me of the total and absolute opposite. They warned me about the fact that Moscow is now the most expensive city in the world and that I may not be able to have a nice stay without selling everything I own first. To my surprise, I was able to live and eat and transport myself for a very cheap price. The cities I visited boasted a huge variety of restaurants and cafes, hotels and hostels that can cater to all the tastes and egos. Add to that the superb and efficient public transport system that is so cheap and organized that I didn’t have the need to take any taxi or tour bus or prearranged trip.

Nor have I witnessed streets full cheap pleasures of the flesh. Such things could be found if I intended seek them. In many other places around the globe I definitely came across such scenes even without actually looking for them. Thus, the last of the misconceptions was shattered and instead of baring its flesh, Russia flaunted its art, beauty and culture in the days that followed.

I started preparing for this journey by reading books about Russia’s history and geography, its extensive railway network (the possibility to go all the way to Vladivostok on the railway has always intrigued me). I tried my best to learn as much Russian as I could.

This was a new type of trip for me: my own attempt at backpacking, and a declaration of independence from tourist agencies and pre-programmed travel. There were no tours to Russia from Jordan so I made my reservation through the Internet. I chose hostels that were centrally located within walking distance from the main sites and metro stations. Besides, hostels tend to provide a lone traveler like me with a chance to mix and mingle with like minded individuals from all over the world.

In Moscow I opted for a hostel oddly named Napoleon, near the Kremlin. Later on I found out that the famous Corsican stayed in the same street where my hostel was located. I would say I had a more successful sojourn in Russia than Napoleon did with his Grande Armee!

The Russians’ welcome was a warm one, but the weather was cold. Back in Amman it was about 28 degrees, and Moscow instantly cooled me off with its winds. Stoically I resigned myself to the fact that I won’t be able to take great photos in such cold windy and sometimes rainy weather and consoled myself with plans to check many of the indoor museums and art galleries that Moscow had to offer. Naturally I began with the most famous and most known: the Kremlin.

I reached the red square expecting to enjoy the magnificent views of the domes and spires of the towers and churches and the wall of the Kremlin itself I found my self facing a wall of guards instead. The square was cordoned off for a military parade planned later that evening and for a few evenings after it. I took a detour passing through a lovely building with the huge and famous name of GUM mall. Though the exterior is of late 19th century architecture the interior is modern, housing the most prestigious and most expensive and fashionable array of world famous brands. What was during Soviet times the main supermarket, department store, and outlet of copy-and-paste production of the communist regime is now the venue of Givenchy, Louis Vuitton, and so on. All that remains of the past is, ironically, the view from its windows overlooking Lenin’s memorial.

Speaking of Lenin, I have noticed that the Russians proudly and tenaciously cling to their history and traditions and do not erase the memory of all of their eras, epochs and phases, despite the stark contrast between them. Respect goes to old eastern Russia of Ivan as well as the modern westernized one of Peter. The Romanovs are loved and respected by many, and so are the communists too. It makes for an interesting mix.

Leaving GUM, I reached an open space at the end of the red square and saw the massive walls of the Kremlin in the distance. I hurried in that direction just to be distracted by a nice building here or an interesting site, statue, monument or park there.

On my left hand was a big building with guards wearing red cloaks and huge iron axes – the national history museum. Right in front of it was a big statue of the hero of Russian against Germany in WWII, Marshall Zhukov, mounted on a horse in the traditional pose of great heroes and conquerors. I entered through a simple gate into the area surrounding the walls of the Kremlin. Just behind the walls were some stone silent guards standing besides an elegant fire, the monument to the Unknown Soldiers who fell during the heroic defense in WWII. All along the wall from that side were marble slabs laid out on the ground along the walls leading to the gate. The slabs represent the main cities that were under occupation or invasion during WWII.

I had to wait for half an hour before the ticket offices opened, and was surprised to see many couples in their wedding clothes come quickly and pose for pictures amongst the flowers or in front of the fountain. I had to laugh at myself, wrapped in my winter clothes and woolen hat while the stream of brides posed under the light rain wearing strapless wedding gowns in this cold weather.

When the ticket-booths opened, I first started with the Armory. Inside the walls and in one historic building just near the wall of the Kremlin is a wonderful collection of treasures and curiosities belonging to the Russian state. The exhibits show how the Russians slowly rose from local princedoms with chiefs crowned in fur, knights with leather armor, curved swords and spiked helmets in the eastern tradition, to kings crowned in gold and precious stones, knights in full metal armor and baroque style uniforms in the European style. Besides politics and war there were other halls featuring original precious collections of clothes of famous emperors and empresses like Catherine the Great dress, or the huge boots of Peter the Great, who was said to be about 2.5m tall. Not to mention the dazzling wardrobes of priests and patriarchs and the whole hierarchy of the Russian church. Add to these a huge hall housing Cinderella-like golden carriages. And if all that wasn’t enough there is a special section dedicated to the diamonds and gold of the old czars, the famous Faberge eggs as well as jewelry and treasures of every kind.

After such an extravaganza, I needed to start my heart again and take a fresh breath of air, so I stepped outside to and found myself in the middle of an open plaza surrounded with cathedrals and churches, 800 years worth of Moscow’s Religious and political history from its inception till now. Here is the Czar’s bell, there is his cannon, in that convent this happened and in that palace that happened, icons filling the walls of churches and churches adorned with golden domes and the not so familiar orthodox cross that strangely is adorned with crescents. And every day at noon there is a solemn military parade of the guards.

I left the Kremlin to take a look at the life on the streets surrounding it. I had arranged to meet a friend. Renata was gracious enough to offer me the chance to introduce me to her own Moscow. Despite her young age she struck me as a seasoned journalist. We walked around downtown and the famous Arbat Street. So began the best part of this day, a personal tour of the nice, lesser known wonderful places rather than the tourist hot-spots.

I got my crash course in surviving the metro. Passing many elegant underground stations (marble! Where else do metro stations have marble?!?!), we reached the gardens of Kolomenskoe, a vast park on the outer rim of Moscow that was a private estate of the Romanovs. The clouds started to break and the sun slowly pierced through reflecting its golden rays on the first autumn leaves.

We visited wooden traditional huts, lodges, or “dachas” that were brought to this architectural park from all over Russia and again witnessed several brides and grooms take ceremonial pictures. We reached the peak of a hill where an elegant 16th century church is located. The view from this peak was amazing with the beautiful calm waters of the Moscow River winding around in front of us. I sat on the luscious green grass, listening to songbirds. Just before the sunset we moved towards the waterfront and from there up the hill again towards another hidden attraction: the apple gardens, hundreds of trees heavily loaded with deliciously ripe apples. After multiple failed attempts at picking an apple that didn’t want to be picked up from the branches yet, we raced to find the best freshly fallen apple on the ground which became the meal to break my first day of Ramadan fasting in Moscow with my greatly admired friend, Renata.

Motorcycle Diaries Part VII was deemed too “local” for our tastes, but we do hope you enjoy the triumphant return of the series in Part VII.

(This article was originally published in Jordan’s Living Well magazine)

I lost my gloves one day in a coffee shop in Geneva, and I tell you, it’s difficult to ride without them when it’s really cold. So as I was paying for a new pair with a credit card, the salesman, whom I knew was from Israel, tried to start some small talk by asking me what my family name means. I told him that it relates to the city of Nablus where my family is originally from.

Suddenly, the most bewildered look was plastered on his face. “Where is Nablus?” he asked, “I’ve never heard of it.” Then, after realizing that I knew he was bullshitting me, he pretended to remember, “Ah, Shkheim you mean?”With my insistence not to learn these ugly names that the deranged Zionists have dug up from oblivion to erase our identity, that name certainly didn’t ring a bell. But now it was my turn. Although I knew where he was from, I asked “And you’re… from?” As he smiled while reminding me, I replicated the same look on his face moments ago. “Israel? Where is that?” Then after a brief pause, “Ah, the land of Canaan you mean. Palestine”.

You see if you want to get biblical on me, there is no such thing as Israel either, and I made that clear to this smartass. Here we were all of a sudden; my family descended from a place called Shkheim, and this guy a Palestinian. God does work in mysterious ways, but I still thanked Him for His small mercies that at least my name was not Zaid Shkheimy. “Have a nice day”, I told my Israeli friend. It was in fact a very cold, but still magnificently sunny day to hit the roads. The gloves warmed up my grip on the bike, but my heart was still frozen. I just cannot stand thieves who steal your gloves, or any other kind of thieves.

It was then that it finally occurred to me. Zionism is a sickness, for it takes much more than just a twisted ideology to make people think like that. It requires a profound leap of immorality of a higher order to instill this mentality in your followers. Zionism is not merely a political movement, but in its essence represents a deeply disturbed view of the world, which is a reflection of a terrible disease of the mind.

Indeed, to deny the existence of a vibrant community such as the Palestinian society in the early twentieth century and describe Palestine as “a land without a people for a people without a land” is a disease of the mind.

To assert property claims over real estate after the lapse of more than 2000 years with the same certainty of title as if one resided there yesterday is a disease of the mind.

To describe the colonial immigration to Palestine of a European people with no proven historical link to the ancient Israelites – and whose great, great recorded ancestors have never set foot there – as some kind of a “return” to that land is indicative of a perverted misunderstanding and misapplication of the verb to “return” and can only be a result of a disease of the mind.

To blame the Palestinians for being unreasonable in rejecting a partition plan in 1947 which gave the Jews, who only owned 7 percent of the land, an astonishing half of Palestine, is a disease of the mind.

To demand of the Arabs at the time to peacefully succumb to such partition, where 86 percent of the land designated for the proposed Jewish state was Palestinian-inhabited and owned land, is a disease of the mind.

To eventually grab 78 percent of Palestine through war and to force the flight of the population through deliberate massacres and then call it a war of independence is a disease of the mind.

To deny the orchestrated massacres and eradications of hundreds of Palestinian villages in 1948 and then denounce the Israeli historians who later exposed this truth as self-hating Jews is a disease of the mind.

To claim that having escaped the horrors of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, and Dachau is a justification for the murder, expulsion, and occupation of another guiltless people is a disease of the mind.

To legislate that any resident of Poland, Hungary, New York, Brazil, Australia, Iceland, or even Planet Mars, who happens to be blessed with a Jewish mother (yet cannot point to Palestine on the map) has a superior right to “return” and settle in Palestine to someone who has been expelled from his very own land, confined to a squalid refugee camp, and still holds the keys to his house, is a disease of the mind.

To blame God for the theft and occupation of someone else’s land by claiming that it was He who had pledged this land exclusively to the Jews, and to seriously promote the myth of a land promised by the Almighty to His favorite children as an excuse for this crime, is a disease of the mind.

To milk the pockets of the world for the atrocities of the Nazis, while stubbornly refusing a simple admission of guilt, let alone compensation or repatriation, for the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people is a disease of the mind.

To keep reminding and blackmailing the world of the plight of the Jews under Hitler 70 years ago, while at the same time inflicting on the Palestinians today the same fate of the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, is a disease of the mind.

To impose a collective guilt overshadowing Western civilization for the Holocaust and then to criminalize all legitimate historical debate of the nature and extent of that horrific event is a disease of the mind.

To virtually incarcerate the Palestinian people inside degrading cages, destroying their livelihoods, confiscating their lands, stealing their water and uprooting their trees, and then to condemn their legitimate resistance as terrorism is a disease of the mind.

To believe you have the right to chase the Palestinians into an Arab capital city in 1982 and to indiscriminately bombard its civilians for a relentless three months, murdering thousands of innocent people is a disease of the mind.

To encircle the civilian camps of Sabra and Chatila after evacuating the fighters and to unleash on them trained dogs (while providing them with night-illuminating flares for efficiency) and then deny culpability for the carnage is a disease of the mind.

To publicly declare a policy of breaking the bones of Palestinian stone-throwers to prevent them from lifting stones again and to enact this policy is a disease of the mind.

To have the sadistic streak of exacting vengeance on the innocent families of suicide bombers by punishing them with the dynamiting of their home is a disease of the mind.

To describe the offer of giving the Palestinians 80 percent of 22 percent of 100 percent of what is originally their own land as a “generous” offer is a disease of the mind.

To believe that you have the right to continue to humiliate the Palestinians at gun point by making them queue for hours to move between their villages, forcing mothers to give birth at check-points is a disease of the mind.

To flatten the camp of Jenin on its inhabitants and deny any wrongdoing is a delusional condition which is symptomatic of a serious disease of the mind.

To build a huge separation wall under the pretext of security, which disconnects farmers from their farms and children from their schools, while stealing even more territory as the wall freely zigzags and encroaches on Palestinian land is a disease of the mind.

To leave behind, in the last 10 days of a losing war in Lebanon, more than one million cluster bombs which have no purpose except to murder and maim unsuspecting civilians is a product of an evil disease of the mind.

To believe that the entire world is out to get you and to denounce any critic of the racist policies of the State of Israel as an anti-Semite, the latest victim being none other than peace-making Jimmy Carter, is an acute stage of mass paranoia, which is a disease of the mind.

To possess, in the midst of a non-nuclear Arab world, more than 200 nuclear warheads capable of incinerating the whole planet in addition to having the most advanced arsenal of weaponry in the world while continuing to play the role of a victim is a disease of the mind.

Yes, and for that salesman in peaceful Geneva to be so insecure as to refuse to acknowledge the name of the largest West Bank city under his country’s brutal military occupation is, sadly, nothing but an infectious disease of the mind.

That’s all what it is, ladies and gentlemen: Zionism is an incurable disease of the mind.

Take care, and if you ride, do it safely.