“Four hours and then we back on bus,” Doran shouted in front of our 5th destination of the morning. He continued on with general guidelines, bathroom destinations, and falafel stand suggestions in his aggressive Hebrew drawl.  His bald head (where his perfected dreads used to be from a past life that I wished I was a part of) like a silicon boob pulsing in the afternoon sun. Like a modern day Moses, he had been schlepping our tour group, not to mention our allergies, phobias, and chemical dependences, throughout this land for the past week. From Adam and Eve, to the King of Masada, to the War of Independence, Doran covered it all. He paused occasionally to take a swig from his glass bottled Coke or sneak a drag off my cigarette. With his uniform of crocs, Panama hat, and a variety of neon Zionist T-shirts, I could’ve sworn he was born walking backwards with a bus microphone in one hand and a first aid kit in the other.

“So this market, it a very popular market in Tel Aviv…lots of things happen here, so remember if you hear something, anything ….just duck!” He continued laughing to a group of Americans who did not think this was so funny. After all my chachki shopping in the market, maybe I could use my newly acquired bargaining skills to purchase the whole gang a sense of humor.

Cut to the market as Danya and I walk hand in hand, each nursing our respective panic attacks. While Danya dug her claws into my sweaty palms she reached for the muscle relaxers she’d been using to self-medicate ever since she threw her back out while emotionally and physically supporting the weight of a fellow group member on a nature hike the previous afternoon. The only thing on the planet bigger than Danya’s boobs was her heart. Though the marvel of modern medication, it turns out, was no match for Carmel Market on a Thursday afternoon. Pop. Swig. Swallow. As her claws dug deeper and deeper, the rush of the market attacked Danya’s senses from every direction possible. While the sight of cow tongue and the smell of the man who sold it didn’t make me want to shout “Le Chaim!” from the rooftops, it wasn’t so much the senses overload that made my anxiety want to come out and play. My panic was linked to the emotion, the most powerful emotion which was the driving force throughout the land of milk and honey - Guilt. This panic/guilt combo that surfaces every time I’m far away from home and not completely relishing in every moment of my “experience.”  I was in the center of the market, in the middle of the world, inside the pinnacle of my existence, so why was I so miserable? The horrifying truth was at that moment I would have rather been making my way through the food court in the Beverly Center. At least there was air conditioning and Coffee Bean.

“You don’t want Falafel. This is junk food. You want real Israel food?” he asked as we aimlessly paced in front of the kosher Burger King.

I’ll eat twice-baked cockroaches if it’ll put me across the table from you for an hour.

“Yes! That sounds great, doesn’t that sound great, Danya?” I asked, as if she had a choice.

“Do they have a place to sit down?” Danya answered in between back spasms.

He nodded, “Of course.”

“Sounds delicious, let’s go.”

“Hi! Where are you guys going?” Robyn shouted from across the street. One of the forty faces from our diverse group and it didn’t take much to remember Robyn’s name. All I had to do was look at her golden chest where two identical red birds were permanently engraved. She was the sort of non-threatening Rocky Mountain pretty that kept on giving. Each time I looked at her face I discovered something new that I liked. Straight out of a burning man documentary, Robyn’s passion for life, and by life I mean belly dancing, was relentless. It was such a shame to me that most of her energy was spent talking about, recovering from, and drearily anticipating her gluten allergy.

“Uh food… not here,” I said, not skipping a beat.

“Great! This place is so stressing me out, can I come with?” I wonder sometimes what this world would be like if people waited to hear the answers to their own questions.

As our group steadily expanded, so did the obvious yet painful truth that we  would not be able to pull off looking like a bunch of typical Israelis grabbing a casual afternoon bite.

“This place, I’ve been to this place a while ago. It’s here, around here somewhere,” he said squinting in the middle of the street. As if seeing half the road would somehow make the path to the restaurant crystal clear.

“Are they going to have enough chairs for us? Outside. I want to sit outside. Do they have a bathroom?” Robyn asked anyone who would listen.

“Oh, do you have to use bathroom?” he sweetly asked.

“No, but I will, and when I do, I’ll need one”

“Are they going to bring water” they asked as we started shoving pieces of table together.

“We have to sit down first,” I mumbled to absolutely no one.

Musical chairs began as we unloaded our backpacks, water bottles, hats, and the rest of the evidence, which proved we had business in this gem of a neighborhood.

“Excuse me, does the hummus have gluuuuu-teeeen in it?” Robyn asked, fiddling through her laminated gluten allergy cards trying to find the Hebrew page. These cards which explained her genetically developed condition in every language imaginable. By now the tanned pierced, and utterly magnificent couple beside us was fully staring at our scene.  I grabbed the gluten flash cards from her grasp in an effort to remove myself from anything having to do with the here and now.

“Gluten, yes, tell her it’s like soy. And that if I eat it at all, I will die.” Robyn motioned to the perfectly groomed waitress who starred     blankly at our translator, as if her customer had just asked her to deep-fry Abraham Lincoln himself.

“Okay, so that’s four meats, three salads, two chicken hearts and one liver.” He announced to the group. “Jessie, this is okay?”

Distracted by how beautiful the words “ may cause abdominal bleeding” looked in Russian, I nodded. “Yeah, chicken heads, porcupine toes, I’ll eat whatever they serve,” I said. Trying to move it along.

As the meal progressed and the random chicken organs disappeared skewer by skewer, I looked across the table at Robyn blissfully devouring her bowl of cucumbers.

“Ah, this is so good guys! Delicious! Perfect!” she shrieked in between crunchy bites.

As I soaked up my plateful of hearts with hot pita, I thought about what it must feel like to take a walk in Robyn’s Birkenstocks. How I had, at one point or another, felt trapped inside my own body and how this sweet girl actually was.

More chow appeared as the table exchanged opinions about what was about to happen, critique what already did, and most of all the revelations, the holy, sporadic, natural religious revelations everybody and their mother seemed to be having. Except me. Truth be told, the only tears I cried in Israel were not from my deep connection with G-O-D but rather P-M-S.

“Oh shit! The bus is going to leave us!  Do they have togo boxes? But not Styrofoam…there’s this kind of box actually made out of corn, but it’s totally gluten free…”

Check please.