Old Town Akko

London is a rapidly moving current. I remember stepping foot outside of London for the first time after two and half months and feeling time stop. Punting down the River Cam in Cambridge, I was confronted with an almost unrecognizable calm. My friends and I poled along the river completely insouciant. This sense of nonchalance abruptly ended upon returning to London. In stark contrast to the lazy willows sagging over the Cam’s banks and the open fields full of long grass, London’s packed underground and incessant horns broke my placid state of mind. The first things to go were my feet. My strolling quickly transformed into a tidy hustle. I began jockeying for positions in line, slowly nudging people out of the way in order to strategically position myself for an open seat. London caught me and sent me swiftly through its current.

Not to say London’s way of life is bad by any measure, but it is certainly counted at a different pace than somewhere akin to Cambridge. But having lived in London for 6 months, I became used to it.

Now in Akko however, I’ve been transported again, sent back in time. If London is raging river, Akko is an old stream back in the woods.

The old town of Akko is itself, literally an anachronism. Nestled on the shore of the Mediterranean across the bay from Haifa, Akko looks like the backdrop of an old biblical tale. Sandstone buildings line the streets, the stones worn from time. In between the buildings, tight winding roads are filled with shops selling Turkish delight, baklava, falafel, Jordanian coffee, trinkets, and other Middle Eastern goods. A wall once used to keep out invading forces surrounds the entire city; near the water, fisherman cast lines from the wall, basking in the late afternoon sunrays as they await their catch. Behind them, in the heart of the town, spires from a Christian church poke the sky while green domes protruding through the rooftops mark the mosque.

Everything about the city is archaic. If you walk to the gardens, you can even find the entrance to the Crusader city, a city actually buried beneath the old town. The old structures unearthed by archaeologists are connected through a series of templar tunnels that lead from one end of the city to another.

(A couple of boys fishing off the wall)

(Underground templar tunnels)

This romantic, picturesque city breeds a dream like atmosphere that spills over into the surrounding area. The larger city of Akko is markedly different; nondescript, modern apartment buildings sprawl across the land. While they mark the beginning of a new era, they don’t indicate the departure of certain ways of life, especially those regarding the concept of time.

I’m not sure whether it is a Middle Eastern thing, a seaside town thing, an Akko thing, or a combination of all three, but here, time is extremely relative.

It’s not something glaringly obvious at first. School bells ring promptly at 8:10, taxis arrive at their scheduled hour, and the traffic surges at 5 in the evening every evening. It’s only after you’ve settled in that you begin to notice the nuances of the life here in Akko.

Honestly, I was silly not to pick up the hints early on. Our first week, we were driving in the car with a teacher to one of our school’s, and he started to complain about his son’s early morning tendencies – namely waking up when school started and arriving 10 - 15 minutes late. I asked him what his son’s punishment would be. He responded “Ahhhh punishment? No no. No Punishment. Kids come to school 5, 10 minutes late. No big deal. Some parents bring their kids in 20 minutes late. As long as they make it.” Huh, I thought, that sounds pretty lenient (and like a policy I would have abused).

But it is this sort of “don’t worry attitude,” I quickly found, that spilled over into everyday life. The first time someone told us they were going to be over at 9:30, we were ready to go by 9:30. Now, when they tell us they are going to be here at 9:30, we prepare ourselves for a 10 to 10:30 departure. Recently, I left my phone in a friend’s car. He told me he was going to drop it off 30 minutes ago. I’ve been waiting for 3 days. This carefree approach is pervasive. We went to a theater several days ago to watch the Revenant. We waited in line as a customer seemingly discussed the merits of Kantian ethics with the ticket clerk. Our movie was starting in 6 minutes. I could feel a tickle slither up my spine as the minutes ticked away. “Let’s go lady, we have a movie to watch” echoed in my mind. Finally, they seemed to agree upon a thesis and she walked out. The movie was just about to start.

At first I was annoyed by this lack of punctuality and casualness. But the more I thought about it, the more I knew I was transposing my London lifestyle on the sleepy town of Akko. In London, when I was racing to get to a bus stop, packing myself into a crammed tube, and gliding past people on the sidewalk, time was everything. But here, sitting on the shore of the Mediterranean watching waves caress the sand over and over again, I have all the time in the world. So I’m learning to slow down again. Besides, I have no place to be but here.

(Sunset on the Mediterranean)

#Israël