We got up on Thursday morning and took a bus to Taba, Egypt which is a city right on the border. It was a long bus ride - about six hours. We then had to walk to the border to cross it. The problem with this is the same thing that is the problem in all of Egypt...its complete chaos. Egyptians have no sense of lines or order, so its basically a mad rush to get to the front. We were in line for what seemed like forever to just get a stamp in the passport that says we left Egypt. Which by the way, tells people I was in Israel, and now i can't visit another Middle Eastern country (except Israel, Jordon and Egypt and maybe another one) until my passport expires and I get a new one. Just the way of the Mid East, they don't want people to go to Israel apparently. Then, we walked over to the Israel side of the border where we had to go through customs. That part was extremely smooth, and you could almost hear the collective sigh of relief that there were lines and technology keeping us together.
After crossing the border, we got in a cab and headed for Eliat which is a town on the Red Sea, right by the border. We had considered trying to catch a bus to go up to Jerusalem that night, but after the border crossing we had all just about had it. We found a really nice hostel/motel and dropped our bags off. Then we headed off to go to an Irish Pub! You cannot even begin to imagine our joy at drinking beer on the patio of the bar, with people dressed in whatever they want, no honking horns every three seconds, just enjoying the clean air. It was great. We stayed at the pub for a while and then headed back to our hostel where we all pretty much were wiped out and went to sleep.
The next morning, we headed over to the bus station for another ridiculously long bus ride, this time to Jerusalem. The bus was about five hours long this time, but we drove by the Dead Sea and some other scenic places. We also picked up a lot of people from the side of the road.
Oh a quick funny story from the trip. When we were in line for customs, there was a very tall guy that was dressed in running gear and looked like he was practically an Olympiad. We were joking that he was running around the world while we waited in line and speculated about the things he was carrying. When we took our cab to Eliat, we saw him walking to town. Then the next day, we saw him on the side of the road and picked him up in our bus! He even stayed at the same hostel as us and we saw him a couple more times, just walking along the side of the road with all of his things. It made us all laugh hysterically every time we saw him.
So once we got into Jerusalem, we knew we had to get into the Old City, which is where our hostel was and is pretty much where all the religious places are. We started walking, but gave up quickly. We got to our hostel after a while, which was also a nice place. They ended up having a tour scheduled for the next day that we signed up for, then we left to go explore the city. We headed over to the Jewish Quarter first to see the Western (Wailing) Wall.
After walking around the Jewish Quarter for a while, we headed over to the New City area for dinner. Most of the places were closed in both areas because of the Jewish Sabbath so as soon as the sun went down, we were already having problems finding open stores or restaurants. We ended up finding a bar where we could again get a good drink and some food (Its hard living in a dry country :)). Afterwards I went shopping in the touristy streets that we kept referring to as the Khan after a similar area near us. They are small streets that are pretty much alleyways filled with little shops. There were quite a few closed shops because of Sabbath, but it was interesting to see a lot of the things. There were a lot of religious things in the shops, from every religion. While I was in a shop, there was a procession down the street. I had forgotten that it was Orthodox Good Friday, and there were people heading down to the church. The shops all closed up soon after that, so I went back to bed.
The next day we got up early for our tour and already there were people lined up around the edges of the Old City. We were waiting to be picked up right by Jaffa gate, which is an entrance into Old city, and there were people lined up outside, there were people lined up by the entrance to the Khan. There were police everywhere just holding people back. The church bells had been ringing early that morning as we
got up. It was officially their Easter and people were out in full force. We all got coffee and waited for our guide. He couldn't drive up to meet us because of the police presence, so we had to walk down to meet him. It was a minibus full of people, most were older couples. The first stop was Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. We couldn't go up into the caves themselves, but the views were amazing. After that, we went to Massada which is the site of King Herrod's palace and the site of a battle between the Romans and Jewish people. The castle is at the top of a mountain that we had to take a cable car up to. We walked down later, but we collectively decided that it was way too much walking. The top of the mountain is actually at sea level, which is pretty weird. The site is pretty much just ruins that you can walk around observe, but its nice to be able to walk within them. We were there for about two hours, and the sun was beating down on us. After our walk down the mountain, we were all pretty exhausted and overheated. Thankfully, the next stop was the Dead Sea!
We hadn't expected to be able to be able to go in the water so none of us had brought bathing suits. But we made do with t-shirts and shorts. No one wanted to miss out on being able to float. The mud there is suppose have healing qualities, so people were slathering it on themselves. The experience of floating was so weird. I can't even explain the feeling of curling up in a ball and bouncing around on the water. We stayed there for a while and then headed over to Jericho for lunch. Jericho is actually in Palestine territory on the West Bank, so we have to go through a lot of security to make sure no one on our bus was Israeli. After lunch we saw the Mount of Temptation, Tree of Zaccharus, Hirsham Palace and the Mount of Olives. Then they took us back to our hostel where we all kind of felt like we should take a nap. But we pushed through and made a trek to the Christian Quarter to see the Church of the Holy Sapulchre which is the church that was built over the area where Jesus was crucified and buried.
It is believed that this is where Jesus is buried, so there were tons of people there fawning over the tomb. Especially since it was Easter weekend.
The next day we went to the Holocaust Museum, which was pretty interesting. And depressing, but mostly interesting. Afterwards, we went to Bethlehem to the church that was built over the cave where Jesus was supposedly born according to Orthodox tradition.
It was crazy busy there, and again we had to go through ridiculous checkpoints because of it being in West Bank territory. When we got back to Israeli territory we took a cab straight to Tel Aviv which was gorgeous. It is right on the Mediterranean sea, and it probably one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen. We spent the night there relaxing and the next morning headed back.
One of new favorite countries. Everyone was so friendly, and happy, and I wish I was still there right now.
But the good news is that school is almost over. 4 weeks til Pete is here, 6 weeks until I'm in Tokyo and 7 weeks until I'm back in Chicago.
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