This adventure only included Alex, Mary, and I; no Aaron, as he proved quite frustrating to travel with during the Damascus trip. Our first hurdle was that our taxi had been booked to take us across Sheik Hussein Bridge, way to the north of Jordan, which was not what we wanted to do. But adjusting our route to King Hussein Bridge proved easy, as it is a shorter faster trip and we agreed that we would pay the same amount, rather than less, and no change-of-plans fee. The driver was one of the nicer ones I have had this summer.
On reaching the border, our bus took an hour and a half to cross the bridge to Israeli territory, as Israel wanted to triple check that there were no explosives on or under the bus. We assumed waiting for our visa into Israel would take as much as six hours, as Janine the weekend before had a long wait because she is of Arab decent and had been to Lebanon. We were not of Arab descent (except Mary) but had been to Syria, so when the wait only took 45 minutes it was a very pleasant surprise.
Upon arriving in Jerusalem we put our bags down at our hostel and immediately headed into the old city towards the Western Wall. The Western Wall is the most important site in the Jewish faith, so read more about it here. We covered our heads and approached the wall to offer prayers at its base, which was a very cool experience. While it is a Jewish holyplace, I liked knowing that Jesus had looked upon and prayed within the temple that this wall used to retain.
That evening we walked out of the Old City to a district of the city where all of the young people hang out at night. There were a fairly large number of Americans, young people who were perhaps on their birth rights trips, but overall just a fun scene that was a nice break from the tighter Arab culture that we'd grown used to.
The next morning we started at the Holocaust museum. You can't ever really ask people if they enjoy a Holocaust museum, but the main reason we went was so that Alex could see it, and he found it to be tremendous, as did I, so while enjoyment may not be the right word, we did like it. Next we went to the Israel Museum, which houses among other things, the Dead Sea Scrolls, explained here. The museum also had a model of Jerusalem (the Old City) at the time when Jesus would have been there. Last, the museum had a gallary of contemporary art from Israeli artists, which I was unable to take pictures of, but which was my favorite thing we saw while in Jerusalem.
Afterwards we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and please on this one do click here. We were able to visit each of the significant places housed within the Church, including the spots where Jesus is believed to have been crucified and where he was laid afterwards. Very neat.
Following this we walked the way of the cross, or via dolorosa, in reverse, eventually leaving the old city and proceeding onwards to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed before the mob with Judas arrived to arrest and eventually crucify him.
Afterwards we walked to the outside of a lot of important churches and places, but not much in Jerusalem stays open past five, so we only saw the outside of a lot of things. At one point we found some grass (rare in the Middle East), took our shoes off and sat down in it for a little while, which ended up being one of my favorite things we did in Jerusalem. After this it got dark so we ate a slow dinner and did some shopping. Sorry, but I bought all of you nothing. Nothing there was very nice or cheap, in fact, the only thing it had going for it was that it was from Jerusalem, but most of that stuff was made in China or Turkey or Indonesia anyways.
That night was difficult for Alex, click his blog if you want to find out why! The next morning I woke up at 6 am, as did Alex, so that we could give seeing the Dome of the Rock up close a try. Unfortunately we were in Jerusalem on Friday, the Muslim holyday, and Saturday, the Jewish one, so at no point was there an opportunity for us as non-Muslim to approach the mount. So while that was frustrating, now I have a reason to go back.
At this point I will discuss coming back to America. I will try to be brief, as not to over emphasize what was a miserable process. After being turned away from the Dome of the Rock, we returned to the hostel, woke Mary, and left for Jordan, which proved to be a very smooth and easy process. The best part is that we did all of this without ever getting an Isreali stamp on our passport, necessary if we ever planned to return to Syria again. My last day in Amman was uneventful, and so I packed up and left at midnight for my 7 AM flight, necessary because I wanted to be at the airport two hours before my flight and because I doubted my ability to hail a taxi at a reasonable price at four in the morning. The taxi is where I encountered my first hardship; the driver told me it would cost 15JD to the airport, a fair price, so I agreed and he drove me to the airport where, as I went to pay, he began demanding 30JD. We argued in arabic for ten minutes until I just walked away, a minor defeat because I had already handed him a 20JD bill for which I recieved no change. So, I sat awake at the airport for 5 hours until it came time to board my flight to London. This flight was bad because I was stuck between two very loud, rude, racist, smelly, and unabashed British men, who mostly drank and complained loudly about all of the Arabs on the flight, intentionally loud so that the 80% of the flight that was Arab might hear. But London-Heathrow proved to be a lovely airport.
On my flight from London to Atlanta a woman asked me to trade my prized window seat for her aisle seat so that she might sit next to her business associate. I acquiesed. Then a man asked me to trade my aisle seat for his middle seat, so that he might sit next to his cousin. I acquiesed. The kid I was now sitting next to drank a handle of vodka before boarding the plane and so, as we rolled towards the runway, he threw up on himself and passed out. So the plane was turned around, his bags unloaded, himself kicked off the plane, a process which slowed us down two hours, guranteeing I would miss my next transfer from Atlanta to Dayton. But missing the plane to Dayton wasn't as bad as my luggage being lost. Delta assured me they would find it and then booked me a ticket on a plane to Dayton, which was subsequently delayed an hour, but I eventually landed in Dayton. Here my parents met me to give me my car, and I drove to Miami, arriving around 1 30 am. In all I was awake for about 48 hours, pacified by three 1 hour naps throughout the process. The good news is that I got my luggage back three days later, and the bad is that it was pretty well beaten up with some of its contents damaged.
So, in conclusion, Jerusalem was good, flying home was not.
Hooray America.
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