Probably due to shoddy planning on our part, our Israel trip was mostly a disaster. We left Jordan early in the morning in order to arrive in Eilat, Israel in time to take a 10am bus to the Dead Sea, but when we arrived, there were no more tickets. They informed us that the only tickets available were to Jerusalem at 5pm. Soooo, we had to figure out what we would do in Eilat for the entire day... not to mention we were very disappointed not to be able to float in the Dead Sea. :( We wandered around and discovered we could have our bags held for us near the bus station, thank goodness. After wandering around aimlessly trying to find somewhere to eat, (everything was ridiculously overpriced, since Eilat is basically a trashy beachside city) we finally found a shwerma restaurant. The food looked delicious and was wayyyy too expensive (not to mention, it was strange to pay for things in sheckels... that doesn't even sound like a real currency!!), but we got a plate to share. Shwerma is meat (honestly, I don't know what kind. They just call it "meat") that can either come in a pita or on a plate with veggies and sauces and some other mystery things. The food tasted wonderful, but we regretted it for the rest of the day :/
Celia in Eilat with a questionable sign behind her
These beaches are totally overrated, trust me
After lunch we decided to go to the beach, which of course you had to pay for if you wanted anywhere to sit. So we sat on the sand, and I went swimming (against my better judgement, seeing as there was no shower in the forseeable future), and then we went back to catch the bus, salty and sunburned. The busride ended up being 2 hours longer than we had anticipated, and we didn't end up in Jerusalem until 11:30pm. When we got out of the bus, we were hit with a gust of freezing cold air. We definitely hadn't planned for ANY cold weather, and sweatshirts were the warmest things we had. We were also shocked at the people we saw, 95% of the people out and about that evening were fully covered Orthodox Jews. It was just very surprising to see so many people in the full uniform: black suit/coat, hat, long side curls, and women with their hair covered. It was very interesting to see.
sunset at one of the rest stops
At that point, we basically had no idea how to get from the bus station to the old city, where we were [hoping to be] staying that night. Luckily, at one of the rest stops our bus made, we met an American on the bus who had a reservation for a hostel, so we just followed him around and let him figure out how to get where we needed to be. He ended up chatting with an Orthodox Jewish man who told us what bus to take. We arrived at the old city, and followed our new friend Dan around in search of his hostel. Along the way we stopped in a few hostels, which were all full, so things were not looking promising. When we arrived at Dan's hostel, it was of course full, but he accompanied us around inside the old city to find a place that would take us for the night (there was no room for them at the inn!!!). We ended up sleeping in a stable that night with the animals, just like Mary and Joseph.... just kidding. We found the Hebron Hostel, which boasted itself as "the place to be," which it definitely wasn't. We couldn't get any private rooms but did get some beds in a dorm room, and because I was still sick from the shwerma I just went to bed still salty from my swim.
In the morning we decided not to take any chances with buses, so before doing any sightseeing, we took a bus back to the bus station to buy tickets out for the next day. Of course at the station the computer system was down and they weren't able to book tickets for us, but they assured us the kinks would be worked out shortly. We waited awhile, tried again, and then were told just to try purchasing them online... dun dun dun...
So we left and walked down Jaffa street where all the shopping is in Jerusalem. We found an outdoor market that was wonderful after being in countries where finding safe, fresh fruits and veggies was very difficult... so i bought some strawberries and we were very happy enjoying the colors and delicious smells of spices and produce.
We took Jaffa street back to the old city and started our explorations. Although Jerusalem holds many amazing sights, churches, and religious spots to see, its autheticity was very very hindered by the venders. Walking from one gate to another meant constant harrassment and made it very difficult to enjoy/concentrate on what we were seeing.
We tried to ignore people as much as possible. I have to warn you that neither Celia nor I could remember/ knew the significance of many of the things we saw in Jersusalem. I have several pictures, many of which were inside Churches and didn't turn out because of lighting, but hopefully some of you will understand the significance of the things we saw. :) First we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where upon entry we saw Jesus's tomb. This was probably the most intense sight we saw in Jerusalem, because it was so crowded and people were going crazy fighting over being able to touch, kiss, and pour holy water on this tomb. It was a pretty amazing sight.
These pictures are all from inside the Church. I wish I had been able to get better photos, but the lighting was too tricky and there were too many people.
After the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, we walked along the Via Dolorosa and saw more stations of the cross. This part was especially hard to enjoy because of people bothering us constantly.
We decided to try our luck at the Dome of the Rock, even though we were pretty sure it was too late for non-Muslims to see it, which it was. We fought through an inexplicable crowd of screaming and excited children spending their sheckels on junk at a market and were able to take this picture...
We needed a break from the city walls, so we thought it'd be nice to see the sunset over the city from the Mount of Olives. We walked to the top, where it turned out to be absolutely freezing (and in a wind tunnel, apparantly), and spent probably an hour waiting for the sunset that would never come. During this time we were being harrassed by teenage boys and trying to find ways to distract ourselves from the cold!! The view was amazing though, we were looking down onto a giant cemetary, and in the distance we could see the wall around the old city, and the Dome of the Rock. We were also too late to get into the Church of Mary Magdelene, but we did see it from the outside.
After our exhausting day, we ventured out in our new Jesus sandals to find some dinner, which proved to be much more challenging than in Arabic-speaking countries... the only word in Hebrew that Celia or I know is "shalom," which doesn't get you too far, as it turns out. We saw plenty of restaurants that looked good, but the menus on the wall were completely unidentifiable (obviously) and we realized neither one of us wanted to ask a waitress to translate the entire menu to English for us. Finally we found a vegetarian restaurant and ate there because the menu was in English. After dinner we went into a Russian bar called Putin, where I drank some very large glasses of Hoegaarden and Celia and I watched some outdated Oscar tv show.
Our luck seemed to be taking a positive turn in the morning.... I should add that we tried to buy tickets online after visiting the bus station, but the website was all in Hebrew. Then, we tried calling that evening, and the line was busy up until 9pm, when the office closed. We thought getting to the bus station at 6am for a 7am bus would probably be just fine. We also randomly met an American man who had rented a car and was on his way to Tel Aviv, and offered us a ride to the bus station. We arrived there very optimistic, only to be told that the 7am AND 10am bus tickets to Eilat were sold out. This was very bad news, as we had actual real reservations in Nuweiba at a Red Sea ecolodge for that night. The bus attendant told us to speak with the driver at the time of departure and we could possibly get seats as they were available. Of course we were not the only people given this suggestion, and trying to get on the bus was an absolute war. After literally pushing people out of our way, we got onto the bus and were even able to buy tickets for seats. We sat down, thrilled that our luck had changed, when the bus driver started making loud announcements in Hebrew again. Long story short, a large group of religious figures (nuns and priests? we don't know) showed up and they kicked us all off the bus. They told us another bus would be coming, but as soon as we got off the bus, they basically said "just kidding, this is the only bus." So, we violently pushed our way through the crowds of screaming people to stand in the aisles of the bus full of clergy. We were able to push our way back on, and got to ride the 5 hours into Eilat on the floor of the bus. It was definitely an adventure, but when we arrived in Eilat, our driver was waiting and ready to drive us to our Red Sea paradise, so it was all worth the pain it took to get there. :)
