Jordan was
awesome, but it was time to get back to the Holy Land. This is harder
than it appears. There's a border crossing to the north that would have
put us pretty close to Jerusalem, but apparently if you didn't cross
that particular border to get into Jordan, Israel won't let you take it
back across. Weird? Welcome to Israel. So, we were stuck heading back
south to Aqaba/Eilat, then five hours north to Jerusalem. It's all good
though, because it ended up being pretty awesome.
After a two hour ride in a ghetto cab and a pretty simple border crossing, we headed off to rent a car in Eilat since we didn't want to fuck with flying or taking the bus (see part 3 - Anatomy of a strip search). It was pretty easy to figure out, except for the whole "being told to intentionally break the car rental rules" thing. You're not allowed to take rental cars into the "Occupied Territories" (aka West Bank). East Jerusalem is considered a part of that to them. And to get to West Jerusalem, you have to go straight up the coast, then turn left and...go through East Jerusalem. How did the lady explain this to us?
"Just don't get into an accident there."
Uh, okay?
The drive north was actually pretty cool. Maktesh Ramon is a huge crater that is constantly changing colors. The salt pans south of the Dead Sea are pretty eerie. Masada was closed (but we'd be back). Once we got closer to Jerusalem though, things got weird. A few random checkpoints where we were just waved through without even talking to them was odd. Then we came to the point where we had to turn left...it was pretty easy to spot, considering the gigantic scary fucking gate blocking our way from going any further north. The West Bank is serious business.
The GPS was tripping us out too, because it's programmed to avoid West Bank areas as well. So it kept saying we were going the wrong way the whole time. It wanted us to go completely across the country, so even when we were 30km from Jerusalem, it would tell us we were 470km away and constantly said to turn around. "Recalculating!" gets really fucking old after 20 or 30 times.Yup, Israel's weird. We didn't need that bitch though, we found our way ourselves dammit (well, Jess did...anyone that's read my blogs knows how much I suck at directions).
Once we got to town and finally found a hotel with available rooms, we...spent 40 minutes driving in circles on one way streets trying to find the hotel's parking garage. Israel's wei...yeah you get it. Our hotel was full of teenagers over from the US, which was annoying, but whatever. The streets were full of people and there were bars up the street, so it was tough to complain. We hit up an Irish bar for a bit, but took it pretty easy on night one in the town that Jess immediately dubbed "J-Town". Did anyone else call it that? Nope. Did we care? Nope. J-Town it is!
The next day was a major lesson in how much of a contradiction Israel really is. We woke up and immediately headed down to the Old Town. It's the old (duh), massive walled city that WAS the city of Jerusalem until the 19th century. The land has been continually inhabited for over 3500 years, and the current city walls are almost 500 years old. It's divided into four quarters (Christian, Muslim, Jewy, Armenian), and full of narrow "streets" that basically constitute one huge, awesome maze. It's full of amazing sites including the famous Western (or Wailing) Wall, the Dome of the Rock, and one of the most important mosques in the world. And we were only allowed to see one of the three, which is dumb. Here's a pic of a typical street, and a view of the Dome of the Rock from far away:
We started out in the Christian quarter, then made our way down to the Muslim Quarter and explored a bit of that, before we were turned back by a bunch of soldiers. Apparently only Muslims are allowed in most of the Muslim quarter, so we had no access to the Dome of the Rock or the Mosque. At first we thought it was ridiculous that the Muslims would lock everyone else out of their area...but we learned the truth a little later.
So, it was off to the Jewish Quarter, and the weirdness continued. The various quarters have been traded between Muslims, Jews, and Christians many times over the years, so some of their original buildings lie in other quarters now. We came across a tour group of American Jewy kids, and 30 seconds of the bullshit the tour guide was spewing had us laughing in amazement:
"We (Jews) live and let live. When we took over this mosque and turned it into a synagogue, we respected Muslim tradition by leaving...uh...that thing they usually have on top of mosques up there. See, it's still there...whatever it's called."
"Okay kids, it's lunchtime. There are a bunch of restaurants down this way. Remember, NO MATTER WHAT, you are NOT to step foot in the Muslim Quarter. You WILL have troubles."
These are a bunch of American kids with no outward signs of being Jewish. They look just like us. There's no way they'd have any trouble in the Muslim Quarter because a) no one would care in the open section, and b) 95% of it is closed off anyway. So, what the fuck is the dude talking about? All he's doing is instilling fear and distrust in a bunch of kids that don't know any better. But there was nothing we could do, so we just laughed and grabbed some lunch ourselves. While we were eating, Jess was reading something official on the Old City on his phone, and told me something that annoyed/amazed me even more:
"Wow man, you know how we weren't allowed into the Muslim Quarter? It's not the Muslims that are stopping us. Apparently the Jews require it, for the safety of tourists and Jews. They're actually Israeli soldiers that turned us back."
The Jews actually let people think the Muslims don't want anyone in their quarter when it's them keeping people out instead. Dumb.
After we got back to the hotel, things switched back to the funny via Jess. We had to wait a while for the elevator with a bunch of Jewy kids. Once it finally came and we all got on, one moron kid was way too close to the door and it kept opening back up when it would try to close. This happened about four times, and the stupid kid started yelling at some other kid at least 30 feet across the lobby, saying "Stop messing with the elevator!" It opened and closed two more times before some elder came over and pushed the kid further inside. Jess was steaming by now, as was I, but he dropped a line that made me bust up laughing.
In an elevator full of Jewish kids, he points at the moron and says "THESE are the chosen ones?" Classic.
I'll wrap this up for now (I'm in Hawaii and about to go for a walk across Waikiki) and finish up J-Town in another blog later.
After a two hour ride in a ghetto cab and a pretty simple border crossing, we headed off to rent a car in Eilat since we didn't want to fuck with flying or taking the bus (see part 3 - Anatomy of a strip search). It was pretty easy to figure out, except for the whole "being told to intentionally break the car rental rules" thing. You're not allowed to take rental cars into the "Occupied Territories" (aka West Bank). East Jerusalem is considered a part of that to them. And to get to West Jerusalem, you have to go straight up the coast, then turn left and...go through East Jerusalem. How did the lady explain this to us?
"Just don't get into an accident there."
Uh, okay?
The drive north was actually pretty cool. Maktesh Ramon is a huge crater that is constantly changing colors. The salt pans south of the Dead Sea are pretty eerie. Masada was closed (but we'd be back). Once we got closer to Jerusalem though, things got weird. A few random checkpoints where we were just waved through without even talking to them was odd. Then we came to the point where we had to turn left...it was pretty easy to spot, considering the gigantic scary fucking gate blocking our way from going any further north. The West Bank is serious business.
The GPS was tripping us out too, because it's programmed to avoid West Bank areas as well. So it kept saying we were going the wrong way the whole time. It wanted us to go completely across the country, so even when we were 30km from Jerusalem, it would tell us we were 470km away and constantly said to turn around. "Recalculating!" gets really fucking old after 20 or 30 times.Yup, Israel's weird. We didn't need that bitch though, we found our way ourselves dammit (well, Jess did...anyone that's read my blogs knows how much I suck at directions).
Once we got to town and finally found a hotel with available rooms, we...spent 40 minutes driving in circles on one way streets trying to find the hotel's parking garage. Israel's wei...yeah you get it. Our hotel was full of teenagers over from the US, which was annoying, but whatever. The streets were full of people and there were bars up the street, so it was tough to complain. We hit up an Irish bar for a bit, but took it pretty easy on night one in the town that Jess immediately dubbed "J-Town". Did anyone else call it that? Nope. Did we care? Nope. J-Town it is!
The next day was a major lesson in how much of a contradiction Israel really is. We woke up and immediately headed down to the Old Town. It's the old (duh), massive walled city that WAS the city of Jerusalem until the 19th century. The land has been continually inhabited for over 3500 years, and the current city walls are almost 500 years old. It's divided into four quarters (Christian, Muslim, Jewy, Armenian), and full of narrow "streets" that basically constitute one huge, awesome maze. It's full of amazing sites including the famous Western (or Wailing) Wall, the Dome of the Rock, and one of the most important mosques in the world. And we were only allowed to see one of the three, which is dumb. Here's a pic of a typical street, and a view of the Dome of the Rock from far away:
Old city street, Jerusalem.
Dome again.
We started out in the Christian quarter, then made our way down to the Muslim Quarter and explored a bit of that, before we were turned back by a bunch of soldiers. Apparently only Muslims are allowed in most of the Muslim quarter, so we had no access to the Dome of the Rock or the Mosque. At first we thought it was ridiculous that the Muslims would lock everyone else out of their area...but we learned the truth a little later.
So, it was off to the Jewish Quarter, and the weirdness continued. The various quarters have been traded between Muslims, Jews, and Christians many times over the years, so some of their original buildings lie in other quarters now. We came across a tour group of American Jewy kids, and 30 seconds of the bullshit the tour guide was spewing had us laughing in amazement:
"We (Jews) live and let live. When we took over this mosque and turned it into a synagogue, we respected Muslim tradition by leaving...uh...that thing they usually have on top of mosques up there. See, it's still there...whatever it's called."
"Okay kids, it's lunchtime. There are a bunch of restaurants down this way. Remember, NO MATTER WHAT, you are NOT to step foot in the Muslim Quarter. You WILL have troubles."
These are a bunch of American kids with no outward signs of being Jewish. They look just like us. There's no way they'd have any trouble in the Muslim Quarter because a) no one would care in the open section, and b) 95% of it is closed off anyway. So, what the fuck is the dude talking about? All he's doing is instilling fear and distrust in a bunch of kids that don't know any better. But there was nothing we could do, so we just laughed and grabbed some lunch ourselves. While we were eating, Jess was reading something official on the Old City on his phone, and told me something that annoyed/amazed me even more:
"Wow man, you know how we weren't allowed into the Muslim Quarter? It's not the Muslims that are stopping us. Apparently the Jews require it, for the safety of tourists and Jews. They're actually Israeli soldiers that turned us back."
The Jews actually let people think the Muslims don't want anyone in their quarter when it's them keeping people out instead. Dumb.
After we got back to the hotel, things switched back to the funny via Jess. We had to wait a while for the elevator with a bunch of Jewy kids. Once it finally came and we all got on, one moron kid was way too close to the door and it kept opening back up when it would try to close. This happened about four times, and the stupid kid started yelling at some other kid at least 30 feet across the lobby, saying "Stop messing with the elevator!" It opened and closed two more times before some elder came over and pushed the kid further inside. Jess was steaming by now, as was I, but he dropped a line that made me bust up laughing.
In an elevator full of Jewish kids, he points at the moron and says "THESE are the chosen ones?" Classic.
I'll wrap this up for now (I'm in Hawaii and about to go for a walk across Waikiki) and finish up J-Town in another blog later.
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