Road to Jerusalem: The Border, The Embassy, and An Interesting Welcome

We crossed the border from Acqaba to Eilat on foot without serious problems, and all of us who hadn't been stamped thus far managed to get through without stamps again. (The agent who questioned me at the Israeli border asked me, no doubt because I was wearing a neon orange shirt (thank you Lewis Hall 3 South West shirt) repeatedly what Church group I was a part of. Apparently, neon shirts are a common thing for large groups to wear. Thank goodness I had my backpack on. The "Dangerous Levels of Fun" quote on the back of my neon orange shirt probably would have brought on even more questioning)!

We then continued to the Egyptian Embassy in Eilat to get our visa situation sorted out, and of course we had problems there ("This is Egypt," abbreviated T.I.E. is a phrase all the study abroad students have adopted and say to each other often when things run less than smoothly because of Egyptian disorganization). First, there was confusion about what exactly the three of us who needed new visas needed. Then, because the rest of us thought it would be smart to check on the status of our visas while we were there (rather than run into an ugly problem at a border), there was immense confusion about what we were asking and what the visa procedure was (although you would kind of expect that to be common knowledge at an embassy). The whole thing was compacted by the fact that in the middle of all the confusion, it was apparently tea time, so with about 10 Americans waiting in a lobby area (with a clear view of the office area) all the employees of the Embassy took a leisurely break and had tea. After tea, everything was finally sorted out. Those who needed new visas got them, those who did not (the other four of us) were informed that our visas were valid and would be successful at getting us back into Cairo. However, one of the four of us was told that because his visa lacked a stamp from the NY consulate his visa had never been valid, he should not have been let into Egypt, and no there was absolutely nothing that could be done about this because only the NY consulate had the authority to use this stamp. This was a bit daunting, but we figured since there was nothing we could do and because he had obviously been let into Egypt before (when we first arrived), it was something that probably would not be a problem and, if it was, we would deal with it when it happened. (It ended up not being an issue at any border.)

After the exasperating experience at the embassy, which made us glad we still had a few days away from Egypt, we took a taxi to the bus station and bought out tickets for the 2:15PM bus to Jerusalem. We were pleased with the non-pita selection of food in the bus station (and this would only get better as we spent more time in Israel). We arrived to Jerusalem on schedule and took a taxi to the Old City, where we planned to find a hostel. We looked at a few of them before settling on the Youth Citadel Hostel, which was very nice, probably the nicest hostel we stayed in. It resembled a cave somewhat, as the rooms walls and ceiling were made of stone, but it had a very nice, comfortable feeling. The three girls had one room and the four boys had another.

We dropped off our bags in our rooms and headed to a small pizza restaurant in the Old City, called Jacob's pizza. The pizza was very good and we were lucky enough to speak with the owner Jacob, who was a very opinionated and enlightening Israeli in his early thirties. He told us about mandatory service in the Israeli military for 18 months between the ages of 17 and 22, which he had been jailed for avoiding/escaping from. From what he said, it seems most offenses in Israel are punishable by jail time. It's definitely a very justice and military driven society. He also told us a little about Israel's politics, or at least his version of Israel's politics. He said Israelis hated Palestinians. He also said the whole of the Middle East hated Egyptians. He said Israelis hated Lebanese, but that the two groups were similar by the fact that they were hardworking, so their societies respected each other. The same went for Syria. It was interesting that he was so open and definite in what he said. It was eye-opening that political opinions penetrate society so heavily and are expressed by citizens not as politics but as fact. At the same time, Jacob did tell us that he thought, despite what he said, what he believed to be the facts he had said, that each person has the right to be evaluated on an individual level. This seemed somewhat contradictory, but it was encouraging to hear.

After our long day of travel and our interesting exchange with Jacob, we were very tired and decided to head back to our hostel to shower (which we had not done since our last night in Petra, as there was not much of an opportunity to shower in the desert) and go to bed early. The next day we planned to wake up early, have a nice pita-free breakfast, and spend the full day sight-seeing in Jerusalem.