And I Didn't Have to Get Naked First!!!

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Alex and I had intended on getting up early and leaving for the boarder at 9am.... That didn't happen, we ended up sleeping in and didn't get a taxi from Amman to the boarder till about noon 😊 The owner at our hostel helped us get a good deal on the taxi. We only paid 20 Dinar, the driver didn't seem to want to take us to the boarder at all, although he was trying to get more money to take us the hostel manager was able to talk him down. About half way to the boarder our cab driver started yelling out his window at another cab driver passing us by on the highway... They both pulled over and we were told to switch cars! I have no idea why or what happened because neither of our drivers spoke any English. The second driver pulled up to a curb and dumped our bags on the sidewalk. As soon as we were out of the car he sped off. I walked over to the guys with guns and asked for directions hahaha. The Jordan boarder control was not bad. We filled out a little piece of paper, then paid an exit fee, and were stamped out of the country. Then we took a bus over to the Israel boarder control. The bus had to stop before crossing the bridge where we all had to get off 1 at a time and go to a window where they checked our passports. Then the bus was checked to make sure it was empty and then we all got back on. After that we drove just a little ways further and were dropped off in front of a building. Alex watched our bags get thrown out of the bus onto the sidewalk. We got off and got our bags and then got into line where our passports and bags were taken. A sticker was put into our passports and onto our bags and then we were given our passports back(this took quite a while and was truly complete chaos!!) and our bags were sent through screening machines. We went inside to the passport control gates. Here is where we stood in line......................... For a long time.................................. :D Finally we made it up to the counter! The lady questioned us for a while, she was nice enough, seemed a bit frustrated that we did not have printed out confirmations of our hotel and flight information but ended up stamping us through anyways. Once on the other side we waited in another line, this one was shorter. Until the alarms went off and guys with guns started running by!! We think maybe it was just a drill cause shortly after the alarm was off and nothing else happened. Our passports were checked again, and then we waited in another line!!!! This guy checked our bag ticket on our passport and then let us through into the room where we searched through the rows of bags waiting to be claimed to find our backpacks. It took us a total of 4 hours to cross the border but finally we were over and looking for a shuttle to Jerusalem!
Once again we were driving through our new country in the dark. The shuttle that we picked did not take us to the central bus station like we thought it was supposed to. It was expensive too about 42 Shekel each($14 about) and the shuttle just took us to the edge of town. There was another couple of guys on the shuttle who had thought the same as us and so we all shared a cab to the bus station which was another 30 Shekels(that’s Alex & my half).
Our hotel was a couple blocks up the street from the bus station. We decided after freezing in a dirty hostel in Amman for 3 nights over New years that we would treat ourselves to a hotel in Jerusalem since the hostel prices were about the same anyways. Israel as a whole was pretty expensive, food prices were a lot higher than Egypt or Jordan. We were spoiled, the room was nice and warm, the beds were comfortable, and best of all the shower had hot water!!!!!! We were both so happy! Internet was not free and was $15 for 24hours so we decided to pass on that. Breakfast was included with our room and was actually pretty good, I had a boiled egg every morning and then there was an assortment of veggies, granola, yogurt, coleslaw, salad, and bread. Most of it was not something you would see in America for breakfast but overall good!
Once again we had planned on getting up early but when the alarm went off neither of us felt like getting up and so we didn't!!! We slept in and then went down for breakfast 15min before they closed the breakfast down. After that we took our time getting ready before heading out towards the Old City.
The Old City was awesome! I really enjoyed wondering around the narrow streets, and up along the wall that encloses the Old City. We saw the Western Wall(Wailing Wall), Synagogues, churches, and lots and lots of venders. We tried a pastry looking thing that another guy pointed out and said was good, it was! Don't know what it was but we liked it 😊 We wondered around the Old City all day and decided to head back as the sun was starting to set. On our way back up to the hotel we stopped at a frozen yogurt place that only had 2 flavors. Plain and berry, and then they had a bunch of fresh fruit, chocolate, muesli, and other things you could have added on top of it. We got a mixture of the plain and berry with fresh fruit and it was great! By the time we got back to the hotel it was dark and we were tired. We ended up staying up late anyways listening to music and reading our books.
We got up the next morning to a much cooler and cloudy day. As we were leaving the hotel I thought that maybe it would rain but we decided we would walk still anyways. We headed to Mt. of Olives. It is a hill just outside of the old city where over 150,000 people are buried. It is a hill of stone. Grave after grave after grave. Unfortunately my camera seems to have stopped working and Alex didn't take her camera that day so we didn't get any photos. It took us quite a while to make our way around, we picked a spot at the top of the hill where we sat and had a couple of cookies that we had got from a bakery on the way there. By the time we made it back to the hotel it was dark again. We decided to eat at a restaurant just around the corner from the hotel. We had soup and grilled veggies. I left the restaurant feeling like an ass... We asked the waitress for the check and then our table was cleaned and we were brought free desert... Not sure what happened, obviously it was just a misunderstanding, we think that they thought we asked for our table to be cleaned. But whatever it was we did not see our waitress again she vanished and none of the rest of the wait staff wanted to come near us... They were avoiding our entire side of the restaurant people waiting for help were waving for the staff. Finally we were able to get the bill. We went on the search for our original waitress. When we found her she was talking to some other people. We waited off to the side, when she saw us she practically jumped, she looked very nervous. When those people left she tried to walk past us like she didn't see us but I put my arm on her so she stopped. I gave her my best reassuring smile I could muster and handed her a much too large tip and said we wanted to make sure she got it. She smiled and seemed ok after that, I just wish I knew what happened! After that we headed back and packed up to leave for the Dead sea in the morning!

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