Israel: Jerusalem

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ISRAEL
Next we went to Israel which was about half an hour away from the Dead Sea. The border is 2kms wide. I hated this border because we had to give up our passports and it was very confusing to know what was happening with our luggage. We had to go through checks for immigration and customs on the Jordan side, window 1, 2, 3 and back to 2 again. They kept our passports and then we got onto a bus. After about a 1km we had to get off the bus, go to a little office and get our passports back. Back on the bus again and continue to the Israel check point. This side was worse. Queue here, queue there, scan luggage, answer questions. Some people did not want to have a stamp of Israel in their passport in case they wanted to go to another Arab country who does not like Israel. The Israeli immigration officer kept asking them the same questions over and over. Why don’t you want your passport stamped? What countries have you been to? What countries are going to in future? Why do you want to go to Syria? What are you going to do there? Who do you know in that country? It was a bit scary waiting for our turn. We got the stamp and then did not have to answer all of these questions. They wanted to know why mum’s name is not the same as dad’s name. It took us 3 hours to cross this border.

The countryside is very different to Jordan. It has more green. The buildings are finished and it’s more organised. The city has an old part and a new part. There are lots of little streets and alley ways and there are lots of cars trying to get through narrow parts.

We spent most of our time in the old city which has a wall around it. The old city is amazing. There are so many little alleyways with stalls like at a market but they are permanent. People also live there and there are lots of important sites for different religions. We saw the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which covers the site where Jesus died and was buried, the Way of the Cross where the stations of the Cross are marked so that you can see where Jesus carried the cross, the Dome of the Rock which is a Muslim Shrine with a big Gold Dome and built over the rock from where Mohamed ascended to heaven and the 'Wailing Wall' which is very significant for the Jewish people. It is pretty amazing to have been in the place that is a so special to our religion. The only bad thing was we had to go back over the border again - only 2 hours this time.

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