Monday, June 08, 2009

day 3 - bethlehem

Today was a light day. We got up, enjoyed a leisurely breakfast,
walked 2 miles to the bus station, caught a bus to Bethlehem... ok.
Not to Bethlehem, but to the checkpoint near Bethlehem. For those who
don't know, Israel has been erecting this huge wall around the West
Bank. It's like the Berlin Wall or the Great Wall of China. It's
concrete like the Berlin one, but tall like the Chinese one. Length
wise, somewhere in between. After passing the wall, we negotiated our
taxi fare into town (15 shekels, down from an absurd 100). The Church
of the Nativity was interesting, as it is where Christ was allegedly
born and it is also the oldest church (established in the 4th
century). Afterwards, we wandered around town a bit before finally
walking back to Jerusalem. It was a fine walk. We mostly did it for
shits and giggles, but it was neat finding our way back and it also
gave us some good photo ops of the absurd wall. It was also cool as we
got closer to town and we finally got our first glimpse of the Old City.

Tomorrow we check out the Dead Sea area. Should be a good time!

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