Crossing the Jordan, Part 2

The Western Wall viewed through fence. (Photo by Steven Stanek)

Enough people mentioned the last blog post about my trip to Israel that I felt obliged to finish the story as promised.

As soon as we crossed into Israel, it was like a different world. The desert gave way to a border station surrounded by a carpet of lush GRASS! plants and palm trees. Not only that, the building and the road up to the building looked like it was constructed with some sort of plan.

The bus dropped us at the front of the building, we handed our bags and our passports to two Israeli security officials. They put stickers on our bags and sent them into the building on a conveyer belt, just like at any airport. In fact, I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I had a brief moment of near panic when I thought “What if I’ve somehow accidentally been transported to an airport?” I clearly didn’t have a plane ticket, and I was worried I’d never see my bag again. Really stupid, I admit, but I couldn’t read any of the signs and you never know, right?

One thing was the same here as in Jordan: no one gives any instructions. I followed the Dutch woman through a metal detector and into the building. She and the guy from Seattle started filling out a form that asked for basic personal information, so I filled out the form. I took it to a very young Israeli woman, who looked at my passport and asked me where I was going, why I was going there, who I was visiting, when I would leave and where I would go when I left.

Then she stamped my passport. I listened to the CHACHUNK of the stamp, and I kissed any trip I might have wanted to take to Lebanon or Syria or the Sudan ;) goodbye. As my colleague Peter pointed out in his comment on my earlier post, if your passport has an Israeli stamp, Muslim countries that don’t have a treaty with Israel will not allow you to enter. For this reason, the American Embassy issues temporary passports, but I didn’t want to deal with the hassle. My passport expires in March anyway, and I don’t have plans to visit Lebanon or Syria on this trip. It would have been nice to leave the option open, but I also figured it might take longer to get through immigration with a temporary passport. And, I heard you can’t go to the King Hussein Bridge border station, but haveto go to another one. I’m not sure if that’s true, though.
I went through another security point where the young woman soldier looked at my passport and asked my reason for visiting and when I would be leaving. There’s nothing like feeling welcome.

I found my bag without a problem and wandered outside where I asked the shared-van-taxi-people how much to go to Jerusalem. They said 28 shekels. I exchanged 50 JD (Jordanian Dinar) for something like a million shekels (okay, not really, but a lot). I went to get in the van. The guy from Seattle was already there, and he asked me where the other woman was. I told him I didn’t know. He went to find her. I thought this was odd, but then I just thought he was trying to look out for her because she’s young and foreign and a woman. He found her and came back to tell me that we would all haveto pay a little more money, otherwise the van wouldn’t leave until 5 p.m. (over an hour) or when it was full (it held ten people and we were six). I agreed. I paid 20 shekels extra, so the whole thing cost me about $25.

On the drive to Jerusalem I saw more desert, but it was different from what I was used to seeing. There was a lot of agriculture in parts of it. It seems clear that they have some kind of sophisticated irrigation system. As we got closer to the city the landscape became more mountainous. On the side of the road I saw bulldozers busily cutting into the side of a mountain, building a road or expanding a road, but no doubt making some general improvement. I noticed this seemingly mundane detail and note it here because it’s indicative of a level of organization and efficiency and governmental responsibility that I find lacking in Jordan.

I also saw some things that were more familiar – people living in what looked like barely held together tents, brown children in dirty clothes running around (playing or maybe working) amongst a flock of sheep.

When we finally arrived in Jerusalem about 40 minutes after we left the border, I knew I was going to love it. I remember thinking how many trees there were here. Some of the bland, concrete buildings with satellites on the roofs were familiar, but they were much less densely stacked than what I am used to. And Look! There’s a church! The sun was about 30 minutes from setting and it glinted off of the gold cupola of the Dome of the Rock. Ahhhhh! Let the love affair begin.

As we drove toward our departure point - the Damascus Gate in the Old City - I saw homes that were constructed from stone and buildings that looked historic (check out these photos of the Jerusalem). One was surrounded by an old stone fence, and as we passed I looked inside the open gate and saw a verdant garden and a huge angel trumpet in bloom.

It was then that I started to feel like I was in Europe, and I haveto admit, as much as I’ve loved Jordan, I was feeling like I REALLY loved Israel.

The Arabic driver, who was being overly friendly to me (not in any inappropriate way, but in an annoying, cloying way) offered to let me use his cell phone. I told him I had my own. It turned out that I should have used his. Mine would only send text messages and receive calls. Later it stopped working altogether. The driver dropped us across the street from the Damascus Gate, and the whole area was full of Arabic vendors selling everything from cell phones to fresh, hot bread. I was ready to be finished with this journey which was now well into its fourth hour, and I forgot to grab my bag out of the back of the van. The ever-helpful driver ran it over to me just as I was crossing the street, and then I felt bad that I thought him annoying.

I paused at the Damascus Gate and saw tourists of all nationalities sitting on the steps. I stood there for a minute and enjoyed my break from the Middle East. While I was technically in the heart of it, here, in Jerusalem at least, I felt like I had been transported to another world. One in which I was less of a foreigner and more myself.

I took a cab (the guy wanted 40 shekels but I told him it was too much. He said the meter would be more and I said that was fine. Using the meter I paid 28. HA! Take that, guy! I’m not as stupid as I look) and made it, finally, to my destination.

So that’s the very long and involved story of how I got to Israel. I didn’t stop loving it, btw, and while I know I only saw a very small part of a very diverse city (and country), I am now fond of saying that Israel is like Europe with ugly shoes.

Women praying at the Western Wall.
We visited the Western Wall where the men’s section is separated from the women’s section by a chest-high, wooden barrier. Guess which side is small and crowded and scrunched up against some kind of construction project? Uh huh. Raise your hand if you’re surprised.

We also spent a lot of time in the Arab market, walking around crowded, narrow passageways, people watching and taking photos, including the one of an incense shop at left (taken by Steven Stanek).

I got myself drunk on two glasses of wine, thank you very much, and ate mashed potatoes and sushi (not at the same time), hamduallah, katir, katir, katir!

The weather took a turn for the worse while I was there, becoming cold and rainy, and I was forced to buy a fabulous brown peacoat coat that brings out all the subtle highlights in my ever-lengthening locks, I was assured by the salesman. I relished shopping by myself at night, and I’ve never enjoyed walking around in the rain more. I’ve missed the luxury of independence. I’ve missed being able to get to know a city by walking its streets. I’ve missed the opportunity for serendipity. I felt like I’d broken free of something.

It wasn’t all warm fuzzies and roses, though. It is, after all, one of the most troubled regions in the world. There was security everywhere. A guard sat at the entrance to every bar, restaurant and café.

Also, I’m sure that I was ramming into some kind of irritating cultural difference that I can’t identify, but I found people on the streets and waiting in lines to be so rude. Out for themselves, walking four-wide across a sidewalk without moving an inch for me to pass. Scooting in front of me in lines (violating the queue, if you will) because they knew they could, even though they also knew I’d been waiting very patiently longer than they had.

The journey home was much the same as the trip to Israel, except the King Hussein Bridge is called the Allenby Bridge on the Israeli side and the exit tax was $35.