Well, I'm now sitting in Bethlehem. We left on a bus from Cairo at 11pm last night and arrived in Taba at about 6am. After a bit of struggling at the border due to the Syrian stamps in my passport, we made it across and to Eliat. They took me off into a little room and subjected me to all sorts of questions about why I had gone to Syria, who I saw there, what I was going to do in Israel, if I knew people, etc. Quite a process but it only took about 1/2 hour.
What a crazy place! Israel proper feels like Europe and people look/act like it, except for the automatic weapons that some are carrying around. That's going to take some getting used to!
From Eliat we took a 4-hour bus to Jerusalem, walked around town a bit, then took a bus part-way to Bethlehem, then a taxi. We had to do the 2 ways b/c you get to a point where the Separation Wall stops the road that the bus is on and there's no easy way to go around. So...you go through a check-point of security where everyone is screened and then taxis are waiting to charge you high fares to continue.
I came on the bus with my friend Lachlyn who has a friend Matt in Bethlehem. So, I'm staying there for the next couple of nights and then will be going to stay in Jerusalem after that. Hopefully, I'll get some people to stay with from Couchsurfing.com
Playing tourist around Bethlehem tomorrow. Matt works at an institute with a computer lab and 'net connection, so hopefully I'll be able to keep using that.
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