Day 7 - Off to Jerusalem!

This morning, our personal alarm clock, aka Syreen’s mother, woke us up at 9h30 (the first morning we slept in) with the amazing and sudden news that we’d visit Jerusalem today! We got up, got dressed and had breakfast: a cup of coffee, an Israeli cucumber (a mini-me version of Belgian cucumbers) and a slice of homemade pie.

While we were grabbing our stuff for our trip to Jerusalem, Sereen’s mother told us that when in the mosque, we have to cover ourselves up. We took our scarfs and she gave us some of her clothes.

Ready… Set… Off to Jerusalem!

We had to drive a long way, because Jerusalem is located behind the middle of nowhere. It took us two hours to get to Jerusalem (we always have to think about the song ‘Jerusalem’ by Anouk, Syreen already knows it) but we didn’t mind, because sitting in the car watching the

beautiful landscape is worth the wait. When we compare it to Belgium, it’s like we’re living in ‘flatland’.

There are two ways to get to Jerusalem from Daburiy ya. The Israelian way and the Palestinian way. We chose the second one, because Syreen’s brother wanted to show us Jericho (which is the oldest city in the world by the way). We were going through a valley, with on the left side of the road a fence, Jordan villages and mountains and on the right side of the road a desert-like landscape with hills, sand –obviously-, some Palestinian villages and one Jewish village surrounded by fences.

We were driving and driving and driving until suddenly, out of the blue… a camel appeared. We thought, because we were driving through the desert, that it was a Fata Morgana, but we rubbed our eyes and we saw heaven with four legs. The camel was real and so was the man asking money. We thought ‘hey, why don’t we pull over, get out of the car and take a picture…’ Bad, bad idea. Before we knew it, Ashton was being transformed into a camelrider –we think it’s a funny name, it reminds us of a superhero, ‘Ashton the camelrider, only one camel away’-. But let’s get serious, how many people can say they rode a camel (and have a superhero name)? We can! Take that Belgian people!

We already told you about the yellow car game, not a good idea! Syreen is getting really good at it and she always wants to sit in the middle, so she can hit both of us. We don’t mind because when we spot a yellow car first, we can hit her both. What’s better: one bruised leg or two? We’ll let you decide…

What we didn’t know and found out in a painful way, is that Israel and Palestina are filled with yellow cars, cabs, etc.

Once we found our way to Jerusalem, you can compare Jerusalem traffic to Brussels traffic (at least, that’s what Laura thinks), we parked our car next to the souk. All the women love it, but the men don’t want to see it. Girls (pronounced with a Texas accent), think of your split personality, when the shopaholic beats the angel in you. Let us explain how it works: you take a pinch of the market on Wednesday morning in Bruges (Ashton wants to tell the world the market in Sint-Niklaas is on Thursday morning, Yawnnn), a tablespoon of cosiness, 100 kilos of salesmen (aka shouting people), tons of herbs, vegetables, fruit, nuts (we were actually thinking of leaving Laura behind, she finally found her friends hiding in the village ‘Nuts’) and other delicious things. But don’t forget the earrings, necklaces, bracelets, rings, cleaningproducts, nailpolish, shampoos (we can go on, but we choose not to, it’s for the best!) and you have the perfect souk.

Y’all know Ashton, who’s not clumsy at all, who chooses to run into people and make them spill their freshly squeezed orange juice. ‘I wanted to get you the green nailpolish.’ Yeah right Ashton, blame it on the others, I think the time has come to take responsibility for your own actions.

But back to Jerusalem.

We needed to go through the souk to see the Al-Aqksa Mosque. As we told you before, we couldn’t enter unless we were properly dressed, so we put on the traditional clothes and scarf. We walked up to the entrance, but before we knew it the policeman asked Ashton Kif’halik? She looked confused, glanced at Laura with eyes that said ‘what do I say or do?’ Laura looked back at her and that’s were it ended. We really didn’t know how to behave, because we’ve never been in this situation and we don’t know their customs. We had to give our passports and wait to hear the verdict. Syreen was trying really hard to get us inside, but the police wouldn’t budge, because visiting hours were over and we weren’t Muslims. We were a little bit disappointed, but we understood why we couldn’t get in. Syreen promised us that she would take a lot of pictures and so she did. We waited outside and watched the people passing by.

After a while Syreen and her sister-in-law came out of the mosque and showed us the pictures. We were stunned by the beauty and it took our breath away.

But before we knew it, we already had to go. We wandered around in the souk and bought some gifts for the family. Syreen surprised us with a ‘magic’ lipstick (it’s green and it makes your lips pop red. Why don’t we have anything like this in Belgium?) so we surprised her with a new cover for her Iphone. She changes cover everyday, colour coordinated of course.

On our way back home we drove through the desert again. We had a nice tasty dinner in a restaurant in Jericho and Ashton couldn’t resist taking yet another picture. If you want to know what a tourist looks like, pay Ashton a visit. She gives lessons for free. (Just so you know, she takes ‘art’pictures…)

Without any gas, we made it till the Israelian checkpoint. But what we didn’t expect was the police pulling us over. The fact that we’re tourists and don’t have any connection to Syreen’s family made them suspicious. (A special thanks to Laura, who thought it was a pitty they didn’t see her passport).

We had to park our car, get everything out and put our stuff through a X-raymachine. They didn’t find anything, obviously, so we could continue our journey. Murphey’s law: always the case when you need something desperately, you can’t find it. When you don’t need it anymore, it’s there. That was the case with the gas stations. First there were none, then there were a thousand (we like to exaggerate as you can see/read). We were all very tired, so we were glad to be home. We arrived to Daburiy ya and we made a quick stop at the glasses shop. Syreen’s brother has bought the new place, so not everything was installed yet. But he had a really cool machine to test sunglasses.

We now realize more than ever that our sunglasses don’t work at all…

Thanks Israel for being so beautiful! See you next time…