Nemal H̱efa

Hello all and welcome to Israel 🇮🇱. Somewhere I never thought I would come to be honest but here we are. It was a very early start this morning with the alarm being set for 5.45am. I didn’t sleep well at all for the past 2 nights which is most unusual but I was fast asleep when the alarm went off. We were up and out of our cabin for 6.10 and had breakfast in the buffet. We were down, out, cleared by immigration and on the bus by 7am bound for our first stop, Jerusalem. It was a 3 hour drive and the traffic was just as bad as the Uk. The weather gladly has improved, beautiful sunshine and 22 degrees by 9am.

Our first guide was called Asaf and our bus driver was called Moses (Here we go !!). Asaf was extremely knowledgable about all of the history of the country and was very proud. We’re quite ignorant really, we didn’t know that the British started them off with their first oil refinery and played a massive part in getting the country up and running. We drove past the wall that was put up by the Palestinians and he was quite diplomatic about the explanation of that. By 9.30am, Sharon was tucking in to her cheese sandwich that she made last night. As we approached Jerusalem we were showed what looked like a skyscraper. It turned out to be a cemetery. So many people want to be buried here and burying people is big business. People will pay up to 100k to be buried here.

First stop Mount of Olives which gave magnificent views of Jerusalem. There were lots of interesting facts so I’m told but I wasn’t listening so should you wish to know any of them just ask Sharon !! From there we went past the Jordan Desert en route to The Garden of Gethsemane. We went in this church, very busy, lots of people praying and stuff, before a short bus ride to the gate of Jerusalem where we began our 2 hour walk through the city. Interesting name for the gate, “Dung Gate”. We got to the Western Wall also known as the whaling wall. Yeah people balling their eyes out an putting notes in the cracks of the wall. Our 2 hour walk took us through old world Jerusalem, very architectural and a good insight in to day to day life. We stopped at various points of the cross?? and stopped at a church where “It all happened” before walking back to the bus. I didn’t see an Apple or a G-Star shop once. Come to think of it no McDonalds either !! Our guide did get my attention once, I thought he said we were exiting the city and we got Jaffa Cakes 🧁, turns out we were leaving through Jaffa Gate, Doh 🙄

So on we went for lunch at a hotel in Bethlehem. Actually quite nice food and a look around a holy gift shop before being driven to the church of the nativity. We were able to go in to the grotto which isn’t guaranteed on any tour so I’m told that was a bonus. Everyone though it was wonderful so I guess it must have been. I didn’t really realise that Bethlehem is in Palestine and that people can’t travel freely between Palestine and Jerusalem. The one thing that struck me was that how close to Christmas it is and it wasn’t decorated up at all anywhere we have been today. There was one big tree outside the church in Bethlehem, other than that there was very little.

Anyway, we were on our way out of there about 4.30 this afternoon. Sharon had a fab time and loved it, for me Jerusalem as a city was an interesting walk around and I enjoyed that bit, I wasn’t impressed by Bethlehem at all not all the churches.

We were back on the ship at 7pm and we’re quite tired as we’d done a lot of walking. We went to the buffet for tea rather than the restaurant and had a fantastic mixed grill. Lamb, spork and beef for me with chips & gravy but Sharon went more healthy and did the rice. I finished off with 4 custard doughnuts !! (They were small to be fair).

It’s 8.35pm and we’re sat at the back of the ship with a drink and a cake, it won’t be a late evening for us tonight I don’t think.Read more