a wholly holy land

Leaving Jordan
We leave Aqaba and arrive in Amman via bus - the Cliff Hotel, where David and I were warmly greeted
by our good friend Andrew.  At last, I took out all the books from my bag and put them on
his book shelf. This made up for the arabic book Andrew gave me last time I stayed.
  So we stay up for a while with Andrew discussing the border - he's very well informed
as he has dealt with many many tourists. Last night's dinner is spent at Hashims, then David
and I go to our coffee shop for some shisha.  We meet some lovely people who insist
we stay longer in Jordan, this time not paying for hostels or anything for they would love
to house us. I'm sosososo tempted.
  I wake up numerous times in the night thinking it's morning and I'm late...for the border?
I don't even know.  Andrew thought I was crazy but he was very kind about it.
  David went out and bought me coffee and breakie while I packed up my stuff and chatted
with Andrew and before I knew it we were off.
  The service taxi was shared with two other Palestinians going to the border.  That was
really interesting.  The process for them to leave even the West Bank is strenuous, and
the allowance or visa or whatever is soso limited.  One was a very successful engineer who
travelled to India Syria Jordan etc for work with his company.  However the Palestinian engineers
would never work with Israelis who work to build illegal housing, and mostly rely
on exterior countries for work.
  From the Jordinian border we bussed to the Israeli border.  The 4 minute car ride took up to 3 hours
it was ridiculous but we were talking with a lovely girl on the bus.  I'm sorry to say
but I suddenly got really nervous she was a spy because she was so cool and that didn't
help my screaming butterflies. I was really nervous.
  Customs was meant to be split into lines for Palestinians, Israelis, and Foreigners but
I'm still confused because David came with me to every stop and did all of this talking
and it was pretty easy.  The last girl asked my surname, where's it from, do I have family
here, and I visiting them, etc etc she disappeared for a while showing off my passport,
came back, I say I'm not friendly with my family, I'm here to visit my boyfriend's family and from here
going to europe.  Then pow Bam she stamped my passport with a big fat israeli stamp.
  But I got through.  My flight home from Lebanon is ages away.  My nerves were too wild
to remember that.
  I say goodbye to David.  Which was pretty weird.  Because we've been together for three weeks
and never once said goodbye...though we never seemed to stop talking.  But we'll see eachother
again soon enough.  We'll travel again in November to maybe Egypt Morocco (sorry Mum) or eastern
Europe.
  I jump on 'the bus to riha (aka Jerico) with the Palestinians' as Mayada instructed and sit beside a
young girl with wide eyes.  The bus ride was too short.  I think I then went through
a check point before I jumped in a community car to Ramallah.  The guy next to me spoke a bit
of english.  I found out he was from the village Ni'lin and ope he knows Saeed Amirah!
So he sat really close to me and taught me the arabic body parts until we got to Ramallah.
  He was keen to come with me to my destination but I kept saying 'no no Mayada has a car for me'
but see the number for a taxi she gave me was disconnected so this lovely man got us a cab
and he dropped me off like a gentleman and continued onto his village (in the opposite direction).

Another thing I'm going to mention, though I've barely left Ramallah, is that I don't feel like
I'm in another country. I don't feel as though the people here are foreign, or that I'm foreign, which
according to everyone I'm not.  Ana philistiniyya, lol.  The arabic is again very different
so i'm really bad again and everyone corrects me which a different dialect thinking that they'll
teach me one I'll like better or something I don't even know but I'm pretty chill here.
mmyeah
Salamat