I had a strange, strange day yesterday. Bethlehem is nothing like I expected.
I technically *knew* that Bethlehem was in the Palestinian Territories, but it’s literally a twenty minute drive away from Jerusalem, and like it’s BETHLEHEM- how different could it be? Very, very, and very.
The second I got off the bus – and I mean the SECOND, literally as I was coming down the stairs, I was bombarded by guys trying to “show me around” and “give me maps” and that kind of shit. I couldn’t even get my bearings at the bus stop because I had to get away from them all. I had to say no, nope, I’m good, no, no, no thanks, anything to get them to leave me alone. In my experience, it’s way better to be rude than it is to engage with them at all. Sometimes I don’t even say no because I don’t want them to know I speak English. Anyway, so that put a bad taste in my mouth from the first moment I arrived.
It was fascinating walking through the main streets in the Old City. I saw no tourists on the streets at all, which surprised me. It’s basically one giant market, which was for the locals, so it was cool to see how they actually live. The streets were loud and crowded, and I was one of maybe only three or four women I saw not wearing a headscarf. I stuck out a lot, got a lot of stares, a lot of people trying to get money out of me. I didn’t have my camera out or anything, but there was no way to hide the fact that I was a tourist – even if I had covered my hair, I was way whiter than everyone.
I wandered around for awhile, and then went into a couple churches. I stand by my previous statement that religion is WEIRD. The first church I went into was called The Milk Church or Mother of Milk Church or Eight Maids A-Milkin’ Church or some shit. It was…strange. It was supposed to be specially for some important religious reason but I didn’t really understand why. This is a terrible description. Basically it’s important, but tiny, and honestly pretty unimpressive.
The other church was something about the ascension or something (I think) and was way bigger, but overflowing with tour groups. THIS IS WHERE ALL THE TOURISTS WERE. Like all of them. It was just filled with old whites people, and then I understood why there were no tourists on the street. It’s just like, old Christian people that tour Bethlehem, and all they care about is seeing the fancy shmancy churches and stuff, and are scared to actually walk around a city that’s a little different than what they’re used to so they only get around via tour bus. That sounded pretty harsh, but it’s exactly what I observed.
So the problem with this church thing is that there are tons of people trying to get in, but there’s a bottleneck inside and you have to go down some stairs single file. It’s terribly arranged and even more terribly organized, so it took so much longer than it should have. And then it like wasn’t even that cool inside. Not the prettiest of churches. The important part was in the basement area – I guess one of the the marks was supposed to be where Jesus ascended (or was that in Jerusalem? There’s another important church there too…) and then there’s like the manger or something. It was so weird, all these old people were getting on their hands and knees and kissing the floor (while I just snapped photos of the weirdness). It was HONESTLY KIND OF LAME. I know that it’s an important religious thing or whatever, but they didn’t even make it practical or particularly pretty. Try saying that ten times fast.
I ate lunch there, which was absolutely the best part of my visit. Food in this area is SO CHEAP. Israel is pretty expensive, but a shekel in the Palestinian Territories goes wayyyyy further. I got a HUGE bowl of hummus, four falafel balls, and more veggies and pita than I could even eat for under 5 USD. And it was super delicious.
The last thing I did was also pretty sweet. I visited this place outside of the Old City, which was a little shop where a bunch of women sell handmade items. There was jewelry and clothes, but the best part was the embroidery. Everything was so beautiful, but I really can’t buy stuff because I have absolutely no room in my bag. But it was still fun to look!
The hardest part of being in Bethlehem for me was the way I was treated. I felt like I was back in America again. When I was outside the Old City walking along the big roads, I was honked at and yelled at constantly. In Tel Aviv and Jerusalem I felt welcomed and safe, but in Bethlehem I felt very much like an outsider, and I felt like I had to be constantly on guard. It’s not a nice feeling. I also learned later than apparently it’s not the safest and people recommend you don’t go alone…whoops! I have no desire to go back there, but I’m glad I went and was able to experience a different culture. And maybe it’s one of those culture shock things- perhaps if I had been there a few days, I would have started to like it. Who knows?
I took the bus back to Jerusalem – fun fact, the bus stop isn’t labeled literally AT ALL, so it’s a good thing I was able to mark where I got off the bus so that I could find the stop again – and basically collapsed into my bed, completely spent. But then I was like WELL I should probably do something my last night here so I decided to go on a pub crawl, and convinced two of my roommates to come with.
I started off the night strong in the hostel bar with two glasses of wine – a free drink I had gotten a couple days previously when my room took too long to clean, and a free drink through the pub crawl. And then we got free ouzo shots and there were two extra and I might have had one of those also…so yeah. Started off well. We all introduced each other, and found out that there was one guy from Chicago and one guy from Rochester who knows some of my friends WEIRD. There were only three girls on the pub crawl, and like twelve guys. Ugh.
Anyway, it was a pretty standard pub crawl – we went to a place in the shuk, and then somewhere else that I don’t remember, and ended at a gay bar. As per usual with a pub crawl, I ended up going home with Chicago guy who had a private room in the hostel, which is always a bonus. Woohoo. Bloop bloop bloop.
So that was fun and also this morning was fun again and then I ate as much breakfast as I possibly could so I wouldn’t be hungry later and also stole some fruit and then packed my bag and got yelled at by an old guy in my dorm for spreading my stuff out while I packed what the hell and then I went to the bus station and found the Jerusalem bus and got to Tel Aviv and definitely didn’t get lost in the bus station and definitely could figure out where the freaking exit was without asking anybody…
I’m back in Tel Aviv, and it’s starting to feel like home. Walking around without an agenda, sitting outside a corner coffee shop, watching the people, petting the dogs…it’s nice. I’m starting to understand it more here, and I totally get why people live here. I would love to see it in the summer. Tonight I’m meeting up with a friend that I met in IRELAND, of all places, and lives here, so I’m super excited to see her and catch up, and I’ll be staying with my friends in their apartment again. Life isn’t perfect, but being alive is pretty damn okay.