Bethlehem

We weren't sure if we wanted to visit Bethlehem, only because it's in an area controlled by Palestine. This means we couldn't drive our rental car there because no Israeli vehicles are allowed. We ended up having a little extra time on our last day in Jerusalem. We decided that if we could get a cab driver to take us for a certain amount we'd go. After some serious bartering we had a cab driver agreed to our price but he was really annoyed and complained the whole drive. It was super uncomfortable and we told him to stop and let us out if he didn't want to take us. I think tourism used to be strong but is dwindling with the political climate so a lot of people who worked in that industry seemed a lot more desperate. We also had people say that we owed it to them to give them more money because we had enough money to travel. It's hard to argue but also hard not to go broke. Although after being in other countries the term broke loses all meaning. ANYWAY...

We continued with this guy to Bethlehem. Ran in quickly and saw the church and city a little. The cab driver had originally agreed to take us back to our hotel (he had picked us up at the City of David) but later said that wasn't what we'd agreed to. Even though I'd made it VERY clear before we got into the cab. We told him that was fine to just take us back to the City of David because it wasn't too far of a walk. He started talking about how dangerous is it, which we knew. After he let us out he  was yelling at us and calling me garbage. He trailed us a little while we walked and then rolled down his window and said "Ha ha, I'm going this direction anyway" (toward our hotel). We had a brisk, anxious walk to the hotel and then I was done. I was so glad we were leaving in the morning and decided I'd rather go to bed hungry then to even walk to the market across the street. We knew there were stabbings daily in Jerusalem so I felt like I'd pushed my luck too much already by staying there 3 days already. Craig wasn't worried and went to grab dinner while I hung out in our hotel room. Like a good husband he came back with 2 ice cream bars and a liter of chocolate milk for dinner :)