About a week ago I took a trip with my girlfriend to Jerusalem Israel. This was going to be a datasheet with the typical datasheet stuff on it. However after all that I experienced and saw I felt that a story would be better suited for what happened.
This will be a long post. If you don't want to read the whole thing, scroll to the bottom and read the TL;DR.
I chose Jerusalem because I don't like Christmas. Call me a grinch, but I don't see the point in spending my limited time off with toxic people who drag me down. Not to mention I figured the middle east would be a lot warmer than any place back in the states (it really wasn't).
On a side note, I always get this uncomfortable feeling that Israel is on the precipice of being wiped off of the map. I want to see the place in its current glory before something happens whatever it may be.
The trip started out pretty poorly. We both drove the car to London Luton Airport which if you've ever had the unfortunate experience of flying out of is the stinky grundle of the airport industry. We parked our car with plenty of time, but there was a ton of traffic getting into the darn place. Once we got dropped off by the shuttle we had to walk a decent way to get to the actual ticket counter. We made it to the ticket counter, but the lady told us they had just closed the gate.
Frustrated at the crack ass of dawn in a nasty airport, we go to the customer service desk to see what our options are. Much to our dismay, that was the only flight until Wednesday.
I thought about acknowledging my defeat at the hands of London Luton and going back home. It seems though that chance had a different plan for us. Looking up I saw an ad for an El Al direct flight to Tel Aviv. Pulling out my phone, I gave their phone reservations a call. Must have been my lucky day because they had two seats. Booked, the flight.
It might have been smarter to just rebook the budget tickets for the next day. You see, we didn't realize that flying into Israel isn't a normal thing. I knew about their crazy airport security, but I didn't think it would start right at Luton.
After waiting 4 hours, we went up to the El Al check in desk. Unlike normal check in counters we had to interview. Right off the bat, the check in people were very confused as to why this american couple booked a flight three hours prior one way. They split me apart from my girlfriend and asked us all sorts of questions pertaining to us. Things like how long we had known each other, where we lived previously, what I was doing in the UK, and more importantly why would two Americans ever want to travel to Israel?
Our answers seemed to satisfy them, but they told us that we would need to have ourselves go through an additional screening once we got through the airport's regular security. This basically amounted to our carry-ons getting hand checked. All of our belongings were opened up and laid out. They even went so far as to cracking off the hard case on my cell phone and dusting for explosive dust. When we landed later it also appeared that they had our way with our checked in bags.
The flight wasn't anything to cry home about. I sat next to a Hasidic Jew, his wife, and adorable daughter. Friendly gent, but couldn't speak a word of English. What killed me the most was how the aisle became a party floor. No one sat in their seats for the duration of the flight.
Once we got into Tel Aviv, I got this gut feeling that my girl and I were now on some sort of Shin Bet or Mossad watch list. While we were waiting to clear passport control my straying eye caught this adorable blond Israeli girl looking blankly away. She seemed out of place for whatever reason.
We walked past customs and immediately the blond girl came up to us.
"Hello! I work with the Israeli Ministry of Tourism. I'm doing a 2 minute survey to help us better understand where tourists go in Israel. If you complete it I can give you a complimentary mobile phone with free minutes, text, and data. We will be periodically checking where you are so we can help better improve our country's landmarks!"
Being the sucker I am for blond jews , I was ready to do the survey and take the phone. Sure I'd have some intelligence goons following me every where I go, but I got nothing to hide and Shin Bet can read my posts here on the forum anyway.
My girlfriend was smarter though and made a fuss about it. I relented![[Image: whip.gif]](https://rooshvforum.network/images/smilies/new/whip.gif)
Thanking her, we grabbed our bags, hailed a cab, and headed to our digs in Jerusalem.
Once the cab dropped us off, we walked to our short let right off of Jaffa Street. Apparently this is quite the happening place as all of the bars, shops, and restaurants are right in the area. Exhausted we hit the hay.
Prior to getting into Jerusalem, I did a lot of historical reading so I would know what I was looking at. This was going to be one of those "educational" trips. A week prior, I went to London for a weekend with my girl and spent a whole day walking the British Museum. That museum trip helped build the foundation of what I was about to see (Hadrian i'm looking at you).
My girl and I did the Rampart's Walk from Jaffa gate all the way into the Muslim quarter. We both decided prior to coming to do our best to "fit in". I grew out a beard and she brought along a shawl to cover up. You never know...
Walking around the old city was surreal. You read so much about this darn city that actually being there it's not quite cracked up to what you'd expect. The place is like a cleaner favela with a lot of shops. Everyone around will try and swoop you in to buy their junk. If you see one item in one place, check a few others in the Christian quarter. They will much much cheaper. Muzzies trying to rip off us tourists!
We spent the day walking around looking at the sites, we had a plan for what we wanted to see each day and didn't want to break it out of order.
The small datasheet part of this story: Israeli chicks are hot. Big tits, nice asses, olive skin, and above all they're fierce. Don't act polite to these lizards at all. Instead, go hard cocky and funny to blast through the bitch shields. They'll look confused and disarmed. At that point game away. Everything said in the Tel Aviv datasheet is 100% accurate and on point for what you'll see in Jerusalem. People could not understand why we wanted to even visit such a place. I didn't understand why they said this until the end of the trip.
Later that night we went to this restaurant outside the Tower of David called Eucalyptus. If you're ever in Jerusalem this is a gourmet restaurant with an Israeli food tasting menu that has different tiers to select from. Take a chick here if you want to impress her. You'll need a reservation.
Post dinner we went to this cool light show at the Tower of David. Basically an hour long film about the history of Jerusalem from the first temple period all the way up to the founding of the state of Israel. It was a cool touristy thing to do and we were able to get tickets for the Tower of David museum.
Apparently earlier that day a bunch of people got stabbed at the Jaffa gate. Some arabs went up behind some Jews and stabbed them. That would explain why I saw some IDF guys running around.
The next day, things started to get more interesting. We checked out the Via Dolorosa, went to the Lutheran Church founded by Kaiser Wilhelm, and a nifty morning tour of the Tower of David. I remarked to my girl that it's a shame that the Jerusalem of Jesus is buried under a metric f*ck ton of ruble. The Jerusalem of today is really a product of the middle ages as that town has been destroyed, back filled, and rebuilt so many times. Jesus was walking on streets 50ft below the actual surface of the street today.
Don't try and sneak into the Dome of the Rock. You'll have IDF border guards only allowing muslims through. They seem to have a nose for smelling pork eaters like myself even with a bushy beard and a girlfriend all shawled up. Though her disguise short of worked a few times as we had a couple arabs remarking that she in fact looked arab, gotta work out my beard a little more. They have special times to enter the temple mount area, but the story I have from that is pretty crazy.
After we had dinner my girl and I went to Mike's Place on Jaffa Street. We sat down at the bar and we were greeted by the friendliest bar tender in the world. We'll call her Leah for now. Leah was an American Jew who never fit in the states. She moved to Israel after learning Hebrew and enlisted in their military. By far the most delightful person we have ever met and I hope she continues to find herself.
But the story gets better, after talking to her for a bit an Englishman to my right starts talking. We'll call him Dave. Dave's life story was a sad one. Apparently he was in the throes of heartbreak as his girlfriend turned fiance of four years broke up with him after putting down a wedding deposit two weeks prior. His story only got even more depressing after we found out that he was married two times previously! He booked his trip a week prior to leaving and hasn't been single since his teens/
Dave, Leah, a few other bartenders, and ourselves proceeded to get precipitously drunk. Soon after we ended up meeting more bar staff, the general manager, and a bouncer who was a spitting image of a famous actor. I shit you not, I threw some pictures up on facebook and had some people thinking I met him for real.
My girl and I felt bad for our new english friend so we try and help him run some game. I switched to water and my girl got super sloshed. The entire night was a blur with us hanging out with our english friend and a bunch of Americans on their birth right tour. My girl and myself started to burn out and we left our english friend to his own devices. This was by far the best christmas eve i've ever had to date.
The next day my girl and I went to a christmas day service. Not a whole heck of a lot to write home about. We had some lunch and proceeded to spend the day recovering from our drunken shenanigans of the night prior. We were hoping to run into our English friend that day, but alas the message we wrote in his journal didn't make it happen.
The next day we got up and did some more sight seeing. We went to the Austrian Mission and had some pork. Omfg I was so happy to have some deep fried pork. After eating at kosher restaurants for so long I all I want is some unclean animal to feast on. So good.
We walked the Via Dolorosca one more time seeing more of the sites along the way. This time we ventured into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This massive structure is very similar to the Dome of the Rock with a central area and all sorts of sides jutting out. We saw the supposed "rock" that Jesus was cleaned on as well as other relics.
It's a beautiful place loaded with all sorts of bells and smells. However a strange occurrence happened. We wanted to enter this small side chapel and this fat man started yelling at me that we couldn't go in there because they were giving blessings. I'm tired and just walk past him along a different path to a different part of the church. We went into this lower level and saw the abs of Jesus. A medieval painting of Jesus from the old church that was defaced by some Muhammadans back in the day.
Again as we come up the stairs we see this fat man again yelling at people to come out as priests were coming. I end up getting into a tuffle with this guy as I'd like to pass through the other sides of the church. Man didn't have any markings of a priest or employee of the church. Needless to say we went the long way around again to see the chapel we wanted to originally see.
Later that night we end up back at Mike's so we can get some deep fried chicken wings. It was glorious to say the least especially when I was hung over from all of the tobacco and booze. Our English friend once again appeared and joined us for some dinner. Apparently the ol' chap got lucky with this israeli girl, but was too drunk to really recall any of it. Good job Dave!
Later that night we met up with another gent whose life story just sounded like something right out of this forum. Apparently he lived all over Europe before founding an internet business shipping tourist goods out of the old city to people abroad. Makes good money apparently from it too.
Xavier ,as he will be known from now on and Dave however have a darker past that was alluded to me by Dave in the rest room. Apparently Dave worked for the British Army in some infantry capacity and was discussing mercenary work with X. Hilariously, when we were both using the restroom after he said that there was an Israeli guy in there who gave us a dirty look after he said that. We walked out. I have no idea what X's background is beyond just being a wayward soul who happened to wander upon Jerusalem. Frankly I got the impression Xavier had a more interesting background then what he actually alluded to.
Dave got trashed and required us to walk home which my girl and I happily obliged. During that walk he promised to use his basic arabic to get us into the Dome of the Rock since my girl with her shawl and my beard would fool any of the hardened Palestinian Waqf.
We sleep in a bit and meet Dave for breakfast later in the morning. After we ate, we ventured off to the Dome of the Rock and get in line for visiting during the proper visitation hours. We waited in line with my poor girl all shawled up in the heat.
We made it through security with no issue whatsoever. To get to the Dome of the Rock as a non muslim the Israelis constructed this wooden walk way over the western wall through the security gate enter into the temple mount.
We walked up to the main entrance past armed IDF border guards and we were immediately accosted by these two arab guys in plainclothes.
"You're praying! You cannot pray you must leave!"
The strange thing is, we just immediately entered into this monument. We didn't have any time to do anything. Dave tried talking to the guy who was having none of his explanation and told him he needed to leave immediately.
He says to us, "Alright gents, have fun!" and is escorted off by a guard at gun point.
At this point I started to recognize the fat arab in front of me as the guy from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
"Your friend is a bad man! You should not be hanging out with him!" The fat arab guy says to us.
The lanky arab tries telling us that my girlfriend's outfit is unacceptable which is a load of BS. She's wearing a dress below her knee, covered her wrists with a cardigan, and has leggings underneath, not to mention she has a shawl on.
I say to the under covers, "Look, we're just tourists here to see some important sites here in town. My girl and I aren't here to cause trouble. Honestly if you want us to leave, after what just happened I really have no desire to be here any longer."
At this point the lanky dude relents and lets us through with the caveat that my girl take her shawl and cover her ankles. Weird.
We walk around, take some pictures, talk to this evangelizing Arab on the mount. Pretty place, but seriously fuck arabs.
Leaving at this point we looped around back to the main entrance to see if any of the guards know where our friend went. Defeated as no one knows anything, we took a trip to the Western Wall and left some prayers. My girl left some blessings, but I left some curses for our Mecca praying friends on the mount. Nuff said.
I had messaged Dave on facebook hoping to hear back from him because at this point neither my girl or myself knew where he was. We made it all the way back to Jaffa Street where we ran into one of the bouncers at Mike's. Now the bouncer's back story is pretty legit as this guy was a special forces soldier who still does some intelligence work. We tell him our story and he's blown away. At this point, we find out that Dave is back at Mike's where we meet up with him.
My girl was pretty shaken up from this whole experience and my exclamation that I recognized the fat arab from the Church a few days earlier only made her more uneasy. We all sat down and refreshed ourselves with some alcoholic drinks.
After Dave got separated from us, an IDF soldier took him at gun point to a room off of the one of the main entrances and sat him down in a white resin deck chair. After a few minutes they tell him to leave the premises and not come back. No questions, no interrogations, just GTFO.
Hilariously we ended up seeing Xavier again (the guy with the online business) and tell him our story.
Sitting there we pretty much were drinking non stop for almost four hours. We're all pretty paranoid at this point, but our friends were all telling his to chill out as we weren't interesting to any intelligence agencies. Pretty sure though that our "known associates" were the interesting ones and we just happened to be hanging out with the wrong well dare I say correct crowd!
Xavier eventually decides that we're awesome and calls his wife to ask if she can cook an impromptu dinner for us. She says yes, but only if we like thawed food! Laughing, we all grabbed up bottles of wine and headed into a settlement 20 minutes outside of Jerusalem.
Xavier's house and his wife are adorable. We end up all sitting outside, drinking, smoking cigarettes like chimneys, and eating this amazing home cooked Israeli meal. We all remarked how strange it was to have found ourselves in such an odd place with such wonderful people (Dave, Xavier, his wife, and all of the circumstances around the entire trip).
We spent a good few hours with them laughing and telling stories about our adventures as well as diving into the geopolitics of the region. This trip of mine was rather formative and really changed my perspective on the entire place. Initially I used to be pro-Israel because of my upbringing but then in college I went pro Palestinian because of the news coming out of Gaza and the West Bank not to mention Israel's connections with far left puppet masters like George Soros. I then flipped flopped on my opinion once more and said to myself, "Fuck it, you two (Muhammadans and the Jews) can duke it out yourselves." and left it at that for most of my adult life.
After seeing everything on the ground and really researching it hardcore prior to arriving, I can definitely say that the Muslims in that region really have no claim to the Dome of the Rock or Jerusalem. Muhammad never set any foot in that area contrary to what BS claims you'll hear about Muhammad riding in on Pegasus to the Al-Aqsa mosque. Muhammad was poisoned by a Jewish wife he took from a conquest and died. To the conquering trash who came into that region, Jerusalem was a religious trophy and the Dome of the Rock is a reminder of Islam conquering the Jewish holy land. I said this to a few Israelis and the look on their faces was one of apprehensive agreement.
I've traveled and visited a lot of places, but what happened in Jerusalem was something that completely blew me away. Being invited into a family's home for an impromptu dinner, meeting an array of friendly characters with some unique pasts, and the slew of American-Jew expats who found themselves in this strange place left my girl and I dumbfounded. This place has me in a sort of shell shock and it took me a few days of decompressing to really be able to process all of the events that unfolded there. The hospitality, friendliness, and uniqueness of everyone we met were unparalleled to any place we’ve ever been in the past. It’s almost a shame we cannot spend more time with these amazing people.
Oh and as we were waiting for our flight to leave in Tel Aviv, another member of the "Tourism Ministry" wanted to survey us on our experience in Israel insisting that we were in Tel Aviv the entire time we were there.![[Image: angel.gif]](https://rooshvforum.network/images/smilies/angel.gif)
Also on a side note, Israel is the wild west with a lot of Jews. On the busiest night we were at Mike's, I counted almost 45 men and women who were open carrying (as in pistol in holster for all to see).
Israel is a 2nd amendment paradise and rightfully needs to be. During our duration of our visit, there were five stabbings around the old city and a hit and run at a bus stop where an arab tried to run over a bunch of people waiting for a bus.
TL;DR Went to Jerusalem. Met some former military guys. Got grouped up in some weird occurrences. Got paranoid that we were getting followed by intelligence goons. Saw some crazy historic sites and made some good friends.
Verdict: Will visit again soon![[Image: banana.gif]](https://rooshvforum.network/images/smilies/new/banana.gif)
This will be a long post. If you don't want to read the whole thing, scroll to the bottom and read the TL;DR.
I chose Jerusalem because I don't like Christmas. Call me a grinch, but I don't see the point in spending my limited time off with toxic people who drag me down. Not to mention I figured the middle east would be a lot warmer than any place back in the states (it really wasn't).
On a side note, I always get this uncomfortable feeling that Israel is on the precipice of being wiped off of the map. I want to see the place in its current glory before something happens whatever it may be.
The trip started out pretty poorly. We both drove the car to London Luton Airport which if you've ever had the unfortunate experience of flying out of is the stinky grundle of the airport industry. We parked our car with plenty of time, but there was a ton of traffic getting into the darn place. Once we got dropped off by the shuttle we had to walk a decent way to get to the actual ticket counter. We made it to the ticket counter, but the lady told us they had just closed the gate.
Frustrated at the crack ass of dawn in a nasty airport, we go to the customer service desk to see what our options are. Much to our dismay, that was the only flight until Wednesday.
I thought about acknowledging my defeat at the hands of London Luton and going back home. It seems though that chance had a different plan for us. Looking up I saw an ad for an El Al direct flight to Tel Aviv. Pulling out my phone, I gave their phone reservations a call. Must have been my lucky day because they had two seats. Booked, the flight.
It might have been smarter to just rebook the budget tickets for the next day. You see, we didn't realize that flying into Israel isn't a normal thing. I knew about their crazy airport security, but I didn't think it would start right at Luton.
After waiting 4 hours, we went up to the El Al check in desk. Unlike normal check in counters we had to interview. Right off the bat, the check in people were very confused as to why this american couple booked a flight three hours prior one way. They split me apart from my girlfriend and asked us all sorts of questions pertaining to us. Things like how long we had known each other, where we lived previously, what I was doing in the UK, and more importantly why would two Americans ever want to travel to Israel?
Our answers seemed to satisfy them, but they told us that we would need to have ourselves go through an additional screening once we got through the airport's regular security. This basically amounted to our carry-ons getting hand checked. All of our belongings were opened up and laid out. They even went so far as to cracking off the hard case on my cell phone and dusting for explosive dust. When we landed later it also appeared that they had our way with our checked in bags.
The flight wasn't anything to cry home about. I sat next to a Hasidic Jew, his wife, and adorable daughter. Friendly gent, but couldn't speak a word of English. What killed me the most was how the aisle became a party floor. No one sat in their seats for the duration of the flight.
Once we got into Tel Aviv, I got this gut feeling that my girl and I were now on some sort of Shin Bet or Mossad watch list. While we were waiting to clear passport control my straying eye caught this adorable blond Israeli girl looking blankly away. She seemed out of place for whatever reason.
We walked past customs and immediately the blond girl came up to us.
"Hello! I work with the Israeli Ministry of Tourism. I'm doing a 2 minute survey to help us better understand where tourists go in Israel. If you complete it I can give you a complimentary mobile phone with free minutes, text, and data. We will be periodically checking where you are so we can help better improve our country's landmarks!"
Being the sucker I am for blond jews , I was ready to do the survey and take the phone. Sure I'd have some intelligence goons following me every where I go, but I got nothing to hide and Shin Bet can read my posts here on the forum anyway.
My girlfriend was smarter though and made a fuss about it. I relented
Thanking her, we grabbed our bags, hailed a cab, and headed to our digs in Jerusalem.
Once the cab dropped us off, we walked to our short let right off of Jaffa Street. Apparently this is quite the happening place as all of the bars, shops, and restaurants are right in the area. Exhausted we hit the hay.
Prior to getting into Jerusalem, I did a lot of historical reading so I would know what I was looking at. This was going to be one of those "educational" trips. A week prior, I went to London for a weekend with my girl and spent a whole day walking the British Museum. That museum trip helped build the foundation of what I was about to see (Hadrian i'm looking at you).
My girl and I did the Rampart's Walk from Jaffa gate all the way into the Muslim quarter. We both decided prior to coming to do our best to "fit in". I grew out a beard and she brought along a shawl to cover up. You never know...
Walking around the old city was surreal. You read so much about this darn city that actually being there it's not quite cracked up to what you'd expect. The place is like a cleaner favela with a lot of shops. Everyone around will try and swoop you in to buy their junk. If you see one item in one place, check a few others in the Christian quarter. They will much much cheaper. Muzzies trying to rip off us tourists!
We spent the day walking around looking at the sites, we had a plan for what we wanted to see each day and didn't want to break it out of order.
The small datasheet part of this story: Israeli chicks are hot. Big tits, nice asses, olive skin, and above all they're fierce. Don't act polite to these lizards at all. Instead, go hard cocky and funny to blast through the bitch shields. They'll look confused and disarmed. At that point game away. Everything said in the Tel Aviv datasheet is 100% accurate and on point for what you'll see in Jerusalem. People could not understand why we wanted to even visit such a place. I didn't understand why they said this until the end of the trip.
Later that night we went to this restaurant outside the Tower of David called Eucalyptus. If you're ever in Jerusalem this is a gourmet restaurant with an Israeli food tasting menu that has different tiers to select from. Take a chick here if you want to impress her. You'll need a reservation.
Post dinner we went to this cool light show at the Tower of David. Basically an hour long film about the history of Jerusalem from the first temple period all the way up to the founding of the state of Israel. It was a cool touristy thing to do and we were able to get tickets for the Tower of David museum.
Apparently earlier that day a bunch of people got stabbed at the Jaffa gate. Some arabs went up behind some Jews and stabbed them. That would explain why I saw some IDF guys running around.
The next day, things started to get more interesting. We checked out the Via Dolorosa, went to the Lutheran Church founded by Kaiser Wilhelm, and a nifty morning tour of the Tower of David. I remarked to my girl that it's a shame that the Jerusalem of Jesus is buried under a metric f*ck ton of ruble. The Jerusalem of today is really a product of the middle ages as that town has been destroyed, back filled, and rebuilt so many times. Jesus was walking on streets 50ft below the actual surface of the street today.
Don't try and sneak into the Dome of the Rock. You'll have IDF border guards only allowing muslims through. They seem to have a nose for smelling pork eaters like myself even with a bushy beard and a girlfriend all shawled up. Though her disguise short of worked a few times as we had a couple arabs remarking that she in fact looked arab, gotta work out my beard a little more. They have special times to enter the temple mount area, but the story I have from that is pretty crazy.
After we had dinner my girl and I went to Mike's Place on Jaffa Street. We sat down at the bar and we were greeted by the friendliest bar tender in the world. We'll call her Leah for now. Leah was an American Jew who never fit in the states. She moved to Israel after learning Hebrew and enlisted in their military. By far the most delightful person we have ever met and I hope she continues to find herself.
But the story gets better, after talking to her for a bit an Englishman to my right starts talking. We'll call him Dave. Dave's life story was a sad one. Apparently he was in the throes of heartbreak as his girlfriend turned fiance of four years broke up with him after putting down a wedding deposit two weeks prior. His story only got even more depressing after we found out that he was married two times previously! He booked his trip a week prior to leaving and hasn't been single since his teens/
Dave, Leah, a few other bartenders, and ourselves proceeded to get precipitously drunk. Soon after we ended up meeting more bar staff, the general manager, and a bouncer who was a spitting image of a famous actor. I shit you not, I threw some pictures up on facebook and had some people thinking I met him for real.
My girl and I felt bad for our new english friend so we try and help him run some game. I switched to water and my girl got super sloshed. The entire night was a blur with us hanging out with our english friend and a bunch of Americans on their birth right tour. My girl and myself started to burn out and we left our english friend to his own devices. This was by far the best christmas eve i've ever had to date.
The next day my girl and I went to a christmas day service. Not a whole heck of a lot to write home about. We had some lunch and proceeded to spend the day recovering from our drunken shenanigans of the night prior. We were hoping to run into our English friend that day, but alas the message we wrote in his journal didn't make it happen.
The next day we got up and did some more sight seeing. We went to the Austrian Mission and had some pork. Omfg I was so happy to have some deep fried pork. After eating at kosher restaurants for so long I all I want is some unclean animal to feast on. So good.
We walked the Via Dolorosca one more time seeing more of the sites along the way. This time we ventured into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This massive structure is very similar to the Dome of the Rock with a central area and all sorts of sides jutting out. We saw the supposed "rock" that Jesus was cleaned on as well as other relics.
It's a beautiful place loaded with all sorts of bells and smells. However a strange occurrence happened. We wanted to enter this small side chapel and this fat man started yelling at me that we couldn't go in there because they were giving blessings. I'm tired and just walk past him along a different path to a different part of the church. We went into this lower level and saw the abs of Jesus. A medieval painting of Jesus from the old church that was defaced by some Muhammadans back in the day.
Again as we come up the stairs we see this fat man again yelling at people to come out as priests were coming. I end up getting into a tuffle with this guy as I'd like to pass through the other sides of the church. Man didn't have any markings of a priest or employee of the church. Needless to say we went the long way around again to see the chapel we wanted to originally see.
Later that night we end up back at Mike's so we can get some deep fried chicken wings. It was glorious to say the least especially when I was hung over from all of the tobacco and booze. Our English friend once again appeared and joined us for some dinner. Apparently the ol' chap got lucky with this israeli girl, but was too drunk to really recall any of it. Good job Dave!
Later that night we met up with another gent whose life story just sounded like something right out of this forum. Apparently he lived all over Europe before founding an internet business shipping tourist goods out of the old city to people abroad. Makes good money apparently from it too.
Xavier ,as he will be known from now on and Dave however have a darker past that was alluded to me by Dave in the rest room. Apparently Dave worked for the British Army in some infantry capacity and was discussing mercenary work with X. Hilariously, when we were both using the restroom after he said that there was an Israeli guy in there who gave us a dirty look after he said that. We walked out. I have no idea what X's background is beyond just being a wayward soul who happened to wander upon Jerusalem. Frankly I got the impression Xavier had a more interesting background then what he actually alluded to.
Dave got trashed and required us to walk home which my girl and I happily obliged. During that walk he promised to use his basic arabic to get us into the Dome of the Rock since my girl with her shawl and my beard would fool any of the hardened Palestinian Waqf.
We sleep in a bit and meet Dave for breakfast later in the morning. After we ate, we ventured off to the Dome of the Rock and get in line for visiting during the proper visitation hours. We waited in line with my poor girl all shawled up in the heat.
We made it through security with no issue whatsoever. To get to the Dome of the Rock as a non muslim the Israelis constructed this wooden walk way over the western wall through the security gate enter into the temple mount.
We walked up to the main entrance past armed IDF border guards and we were immediately accosted by these two arab guys in plainclothes.
"You're praying! You cannot pray you must leave!"
The strange thing is, we just immediately entered into this monument. We didn't have any time to do anything. Dave tried talking to the guy who was having none of his explanation and told him he needed to leave immediately.
He says to us, "Alright gents, have fun!" and is escorted off by a guard at gun point.
At this point I started to recognize the fat arab in front of me as the guy from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
"Your friend is a bad man! You should not be hanging out with him!" The fat arab guy says to us.
The lanky arab tries telling us that my girlfriend's outfit is unacceptable which is a load of BS. She's wearing a dress below her knee, covered her wrists with a cardigan, and has leggings underneath, not to mention she has a shawl on.
I say to the under covers, "Look, we're just tourists here to see some important sites here in town. My girl and I aren't here to cause trouble. Honestly if you want us to leave, after what just happened I really have no desire to be here any longer."
At this point the lanky dude relents and lets us through with the caveat that my girl take her shawl and cover her ankles. Weird.
We walk around, take some pictures, talk to this evangelizing Arab on the mount. Pretty place, but seriously fuck arabs.
Leaving at this point we looped around back to the main entrance to see if any of the guards know where our friend went. Defeated as no one knows anything, we took a trip to the Western Wall and left some prayers. My girl left some blessings, but I left some curses for our Mecca praying friends on the mount. Nuff said.
I had messaged Dave on facebook hoping to hear back from him because at this point neither my girl or myself knew where he was. We made it all the way back to Jaffa Street where we ran into one of the bouncers at Mike's. Now the bouncer's back story is pretty legit as this guy was a special forces soldier who still does some intelligence work. We tell him our story and he's blown away. At this point, we find out that Dave is back at Mike's where we meet up with him.
My girl was pretty shaken up from this whole experience and my exclamation that I recognized the fat arab from the Church a few days earlier only made her more uneasy. We all sat down and refreshed ourselves with some alcoholic drinks.
After Dave got separated from us, an IDF soldier took him at gun point to a room off of the one of the main entrances and sat him down in a white resin deck chair. After a few minutes they tell him to leave the premises and not come back. No questions, no interrogations, just GTFO.
Hilariously we ended up seeing Xavier again (the guy with the online business) and tell him our story.
Sitting there we pretty much were drinking non stop for almost four hours. We're all pretty paranoid at this point, but our friends were all telling his to chill out as we weren't interesting to any intelligence agencies. Pretty sure though that our "known associates" were the interesting ones and we just happened to be hanging out with the wrong well dare I say correct crowd!
Xavier eventually decides that we're awesome and calls his wife to ask if she can cook an impromptu dinner for us. She says yes, but only if we like thawed food! Laughing, we all grabbed up bottles of wine and headed into a settlement 20 minutes outside of Jerusalem.
Xavier's house and his wife are adorable. We end up all sitting outside, drinking, smoking cigarettes like chimneys, and eating this amazing home cooked Israeli meal. We all remarked how strange it was to have found ourselves in such an odd place with such wonderful people (Dave, Xavier, his wife, and all of the circumstances around the entire trip).
We spent a good few hours with them laughing and telling stories about our adventures as well as diving into the geopolitics of the region. This trip of mine was rather formative and really changed my perspective on the entire place. Initially I used to be pro-Israel because of my upbringing but then in college I went pro Palestinian because of the news coming out of Gaza and the West Bank not to mention Israel's connections with far left puppet masters like George Soros. I then flipped flopped on my opinion once more and said to myself, "Fuck it, you two (Muhammadans and the Jews) can duke it out yourselves." and left it at that for most of my adult life.
After seeing everything on the ground and really researching it hardcore prior to arriving, I can definitely say that the Muslims in that region really have no claim to the Dome of the Rock or Jerusalem. Muhammad never set any foot in that area contrary to what BS claims you'll hear about Muhammad riding in on Pegasus to the Al-Aqsa mosque. Muhammad was poisoned by a Jewish wife he took from a conquest and died. To the conquering trash who came into that region, Jerusalem was a religious trophy and the Dome of the Rock is a reminder of Islam conquering the Jewish holy land. I said this to a few Israelis and the look on their faces was one of apprehensive agreement.
I've traveled and visited a lot of places, but what happened in Jerusalem was something that completely blew me away. Being invited into a family's home for an impromptu dinner, meeting an array of friendly characters with some unique pasts, and the slew of American-Jew expats who found themselves in this strange place left my girl and I dumbfounded. This place has me in a sort of shell shock and it took me a few days of decompressing to really be able to process all of the events that unfolded there. The hospitality, friendliness, and uniqueness of everyone we met were unparalleled to any place we’ve ever been in the past. It’s almost a shame we cannot spend more time with these amazing people.
Oh and as we were waiting for our flight to leave in Tel Aviv, another member of the "Tourism Ministry" wanted to survey us on our experience in Israel insisting that we were in Tel Aviv the entire time we were there.
Also on a side note, Israel is the wild west with a lot of Jews. On the busiest night we were at Mike's, I counted almost 45 men and women who were open carrying (as in pistol in holster for all to see).
Israel is a 2nd amendment paradise and rightfully needs to be. During our duration of our visit, there were five stabbings around the old city and a hit and run at a bus stop where an arab tried to run over a bunch of people waiting for a bus.
TL;DR Went to Jerusalem. Met some former military guys. Got grouped up in some weird occurrences. Got paranoid that we were getting followed by intelligence goons. Saw some crazy historic sites and made some good friends.
Verdict: Will visit again soon
![[Image: laugh3.gif]](https://rooshvforum.network/images/smilies/new/laugh3.gif)
![[Image: aca135335fc63b588cc154e29120b304.jpg]](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/ac/a1/35/aca135335fc63b588cc154e29120b304.jpg)
![[Image: A_LjOkACcAA8M3J.jpg]](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vgwweo0HwNk/UPNBgN2JJ3I/AAAAAAAADV8/IWXAQMcbN_0/s1600/A_LjOkACcAA8M3J.jpg)
![[Image: 9d34f3990cd6667595f5c23a11c92f273f0897b0...2bf9a3.jpg]](http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/9d/9d34f3990cd6667595f5c23a11c92f273f0897b0e8743eaa25a5fab4262bf9a3.jpg)
![[Image: tumblr_l1ov0pcd0o1qbwv1k.jpg]](https://bigf00te.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/tumblr_l1ov0pcd0o1qbwv1k.jpg)
![[Image: icon_eek.gif]](https://rooshvforum.network/images/smilies/new/icon_eek.gif){kind=icon}
