Wow.

So we just got back from Israel and Palestine. (Just got back meaning i just woke up....we arrived at around 6 am and didnt sleep most of the way back). It was incredible. Im already itching to go back. We all had incredibly experiences and Im not entirely sure how to write about them...but I'll try for the sake of Mama K (who is always here in spirit!!!), Ahmed and my Mom. We arrived in Jerusalem about 12 hours later then we expected to because we were held at the border. The experience of having no control over the situation was unbelieveably frustrating. The worst part was that we were planning to get Egyptian visas at the border (which we had thought was possible) but couldnt (Apparently it's not!) and spent 7 hours wondering if we were going to get into Israel so the big question was "Um what if we dont get in to the country?". We would have sort of been stuck in between to countries....so thankgoodness we got in. When we were finally handed our passports we were all jumping up and down and clapping and in some cases crying. From there we took a cab to the egyptian consulate, got our visas to get back to Cairo, hopped in a cab, headed to the bus station and got on a bus to jerusalem. We stayed in this awesome awesome hostel in the old city. It was great because we ended up meeting and befriending a bunch of people. Seeing all the religious sites shoved in next to each other was incredible, we were all impressed. I could say more about it but....
Anyway, the second day we headed into Palestine (West bank). We went to bethlehem, Jericho, the dead sea, and Ramallah. The great thing was we went with a group of 3 other people all of whom were young journalists, one of whom was Palestinian but Had never visited, It was an incredible experience. Amoung many things we got to see yasser arafat's tomb. We spent that first night in an outdoor coffee shop in Ramallah talking about everything from politics to travel experiences. When we finally foced ourselves to get up and get out we headed toward the "checkpoint" that divides Israel proper (Sort of....) and Palestine. It was pretty crazy. You have to go through this "terminal" that honestly looks like it was created for barnyard animals. After watining in line, getting checked, getting our bags checked, wwaiting, waiting, waiting, getting verbally harassed, and getting nervous, we were finally on the other side. Of coarse once you get in a bus to head back to the old city you get i.d-ed a whole bunch more (by 18 year olds with huge HUGE guns to boot). The whole thing is disturbing and really gives you something to think about. Of coarse since were not really supposed to be in the West bank anyway we had to moniter what we said, what we bought (or rather how we pack it), and take our camera chips out of our cameras (They will go through it....). That night we hit the town ( quite the scene they have in J-town), got locked out of our hostel (we missed curfew), hung out with some boys from Italy, and had great food. It was fantastic.
The next day we went back to Ramallah, this time just the 4 of us. It was another amazing day. One of the coolest things we saw was the otherside of the wall (which is in the process of being finished) which is covered in really thoughtful and interesting grafitti, poetry, quotes, and pictures. When we were walking around Ramallah this really intense crazy thing happpened- a young guy came up to me and kept insiting he knew me. "We were in the Palestinian solidarity group last year! Remember?" I kept telling him that I had never been to the west bank before but he kept insisting we had worked together. Finally we got to talking about where we were from and when he heard I was from New York his face lit up and he pulled out a packagae he had just recieved. The package from from NYU (Where i go to school!) and it turns out he had just gotten his visa to go to school there starting in September. When he told us he had never ever left Palestine and now he was headed towads NYC (And NYU!) i was completely BLOWN away. I literally spent the rest of the day in a fog....What a crazy coniciidence. Fate! It must be fate!!!!! Obviously we all exchanged info and I cant wait to see him again. Anyway theres so much more to say about this crazy trip but suffice it to say that I will definitely be going back. Inshallah I'll see Jerusalem and Ramallah again...and soon!
Sharon W.