We drove an hour and a half from Paphos to Larnaca Airport to catch the 45 minute flight to Israel. Ben Gurion airport is about halfway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and our destination to start the "Jesus trail" was Jerusalem. We didn't have any internet when we arrived as our European sim wouldn't work in Israel, but it wasn't a problem as we had already worked out how to get to our apartment in Jerusalem.
Our plane landed at 2.30 and the customs queue was very lengthy but we finally collected our luggage and then went to take the lifts at the airport but were caught unaware by Israeli lift etiquette, which is essentially non-existent. It was every man for himself and whoever can push and shove their way on wins. M made it onto the first lift, K missed out but managed to be the last to squeeze in on at her second attempt.
We then bought our tickets for the fast train to Jerusalem and were told it was leaving from Platform 2, as all the signs were in Hebrew they weren't much use to us. Once again we had to battle the shoving and the elbows to make it on to the train but we were getting the hang of it now and settled down for the 20 minute trip to Jerusalem. About 15 minutes in M realised we were going in the wrong direction, so at the next stop we got off and travelled back to the airport, then waited for the right train.
By the time we made it to the central railway station in Jerusalem it was peak hour and dusk and the road was super busy. However, we spotted a taxi rank and headed over thinking it would be a simple matter to get a ride to our hotel about 20 minutes away. Surprisingly to us none of the taxi drivers wanted to know us, they said: too much traffic and turned away.
Our next option was the bus, so M went to purchase a travel card, but he returned with news that the queue was incredibly long so it would take ages. K had been watching people get on the buses, and noticed that most of them didn't use their travel card, we we decided to risk a possible fine and jump on the bus. We found the bus we needed, jumped in the back door with our luggage and hoped for the best. The traffic was terrible, it took as 10 minutes just to get away from the railway station but we eventually made it and were checked in by about 7pm.
We went for a walk down the street to the local supermarket, as we didn't have any internet for google translate K was trying to work out which milk to buy for coffee in the morning. She asked a nearby girl for help who asked "Are you Aussie, where are you from?", it turned out the girl was also from Melbourne (Caulfield as it turns out).
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