After dinner at the Dancing Camel brewpub I headed back to my room to wind down since it was going to be another semi-early morning, especially because I had to change hotels. I’d had enough points for three nights at the Orchid Park Plaza and one night at the Sheraton, so would be changing for my last night before heading out to Jerusalem for our day tour. Unfortunately, the hotel had other ideas.
It started with loud noise in the room next to me. Then, I smelled cigarette smoke. The went on for 30+ minutes at 10pm, so I went to the front desk to complain. They said they’d look into it, but made it clear I was annoying them, and no, there were no other rooms. 30 minutes later it was still going, so I went down to complain again. They were more annoyed. Finally, they decided the best strategy was to get rid of me, so they offered me a smoking suite in the other tower. Told them I’d check it out first, because hey, one of the things I’m complaining about here is that people are smoking in the room next to me. Suite didn’t smell at all of smoke, and was a bit bigger and much quieter, so was worth the late night move.
Headed back to my original room to get my bags packed up, which took about 10 minutes, and was I was walking out a woman was walking out of the room next door. She screamed loudly at the people in the room “you still owe me 100 shekels” in Russian. Um, wait, there’s hookers in the room? Way to keep it classy Park Plaza! Fortunately, got to the new room and absolutely passed out, so no further drama.
Next day was another early morning fueled by canned coffee from the convenience store. Our tour left from the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem at 11am, so I had a bit of time to make my way there. Unfortunately, this still meant getting up early to switch hotels before heading to the train station to catch the train to Jerusalem. The bus would have been faster, but I figured the extra hour in order to have the train experience would be worth it. I was definitely right.
Got to the Sheraton around 7am, and they were almost as surly as the Park Plaza, until they realized I was an SPG Platinum Member at which point they perked up a bit. They “supposed” they could give me a room early, but it would only be a high floor standard renovated room instead of a junior suite. It was one night, and would be somewhere to put my bags, so I went with it. The room was nice and modern, and as soon as I dropped my bags I hopped a cab to the train station.
The train station was packed, with military everywhere. Being Sunday, I assume everyone was heading back to assignments from visiting friends/family over the weekend so the trains were packed. My train was absolutely packed with military, dozens of them in my car. At one point I felt something poking into my leg, and realized it was the barrel of the guy seated next to me’s gun.
Upon getting off at Jerusalem, it definitely seemed like the entirety of the IDF was on my train:
When I exited the station I realized I was still 5+ miles from the Jaffa Gate. Hmmm, expensive taxi or try and figure out the bus. Decided to try the bus. Got on google maps on my phone, it told me the right bus number, and it was easy to find and a piece of cake. It was a good public transit experience, and what did we do before we had google maps to plan such things?!
Got to Damascus Gate with an hour to spare, so while waiting on Ian decided to have a light late breakfast:
We had booked our tour through Sandeman’s Tours, and they had two options. A three hour free tour, or a much longer 19 euro paid tour. I figured the free tour would be full of annoying cheap people, and Jerusalem had a ton to see, so we went with the paid tour. It was a great decision on our part. Our tour guide was Ryan, an American who’d moved to Israel over ten years ago and was outgoing, friendly, gregarious, and full of knowledge on Jerusalem. We were about 10 people in our group, and first task was the group photo:
That’s Ryan in the lower right in front of Ian and I. First stop was the Armenian Quarter of the Old City, where there wasn’t terribly much to see. We stopped a few times to talk and get a bit of history, but other than that it was a pretty quick stop through this part of the Old City. Cool buildings as we walked:
