Today (it's Friday, Friday ... jk!)

Today was still kinda sad cause half the group is gone. The five of a that are left ate a quiet breakfast together and then headed out to the bus station to catch our bus to Eilat, which is at the southern tip of Israel on the Gulf of Aqaba (I think that's what it's called). We rode in two taxis that the hostel called for us and learned some interesting stuff from the taxi driver while just making conversation. He said things were very hard living in Jerusalem as an Arab and that today was a good time for us to leave. I noticed on our way out that the police weren't letting cars into the Old City and that there were additional police and IDF all around. The taxi driver said that for example, if we walked into the bus station we would be fine but if he walked in there, his ID would be checked probably five times and he would get asked a bunch of times what he was doing there. He also told us that apparently many things were closed off today because the Israelis feared trouble from the Arabs after the reunification day on Wednesday. Apparently only men aged 45+ were allowed either on the Temple Mount (where the two main mosques are) or in the city (I could't 100% distinguish what he was saying). Sounds like a pretty tough situation on all sides though.

The bus ride was pretty uneventful I'd say. I guess I'm just used to seeing IDF soldiers carrying machine guns everywhere. We had three or four on the bus, headed for Eilat like us I suppose. It took about four and a half hours including a short pit stop at a gas station.

Once we were here we walked around the promenade for a bit and the other four took a quick dip into the water at the beach. We ended up at Aroma, a coffee shop, and I had iced chocolate, which was quite delicious and definitely hit the spot on this hot day.

For dinner we went to this Asian restaurant called Ginger. I had the yakisoba, which I found just ok. For dessert we had a "banana republic" which is bananas sautéed in caramel poured over a small cake with some ice cream on top. Sounds great right? Unfortunately, I'd have to give it just a 7/10. For some reason the flavors didn't really meld all that well. Or maybe I was still enjoying that iced chocolate from earlier that really hit the spot perfectly. In any case, I'm just at our hotel now heading to bed soon. Gotta wake up extra early to chat with Esther and then we head off to Petra at 7.25. Hopefully by this time tomorrow I'll be at the hotel in Tel Aviv (it's a day trip and we fly out of Eilat on a short domestic flight to Tel Aviv tomorrow night).