{"id":651,"date":"2008-09-12T13:06:59","date_gmt":"2008-09-12T13:06:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ryan.hellyer.kiwi\/?p=651"},"modified":"2025-07-12T21:58:46","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T20:58:46","slug":"palestine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.hellyer.kiwi\/ryanhellyer\/2008\/palestine\/","title":{"rendered":"Palestine"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m not going to go into the details here, but we almost got kidnapped on entering Palestine. After that, I wasn’t particularly interested in taking out my camera to take photos. Thankfully Vicki Argyle took some photos of our visit. Since things were a little stressed during our trip, we didn’t do anything beyond taking a taxi to Bethlehem, visiting the Church of Nativity and getting taken to an overpriced souvenir shop where we had to buy some crappy products (taxi drivers must<\/strong> take tourists to a souvenir shop apparently).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Inside of the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0The Church of Nativity is quite run down, but spectacular none the less. It is supposedly the birth place of Jesus Christ, although it is highly doubtful that this is the correct spot as there are no records of exactly where he was born.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

If you look carefully at the bottom of the doorway, you can also see where the slab of stone has been worn away during the past 1400+ years of foot traffic.<\/p><\/div>\n

I wasn’t allowed into the church with shorts on (apparently that is impolite), so our taxi driver arranged for me to wear a strange skirt thing around my waist.<\/p>\n

You need to step up to go through the doorway I am standing in front of, but despite that I was still taller than the height of the door. This is because the church was built in 565 AD when humans tended to be a lot shorter than they are now.<\/p>\n

\"church_of_nativity_1\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m not going to go into the details here, but we almost got kidnapped on entering Palestine. After that, I wasn’t particularly interested in taking out my camera to take photos. Thankfully Vicki Argyle took some photos of our visit. 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