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My trip to Israel started badly - I arrived at the border crossing in Jordan to find that the Israelis had closed the border. No-one could tell when they were likely to open the border again. After an hour or so the border opened and I got though, and a short taxi journey got me to Jerusalem.
I took a day trip to Masada, a hill top city that was besieged by the Romans, after months of stalemate the citizens decided to commit mass suicide rather than give themselves up to the Romans. A sobering story, but an amazing place, in semi-desert surrounded by mountains - especially if you manage to get there to see the sun rise over the mountains to the east of Masasda and the Dead Sea.
I was worried about getting an Israeli stamp in my passport, as getting into some Arab countries then gets a bit tricky - on my way in the immigration officer kindly stamped a piece of paper that she placed in my passport. But I had heard that they stamp the passport when you leave. By pure fluke, the same immigration officer was on duty as I was leaving Israel.
So, I presented my passport and said "Hello again!", with a big smile - she looked at me as if I was a loony, but when I explained, and she saw her number on the stamp, she just waived me through - with no new stamps in my passport!
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