Sorry, Father In Law. We have traveled all over the world and always wanted to go to Israel, of course. Some other travelers we knew were meeting there in Tel Aviv, with an Israeli organizing standard tours for us. He said we'd be killed if we went to Bethlehem but another in our group had had a friend go recently without incident, so we hired a guide there via internet and were delivered to the checkpoint by a Tel Aviv taxi driver who picked us up later and took us back to the hotel. Shortly before we left, we found the son of Daddy's friend via email and the guide arranged for him to meet us at the Church of the Nativity. He invited us to his home in Bethany where we had dinner after the disastrous Jerusalem tour and sent us to Jericho with his cousin where we also picked up his nephew and they showed on the sights in my pix posted earlier. We have travelled millions of miles and never been on a package tour, always going off on our own or hiring individual guides for special things we want to see. I should have known better to sign up for those things with our Israeli friend and just done our own thing but it sounded so good on paper and we'd be with friends, but who knew it would be a bust? Anyway, we'll know better next time, stay in Jerusalem and really dig in, go on some day trips and we'd like to do Jordan and Petra also. Actually, I just read the excavations at Ur in Iraq are open again and our servicemen in the area can tour that, cool, huh? If you haven't been, the excavations under the Vatican are fabulous, too.