The Road to Ramallah

I went to Ramallah on Tuesday. It's a very interesting city; the political capitol of the Palestinian Territories and home base of Yassir Arafat, back in the day. 

It's only a very short drive from Bethlehem, but it takes more than an hour if you're a Palestinian and have to go around Jerusalem. No fun. 

Here's some photos from the road:

Yep, that's a herd of goats. Ok.

In any case, the drive in is not the cheeriest sight. The parts of the city are very interesting, though. I would say it's more "metropolitan" than Bethlehem. A European Cafe, and plenty of coffee shops that feel like they could be in Madison, barring the palm trees outside. 

We visited some hospitals in the area, check out the Red Crescent ambulance:

There were some pretty serious images inside the hospital, too:

Mostly, I saw more Yassir Arafat than I ever have in my life:

And at the end of the day, we stopped by his grave, which was really interesting. The text on the stone basically says who he is and when he died, calling him a martyr.