Adventures with Adnan Part I

Alright, after all the serious posts I promise this is more of a fun one! :) Also, this story got quite long so it requires a couple different parts.

This story all starts a few days ago after we had already spent our first day in Bethlehem. Daniel, Karis, Mugaas, and I all went in search of an ATM after we had visited the Church of the Nativity. We started walking around and a shop owner that had invited us to his shop the night before met us on the street and invited us in again. We told him our situation and he gave us directions to a machine. In return we promised we would visit his shop after we found the machine. He introduced himself to us as well and his name was Adnan. We followed the directions and found the ATM. And there was much rejoicing. However, the machine only spit out hundred dollar bills which is not good here especially when you are bartering. Therefore, we need a money changer. There was a Western Union by Adnan's shop so we tried there but to no avail. In the process another shop owner noticed what we were trying to do and offered us his help.

We followed him to his shop which turned out to be a small restaraunt and not a moneychaging place. So, we ended up giving him our money which was strange. Handing over $400 to a complete stranger is not normal and it kind of just happened but we figured since there was four of us we would be fine. He had us sit down and we ordered food while we waited for our money. The food was really good too! So, he came back and gave us our sheckels for a very fair exchange rate and then we paid for the dinner and ventured to Adnan's store finally.

The store was quaint and smaller than many of the shops we had been in before but he had really nice stuff so we looked around. We bartered of course and I ended up with a fair enough price on my items and then Mugaas was the big spender of the day. We were offered some Turkish coffee which was really good and Daniel bought a couple of things as well. Then, when we were paying we found out that he did not have a credit card machine and Mugaas did not have enough on him for the purchase. Therefore, Adnan offered to drive him to the bank to an ATM machine to take out the money. Now, we had been bartering with Adnan but we had also been talking to him and getting his views on what is going on in Palestine and Israel and about what was going between them and also about what had been happening in Bethlehem. So, we were building trust and a friendship of sorts. So, we all hopped into his car which happened to be a very nice taxi cab actually and headed to the bank which wasn' t far away. We settled up on money and then he dropped us off right at the door of the place where we were staying. He also invited us back to his shop that evening for drinks and food...