The beer? Moderately good, but not extraordinary. Much easier to get cold beer in Israel and Palestine, than it is in Egypt. Middle Eastern beer is light, so it really needs to be cold.

But in Luxor, we toured until it got hot, then had the hotel restaurant to ourselves for wonderful concoctions in clay pots. We had to talk them into making the beer a bit colder, but then it was a trip to heaven....

It felt a little decadent to go to the Winter Palace Hotel in Luxor for tea, but we had to do it. Most of the time, we enjoyed our very Egyptian hotel on the other side of the Nile, and took the ferry across for 20 cents a trip. I didn't find a decadent expat hotel in Jerusalem. I have to go back and look a little harder. I think the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem might do the trick. The King David Hotel is a little beyond my imagination (and pocketbook, even if just for tea). I got kicked out of the Ritz in Paris in disgrace and not really knowing why, so I'm a little nervous about going into places that are beyond my class.

And hey, I found a great place for beer and pizza in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City in Jerusalem. That's more my style.

-Joe-