Day 7 - Jerusalem

Today was a great day! I slept late to make up for days 5/6 and then snapped some pics of the hostel for you guys to see:

As you can see, it's a really colorful, lively place! I love it! 

Then I headed out to the shuk, which is a marketplace, two parallel streets with covered alleyways in between. It was just before Shabbat, so it was so crowded! Everyone rushing to get their shopping done. It was kind of like being a pinball... i just aimed myself in the general direction I wanted, and got bounced around until I got there.

I had my first Aroma iced coffee of the trip.  AMAZING.  I did not remember.  It's AMAZING.

Then I went back to the store where Matat and I shopped last time, and I'm not misremembering that, either.  I practically bought myself a new warddrobe.  I made two trips.  I'm serious.

They have slushies in amazing flavors.  Look! I knew I was meant to be here:

I got a piece of pizza, and in ordering I learned two new Hebrew words:

tapucha = apple
pitriot = mushrooms

Then I headed to the old city.  It's about 20 minutes walk from my hostel, right down Jaffa road.  It's a lovely walk!

The Old City is a big pain in the butt!!! It's like a maze in there.  All the streets wind around and they all look the same.  I spent 3 hours there and I managed to get lost about a million times and somehow never find the Jewish quarter.  Here's some of what I did find...

I saw this sign and I figured I might as well check it out since I was there.

The courtyard that leads into the tomblike... tomb

This is supposedly where they took Christ's body down from the cross.

There were lots of big, vault-like altars inside

If you go down a bunch of stairs you get to this cave within a cave and this altar where people kneel.  It is supposedly where the cross fell at the bottom of the hill when they tossed it aside after taking Christ down

The Holy Sepulcher is like a mini church in the bigger cave church

I had to wait in line for a bit to go inside.  Ahead of me was this guy who kept giggling, I think he found the priests funny.  The priests were letting in 3 people at a time, and then clapping at them when they took too long.

The entrance

Once you go through the entrance you are in this little holding spot and then you have to stoop down to go through this tiny ivory door into the tomb.  I didn't feel right taking a picture of the tomb itself, but basically there's a marble slab that I suppose is coffin like, and lots of candles and ornamentation.  It smells nice, like incense.  I knelt beside two other people and said some prayers for my Christian friends.  Then I took a candle from a dispenser above the "tomb."

I like it and put it in this thing outside the tomb.  Mine is the one on the right!

The store!

A street in the Christian Quarter

A Franciscan monk directing tourists 

Path of Suffering

It's funny, when I left the Holy Sepulchre the Muslim call to prayer came on.  Jerusalem is like a Comparative Religion happy land.

The Muslim Quarter looks basically like the other quarters except there are more women with head coverings and more Israeli soldiers standing around

The sign was cooler than the gate

So I started to feel a little sick because I was tired and I think I drank too much water.  I gave up on trying to find the Jewish quarter and just wanted to get out of the maze.  So I thought I'd take this little alley...

Not smart

This was a shitty idea, apparently, because it had all the backsides of restaurants facing other streets.  So they were loading in animal carcasses and fish heads and God knows what.  It smelled AWFUL and I slipped and slid through fish slime on the cobble stones.  But I was invested, so I made it out the other side. 

Nobody reads signs, I guess.

Then I took the lightrail back to the hostel, where I'd signed up for their Shabbat dinner.  Basically one head chef put us all to work as helpers.  I peeled and sliced carrots.

I got a drink with a new friend I made while things were cooking

The dinner prayer guide.  I love the top quote!  No fear at all!

It was really good!  And the company was great, everyone was friendly.  Note the pitcher of an Israeli fluid called "Drank."  Yes, "Drank."  This "Drank" was supposedly orange.

So after dinner, this guy is like "HEY! Weren't you in line with me at the Holy Sepulchre?" He was the giggling one!  I had just ruined his wine because I was trying to clean up and I thought his glass was left behind so I poured the extra wine from all of the other glasses into it to toss out.  Then he drank it anyway.  Funny guy, teaches world religions in CT.  We talked a lot about religion!

He performed a number form Jesus Christ Superstar for me.  He's Catholic, but is wearing a kippah because he went to the Western Wall earlier and just didn't take it off.

Someone came over and asked if we knew each other and he said "No! We just met in Christ's tomb and then met again at the Shabbat table! Destiny!" So we took a pic.

This guy works at the hostel and I thought he was cool.

Rooftop!

We were joined by this French kid who wants to be a musician.  He was good at guitar!  It turns out his Dad is Jewish and he thinks he wants to convert.  He told me about his cousins's conversion and his thoughts on commandments and the Torah and all kinds of things.  He put a lot of thought into it.  I told him in my experience other people confirming your faith isn't as satisfying as it seems like it will be, but I wished him the best.

Man, I am so tired.  Not sure what I'm gonna do tomorrow!  I'll play it by ear!