And at its heart -- a wall

I got a handy-dandy rocket alert app on my phone.  It tells me when there are sirens so I don't have to refresh the news.

Sirens in: Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ashkelon, Ashkelon, Ashkelon... All in one minute!

Ashkelon is 75 km, about an hour's drive, away. It's weird that they're under fire and everybody's going about their business here in Jerusalem.

I'm sure I'm going to get used to it, but I definitely jumped a few times at other noises today, like ambulences and stuff :). I love this video of Israelis mistaking various sounds for the bombs sirens:

I chose an apartment! I will post pictures after I sign the lease. Part of me felt I should search search search, but it got really old, really fast, and looking for apartments isn't how I want to spend these first few weeks.  The apartment I chose is gorgeous, in a great neighborhood, fully furnished, allows a 10 month lease, (instead of my having it for two months longer than my fellowship and having to eat it or figure something out), and I'll be living with a British girl who's also in ROI (one of my networks) and founded an organization to promote Israel/Asia relations, which is pretty badass.  Anyway, I will post pics in a few days, I'm moving in on Monday.  I have this temporary apartment for a few more weeks... but I don't like living by myself.  It's kind of sad.

Anyway, to clear my head of the apartment hunting miasma, I went to the old city! I like to start my stays in Israel off with a visit to the Western Wall to pray a little :).

Old city walls!

I ALWAYS get lost in the old city. I don't know how I always manage that. I think the alleyways move when you're not looking.  One second you're looking at scarves and the next you're in a weird back alley where they're throwing fish guts and the next you're outside a synagogue and the next you're on a residential street with a million tiny children and the next you're squashed into a birthright group and the next soldiers are warning you not to go any farther because Temple Mount is closed to non-Muslims right now.

But finally I found the Jewish quarter and knew where I was!

I always take a picture of this sign because it always makes me laugh. I am packing heat at all times as a woman. I can do serious harm to stonework and human beings if not properly concealed. 

The wall is the same as the last two years, of course :).

I put my prayer in and prayed for a bit. Didn't cry. Sometimes I do, but mostly I don't.  Everybody around me was crying though.  I prayed for a lot of things, and I signed my note "xoxo, Ariane" because that's how God and I roll.

I took these pictures for my dad, who is very interested in the Karaites and thinks I should be one because they embrace patrilineal descent. 

I passed a lot of birthright groups and it made me so nostalgic <3. I can't believe it was only two years ago that that was me. 

Aww, birthright 2012 Ariane! Experiencing it all for the first time!

It's such an intense, amazing experience. I wonder how it will impact all the people I saw on it today. It's cool to see birthright groups all over the place because it always makes me stop and look around and try to remember how it felt that first time I saw these things, and it's a constant reminder of how grateful I am to be living here.  

I was watching Munich, and there's this part when Avner's mom says:

"Everyone in Europe died. Most of my family. A huge family... I didn't die because I came here. When I arrived, I walked up to the top of a hill in Jerusalem, and prayed, for a child. I never prayed before but I was praying then. And I could feel every one of them praying with me. You are what we prayed for. What you did you did for us. You did for your daughter, but also for us. Every one of the ones who died, died wanting this... A place to be a jew among jews, subject to no one. I thank God for hearing my prayer... A place on Earth. We have a place on Earth. At last."

I wonder if that's why people cry. Sometimes you can feel every one of them praying with you.