Guest of Honor

I'm going to throw a wrench in the time-space continuum here and jump up to the present for this update.  I figure people will be wondering how Anna's visit went, so rather than writing too much about things that happened a month ago that people don't really care about, Anna and I will tell you how our week went... then it will be back to things that happened a month ago that you no longer care about.  

We will still probably write too much though.

Pictures of the visit are going up as you read... full albums of the first couple days are already available, I will alert you when more pictures are added to the album.

http://picasaweb.google.com/stephenmw90

Anna arrived on Saturday, November 20th around late morning.  Being a good boyfriend and all I took the taxi (no buses on Shabbat) down to the airport on the early side to make sure I would meet her off the plane.  About 45 minutes after I expected her to walk off I was getting a little concerned.  Turns out we missed each other somehow as she was exiting.  No idea how.  Good start to the visit though.

After that things went much more smoothly.  We walked around Tel Aviv, which is a fairly modern, big city, with shopping and a beach.  Anna didn't really like it.  Not.

Anna: "Oh. Em. Gee.  Tel Aviv."

It agreed with her.  Our Hostel was on Ben Yehuda street which is full of shopping.  Most were closed on Shabbat but Anna did her fair share of window shopping and made us stay in Tel Aviv on Sunday to go back for the real deal.

Still on Saturday, we went down to the beach so Anna could get her first ever contact with the Mediterranean Sea!!

Adrenaline pumping through her veins due to her recent arrival in Israel, Anna managed to stay up to 11 or 12 (a rare occurrence on this trip), and we stopped at a beach side bar before getting some much needed sleep.

As I mentioned, Anna wanted to stay in Tel Aviv on Sunday for awhile because the shops had reopened.  It was a close contest, but in the competition for our favorite shop, Anna's trip to the bead store lost out to our mutual enjoyment of I Love Cupcakes.  Yes, it exists.

We did a little more exploring Tel Aviv by day, revisited the beach...

... and finally went up to Haifa.  Settling with all our stuff, Anna unpacked while I smugly sat on my Ace in the Hole.  My secret surprise.  The thing that changes the nature of entire trips.  What Anna didn't know is that I had tickets tooooooo.... Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One!!!!

(insert Anna jumping around like a little girl)

The smartest thing I did here was not tell her what we were doing until we had already left for the movie, because as she put it: "I would have dressed up!!!!!"

The next day my afternoon class was canceled so we hopped on a short train and visited the ancient city of Akko (or Acre for you Westerners).

Anna's review of Akko:  "AAAkkkoooooo mmmmm.  The history geek in me was very giddy.  Lot of cats though.  Touristy Turkish bath was my favorite part (tour, not a functional one).  I felt like I had gone back through time.  Actually my favorite part was the Citadel."

There you have it.  We both loved it, it was very scenic, and there were many layers of history including ancient Arab civilizations, Crusaders, Templars, you name it.

We had a disagreement with some employees that led to our confinement to the dungeons...

The next day Anna joined me in my afternoon class, Rabbinic Literature, and multiple times she commented / answered questions to the teacher's delight and her embarrassment.  "I was just in class mode."  This was one of those days where she fell asleep at 8.  Burned off too much energy in class we think.  More likely, the energy burned probably came from her preparing an entire makeshift Thanksgiving feast with the ingredients Mom sent over.  Armed with only a hot plate and a toaster oven, she managed to satisfy the ravenous hunger of 5 college boys yearning for an American taste of home on the holidays.  Twas yummy.

Wednesday she took an afternoon nap, and despite feeling oddly nauseous (I think she ate too much Thanksgiving Stove Top Stuffing while cooking), she managed to struggle through a bus ride so that we could visit the beautiful Baha'i Gardens before she left.  One of the landmarks of Haifa, and the major global center for the Baha'i faith, these exquisitely maintained gardens are enormous and a can't miss attraction.  We visited all 3 levels thanks to a friendly taxi driver.

The street at the bottom is the German colony, a fun place to eat, especially since when it gets dark the Gardens get beautifully lit up.  Anna brought us to a Tappas restaurant (my first), and after some yummy Chorizos I didn't question her choices on where to eat for the rest of the trip.

Back on campus we took a long walk back so I could show Anna a great scenic overlook of the area below Haifa, courtesy of a building roof that sticks out off the hill.

All too quickly we had to say goodbye to Haifa, and we packed up all our stuff and hopped on a 2 hour bus to Jerusalem.  Before we did this I had to take my Hebrew midterm.  How unfair that I had to be studying for that the one week Anna visits.  Not to worry... I didn't loose too much time prepping for it... hehe.

We got to Jerusalem mid afternoonish, and with a full agenda of things to see, we wanted to knock off one item on our todo list with the remaining daylight.  So of course the first thing Anna got to do on her first ever trip to Jerusalem was Yad Vashem (Holocaust museum and memorial).  Uplifting.  Given that she cries at credit card commercials, this was... well ya you get it.

Despite the content, we both actually really enjoyed the complex and found it to be very well done.  The layout was very intuitive, the material was informative and touching, and it was a good ratio of learning to crying. (Anna: "hey! I wasn't too bad....")

Not wanting the first day to be a to much of a downer, we were looking for something cheerful to do, and as if by divine intervention (cue light from above), my Aunt Norma called and asked if we wanted to meet her for dinner.

Free dinner?  Stephen's wallet jumped for joy.

Joking aside, we had a very nice dinner... I had never met Norma (my great aunt), and she brought her granddaughter, Netta, who is studying for her masters in archeology, so Anna didn't have much trouble making conversation...  Common interest or something.  Despite Anna's suspicions about going to an Italian restaurant in the German Colony in Israel, the meals were very good, not to mention dessert.  Chocolate souffle and tiramisu.  MMMMmmmm.  We really enjoyed talking to Aunt Norma and Netta, hearing about their lives in Israel, and eating some good food of course.

Friday was a jampacked day, which meant starting bright and early to get everything done.  After meeting my friend Mike and his sister (also named Rachel) the night before (his family was visiting Israel as well), we ran into them again this morning at the City of David, and later in the Old City.

City of David is the ancient biblical city that David built (super old, 3000 years or something I think), including possible remains of his palace, just discovered...

... and water tunnels (Hezekiah's Tunnels) that those old people used to divert water into the city.

Anna: "Hands down favorite thing on any vacation ever."

Bold statement, Anna.  It was very cool though.  They let you walk through by yourself in the pitch black (mandatory flashlight costs 4 shekels), and you are wading through water the entire way.  The water is mostly ankle to mid calf deep, but at the beginning for a couple minutes it was up to my mid-thigh.  I had to hold up my shorts and everything.  I think it went up to Anna's armpits or something.  I couldn't see.  It probably took us 30 something minutes to walk through.  SO COOL.

Please note: the writing of this post was just interrupted as we arrived at the airport.  Anna was "successfully dropped off", and despite receiving a 5 out of 6 from the initial security check (before even checking in) and earning an extra baggage check, I did manage to see her through the check in and left her in the regular post-check in security line.  The rest of the post will continue with a more somber tone.  Also no more contributions from Anna.

Now with feet all squeaky clean and the like, we crossed the street to enter the Old City.  The City of David is right across from the entrance to the Western Wall, so Anna was getting a dramatic entrance.  Yes that also means that her first time going into the Old City was through the Dung Gate.  Yes she made some sort of lame comment about this.  We are mature.

Anna loved the Old City of course.  We did some shopping in the Jewish Quarter (Happy Chanukah),

visited some of the shops in the Muslim bazaar (the farther in you go the more bizarre it gets), and we saw the Church of the Holy Sepulcher to balance out the Jewishness of the Wall.  And cool graffiti.

The Old City makes for a tiring day.  Anna fell asleep at like 9 again.  To be fair it was Shabbat and the city was more or less closed down by Friday night so we didn't miss much.  I think I fell asleep too.

Saturday we got up a couple hours later, maybe around 9 or 9:30, to head to the Israel Museum.  Our friendly hotel owner (I think we agreed he was probably the best hotel owner ever... very nice and funny... in fact, he deserves a sidebar for a second here...

Here was a critical encounter in our vacation:

Anna: "Where is the best falafel?"

Awesome Hotel Owner: "Falafel?"

Anna: "Yes."

AHO: "Go outside and go down Ben Yehuda (there is a Ben Yehuda Street in practically every city).  Go to Mr. Moshiko's.  Ask for a Lafa bread, a little spicy, not too hot!, and the salad on it.  Little tehina and *insert slurping noise*."

Anna & Stephen: "OK!"

He was correct.  It's actually just Moshiko's, no Mr., but Best Falafel Eva.  I am so hungry thinking about it right now.  Lafa bread is more tortillaish in shape, rather than a pita, except it is thicker and nummier.  Almost like Naan bread.  And the falafel and ingredients were to dieee for.  I think Anna ate here 3 different times in our time in Jerusalem.  Oh man... I'm taking the bus back next weekend... resuming...) 

warned us that the museum had been redone and you could easily spend the whole day there.  He was very right.  After spending multiple hours in just the archeology wing of the new part, we were already depleted.  There were at least a couple more full wings for things like art and such, but we simply could not do these.  Gives us a reason to go back I guess.

Part of the reason we had to stop in the new part was because if you go to the museum and miss the older exhibits then you fail.

First we saw the giant model of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period (1st couple centuries BCE - 70 CE).  Very cool.  Then we went to the Shrine of the Book, which is probably the biggest attraction here. It houses the Aleppo Codex, which was pretty much the oldest and authoritative copy of the Hebrew Bible (I think it was dated about 1000, so it is about 1000 years old).  I say it was the oldest because about 60 years ago the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered, and these predated it by 1000 years... so these babies are 2000+ years old... and they are in this exhibit as well.  The roof is made to look like the jars they were discovered in, and inside the main room you feel like you are in one of the clay jars with the scrolls... and a bunch of tourists.

After spending at least 4 hours total in this museum (and gift shop... Happy Chanukah again), Anna decided she wanted to squeeze in a visit to the Mount of Olives, the mountain adjacent to the main hills of the more central parts of Jerusalem.  It contains many ooollddd Jewish graves, as well as some Muslim and Christian ones, has the Church of the Ascension, Virgin Mary's tomb, and a killer view from the top.  We did our best to see things even though stuff was closing down.  We walked by most of the sites, even the beautiful Mary Magdelene church, we got a good view from the top, saw Virgin Mary's tomb, and to cap it all we TOTALLY rode a camel on top!!!  Hehe yay camel!

Notice the view in the background.  See the gold dome of the Dome of the Rock?  Mount of Olives has a great view of the Temple Mount.

Graves.

Dome.

Thus concluded a great visit from Anna (from my perspective), and a great trip to Israel (from Anna's perspective).  In fact, she's not here anymore...

Anna: "Israel was the best vacation of my life.  Everybody should go.  I loved every second.  I wish I could speak Hebrew fluently like Stephen.  Also Stephen knew exactly what he was doing at all times and never got lost.  These are also reasons why this trip was by far the best thing I have ever done ever.  I love cupcakes."

Aww thanks for that Anna, I liked the trip too.

Although I should mention it wasn't quite over.  We had tried to visit the Temple Mount Saturday morning only to be informed that it was strangely closed on Saturday, despite us reading it should have been open.  So we woke up at 7am to visit it Sunday morning and then rushed back to you know make the flight and everything.  No biggie.

This was awesome as well.  The Dome of the Rock is so beautiful, and it was crazy to think that 2000 years ago there was a giant Jewish temple here as well.  The mount itself is pretty much original so the ground is the same... the mosque and Dome are a little more recent... but still old.

I hesitate to include this, but I know Anna will get mad if I don't... although I like to think I know what I am doing after all this time here, I still get my pride handed to me on a silver platter once in awhile.  Today it was a lesson in "modesty".  Apparently even shorts that go to your knees are not "modest" by Islamic standards, and so upon arriving on the Temple Mount, I was informed that I was inappropriately dressed.  You know me... always dressing risque and the likes.

Solution?  I got sent over to this guy who sells these pieces of fabric to people like me.  I asked how much... 50 shekels.  50 shekels????  I got him to give it to me for 40... but needless to say, classic lesson in supply and demand here.  The econ major inside me is still reeling from the blow.

Also, it was basically a makeshift skirt.  So Anna laughed at me the whole time while I was walking around in this corny skirt, and triumphing in the fact that for once she was the more appropriately dressed / prepared.  I think it might have been a message from above that I was violating my Jewish contract or something.  Either from that or the Israeli government.  Something like that.

I Lose.

Anna Wins.  There I said it.

Worth the trouble though:

We rushed back, made a bunch of busses and connections, and long story short Anna should be on a plane right now returning to the good ol US of A.

Sooo Anna, thanks for organizing / paying / sacrificing weeks of sleep schedule to come visit!! (and Papa & Nanna Cleary of course)  I'm sad to see her go, and the trip flew by for both of us I think, but I guess on the plus side I'll be able to see all my friends again, and I should be able to slow down my money spending to about 1/3 of the rate of the last week.  Yikes.  Plus even though I have to say goodbye, I know a lot of people at home are glad to be getting her back, so it's all good.  Enjoy the month or whatever crazy long winter break she has now!  I'll just be over here slavin away at the books... don't mind me...

Haifa at Last

So I was pretty much falling asleep at the keyboard during my last post, and this being the case I made a mistake.  We didn't actually stay in Jerusalem again that last night on the 6th, instead we left and went back to Tel Aviv to grab our bags from Mike's aunt, then headed up to Haifa and stayed over with one of Mike's cousins who lives just a little outside the city.  Oops.

Anyway, so we traveled up so that we would be close to Haifa and could get in early on the morning of Thursday the 7th which was the first day we were allowed to check in.  After bumming around hostels for the last few days this was very nice because we got to stay in an actual house, and since most of the family was away I got my own room and bed, yayy!!

We also got to have some free food which is always great, and relax watching a movie.  Mike's cousin had to study, so left to our own decisions we selected Kiss Kiss Bang Bang because what we remembered from the previews was an action movie and Robert Downey Jr., whom we both like.  Unfortunately we found the movie to be pretty strange and confusing.  You win some you lose some.  If that was a loss, then the win would probably be the air conditioning in my room.  A/C was noticeably absent from our dormitory hostel room in Jerusalem which had 4-6 other people in a room that was not big enough for that many.

Mike's cousin had to get up early the next day so we did too, taking advantage of the free ride.  Unlike when she picked us up from the train station the day before, we did not have the dog in the car this time, so I had a little more room in the backseat.  With all the suitcases in the car, the sizable dog and I had experienced some breaching of personal space boundaries, so the ride back towards Haifa sans dog was a little more comfy.

The city of Haifa is pretty much all built into the slopes of a large hill.  If you are in Israel, you refer to this hill as Mount Carmel, but many people who have ever seen a mountain will know this is no mountain.  It's a hill.  It's not tiny... but it's a hill.  Mike's cousin (I think her name was Talia...) was able to drive us up to near the base of the hill where we got off and waited at a bus stop.  The University of Haifa is located directly on top of Mount Carmel, and it would have been a significant time investment to actually drive us up there, so we were more than happy to wait here for the bus.

Brief religious history interlude.  Mount Carmel is significant for its relationship with the prophet Elijah.  Apparently he spent a lot of time here / lived here for awhile, I think maybe in hiding.  That is all.

So we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  And waited.  You get the idea.  It took awhile for the right bus to come, and meanwhile we had to watch over all of our luggage (I personally had two suitcases, my hiking bag, my camera bag, and my laptop bag), and of course the open face of the waiting area at the bus stop was directly facing the sun, so shade was hard to come by and it was already pretty hot.  I tried to spend as much time as possible in the shade behind the bus stop shelter, but even this was unpleasant as I am pretty sure somebody had peed back there not too long before.  Siiigh.

TMI?

Eventually we got our bus and awkwardly piled all the luggage on.  We then learned how long it really takes to drive up a hill when the hill is also the third largest city in Israel.  Sadly, there is no one road that goes straight up to the top in nice convenient fashion.  The roads go every which way, most of them seem to follow the horizontal lines around the hill rather than vertical ones up and down, and the buses make all sorts of stops, so going from way bottom to way top is a solid hour long investment.  But we persevered.  

It was exciting and almost surreal to finally arrive on campus.  After so much planning, paperwork, and waiting, it was crazy to think I was actually checking into school to spend the whole next semester here in Israel.  We were pretty early in the day still, probably around 10am, so it was quiet on campus.  Many arrivals were coming in later that day, overnight, and the next day or so after that.  Some people were already on campus because they had done programs over the summer, but it was definitely a little ghost town-ish upon first arrival.  Plus, the actual Israeli students were not on campus yet for the most part, as their classes didn't even start until a week after ours (ours started on the 10th).  After a little directional confusion (me, tough time with directions?  never) and navigating our way past the guard booths, we made it to our "reception".

Reception being one of our social coordinators was waiting to meet the arrivals and give us our materials and show us to our dorms.  Not that I wasn't impressed.  They had pretzels and cookies so I was certainly happy.

Mike and I had checked to see if we could live in the same apartment awhile ago, but one of the people in charge had since changed, and suffice to say this request had not been addressed.  We were not too concerned seeing as we were living in the same dorm complex either way and it was one of those things where we figured, on one hand it might be nice / convenient to be in the same apartment, but if not you just meet new people, so it's kind of a win-win.  Turns out since we were really on the early side they switched us really easily, and all was well.

The apartments have 6 rooms.  Usually one or two international students (Mike and me in this case), and the rest are Israeli students, so we knew we would be living with 4 other Israelis.  This seemed like a great system because we would not feel like we were "cheating" too much, and would still have to meet plenty of new people and not just other internationals, but regular Israelis as well.

I think it is easy to say that this is the best living arrangement I have had thus far in college.  The apartment setup is pretty cool first of all.  Not only to we have our own little flat, but unlike most others which are one floor, ours has an upstairs and downstairs.  I do not have pictures of the flat itself yet, or the campus in general, so I will work on that and post some later.

We have a kitchen and table, with a little sitting area, and an awesome little back porch area with a great view of the bay.  I was eager to check out my room of course so I went in annndd... I was definitely happy.

Based on my experiences at home with dorm rooms, at this point I pretty much have a short list of criteria that I really really really need for my room.

  Stephen's criteria for a happy dorm room experience:

    a) It's a single.

    b) ... actually that's it.

This room being a single and all, I was happy.  But this room had some extra touches too.  Like... space. Unlike my rooms from my first two years at school this one was just... had that little something... what's the word... it was... big.  Don't get me wrong, this is no palace.  But, unlike my rooms freshman and sophomore years, taking out the bed wouldn't double the open floor space of the room.  I can walk around.  In different directions.  Sometimes I make a mess, then push it to the side, and still have room to walk.  Unbelievable.

Still, single, and room to work with are fairly standard things to get excited about.  This living area even had those extra intangibles.  The X factors.  The little bit of extra sauce on the side.

Exhibit A:  The view from my desk window.

Not too shabby hmm?  Awesome view at night too, I'll get one of those and post it later with the others I've already promised.. I've got my work cut out for me.

Here is the walking in to my room, and looking around full experience.  You can pretend that you are me.  See through my eyes.

Ah ok let me pause here for a brief explanation.  You'll notice how in this picture, it appears that my door is both open and closed.  That is because there are two.  Why you ask?  I jokingly was calling the second heavier door the "blast" door.  Turns out that is not so inaccurate.  I guess two rooms in every apartment of 6 are reinforced and have these extra blast doors on the door and window (if you see the window views above, you can see the open window blast door on the right side of the first picture).  Mike has the other blast room downstairs.  Our roommates joking told us that they put the Americans in the blast rooms because it is bad press if one of us gets incinerated and then they have to tell Obama what happened.  I think they were joking at least...

Anyway I think it's pretty sweet.  Not enough to make my X factors list, but certainly a bonus, mostly because when people are being loud at night, I just close the blast door and viola, quiet.

Window with the previously noted view.

Aha, so we come to Exhibit B in the X factors list.

Exhibit B: PRIVATE BATHROOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!

I couldn't believe this one.  A private bathroom??? Are you kidding me??  I may never have another private bathroom in my whole life!!!!  Nobody is allowed in here.  Just me.

So we have here a spacious single with a great view and a private bathroom.  And blast doors.  Like I said.  I am happy.

It also turned out to be a pretty nice that Mike and I were living together.  It was pretty quiet in the first few days, and even for the next week after classes started because the Israelis had not filled in yet (although our first two roommates were there from the beginning, Alex and Raviv, and they are both very fun and cool guys).  So, it was good to have someone else on the same schedule in the house to hang out with or go out with and try to find things without getting lost.  Some international kids didn't even have any other internationals in their apartments, so this would have been trickier.  Plus, the first couple rounds of food we bought we ended up sharing and splitting a lot of things, and this is just so much easier when you know the person, as planning and dividing up food and fridge space can be a tricky situation to maneuver.

Even more so, since there was a sizable portion of students that had done one of the summer programs, a lot of the kids there (about half) already knew each other and whatnot so it worked well for me and Mike to be able to coordinate easily as we attempted to penetrate some of these preexisting social webs (I feel like I'm just waxing poetic right now...).

So anyway I think Mike and I have found that it has definitely worked well to share the apartment and we have still been able to meet plenty of people and whatnot.  In fact, much more inhibitive to these efforts have been the constant travelling (many other people did their traveling over the summer... I on the other hand was working in a very cool office), but the travels are for later posts.

We only had a couple days before classes started, and these were definitely necessary to get used to living in well... a foreign country.  Besides meeting all the new incoming international students, I would say the two things of note would be...

A tour around Haifa that the social coordinators set up for us.  It was definitely useful to be able to see the city and get an idea of what was going on around us now that I had fully jumped down the rabbit hole by not only living in a city (Williamstown... not a city), but also doing so in a foreign country.  Given, just about everybody was falling asleep on the bus in between stops, but helpful nonetheless.  We stopped at the Bahai Gardens at night too, I'll include the pictures next time (sorry I'm being so bad with the pictures for this post!!!  I'll never fail you again).

Other thing of note: the Shuk.  Or Shuq.  Not sure how to spell it, but basically a big outdoor street food market where you go and buy produce and breads and meats and such for good prices and you get to practice your Hebrew and wonder if, despite the good prices, you are still getting ripped off with an "American" price instead of the local price.  Very fun.  Although also tiring.  I was very proud of myself though, buyin cucumbers and and, tomatoes, and... pasta... and pita bread... and hummus... and grapes... you get the idea.  Imagine me... food shopping!  Incredible.  (We have to buy and cook our own food here.  Suffice to say I will drop to my knees and raise my hands to the sky when Mom starts cooking for me again.  And meal plan dining halls?  Oh man I've never appreciated my lack of having to cook so much before I can't wait... but in the meantime I'll have to manage.)

I think I will include a little more about classes as I continue with later posts, but with the benefit of hindsight I can say that while I definitely prefer the class structure of my lessons back home, and miss some of my beloved professors (awww), I have certainly found the classes to be helpful and interesting, and it has been a valuable experience so far to learn from a different perspective and in a different system than the one I am used to.  One of those things where you just have to get used to it a little first.  Like now each class is once a week (except Hebrew is more) for 2 and a half hours instead of 2 - 3 times a week in smaller chunks.  Whatever.  Who can complain when we get every Sunday, Saturday AND FRIDAY off!!!  Yahooo!!!  But ya classes are good too.

Like I said, more on the campus in general to come later, and more specifics on classes, but the arrival to campus went well and after basically 5 months without any classes because of the late starting semester, it was good to finally get back into the school routine.  Finally in Haifa, yayyy!!!  Now I can start telling you about my actual semester...

This Year in Jerusalem!

Shout out to my followerrsss!!!!!  I see you Rachael, I SEE you!  Hollla.

(I appreciate my other follower too but the account is private so I can't give you a shout out.  But still thanks.)

Also: the Ein Gedi & Masada pictures are UP.  Very exciting, check them out on my Picasa website.  Sometimes I start fooling around with my pictures and make them look kind of whacky or abstract (still cool though!).  If you find those weird just ignore them because I included all the regular versions too, so enjoy!  I posted all the ones that made the final cut into my personal library, so you have what I have... albeit the "final cut" still included a lot of pictures.  I couldn't help it.

"Trip to the Desert" : http://picasaweb.google.com/stephenmw90

So Mike and I wrapped it up in Ein Gedi and caught the next bus out.  My griping about the heat and getting all salty and the Ibexeem (just kidding I love those guys) was mostly playful; Ein Gedi was a beautiful place and a great experience and I was never in any rush to leave it.  Alas, all good things must come to an end and it was time for us to move on.  We only had a couple days before we would be heading up to school and Jerusalem was calling.  I couldn't show up to school without having seen Jerusalem!  Everybody would know I was an Israel-noob.

Because we decided to skip out on our second night in Ein Gedi, and because we got up at...

OK sorry have to interrupt here.  An Israeli just came up to me while I was blogging in a common area and was all like, "Excuse me, I am thinking about getting a Mac but I'm not sure...", and I was all like, Oh boy, you don't even know who you're talking to.  I was almost an Apple employee in Boston (by that I mean they didn't hire me).  I totally sold him on that.  He was worried about sending word documents to PC users.  I was like, pfft no sweat I've got Microsoft Word on this baby.  No viruses either.  Go buy it.  NOW.

Anyway so we got up at 4am to hike Masada so even though we spent hours up there we were down by 10ish.  This meant we made it into Jerusalem by probably 2pm or so, and still got to spend a half day's worth of daylight out in the city.  Aweeesoommme.

We decided to save money upon arrival by walking from the Central Bus Station to our hostel instead of taking a bus or taxi (the taxi drivers at the bus station realllly wanted us to take a taxi.  They were kinda right about it being far too, but we toughed it out.)  You know its bad when you are about half way there and you ask somebody for directions and they still tell you to get on a bus.  Plus let me conjure up the image of both of us with pretty full hiking backpacks on, our daypacks on backwards so they are on our stomachs, and I also have my laptop bag.  We must have looked like pack mules on those Jerusalem streets.

We finally made it to the hostel and semi-collapsed as we dumped off all our stuff.  But you can't sit for that long in Jerusalem without getting the itch to explore.  No rest for the weary.  There are umpteen places to go in Jerusalem and Mike had already been a few times so he didn't have much preference, I had never been so I didn't have much of a preference as long as we saw something cool... and this meant indecision.  So, we went with the default obvious choice: the Old City.

If anyone is a little unfamiliar with Jerusalem, the 5 second explanation is this.  There is West Jerusalem, and there is East Jerusalem.  West Jerusalem is Israeli, and for all intents and purposes, a fairly modern and developed city.  East Jerusalem is a dicier situation.  It was annexed by Israel in the 1967 War and a lot of people don't acknowledge their possession of it (think Israeli-Palestinian conflict).  Somewhere in the middle area there is the Old City, which is famously surrounded completely by walls with specific gates for entrances.

I digress from my 5 second explanation, but one interesting thing (although I was having trouble quickly finding the specifics on this) is that the walls of the city were not "originally" there.  They were built by a Roman leader (maybe emperor?  see this is why I was trying to find the story) who got scared when he dreamed that he was being attacked by lions or something.  So, he built walls around the whole thing.  They are still really old though.

Also, the Old City is again divided into ethnic/religious quarters: Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Armenian.

So we went to the Old City which was a little walk down from our hostel, and I really had no idea what to expect, but it was pretty amazing and totally unlike any city experience I have ever had.  Most of the "roads" in the Old City don't fit cars, they are narrow paths packed with people and shops, and the stones are all worn and smooth (I slipped a lot on my worn out flip flops).  Parts of the streets are completely covered, others open up into large squares, people are everywhere, it is jam packed full of life, color, and activity.  Great vibe, very fun to walk around, incredibly hard to describe.

Here is a picture of a quite exceptional display that we saw.  You might have to click on the picture to get the larger version to be able to see what it is... a tower of spices with a miniature model of the Dome of the Rock on top (one of the most iconic landmarks of Jerusalem).  So cool!

This is in the Arab quarter, which is the area with the most tightly packed market experience from what I saw.  You can get cheap, exciting food everywhere and see things like the Tower of Spices as I'm calling it.  Very very fun.  Although if you go, DON'T FORGET TO BARTER.  Although that is a good general rule for Jerusalem in general.  I mean Israel in general.

You can have a great time just walking around aimlessly in the Old City, getting semi-lost, seeing what places you find, and ending up somewhere you wanted to go when you least expected you'd get there.  So we did that for a little while.  Eventually we ended up in the Jewish Quarter.  The building on the right is the Great Synagogue.

If you don't think the Old City is super cool, then I'm wondering where else it is that you found a shofar sale.  So?  Didn't think so.  PILE OF SHOOFFAARRSSSS!!!!

More walking around, walking around, soaking it in, being amazed, feeling super Jewish, wanting to speak Hebrew and Arabic so I could talk to people, and just like I said, when you least expect it... Western Wall!

If anyone is unfamiliar... the Western Wall is the single holiest site in the Jewish religion.  Why?  I'll explain briefly and don't feel guilty if you didn't know because I actually had the concept slightly WRONG.  Yep.  Embarrassing.  I had the story / significance of the Western Wall slightly wrong.  Bad Jew.  Baaadd Jew.  BUT I made the pilgrimage to the Wall.  So good Jew again.

Ok so basic idea.  The mountain where Jerusalem is located is also the mountain where Abraham brought Isaac to sacrifice him to God before God sent down an angel to stop him.  So, this was the site for the original Temple of Judaism.  THE Temple.  But, the Temple was not simply built on top of the mountain.  Instead, there was a giannntt box (basically) built on top of the mountain.  The Temple was built up on top of this box where there was a big flat area with a plaza and everything.  The box is called the Temple Mount, so the Temple was mounted on the Temple Mount.  Clever huh?  Way back when the Temple got destroyed, and rebuilt.  The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans when the conquered Jerusalem (and caused the ensuing revolt by the Zealots who took refuge in Masada for a few years before committing suicide as the Romans broke in like I explained in the last post... see the connections??).  This was very sad for all Jews because the Temple was the holiest site for Jews and it was a commandment to make the pilgrimage to the Temple (I think it was a commandment...?).  Since the Romans totally scrapped the thing, the holiest place for Jews to pray is now the next best thing, the Western Wall.  The Western Wall is the wall of the Temple Mount that was closest to where the Temple actually sat on top of the Temple Mount, but the wall is not an actual part of the Second Temple itself.

If you want to understand a large part of the tension between Jews and Muslims, look no further than this: What now sits on top of the Temple Mount where the Second Temple was located?  The third holiest site in all of Islam, al Aqsa mosque.  There is also an Islamic monument to Abraham's near sacrifice of Isaac up there (since Islam includes Hebrew prophets).  So these two extremely holy sites for Islam and Judaism are LITERALLY ON TOP OF EACH OTHER.  Bad news bears.  The top of the Temple Mount is currently under Islamic control.  When I go back to Jerusalem I will go up there to look around, but there are strict hours when non-Muslims are allowed up there and it is closed most hours of the day.  If you wander down towards the entrance during non-visiting hours, which I did twice by mistake, the armed guards yell "CLOSED".  I think non-Muslims were allowed to go inside the Dome of the Rock as recently as 10 years ago or so, but when Israeli leader Ariel Sharon took the army up there he effectively started the second intifada, and ever since security up there is much tighter.  Sigh.

Anyway WOW enough history.  My first ever view of the wall (not counting anything I saw when I was 3 years old):

Ok so what's weird about this picture.  I had to use Mike as a reference, but apparently the extra structures / makeshift walls around the right side of the picture are not normal.

Neither is the music.

You can't see that well, but neither is the whole square being full of soldiers.

Hmmmmm.  What's going on.  Soldiers running around the square everywhere, some dry-firing their weapons in a line, others shining shoes, all sorts of activity.  Oooookkk...

We decided for visit wall first, ask questions after.  Me at the wall:

I told you I was being a gooood Jew!  One thing that is kind of fun about the wall is interacting with all the Orthodox rabbis that hang out there.  One came up to Mike and me and started talking with us.  After a short bit he asked me if my mom was Jewish.  "Yes, she converted".  Did she convert in the Orthodox way?  "Ha, nooo...".  I wasn't sure what was going on, but he rapidly lost interest in me.  Turned out not to be such a bad thing, because after talking with Mike and making sure everything checked out with him (his mother isn't Orthodox, apparently that is more to make sure the conversion is appropriate or something), he basically forced Mike to put on tefillin, which we began to refer to as "getting tied up".

Thanks Mom!  I dodged a bullet on that one.  Also apparently you aren't Jewish or something like that.  Hahaha, I'm probably not either.  Crazy people.  It is kind of fun to argue with those guys though.  He was funny and good natured, and he was telling us that we should learn real trades, not things like Economics and Literature, so that we could make sure to be able to provide for our families.  Oh brother.  He said something like the most important 3 things are all providing for your family.  Then he used my camera to take a picture of Mike with the tefillin on and tried to get him to promise to marry a Jewish girl (his girlfriend isn't Jewish).  Hahahaha all fun times.  We also argued with him about his reasoning about how the Jews have only been in one war and how Muslims start wars all the time, stuff like that.  Crazy stuff.  Oh well.  He also pitched us his website.  I haven't looked at it but feel free to check it out... at your own risk.  Let me know how it is.  What a character.

I wouldn't consider myself a super spiritual / religious Jew.  However, I did my thing at the Western Wall and I have to say that is about as spiritual as I have ever felt.  Knowing the history and the meaning of the place, and sensing all the belief and prayer that surrounds it is just a very overcoming feeling, and regardless of what might make sense and what might not make sense (to me or anyone) in the Bible or in religion as a whole, knowing what the place represents and being a part of the mutual consciousness that centers around it does feel truly very special.  It is a goosebumps, shiver down your spine moment, at least for me.  I liked it, it felt like I was really getting in touch with my spiritual side, in both a significantly Jewish way, and also a way that makes sense specifically to me, which I like as a general idea: people getting in touch in a way that makes sense to them.  Sorry, I'm getting a little abstract... basically I felt super Jewish and in touch with Jewish history / religion, etc., but also felt I could talk with myself / spiritual world in a way that made sense specifically to me.  Both of which I liked.

I figured it was probably good that I felt all bubbly going to the Wall or else maybe I would suspect I made the wrong choice studying in Israel.  No worries.  We decided the natural thing to do after visiting the wall was go check out those guns.  

I found the soldiers to be pretty friendly.  I even chatted with a couple for a little while.

Man I was just getting super Israeli down there at the wall!  I got so caught up I even signed up to join the Israeli army!  Jk obv.  But it turns out what was going on was that they were setting up for a ceremony to welcome the new Paratroopers to the army.  Cool!  Mike and I nudged into front row seats only to find out the ceremony wasn't for 2 hours so we decided to leave and come back.  Having trouble finding our way out (this was one of those times when we wandered down the entrance to the Temple Mount), a little Muslim boy offered to help us find our way out.  How nice!

He took us to a scenic overlook on the way.  Gold dome is the Dome of the Rock which I mentioned.  The grayish greenish dome on the far right that is mostly cut off from the picture is al Aqsa mosque, and the Western Wall is in the middle (wall of the Temple Mount... they are on top of the Temple Mount).

So he led us out and... "Don't you want to pay me something?"  What?  Huh? Not really... I thought you were just being nice...  Oh.  I get it.  I gave him like a shekel or something and he looked shocked (not in a good way).  Mike was perfectly happy not to pay him anything as he knew something like this would happen, but I felt bad.  He told me he only worked for "big money".  Are you kidding me kid?  I figured, fine, I'd give him 5 shekels more, for a total of like $1.50.  Whatever.  He peered over into my wallet and specified that he wanted "that one" and started to take it.  I was like OOOKKKK and grabbed his hand and he looked very dejected as I took back my 10 piece.  I gave him the 5 and left him standing there looking non too happy, although that was probably a good haul for him.

I'm a sucker.  I'd been had.  Never again.  That was my one time.  He got my 6 shekels but whatever, we were out.  We came back later for the ceremony.

Pretty cool, although it was kinda weird with some singing and such and after about 10 minutes I think we had the jist although we stayed longer... oh well, it was neat.  (I guess they were being accepted into the army but not sworn in as full members or something along those lines.. that ceremony is later and I believe it happens on top of Masada, where they swear "Masada shall not fall again!!!!").

Ok this is getting pretty long so I'll try to be efficient.  The next day (October 5th) we did some walking around Mount Zion (right next to Old City), including King David's Tomb, the room of the Last Supper, a small Holocaust Museum, and then the main event for the day was the Davidson Center, which was a very interesting excavation project that is revealing tens of feet down below street level around the Temple Mount, which had been covered up over the years.  It shows how there were once shops and trade along the paths around the bottom (the street with bustling trade was right next to the wall, and thus was aptly named "Wall Street"), how the rocks were built up in decreasing size, and all sorts of things of this nature.  Very cool.  Here is a big pile of rocks that got chucked off the top by the Romans.

Did you see me?  I'm very small.  The thing coming off the wall in the top right of the picture is the remains of an enormous arch that served as a staircase for people to the top of the Temple Mount.  There were baths and such around the bottom because not everybody was allowed up top in the time of the Temple, and even if you were you had to be ritually cleaned first.  The arch was so big that they are afraid to try to rebuild it because it is so structurally difficult.

We also visited the large food market known as Mahane Yehuda.

On October 6th, a Wednesday now, we kept it pretty casual with a short half day.  We did the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is one of the extremely holy sites of Christianity.  I believe it is supposed to be the site where Jesus was crucified, and maybe resurrected as well?

Interesting custom, apparently you are supposed to rub towels or cloth on this rock, which I think is where Jesus was laid when he came off the cross.

We went into a room with a large wooden structure and a huge crowd of people and a long line of people walking through this big box thingy (no picture for now, sorry).

Me asking one of the many tour guides in the room: "So, um, what is that?"

Tour guide: "The tomb of Jesus"

Me: "Oh... thanks"

Hahahahahaha.  Oops.  Jewish after all.  Also I found out later that apparently Adam's bones are in there too?  I don't know if that is supposed to be true or not but I heard it, and we did find a downstairs room and we weren't sure what it was, so maybe that was it.  I dunno how they got those bones but they did.  Kind of cool though, I guess Adam is supposed to be buried directly below Jesus, with the idea being the blood from Jesus drips down on to Adam cleansing the sins of man or something like that... sounds neat but I'll try and verify that.

Anyway I won't keep you much longer (aka I'm falling asleep).  Jerusalem was amazing and we did a lot, and I could talk for awhile longer about it, but I don't want your eyes to start bleeding from looking at your screen too long.  I gave you our basic itinerary, and in short everything was amazing and I can't wait to go back.  Awesome.  Very fun.  I think we slept in Jerusalem again that night after doing a little more general exploring, some in West Jerusalem as well, and then got up early on October 7th to head back to Tel Aviv, get our bags from Mike's aunt, and immediately turned around and headed up to Haifa to finally check into school!!!!!!  That's next post...