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Published: February 1st 2007
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JIGGA WHAT?
corie and audra have no idea what this sign says at the King David This weekend was a hard and busy one for me. I am actually glad that it is the week and normal classes are back in session. The normal routine of classes during the week gives me a break from the long and tiring trips which we take over the weekend and on wednesdays when no classes are in session. This weekend we went to Jerusalem again and stayed the night in the old city at the gloria hotel, right inside Jaffa Gate, in the christian quarter; which if you know anything about the old city, doesnt mean the inhabitants are christians...they are mostly all muslim, actually. anyway, we left for the old city after church, which is on saturdays mornings in the new city of Jerusalem. The service was in hebrew, then translated into english and then russian. I was so turned around, i have no idea what the heck the guy preached on and even if it was bibical. anyway, so then we hopped a bus to the old city and got to hang out there all afternoon, until meeting up with the group at 7:30pm at the hotel. Me, Corie and Audra walked around the old city for
awhile, from jaffa gate to damascus gate. It is really crowded on saturdays though and mostly with the arabs because all the jewish people are observing the shabbat. it got really stressful in a few spots in the muslim quarter because it was so impossible to walk and breathe and not run into people. we finally made it out of damascus gate and ran into some people from our group who, while in line for flaffel, had gotten their wallets and cell phones stolen from the backpacks. great. we spent the rest of the day pretty much parnoid and clinging to everything we owned. we sat and ate lunch outside the damascus gate in a grassy area. it was sort of nice. we decided that we had had our fill of the old city and began to walk back to Jaffa gate so that we could catch jaffa road to the new city. because of the crowds and the recent news of kids with sketchy hands, we decided to take the long way and walk around the walls of the city. it didnt take to long and was a nice walk, with less people and less worries. once in the
new city we went to the King David Hotel. VERY NICE. The King David Hotel is basically where anyone who matters stays when they come to israel. mostly foreign officials and politicans. there is a stone/slate walkway in the front of the hotel which has the signatures of the people who have stayed there, and then there is a room with pictures of those people at the hotel. it was fun and a nice break from the dirty streets of the old city. we walked around the grounds of the hotel for about an hour or so and just admired. they have a nice patio dinning area which i think we are going to go back to and eat there one sabbat. it has a really nice view of the old city. ANYWAY. then we went right across the street to the YMCA to go up the tower so that we could get a good view of the city. the tower gives a nice view of the old and new city. after that we walked back to the old city, tired and super hungry. we ran into our friend who sold audra the navity [ i like this
about the old city, you go enough, you get to know the shop keepers and the older, not nasty ones can be nice and help you out] so we ran into our friend and asked him where a good place was to get flaffel and he walked us over to this little whole in wall and told them that they needed to not charge us alot because we were students. it was nice. i appreciate and we will visit him now whenever we are in the old city. ate. audra bought a purse. went back to the hotel. met group. went into new city that night. there is a nice shopping area in new city called zion square which we went to and across from that is a COFFEE BEAN. some people went to mcdonalds...sick. me and audra went to coffee bean and got drinks and did some homework. it was really nice. in the new city, outside of any nice or bigger shop there are 'security guards' with guns and metal detectors. they want to make sure you arent bringing in any bombs. went back to hotel and slept like a baby.
woke up bright and early the next
day.......
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