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Published: November 4th 2009
I'm sorry it's been a while since I've posted. Life here in France isn't always fun and games and travel...I do have to work a bit! Our Toussaint (All Saints' Day) holidays started on October 24, so I packed up my backpack, jumped on a train (well, two trains) to the airport. I said au revoir to France and shalom to Israel.
My trip there was rather uneventful, but long. I left Douai at 3pm and arrived in Israel at nearly 3am. It turns out it is a tradition for passengers to clap when the plane touches down in the Holy Land, which was not something I was expecting. I made it through security and passport control with no issues, got some shekels (Israeli money) and didn't know what to do with myself. In the US, if your flight lands at 3am and you have no one to pick you up and no hotel to go to, you're pretty much screwed. In Israel, however, you can catch a train to Tel Aviv at 4:30am and watch the sunrise over the Mediterranean while eating (very overpriced) yogurt and granola. It was my first time seeing the Mediterranean! So I kicked off
my shoes, propped my backpack up on the sand and waded in. Oh, and did I mention it was already about 80 degrees at 5am?
I caught another train to Jerusalem, where I stayed for three nights. Even though I was traveling alone, you're never really alone if you stay in hostels. I met Henni, a Swedish girl traveling the world alone for a year or so; Dan, an Australian traveling alone before heading to the US; Keith, a Kiwi traveling alone through the Middle East for two months, and Pamela, another Kiwi who currently lives in Italy but was traveling alone through Israel for a short trip. We did a free walking tour of the old city, which is the part of the city that most people come to visit. We saw the four quarters of the city (Christian quarter, Muslim quarter, Jewish quarter, and Armenian quarter), including the Western (Wailing) Wall, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Temple Mount, and the Via Dolorosa.
The Western Wall is the famous wall where people gather around it to pray and slip prayers written on pieces of paper into to the cracks. It is one of the walls of
Jerusalem's Old City
the graffiti means someone in the family went to Mecca for the Hajjthe Temple Mount (which houses the Dome of the Rock), and the Jews consider it the wall closest to the Holy of Holies, so it's a prime spot for prayers. After going through metal detectors and getting your bag x-rayed (which happens pretty much everywhere you go in Israel), men and women have their separate portions of the Wall to pray on. Women must be modestly dressed (knees and shoulders covered), and men must have something on their head (if you don't have your own kippa, you can wear a paper yarmulke that looks like you could flip it over and serve French fries in it). Pushing your way up to the Wall and laying your hand on the stones is a very intense experience. Everyone around me was swaying, crying, or whispering fervent prayers. Once you've finished your prayers, you are supposed to walk away from the Wall backwards. It is tricky business, though, because there are so many people walking towards the Wall that you have to be able to dodge them and still walk backwards.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is built on the spot where they believe Jesus was crucified. Called Golgotha (meaning place
of the skull) or Calvary, there is an altar where pilgrims line up and kiss a star that marks where the cross was put into the ground. There is also a slab of stone that represents where his body was laid out. People crowd around the stone, touching it, rubbing fabric on it, pouring water on it, and crying. The church is really interesting because the various Christian denominations argued over who got to have the church. Instead of picking one group over all the others, each denomination has a part of the church. It looks rather haphazard and cluttered (I am tempted to say tacky, but I think many would disagree with me), with lots of silver and gold things, candles, paintings, basically just stuff everywhere. There are also busloads of tourists (mainly Eastern European and Russian) who flocked to Jerusalem. I would have gotten really annoyed with them for taking up entire streets and churches if I didn't feel so bad for them having to wear matching bright yellow hats or following a tour guide holding up a feather duster.
The Via Dolorosa is the route that Jesus followed while carrying the cross to Calvary Hill. There
are always pilgrims, monks, and priests pushing their way through the crowds of tourists trying to simultaneously walk, pray, occasionally carry a cross (you can rent them), and not trip over the uneven stones of Jerusalem's streets. I walked part of the Via Dolorosa, but in the reverse direction. Oops.
When I arrived on Sunday, the Temple Mount was closed. The Temple Mount is currently under the control of the Muslims, who have built on it a mosque and the Dome of the Rock (it holds the Foundation Stone, which is the stone the Jews believe the stone from which the Earth was created, and you can supposedly also see Mohamed's footprint on a rock inside from his midnight flight to Jerusalem). The Foundation Stone is considered the holiest site in Judaism, and the Dome of the Rock is considered the third holiest site for Muslims. Sunday, the Muslims decided that the Temple Mount was closed to all non-Muslims. This caused some violence to break out near the Western Wall, and the city decided to close the Mount to everyone. This was obviously quite harsh, and everyone was upset. After the initial outburst, they stuck some extra soldiers around
the city and things quieted down. When I went to visit on Tuesday, they were back to the usual rules: non-Muslims can only visit at certain times that fall between prayers (usually mid-morning and early afternoon), you must be modestly dressed, and you are not able to enter the mosque or the Dome of the Rock. I put on a longer skirt, a scarf for my hair, and waited in the heat (it was close to 95 degrees that day) to go through security. The Dome of the Rock is one of the most photographed buildings in the world, but there's not much to do when you can't go inside.
Jerusalem's Old City is just a fascinating place to wander around. They have an Arab market, where you can buy everything from shoes to candy to CDs to clothing. There are stalls that line some of the old streets selling everything a tourist could ever want. I There are so many crucifixes, Stars of David, kippas (yarmulkes), rosaries, bottles of holy water and holy oil, and t-shirts saying things like "don't worry, be Jewish" on them. narrowed down my personal purchases to a stuffed camel. I've named
him Shlomo, and he plays techno music when you push his paw. I think he might just be my new travel companion.
Middle Eastern food is delicious, so it was always hard to decide what to eat. I ate falafel (fried balls of chopped up chickpeas served in a pita with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, pickles, tahini and sometimes hummus) just about everyday, as well as bread bought off the streets with hummus and apples. Nothing beats wandering through an ancient city overflowing with history and spirituality while munching on a falafel.
My last night in Jerusalem, I slept on a rooftop of a hostel (which was not the best idea because that was the night the hot weather ended in Jerusalem, and I was wearing pretty much all the clothing I brought in an attempt to stay warm), and it was the most amazing view. Seeing the Muslims, Christians, and Jews all living side by side in such a small, walled-in area was incredibly. Yes, there are tensions, but for the most part, day to day life goes on. The Muslim call to prayer wakes up the city at 4am, and once that's finished, the Christian churches start
ringing their bells (yet another reason to not sleep on a rooftop in late October in Jerusalem).
I could spend weeks in Jerusalem, trying to see all the parts of it. It seems like there is something religious or spiritual around every corner. Three days was just not enough, and one of those days was taken up with a day trip out to other big tourist sites in Israel (stay tuned for the next blog!) but on Wednesday morning, I had to pack up my bag and head up north to see my friend Jess (stay tuned for the blog after the next blog!).
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Meg
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You're missed Kate!
All very beautiful to see and read Kate. Keep it coming!