Jerusalem

We were really excited to take our first tour and we lined it up to start out with a private tour to Jerusalem.  It would be the six of us taking the tour; Ziv, Mickey, Kevin, Stephanie, Randi and I.

On the drive to Jerusalem we got to sit in a little bit of morning rush hour, which was caused mostly by new construction of the widening of the highway, Route 1.  Apparently there's something drawing billions of people to the center of the earth.

Kevin pulled a few strings and had the hotel provide a boxed breakfast buffet for our day.  So we had tuna and cheese sandwiches for the ride.  But the real star of the boxed breakfast was the chocolate cake!...that's right, for breakfast!  There was no doubt we were on vacation now.

With private tour guide Ori Stern made the first stop at Mount Scopus, where we could get a good view of Jerusalem and be private enough to have Stephanie hold up a map for a long period of time, while he described the different landmarks of the city.

The word scopus means "lookout." in Hebrew.  Scopus is a Latinisation of the Greek word for "watcher", skopos, the same as in the word "telescope".  

Being the overlook of Jerusalem it is, Mount Scopus has been a strategic base location from which to attack the city since antiquity. The Romans camped there in AD 66 and the Crusaders used it as a base in 1099.

From there we took a real short ride over to the popular Mount Olive, where we could view the city a little closer.  That view is like being able to watch all of history play out before you.  Just incredible. I've taken a lot of photos over the years...some say way too many.  But I couldn't capture this like I wanted, no matter how many shots I took.

The Jews believe that the Messiah will arrive in Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives.  The foreground in the pic above shows the oldest continually used cemetery in the world, with the Mount being used as a Jewish cemetery for over 3,000 years.  They said you can still squeeze ya in there and find a plot, if you pay enough money and have the right hat. Jewish tradition holds that the people buried here will be the first to to be redeemed by God and rise up, when the Messiah comes.
When the Muslims took control in the 13th century, they put their graves across the street, even closer to the center of the earth, where they believe the Messiah will come.
I imagine the Christians will be right behind both of them, waiting somewhere in the vineyards of the Judean Hills.

The Golden Gate, is the oldest of the current gates in Jerusalem's Old City Walls. According to Jewish tradition, the Messiah will enter Jerusalem through this gate. To prevent this, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent sealed it off in 1541. However, the Messiah is not expected to have too much trouble with it upon return.

Through the years one of my all-time favorite photographic subjects is Miss Randi Mae.  And while production costs of traveling to Jerusalem for these shots of her on a camel are high, it's well worth it.  I knew Ran would be the one who would down for this.  And her reaction of being on top of the very large, very tall creature, as he stood up, was priceless  :) 

From there we had a quick drive and then walk into the Garden of Gethsemani, located on the lower slope of the Mount of Olives.  This is where it's been written that Jesus went with his disciples to pray after the last supper and where he was betrayed by Judas and arrested.

The Church of All Nations or as it's also known, the Basilica of the Agony, can be found there.  The current basilica was built in the early 1920s but excavations have shown there was a Byzantine basilica on this spot, back in the 4th century. Inside the church is a section of bedrock where Jesus is said to have prayed before his arrest (Mark 14:32-42). There were mosaics on the outside facade and inside showing these moments.

Next we visited the Tomb of the Virgin Mary.  After being in the relatively new and modern Church of All Nations, this Church of Mary, centered around a quarried-out tomb that may date from the first century, was noticeably ancient. The hanging lamps throughout the church were really beautiful, almost enchanting, with the sunlight behind you, as you entered and walked down many steps into the cave.  I think it may have been my favorite site in Jerusalem.


Finally we made our way over to Jerusalem.  We parked near the City of David and entered the Old City of Jerusalem through Dung gate, right near the Western Wall.   Ori found that my camera was the perfect shape to use as a reference to how Jerusalem is laid out. He did this a few times while explaining the Old City to us.  I was so proud of my camera at the time.

We all went up to the Western Wall or Wailing Wall, with the guys going to an entrance on the left and the girls on the right.  The men were studying the Torah, in different levels of dedication.  Some were reading quieting, some chanting and some banging their heads to the wall.  Most of them sitting on cheap plastic chairs you'd find in a food court at the mall.  That part didn't seem right.  Ori gathered us together and asked what we thought of it.  When he looked at me, all I could respond with was "crazy".   I don't understand the Orthodox Jew customs or importance being put on them and just really felt out of place more than anything.

We made our way through the markets of the Jewish Quarter and then into the Muslim Quarter, where we all agreed to stop for a Turkish coffee inside the Suq Al-Qattanin (suq in arabic means market).  The suq was like a football field in length and has an arched ceiling with skylights all the way down.  Many of the skylights appeared to have not had a good cleaning since the decline of the Ottoman Empire and didn't allow a lot of light in.


We all knew right away this coffee wasn't gonna be like having a blended frappuccino, with extra whip, at a familiar and inviting Starbucks.
It was more of a cardamom lowrise, with extra sludge, in a dark alley.  But it was good!


No matter how dark and mysterious this alleyway seemed to be, you couldn't help but notice the extensive gummy bear variety available from the local candy vendor.




We all enjoyed some falafel together as we walked.  The cook looked somewhat like someone who had been a worldwide fugitive, hiding in caves in Afghanistan ...just sayin.

Another stop we made in the streets, was to a very modest bakery that someone said was 900 years old! There we were treated to the Jerusalem bagel, that comes in the shape of a giant oval.  It also came with a little pouch made from newspaper, filled with spices called zaatar, for dipping the bagel into.  It was really pretty awesome.  We all liked it and shared a few of them.

We walked in Jesus footsteps, down the narrow and crowded at time, Via Dolorosa.  Randi told one of the vendors along the way that she was from Minnesota.  This guy was very excited about this and chased her down the alleyway, to show her a binder of laminated pages, with like newspaper clippings and photos, all of it showing that he was somehow involved with the Carlson family from Minnesota. He was very determined to deliver this message. None of us understood what it really was he was trying to say.   We wondered if he had a book like that for every state but I don't think so.  If anything he may have been stalking the Carlson family for much of his life and he wanted to come clean about it...but we wouldn't allow it.

The Via Dolorosa is marked by nine Stations of the Cross, with the remaining five stations being inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The Holy Sceplucure is venerated as Calvary (Golgotha), where Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, and also the place where Jesus is said to have been buried. The church has been an important Christian pilgrimage destination since at least the fourth century, as the purported site of the resurrection of Jesus.  It definitely had more of a feel of an ancient castle, than a church, with small hallways piecing together areas that appeared to be built at different times.

There was a very long line in the chapel called the Aedicule, which contains the Holy Sepulchre itself. The Aedicule has two rooms, the first holding the Angel's Stone, which is believed to be a fragment of the large stone that sealed the tomb; the second is the tomb itself.  Our guide steered us away from spending our time in line to touch the stone and we all agreed.


Also, just inside the entrance to the church is the Stone of Anointing, which tradition believes to be the spot where Jesus' body was prepared for burial by Joseph of Arimathea. However, this tradition is only attested since the crusader era and the present stone was only added in the 1800s.  People were blessing many different items by placing them on the stone. My iPhone 5 was blessed that day...and the battery power seems to have improved since then!

We had a rooftop lunch at the Golden City Restaurant, found in the Suq Aftemos Square, known as the fountain bazaar, in the Christian Quarter.  It provided a nice view of the old city.


After lunch I walked into Yasser T. Barakat's Gallery right across from the fountain because their store front didn't look like another trinket shop. And it wasn't.  It turned out to be the most interesting

shopping experience I had there and really the kind of place I had hoped to find. They had a very interesting collection of old maps & prints (I could stop right there) but also some mysterious looking metalworks of older items from the area?  I had no idea what purpose was for some of them but I had suspicions that buried in the collection was possible a oil lamp previously owned by Aladdin!! As I was asking the owner and his son a few questions about their collections, Ziv and Mickey walked in.  They ended up having a good conversation about politics and the election that was to be held just 2 days after we would return home.  At one point Yassar looked at me, waved his hand and said "Americans don't know anything about what's going on here".  This was a difficult point to argue for me. I mean, what did he expect, John Kerry to come walking in there?  I wish I had like an hour to dig through everything and buy something. But I figured I really don't need another map and anything other than a magic lamp wouldn't make much sense to try to pack for the return trip.  So I got their card and figure maybe I can get something online from them. If I do, I'll be sure to mention that I'm the American who predicted Netanyahu's Likud party would win the election.


We exited from Zion Gate.

That night, after an amazing tour, it took all the effort the 4 of us had left, to have dinner at Joya (Italian) in Herzliya.