Linda & I went with my brother David to rent a van in Jerusalem this morning. It's about a half hour drive thru the Isreali countryside where he pointed out various religious sites which signified certain historical events. I have to admit that as much as he writes about this stuff on his blog, it's very different being here and seeing things first hand.
Like being at an intersection in the outskirts of Jerusalem and seeing a herd of sheep being led down a normal 2 lane road with traffic lights and many cars. I'm not kidding. And the cars drive by ignoring them and the sheep and the shephard ignore the cars driving by. I wish I'd had my camera.
We left the car rental place sporting a 7 passsenger Kia van (beige) - - oh yes, we were 'stylin', yes we were!
Went back to the homestead and picked up everyone except Ari, Cheryl & Yonah. And back to Jerusalem we went, first hitting a nice cafe for lunch called Cafe Hillel. It was crowded but being the huge tourist crowd that we are, we had them moving patrons around so we could put 3 tables together for us to sit together! Great sandwiches, yogurts and salads were had by all. This was in the German area, which we may head back into for lunch again tomorrow.
From there, we got back into the car and van accordingly and headed to the "Old City" - the really holy area of Jerusalam. I have to say that I'd been really looking forward to seeing this. David offered a lot of information as we entered and explained all the different areas that are there (i.e. Muslim, Christian and Jewish). There were many shops (called Shukkas - know this is probably spelled wrong, but too lazy to look it up!) that sell everything from tools, to shoes, to clothes, to baseball hats, to anything that you can think of) We passed thru as we planned on shopping on the way out.
At the other end of the path thru all the shops, we finally came into a huge clearing and we were up many levels of stairs (stairs here are a way of life as we go up and down them all over the place... our calves are killing us!) so we could see down below us on this huge area of space all kinds of people milling around, talking, sitting, getting married (we saw at least 2 brides there in full gowns!) and at the far side of the open space was... the Wall. It was just breathtaking.
The security was set up very similar to the airport to get into this are once you got down the stairs to the ground level. We had to take cameras and cell phones off and walk thru a metal detector and if you had any bags with you, they had to go thru the x-ray machine on a conveyer belt. We all passed - even my Dad who had to take his pocket knife out of his pocket and they gave it back to him after he passed thru the metal detector! (I guess that wasn't threatening!!!) We gathered all of our belongings and headed out towards the Wall.
The great Western Wall (Wailing Wall) was in front of us. It was a very spiritual place to me. I was awestruck looking at it. Then David, Gilad & Jesse (my sisters' husband) all went to the guys side and us women folk headed for the women side.
Anyway, Linda, my sister and I were all in shorts. My Mom was in capris. Sophie had a long skirt and a t-shirt on, and Maisie had shorts and a t-shirt on and Noa had a dress on. We approached the 'women's side of the Wailing Wall and were greeted by a woman waving scarves at us and black skirts to put on. My Mom took Sophie & Noa up to the wall since they were all dressed appropriately. My sister didn't want to approach the wall. She said she could see it just fine.
I took some pictures, but I really wanted to go to the wall and touch it. So after realizing that the crazy women waving scarves and skirts weren't selling them, but rather loaning them to the people, I bit the bullet and had them put a long black wrap-around skirt on me to cover my cargo dyke shorts and they put one on Linda, too! Then, we took Sophie & Maisie up to the wall with us and got some pictures of us touching the wall. There were pieces of paper in the crackes of the wall, where people had written their prayers down and put them in the wall, hoping that this sacred place would enhance their chances of being heard or answered. It was a moving experience for me - more than I would have expected, but then again, not. Kind of hard to explain.
I would have been very disappointed if I hadn't gone up to the wall, so I'm very glad that I got that chance.
We then headed back, going thru the shops, buying sandals, dresses for the kids, scarves for the kids, etc... We also took a quick stroll thru the Christian area just to see how different it was from the Jewish area. (There weren't many stores and there seemed to be a lot of Italian or dark looking men.)
We then got back in the car and van and headed back to David's. We had pizza for dinner and planned the next day, which will have the visiting Bogner sisters and their families heading to the German section of Jersualem for lunch and roaming around. Cheryl & David and the kids have things to do for the Bat Mitzvah (happening on Sat night) and my parents are gonna hang out here and rest after running all around since they got here.
Someone asked me the date today and I had no idea. What a great feeling. I have never felt this far away from my real life EVER! It's quite surreal. I like it!
We plan on going to the Dead Sea and Massada on Monday. I'm not sure what we're doing on Sunday, but since the Bat Mitvah is running til midnight on Saturday night, I can't see us being up very early, so it'll probably be something close to home!
Having a great time... still!
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