DAY SIX

I have a disclaimer to add to this blog and any others about what we did for the rest of the tour. We switched things around on the schedule pretty much everyday and I had fallen behind in my travel journal so I don't remember exactly what we did on what day. I will however cover everything it just may not be in the exact order.

In the Day Five blog I started Day Six's morning because we did more gardening at the Youth Village. After gardening we rushed back to our room, showered and packed. We left the Youth Village that morning for Jerusalem. It was the first time that we were going to be in Jerusalem. We stayed in Jerusalem the rest of the time that we were in Israel.

On arriving in Jerusalem we went directly to the Old City to do some shopping. The Old City is the part of Jerusalem which is the oldest and still has the walls around it from the time of Jesus. The modern city of Jerusalem is much much bigger now and has extended way past the Old City. With in the old city their are market areas which are great for shopping at. In the far right picture at the top you can see the shops. The other two pictures are different pictures from around the Old City. The Old City is divided into different quarters. There is the Jewish, Arab and Christian Quarters. I don't know what the fourth one was. The Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock are both within the walls of the Old City. Below you can see the Dome of the Rock which is the golden dome. It is a Muslim holy site. The wall directly below the dome is the Western Wall. It was very eery being at the Western Wall praying and hearing the prayers from the Mosque. It really put into perspective the intensity and personal-ness of the issues are for the people who live in Israel. Both are the children of Abraham and both feel they have the right to Jerusalem.
Did you know that Jerusalem is an international city? It doesn't belong to anyone. We met a man there and his children were born in Jerusalem. On their passports it just says Jerusalem, no country of origin. The city is internationally disputed and that's why they can't say that it is Jerusalem, Israel or Jerusalem, Palestine. We know so little of the complexity of the issues here in the West. It's not as easy as just sitting down and hammering out a peace treaty. The Middle East is not the West and we need to understand that. I'll talk more about this kind of stuff in another blog.

After shopping we checked into our hotel which was the Grand Court. It was a new hotel on Olive Tree Drive. It was really nice and we had beautiful rooms. It was sooooo nice to finally be staying in one spot. Andrea and I immediately unpacked our suitcases and settled in. We had french doors off of our room which led to a large wrap-around patio. Unfortunately our room and Daniel's room next door were the only ones that had doors that opened onto the patio:(

We hung out and did some relaxing for the rest of the evening. Lisa and I discovered the espresso bar and were hooked for the rest of the trip. We met Abed and Asem. They both worked at the bar and were incredible funny and kind. We enjoyed getting to know them.