Happy Birthday Jim!!

Today we decided to attend a Lutheran Church service in the Old City. We thought we had found it with about 10 minutes to spare, but we were surprised when all the bulletins were in Arabic and there were only two people in the church. We realized that the Lutheran service was going to be held in the chapel which was two doors down from the main church. It was a nice small stone chapel with about 30 people there. The service was nice, however the sermon was very politically charged, so that was interesting. The pastors have been in Jerusalem for about 9 months and they are originally from Ohio. Apparently they have formed an opinion on the challenges in the area in that time! At the end of the service they encourage everyone to introduce themselves and stay for tea. We stayed for a while and talked with a man that was on transfer from the Department of Defense to the Department of State working at the US consulate. It was interesting to hear about how he is adjusting after a couple of weeks.

After church we decided to go take a look at the top of the Austrian Hostel. They have a nice courtyard about three levels above the Old City, so it was nice to just sit outside and relax for a little while. We hung out for about an hour and then climbed our way to the top where they have a 360 degree view of the city. It was really pretty and we even saw some chickens outside on a balcony of a fourth floor apartment!

At 12:30 we went over to the Western Wall to get in line for the public availability for the Temple of the Mount. There were at least a couple of hundred people in line, but it eventually started moving and we made our way through the metal detectors and into the area of the Temple Mount. It was nice to see the entire platform. Non-Muslims are not able to enter the two mosques so we didn't go inside, but we were able to see the ornate decorations from the outside and some of the other sites around the platform. We also had an audio guide that we had downloaded the night before that helped explain some of the significance and history behind the different things we were seeing. It was interesting to see that many of the Muslims were not praying inside the mosques and instead were gathered in small to large groups, separated by men and women. They were typically gathered in a circle with one or two people talking while the others listened. These groups were spread out all over the platform area. After a while at the Temple Mount it started drizzling so we decided that was our queue to start heading out. On our way out we happened to be leaving with a group of Muslim school children. As we entered the street where there were vendors things got a little crazy! All the children and vendors started yelling as the children were trying to buy toys, candy, etc. and the vendors were trying to catch their attention with the flashiest toys or best candy options. It was every kid's dream! I don't know if this happens every day after school or if today was special, but it was quite the scene!

We grabbed lunch at Bulghourji, an Armenian restaurant. This was our first time in the Armenian quarter of the Old City. It's not typically toured since it is primarily residential. We are glad that we stopped at this restaurant though, it was great! We tasted Armenian pizza as well as some sausages in a pita sandwich. It was all delicious!

Next we decided we wanted to try to squeeze in a trip to Yad Vashem, the holocaust museum. This would require us to figure out the light rail system that we hadn't tried yet. We figured out the tickets pretty easily, but since it was still drizzling the trains were packed! We made our way onto the train but there was definitely some pushing involved to get through the door in time. At Yad Vashem we had about an hour before they closed so we did not get to see the entire museum, but what we did see was fantastic. It's obviously an extremely sad and emotional place, but one of the things that I liked about it was how much personal stuff was included in the museum. From pictures to videos, clothing articles, and other things people had hung onto over the years. It was definitely a moving experience.

Once we were out of the museum the sky erupted into a total downpour. We ran to the main entrance, but there were no taxis or shuttles to be had. We waited for a while hoping that a shuttle would come to take us back up the hill to the light rail. After waiting about 10 minutes, we decided that since we were already soaking wet from our run to the main building, we might as well walk again. We walked the 10 minutes back up the hill to the light rail stop and were drenched by the time we got there! Luckily a train came in about 2 minutes so that we could get on and sit down to dry out a bit. When we got back to our hotel we changed into some dry clothes and warmed up with some snacks in the lounge at happy hour.

We decided to try to eat out in Jerusalem for our last night. We went to Adom, a European restaurant that is in part of an old remodeled train station. There was a little confusion with our taxi driver since it had recently relocated from a location only a couple of blocks from our hotel. So our taxi driver basically drove us around the block and said, here it is! I knew it had moved so we tried talking through it but it wasn't working…lucky for us a man was walking by and overheard our conversation and was able to tell the cab driver the new location in Hebrew. We are glad we made it because it was a great meal! Kevin had rump steak, which we have seen both in Switzerland and Israel and I've never seen it on a menu in the US. It was delicious! It was extremely tender and had a lot of good flavor. I had baked sea bream, which is a white flaky fish. It was stuffed with some mushrooms and cheese and it was great as well.

All-in-all it was a great trip to Jerusalem. I think we hit most of the major sites that we wanted to cover and we were even able to do a couple of little extras that weren't necessarily part of the plan. The city definitely has an energy to it with the different cultures and religions all kind of at odds with each other, but for the most part everyone was quite nice and helpful to the tourists. Tomorrow we will be off to Eilat on the Red Sea coast!

Keely