Al-Quds al-shareef. Holy Jerusalem. What a place to spend the weekend... it was both the end of Passover for the Jews, and one of those rare years where Catholic and Orthodox Easter fall on the same day. Needless to say, the place was packed.
Friday April 22
Jordan border - Israeli border. (They're not in the same place, there's a couple miles of no-man's-land between them.) Wait for an hour and a half at the Israeli passport control, no idea why. The Arab family in front of us is not let through. Get oddly questioned by passport control.
Passport man: Your name, Skurka, what is that? What are you?
In my head: I'm not Arab, if that's what you're asking.
Me: Slovak.
Stamped my passport before I could ask him not to. Looks like I'm not going to Lebanon or Syria anytime in the next nine years.
Israeli border - Jerusalem. Thinking, wow... I'm actually in Israel. It has always seemed like this faraway place that only exists in people's imaginations. But here I am. And not being able to read Hebrew is really frustrating.
Coming up to Jerusalem. Annie: It looks like Amman! Becky: But with better streets and different squiggly writing...
Finding our hostel. Perfect location, super helpful staff who think it's funny when I try to speak Arabic. Free tea all the time. Mumtaaz.
Walking around the Old City. A lot of suqs (markets). Super tiny streets for too many people. Wander the Muslim quarter, arrive in the Jewish quarter right as everything is closing for Shabat (Sabbath). Go to the Western Wall and see more Jews in one place than I've seen since leaving Wash U. Lots of furry hats, wonder if they are warm. See two tourist women wearing Palestinian and Jordanian kufiyahs as scarves in the prayer section of the Western Wall.
Time for dinner. The city seems dead because of Shabat. Accidentally stumble upon an Ethiopian restaurant. Kind of seems like we were crashing a family party. Super awk, but they never said anything and the food was delicious.
Sleepytime. Annie and I are on the roof, with 40 other people. Mattresses lined up next to each other, filling the entire room. Kind of smells like feet (partly my fault), but we're so tired it doesn't matter.
Saturday April 23
Breakfast: giant piece of kunafa from the restaurant next to our hostel. Pomegranate juice from outside the Jaffa gate. Zaki!
More Old City. Try to get into the Temple Mount, but since the only non-Muslim entrance is in the Jewish quarter, which is closed for Shabat, we can't get in. Starting to think we maybe should have planned at least part of our trip ahead of time. Wandering the Muslim quarter, some little Palestinian children show us how to get on to the ramparts. Awesome views.
Find the Alternative Tourism Cafe/Gate Cafe. The owner is Palestinian who got his degree in political science at Georgetown. Gives us restaurant suggestions for DC and tells us how to get to Bethlehem.
Make it to Bethlehem easily, it's only 6 miles outside Jerusalem. We all thought it would be farther, but then again this trip is full of of breaking expectations. Our awesome taxi driver, Loay, agrees to only speak to us in Arabic, and is just a really awesome person in general. We see most of the religiously important sites in Bethlehem: where the angel came to the shepherds, the milk grotto where the holy family took shelter during their flight to Egypt, and the Church of the Nativity over the manger. Getting back into Israel is not nearly as easy as leaving.
Into the New City. Venture out to a popular street in the new city for dinner, window shopping, and people watching as Shabat ends and Jerusalem becomes alive again.
Sunday April 24
Happy Easter! Wake up early to get to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the place where Jesus was crucified and prepared for burial. Walk around the Church a bit before Mass. The place is huge, but not like a typical church. There are many smaller shrines and chapels, cared for by different Christian sects. Before Mass, a monk comes up to us and asks if we wanted to bring up the gifts... okay! Too bad I hadn't showered since Friday morning... We got to chat with some of the priests and the monks in their private room, and they gave us some free stuff.
More Old City. Attempted to go to the Dome of the Rock but we got out of Mass just as noon prayer was starting (and it is closed to non-Muslims). So instead, we got Easter brunch at a rooftop cafe. Easter bread, falafel, baba ghanoush, hummus, yogurt, tabouleh, and sage tea. Mmm. Attempt #3 for Temple Mount was another fail, because the line was too long and we had to get to the border before 5.
Rush to the border. The bridge closes at 5. We planned to get there at 3:30. Due to getting lost in the Old City and lots of traffic, we get there at 4:58. Almost didn't let us through, but our sherut (shared taxi) driver worked some magic and got us through. More passport control, buses, borders, taxis. Finally got back to my apartment exhausted at 8pm.
That is the super-condensed version of my weekend in Jerusalem... Once Annie, Becky, Liz, and Erin put their pictures on fb, I'll have some fun ones to add on to this post, like when we went to the Ethiopian restaurant and the Jesus look-alike at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre!
N.B. Annie's blog post about our trip is here in case you want better explanations of highlights and less of a travel log! I wrote this blog post mostly as a skeleton of events to remember when I recount the story with better details back home, apologies for the poorly-written-ness.
Friday April 22
Jordan border - Israeli border. (They're not in the same place, there's a couple miles of no-man's-land between them.) Wait for an hour and a half at the Israeli passport control, no idea why. The Arab family in front of us is not let through. Get oddly questioned by passport control.
Passport man: Your name, Skurka, what is that? What are you?
In my head: I'm not Arab, if that's what you're asking.
Me: Slovak.
Stamped my passport before I could ask him not to. Looks like I'm not going to Lebanon or Syria anytime in the next nine years.
Israeli border - Jerusalem. Thinking, wow... I'm actually in Israel. It has always seemed like this faraway place that only exists in people's imaginations. But here I am. And not being able to read Hebrew is really frustrating.
Coming up to Jerusalem. Annie: It looks like Amman! Becky: But with better streets and different squiggly writing...
Finding our hostel. Perfect location, super helpful staff who think it's funny when I try to speak Arabic. Free tea all the time. Mumtaaz.
Time for dinner. The city seems dead because of Shabat. Accidentally stumble upon an Ethiopian restaurant. Kind of seems like we were crashing a family party. Super awk, but they never said anything and the food was delicious.
Sleepytime. Annie and I are on the roof, with 40 other people. Mattresses lined up next to each other, filling the entire room. Kind of smells like feet (partly my fault), but we're so tired it doesn't matter.
Saturday April 23
Breakfast: giant piece of kunafa from the restaurant next to our hostel. Pomegranate juice from outside the Jaffa gate. Zaki!
More Old City. Try to get into the Temple Mount, but since the only non-Muslim entrance is in the Jewish quarter, which is closed for Shabat, we can't get in. Starting to think we maybe should have planned at least part of our trip ahead of time. Wandering the Muslim quarter, some little Palestinian children show us how to get on to the ramparts. Awesome views.
 |
| Annie and I! Finally, a picture together for IRWP, haha. |
Find the Alternative Tourism Cafe/Gate Cafe. The owner is Palestinian who got his degree in political science at Georgetown. Gives us restaurant suggestions for DC and tells us how to get to Bethlehem.
 |
| Lunch at the Alternative Tourism Cafe |
Make it to Bethlehem easily, it's only 6 miles outside Jerusalem. We all thought it would be farther, but then again this trip is full of of breaking expectations. Our awesome taxi driver, Loay, agrees to only speak to us in Arabic, and is just a really awesome person in general. We see most of the religiously important sites in Bethlehem: where the angel came to the shepherds, the milk grotto where the holy family took shelter during their flight to Egypt, and the Church of the Nativity over the manger. Getting back into Israel is not nearly as easy as leaving.
Into the New City. Venture out to a popular street in the new city for dinner, window shopping, and people watching as Shabat ends and Jerusalem becomes alive again.
Sunday April 24
Happy Easter! Wake up early to get to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the place where Jesus was crucified and prepared for burial. Walk around the Church a bit before Mass. The place is huge, but not like a typical church. There are many smaller shrines and chapels, cared for by different Christian sects. Before Mass, a monk comes up to us and asks if we wanted to bring up the gifts... okay! Too bad I hadn't showered since Friday morning... We got to chat with some of the priests and the monks in their private room, and they gave us some free stuff.
More Old City. Attempted to go to the Dome of the Rock but we got out of Mass just as noon prayer was starting (and it is closed to non-Muslims). So instead, we got Easter brunch at a rooftop cafe. Easter bread, falafel, baba ghanoush, hummus, yogurt, tabouleh, and sage tea. Mmm. Attempt #3 for Temple Mount was another fail, because the line was too long and we had to get to the border before 5.
Rush to the border. The bridge closes at 5. We planned to get there at 3:30. Due to getting lost in the Old City and lots of traffic, we get there at 4:58. Almost didn't let us through, but our sherut (shared taxi) driver worked some magic and got us through. More passport control, buses, borders, taxis. Finally got back to my apartment exhausted at 8pm.
That is the super-condensed version of my weekend in Jerusalem... Once Annie, Becky, Liz, and Erin put their pictures on fb, I'll have some fun ones to add on to this post, like when we went to the Ethiopian restaurant and the Jesus look-alike at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre!
N.B. Annie's blog post about our trip is here in case you want better explanations of highlights and less of a travel log! I wrote this blog post mostly as a skeleton of events to remember when I recount the story with better details back home, apologies for the poorly-written-ness.
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