Tourist

Storks are fairly odd looking birds. I mean, I'm sure I
look odd to them as well, but there is something
 majorly awkward about a stork. Plus they carry
babies. 

Sometimes a week is a very long time. This past week was like that. It might be that it was the week leading up to Pesach (the Passover holiday in which we celebrate the exodus from Egypt by refraining from eating bread), or it might be that I spent much of the week being the best tourist I could be.

On Monday, I went to the zoo.

Jerusalem is home to the Biblical Zoo. I’m not really sure what it “biblical” about it. I mean it didn’t have donkeys, which I think are one of the most mentioned creatures in the bible, but it does have a model Noah’s Ark with concessions on the top floor and a small movie theater on the bottom… Jerusalem has really turned tourist hosting into an art form.

Ok, whoever finds me a reference to
lemurs in the Torah, Bible, or Quran
gets a reward.

It sometimes seems as though every aspect of Jerusalem is geared towards the outsider. From the obvious things, like the zoo and the red-string sellers at the wall to the details like the beggars outside the gate, without these things, you really might not know that you were in Jerusalem. It is a city that might use some cleaning up in terms of the garbage left around, but would not do as well as it did if the shuk weren’t full of the most dedicated salesmen in the world. I actually had someone chase me down the street trying to sell me a tambourine on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, I walked the walls of the Old City. It’s called the Ramparts Walk and it costs NIS16. Yes, it costs money to walk around the ancient walls of the old city. Yes it was worth it – but only because I was listening to a good book and I brought a lunch. Otherwise, it’s a great way to get a sunburn and get stared at by the people who live in the upper floors of the buildings.

Not all the animals at the zoo were inside. I caught sight of
this guy outside of the tropical bird aviary.

It was interesting in a lot of ways, being up on the walls. I got to the Christian and Muslim quarters from a whole new angle – The Jewish and Armenian quarters are on a different section of wall separated by the temple mount, I’m not really sure how to get there, and fairly sure I would have to pay the fee again. I also got a good view of the northern part of East Jerusalem. It is defiantly different. It was really like looking at two completely different cities.

In the north-western corner of the Old City, right next to
New Gate in the Christian quarter, is a privately owned
Mosque. According to the plaque on the ramparts, it is
a "Family Mosque."

I came down from the ramparts at Lion’s Gate, right next to the entrance to the Temple Mount. If I had prepared for it, I could have turned my scarf into a Hijab and tried to visit, but that felt very disingenuous. I made my way through the Old City a little lost, but fairly certain that I would be able to find my way, I was on Via Dolorosa during the week before Easter, after all.

So I decided to go to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

It’s not really a church. It’s more like a collection of churches that all got smushed into each other over the years. The main worship space is actually a tiny chapel inside a huge dome. It’s really beautiful and also quite confusing. As I knelt next to the stone representing Jesus’ grave asking for a prayer for health for my loved ones, I realized that, no matter how much I respect my Christian heritage, it has no real meaning for me. I don’t feel connected to it.

View near Lion's Gate. On the left you can see the Dome of the Rock and everything in this image is within the walls of the
Old City. On of the most interesting things to me were the number of gardens at the height of the Ramparts. 

I continued on alone King David Street, the main tourist shuk of the Old City. This is when I was chased by the tambourine man. He said he wanted me to write a sign for him saying “Opening Day.” He asked if I wanted to buy anything, because that’s how they do it here. I had been wanting to get a tambourine, and I did end up getting one, but he wanted to sell me a second.

Here is the dome, and that cylindrical part is the top of the
chapel. There was a line circling the chapel to get in, so I
chose to stay outside, in the church. (That is a very strange
sentence to write)

“I give it to you, my gift! Just 15 Shekel!” I told him no.

He ran after me.

*****

I wanted to write some about my Passover Seder this year, but as I have already written a full post about other things, I will give some bullet points and I plan to write more next week:

*My family in Israel is Amazing!!!

*Though most of the people at the Seder spoke Hebrew, it was mostly in English. This was in part because of me, but also Ariel Nachman, who is from the states but just moved to Israel, and another visitor from Holland.

Flamingos are cool. An silly, and way more pink than I
expected. 

*A part of the rules of Passover is that you are supposed to eat an “olive sized” piece of matzo after the blessing. There are apparently many debates in religious circles as to what is meant by “olive sized” and what the size of an olive was 3000 years ago.

*There is a lot of silliness in Jewish traditions, this is acknowledged, but people attempt to explain it anyway.

*Every year, at the end of the Passover Seder, we say “Next year in Jerusalem.” Even in Jerusalem, we say it, this is because it is generally agreed to actually mean “Next year in the Temple in Jerusalem.”

*****

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