Jerusalem in a Day

 Amir has 4 visitors from Germany in town this week to collaborate on a project on biomineralzation. If you are a crab that is important for producing an exosketon and if you are a human then its important for building strong bones.  So there is a lot of interest in this topic...but I am not really going to talk about that.  I am going to talk about the field trip that we took to Jerusalem on Tuesday. We were going to go on Thursday, but it turns out snow was forecasted, and when snow is forecasted, the city shuts down and no one is allowed to drive in or out.  So we decided to go on Tuesday. The drive to Jerulalem from Beer Sheba is really just over an hour.  Picture a bad commute from Berkeley to San Francisco or a fast drive from San Francisco to Santa Rosa.  Or a drive from Auke Bay to Eagle Beach and back.  Israel is not very big.



We went to an overview spot on Mount Olive where you can get a great view of the old city.  You can easily look down on the Jewish cemetary, where visitors place stones upon their loved ones tombs.  The dead are buried in these tombs that are relatively close to the outer wall of the old city.  A lot of religeous reasoning here that will allow the dead to enter the old city (when the time comes) and carry on the good work. The wall surrounds the entire city.

I saw my first REAL camel and I cannot wait to get on one when the time comes.  Today was not the day. And sorry I did not get a good shot of the front end.  But most great camel shots are of the front (anterior) end and I thought I would try something different.

 I wanted to put this picture in because I wanted to show just how empty it was here in the old city.  There were no lines along the street (Via Dolorosa) where Jesus Christ walked with his cross to his site of crucifixtion, his death and his grave.  My friend Amir said that normally it is packed with people along the route and especially at the shrine.  This was truly a miracle day.

On the left is the site in which Christ was laid to rest (Hard to believe I am here) and above is the site of crucifixtion.  I am .very much inspired to read more and more about the history of this region

 

This is Eli (left) Benjamin (from Germany) and Amir (Right) making sure we know where we were in this very small old city.  We had been in the Christian quarters and were looking to find the way to the Jewish quarters.

It was pretty hard to find a cat in the Old City but once I got my visual cue, I started seeing them all over the place

In the old city, there are a lot of hills and very small streets.  The people move/hayl stuff using these carts that you can see throughout the old city.  The tire on the rear of the the cart creates a bit of drag as the cart is moved down some of the steeper hills.

I couldn't help myself.  They were TOO cute.

 This is the Wailing Wall or Western Wall at which women and men (separated) can pray.  They can also write down their requests to God and place these into the cracks in the wall.  A couple of times a year, the slips of paper are removed and buried.  I did see one woman remove a slip and let it fall to the ground while she put her slip of paper in the narrow crack.  In biology, she would be called a "Sneaker".

This picture is pretty interesting, because it shows the Western Wall (way in the back) and then in the front it shows the archeological excavations of the Roman layer of the  past civilization.










OK one more cat picture.  This little fellow was sitting out front of the Police stations.  The lions on the door are the municipal symbol of strength and power.

We went to the market in Jerusalem and one of my favorite things to do is just enjoy all of the aromas and sounds and colors.  Anything you can possibly imagine is for sale in this market. I bought some dates because you can take the pit out of the date and replace it with a walnut or a cashew.  Yum.

Last stop on todays tour was the Israel Museum that houses the Dead Sea Scrolls.  I was pretty beat from walking all through Jerusalem so I imagine I will return here a couple of times to take in the art exhibits and spend a bit more time in the Archeology section.

So if you want to see more pictures...Click here