Bethlehem!

We took a day trip to Bethlehem with Veronica and Dan, our fellow Mosse friends. We were to leave in the morning and meet up with George and Shannon, some of Dan and Veronica's friends from church, who live there.

This all sounded so easy and simple to me. Bethlehem is no more than a 30 to 40 minute drive away, and we'd be hanging out with a local who could point us in the right directions.

I guess I was spoiled in Germany with the efficiency of the Deutsche Bahn, and all the other train systems. You can get to pretty much any city, town or village with the Deutsche Bahn. And then if the town isn't big enough for it's own rail system, they have a good solid and reliable bus system.  It just doesn't work that way here. At all.

We were at the bus stop waiting for the #21 bus where we would catch it and take it to the check point. Bethlehem is in the West Bank, so we had to do a passport check to cross over. From there we would take a different bus into Bethlehem and then take a taxi to the Church of the Nativity where we planned to meet George. This all sounded good in theory. However, if the bus driver looks at you and then drives off, then what do you do? Well, chase the bus of course. We managed to catch up with the bus at the stop light and banged on the door. He wouldn't open it. Lovely. We all wondered what we were gonna do, and then Skye saw a 21h. We thought this was actually the right bus, and got on it, glad we hadn't gotten on the first 21.

We took this bus to the last stop, but....it wasn't the chekpoint! We were the last ones on the bus and the driver (who was actually nice for once!) asked us where we were going and told us we were on the wrong bus. He explained that we could just walk to the next stop and take that bus to the checkpoint, or just walk straight to the checkpoint because it would only be about a 10 minute walk. So we decided to just do that.

We were off. We walked. And walked. And walked. And walked until we came to the wall and a souvenir shop which we thought looked promising. We called George and he told us we were at the Rachel's Tomb entrance, which was in Bethlehem but you couldn't get to the rest of Bethlehem from there. Soooooo we had to walk alllll the way back.

We got back, got on the right bus and it took us straight into Bethlehem. The West Bank is Palestine, so it was all Arabs. Jewish people are not allowed in at all. The culture was similar but still noticeably different. We got out and began searching for a taxi to get us to the Church of the Nativity. This wasn't hard at all as quite a few people were offering to drive us. George said not to pay more than 20 shekels for the ride, but we couldn't get lower than 30 (almost 8$ total, so 2$ per person).

I think most of us were convinced that we wouldn't ever make it to the Church of the nativity alive. I was certain either we would die, or we would kill someone else. I've NEVER been on a more terrifying taxi ride in my life. The streets of Bethlehem are narrow, and it's extremely hilly. This guy just floored it everywhere he went. We even drove down a main market street with tons of vendors and pedestrians, and he still did not slow down. It was like a roller coaster but without the comfort of knowing it was safe.

We made it there in one piece without killing or injuring anyone! Hooray! While we waited for George, tons of people kept asking if we wanted tours and tried to get us to do a tour while we waited for him. They were quite persistent. The doors of the church have a cool history that Dan told us about. You can see the outline of 2 bigger doors (see picture below). The biggest door was the original door, but it was falling apart, so the Crusaders filled in in a bit and made the middle doorway. Then the Ottoman Empire came in and made it very tiny because people would bring their carts inside and loot the church, so they made the door small so carts wouldn't fit through. Interesting!

George arrived and we headed inside. It looked like Catholicism puked on the site. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE that Catholics make things so beautiful and ornate. I think it's fantastic. But I can't think of a better way to describe it. It was similar to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in that it was extremely ornate rather than focusing on the "actual spot" where the events took place. But the actual spot is down below in a cave in an altar. It's called the Grotto of the Nativity and there is a 14 point star representing the 14 generations before Jesus. It's supposedly the exact spot where Jesus was born. A few feet away there is another altar and this is supposedly the site where Mary laid Jesus in the manger.

St Jerome had lived on the site, so we checked out his statue and St Catherine's church and went out to find a taxi to the Field of the Shepherds. There are two. One is where the Catholics believed the angel appeared to the shepherds, and the other is where the Greeks believed the angel appeared. We first checked out the Greek one. We were going to see it and then head to George and Shannon's apartment. Well, George was on a scooter, and the rest of us were in a taxi (oh, and btw, the taxi driver happened to be the same one from before!) and we were supposed to meet at the Greek field. It was basically a church and an underground shrine that St Helena built when she was there. Oh, that's another thing I should mention--Skye and I seem to be following St Helena (Constantine's mother), she was who brought the Holy Shirt to Trier, and she has done all these things around Jerusalem! We're looking at the field, and meanwhile, George's scooter broke down so he didn't get to join us, so that sucked.

Our taxi driver was extremely persistent and kept offering to take us to Herodium. We weren't exactly sure what this was but at first we were pretty against it because it just seemed like guy wanted money. Well, he did just want money, however, he was offering us a pretty good deal, about 10$ a person to drive us from the field to Herodium, then to the Monastery and back to George's apartment. It was an even better deal than we thought once we finished because these were pretty far away from everything and there is no public transportation to them at all.

The Herodium is where King Herod built his palace and where he was buried. It's a volcano like structure up really high with ruins. You can see for miles and miles in every direction! So that was pretty awesome! It's so hilly, and so...brown. It's just rocks and dirt and white stone cities. It was a pretty view though. To get back to the bottom we went through a bunch of tunnels with extremely steep stairs.

The Monastery was really pretty. It was out in the middle of no where though. We even drove through some steep cliffs and extremely impoverished areas to get there. The kids in the neighborhoods shouted WOW at us a lot, and some even threw bottles at our taxi. 

The Monastery was built basically in amongst cliffs it was beautiful and had some crazy views. The boys got to go in, but...no girls allowed. I was enraged with this at first because I have been on edge and hyper sensitive about the gender inequality here, mostly with the conservative Jews. But then I remembered it was a Monastery, it's all monks and they don't allow woman in for temptation reasons.

Our increasingly awesome taxi driver, Osami, picked us up at the bottom so we wouldn't have to climb the big steps back up and drove us back to George's apartment. However, he decided it was necessary for us to see the Catholic's Field of the Shepherd while we were there and didn't charge us any extra to show us. It was also pretty cool, it seemed more like a field than the other one that was just some cave thing.

We hung out with George and Shannon at their apartment the rest of the afternoon. They fed us well and we had a nice time getting to know them and coveting their two huge fully furnished living rooms. (Skye and I can't even get our landlord to bring us a tiny couch!)

We were all pretty exhausted and were dreading the uncertainty of getting home. Luckily George and Shannon have a taxi driver that they always use that would only charge us 15 shekels to take us to the checkpoint. He was supposed to arrive in about 30 minutes but didn't make it for a little over an hour. As soon as he got there he jumped out of the car apologizing over and over. We got into the car, and the first thing he did was stick a small American flag to the windshield, he shouted, I LOVE AMERICA and asked he he could turn on his music. He blasted the volume and we rocked out to none other than highlights from the Democratic National Convention. hahaha! He even "sang" along. We saw a car broken down and he stopped and shouted to the guys, "I love Obama, Obama is the best! I love America!!!!!! I love America". Turns out it was his friends, haha! Next he asked if he could stop to get gas and it would be be so fast. As soon as he got gas, he asked if he could stop and do his evening prayer because he had missed it. So he pulled over and we waited with his music still on. Next up was the Titanic Theme by Celine Dion! hahaha. As soon as he got back he said, "oh! You chose titanic!" Much to the boys' dismay he started the song over, turned it up louder and proceeded to blast the washer fluid and turn on the wipers and said, "look now we're in the ocean! it's so romantic! We're on the Titanic!" Next song in the lineup, Eminem! Sort of had to do with male genitalia. He told us about how his grandpa played this song to his grandma and how he was so romantic. Oh boy! Moving right along to some random techno song none of us had ever heard, followed by Aqua's "I'm a Barbie Girl". He also taught us some of his newly invented words, "fudge-packery" (which he at one point yelled to a cop directing traffic) and "shit-cago". This guy was quite the character!!!! In the end, he got us to the checkpoint safely and when he dropped us off he said it was his gift to us and didn't make us pay him anything. Free entertainment!

We went through the pathetic checkpoint that was actually more like a maze and they didn't even look at our passports, and caught a small overcrowded Arabic bus back to Jerusalem.

We ended the night eating Israeli kebab at a cute place on Dan and Veronica's street. I'd say it was a successful and productive day! 

This is where the wrong bus dropped us off, pretty random!

Church of the Nativity!

Doorway to the Church of the Nativity (see the outline of the 2 older doorways and how tiny the current one is)

Inside the Church of the Nativity

The ornate altar, the cave is just below, not sure why we didn't get a picture

The ornate altar again

some of the original mosaic floor

St Catherine's church

St Jerome

Greek's field of the Shepherds

In the underground shrine of the Greeks Field of the Shepherds

Church on the Greeks field of the Shepherds

Us at Herodium!

Herodium

View from Herodium

Another view

Awesome

View on the way to the Monastery

The Monastery

View from the Monastery

At the Catholic's Field of the Shepherds

Our awesome taxi driver!

Old City Adventures (Part 4)

Our final day with Tricia and only one major thing left to see in the Old City. Our main goal was to see the Garden Tomb. This isn’t actually in the Old City, but it’s very close.

After battling with the Israelis (because, I’m not joking when I say everything is a battle with them) to get Tricia a shuttle ticket back to the airport, we walked to the Garden Tomb.

The Garden Tomb is the area thought by Protestants to be where Jesus was crucified and buried. In 1867, after the Sepulchre’s authenticity had been questioned, archeologists unearthed this tomb and determined that it dates back to the first century.

Remember way back from my first and second blogs? I told you about the white stone everywhere? And I told you it was so slippery and it felt treacherous even with tennis shoes? I wasn’t exaggerating. I completely ate it on the way to the Garden Tomb. I was wearing my Keen brand walking shoes even! I stepped on the edge of the step, slid, my foot went backward, and my body went forward. Lucky for me, I have swift cat like reflexes and caught myself….ok, I caught myself on my hands and knees. And it hurt. Bad. Especially the ego. BUT I didn’t land on my face! My purse went flying, my sunglasses went flying, but no blood was drawn, and don’t worry my sunglasses were fine. I have a huge bruise on my knee to show for it, and that’s it. It could have been a lot worse. So…if you’re ever planning to come here, be careful when you walk!

Somehow we missed our turn that would take us directly to the Tomb and ended up in the Muslim neighborhood and took the long way to the Tomb. We finally got there and it was so nice!

It was so different than the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It wasn't crowded and when you walk in someone greets you with a friendly smile and you get a pamphlet describing what everything is. We walked into a beautifully manicured garden and followed the path to the first stop: the skull shaped cliff. “The Place of the Skull”, Golgotha! This is where they believe Jesus was crucified, and it can be seen from the main roads to Damascus and Jericho.

Next the path led us to the cistern, the 3^rd largest in Jerusalem that holds 200,000 gallons of rainwater. The cistern is important because it gives evidence that this area used to be a working garden such as an olive grove or vineyard. There is even an old wine press that was excavated in 1924. So this could have possibly been the garden belonging to Joseph of Arimathea.

After the cistern we got to the tomb. It was basically a room cut into a cave. You go in, and it was a small square room separated in half with one side for the tomb, and the other side for the mourners.

Other than a few Asians running around the tiny tomb with their huge ipads taking pictures and videos as if it were Disneyland, this site was AMAZING for me. This was it for me! At least, this was visually it for me. The Sunday school girl inside me was very happy! Even if the Protestants are wrong, and it’s not the exact site, this is probably closer to what it looked like in the Old City at the other church before it was a church. And sure the Asians were obnoxious and didn’t seem to grasp the seriousness of it but at least they weren’t rude and pushy like the crowds at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The whole area was peaceful and quiet--the way you would want it to be if you were there to see where Jesus died and was resurrected. 

So which is it? Which is the right place? Only God knows. And I suppose I will ask Him when I get to Heaven. Probably after I get judged for my bad attitude. Maybe it's neither spot. Maybe the spot was right here where my apartment is! hahaha! 

Picture of what Golgotha used to look like

Picture of what it looks like now

Outside of Jesus' Tomb

Inside of Jesus' Tomb

 

Old City Adventures (Part 3)

Girl’s day! Tuesday was miraculously NOT a holiday (well technically it was but people have to eat so they had to open things) so Skye got to go to the archives to work. When you walk around in the Old City there are some very awesome holy sites to see, but there is also a lot of shopping. There are tons of vendors, with all, basically the same stuff. I believe I mentioned this in our first experience in the Holy Lands. Some of the items were cool and made in Jerusalem, things that makes sense to buy in the Old City such as, nativity scenes, rosaries, scarves, menorahs, jewelry, etc. But they also had plenty of things straight from China that you could find in a dollar store deep in the heart of Texas.

Well, Tricia wanted a Nativity and I wanted a few gifts for people as well. Remember Skye and I also saw David’s Tomb and the room of the Lord’s Supper? But those ended up being super fast, so Tricia and I decided to have a shopping day, and on the way out check out those sites.

Shopping was exhausting. As you know from my apartment blog, I’m not afraid to barter. And the place for bartering is the Old City. I hate it. I hate bartering. Just give me a fair freaking price, and I will pay it. I didn’t care for it in Mexico on our honeymoon either, but I was good at it. The key is to ALWAYS be ok with walking away. And seriously, be ok with walking away. You can get the same thing in the next store. And they know it.

The first store we went into, we found a cute and good sized wooden nativity scene. He told us the price in Dollars. 210. Ok, seriously who would pay that? It wasn’t very big. We told him our absolute max was 50$. He kept asking us to tell him our max price. 50$. 50$. 50$. What part of 50$ don’t you understand? He went all the way from 100$ to 65$ and everywhere in between. Every time we began to walk away he went lower. Finally we had had it with him and decided to just leave no matter what. I started to walk out, Tricia followed, but the old man grabbed her arm and pulled her back! What the heck! And he still didn’t offer what we were asking, 50$, which was our maximum. I grabbed Tricia, put my arm around her and we walked out. As we left, he said, “fine 50$” and we both thought…no freaking way! If you can go from 210$ to 50$, there is no way it’s even worth 50. But like I said, the key is to walk out and be ok with it.

The next guy was much more reasonable. Started with a lower price and wasn’t so stubborn about meeting us half way. We got the nativity for 50 including a little mini one.

We were feeling pretty good about it and stopped in one store for post cards. It was 2 shekels for one post card. I began counting out my change, here the lowest coin is a 10 cent piece, and they also have a ½ piece which is like a 50 cent piece. After watching me count it out, the guy slammed it back in my hand and said, “we don’t take gold” so I said “fine!” and I slammed down my post card and left. That pissed me off.

So we find different post cards. I also felt like looking at some necklaces at the same place. The guy went on and on about how his store was all about hospitality, that he had southern hospitality like in Alabama. I told the guy what I was willing to pay for the necklaces, and he looked me in the eye (or tried anyways, he had two lazy eyes) and asked me, “are you normal, or are you not normal”. He wasn’t even willing to barter with me, so I said I’ll just take the post cards. Then he tried to charge me 5 shekels for two, so I said, “no way at the other place they were 2” He said, “fine then 4” and I said, well, I only have 3 shekels, so I’ll just get them somewhere else. So as I walked away, he said, “ok ok ok fine 3”. So I said, “ok” counted out my ‘gold’ and gave it to him. He threw it back into my hands (some went flying) and said, “bye bye”. That’s some southern hospitality, let me tell you.

At this point, I’m furious. SO done with these idiot vendors. We walked into one more place, a bigger place, and the guy of course greeted me like some rich American, like they always do (uh yeah…I’m unemployed and my husband is a grad student….so rich). I flat out asked him if he was going to be mean like every other vendor there. Of course he said “no no no no” blah blah blah. Well, he was telling the truth and he offered me exactly what I was going to offer him on the stuff I bought, so I didn’t even have to barter. That was pretty relieving.

We also went into a place where Tricia got a flag, and that guy was married to someone from Osh Kosh, Wisconsin! Ha! Small world! He was nice and met us half way with bartering also.

We shook off the stress of shopping in the Old City and I showed her David’s Tomb and the room of the Lord’s Supper. It was crowded when we first got in, but we left and came back a couple minutes later and it was empty. That was nice, and made for some awesome pictures.

We headed home for an afternoon of doing hair and nails. I love me some girly days! 

Stay tuned for Old City Adventures Part 4!

 

Walls of the Old City

Where David's Tomb and the room of the Lord's Supper are

Spice guy in the Old City

Awesome picture on our walk to the Old City

Sunset from our balcony

Old City Adventures (Part 2)

Sukkot day! Everything is shut down again! This means another trip to the Holy Lands! It's about a 20 to 30 minute walk to get to the Old City from our apartment. Tricia, Skye and I were off-- in the 90 degree heat with 80% humidity at 9:30am. Fun times.

Our first stop--Dome of the Rock. Dome of the rock is located on the Temple Mount, and is the place thought to be where Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac. Muslims believe this is where Muhammad ascended to Heaven.

You all probably already know this, but the Dome of the Rock is a Muslim Mosque. The rock is inside, and only Muslims are allowed to go inside. In fact, it is only open (open to walk up to the Dome, but not go inside) to others from 7am to 10am, and from 12:30pm to 1:30pm daily. 

We entered next to the Wailing Wall, where, for Sukkot, there was a huge Jewish service happening. Before we could even enter the Wailing Wall Area, Tricia was given a skirt to put on. I was lucky, I was wearing a skirt over my leggings already. It was sort of dumb though because Tricia was wearing black shorts with dark black tights, barely a difference from the leggings. It's tricky dressing for the Old City in the heat. I have a tattoo on the top of my back in Hebrew that I have been trying to keep hidden (mostly because EVERYONE here can read it), and it's best to keep your shoulders covered, so Tricia and I had been wearing short sleeved T's. Skye was wearing khaki shorts and a short sleeved shirt. These outfits were fine for the rest of the Old City but none of them were appropriate for Dome of the Rock! They sent us to a vendor where we had to buy scarves to cover up. Basically I think knees and elbows had to be covered up, so Skye got to wear a pretty scarf over his shorts to cover his knees! Apparently man elbows are appropriate, but women's aren't. Anyways, we bought scarves. Luckily they were only 5$ a piece and are pretty.

Thankfully it wasn't crowded and we got some good pictures before they started yelling at us to get out. Even as we were headed to the exits they yelled at us. Oh man, let me tell you, I love love love being yelled at every day for nothing. It's fantastic. 

After Dome of the Rock we stopped at the Wailing Wall so Tricia could see it (Skye and I had already been). The Jewish ceremonies were over but it was still quite crowded. Tricia and I went into the women’s side and spent a few minutes there. When we were ready to go, we noticed everyone was walking backwards on the way out, all the way to the entrance. We didn’t know the reason, but we joined in anyways. We walked backwards to the entrance, caught up with Skye and made our way out.

We headed to the different sites on the Mount of Olives. We walked along the road in between the Old City and the Mount of Olives past thousands of Jewish graves until we came to Zachariah’s Tomb, and Absalom’s Pillar. We continued on until we got to Mary’s Tomb. This was pretty cool. You walked down many stairs until you’re under ground and it’s inside a tiny Dome incased in glass. It’s rock, but you can almost see the shape of a person. It’s crazy!

Afterward we made our way up the Mount of Olives stopping at each site. First was the Garden of Gethsemane, where there are gardens and a church. This was one of my favorite spots, especially after the Sepulchre disaster. Ok, ok, it wasn’t a disaster, but it was incredibly disappointing. The reason I liked the garden so much was because it’s just a garden. It’s less important for it to be “the right exact spot”. Yes, everyone, I understand that 2000 years later there is absolutely no way of knowing the exact spot for these sites, and that it’s not the sites themselves that are important, it’s the significance and meaning behind them. But that doesn’t change the fact that the little visual-learning-Sunday-school-girl inside has hopes and expectations for these sites. But see, that’s why I liked the Garden. It was a whole garden, and Jesus WENT TO THAT GARDEN to pray! He probably walked all around it in addition to praying in the spot that He prayed. I mean, we know for sure he walked to where his disciples were to wake them up. I do realize that this attitude is a bit pathetic. But I can’t help it. The church they have built on the Garden of Gethsemane was also cool. It had mosaics of the scenes that happened in the Garden, and of course the rock thought to be where Jesus actually prayed.

Next we headed up, up, and up some more until we got to the church of Mary Magdalene. It was closed. Boo. But it was really pretty on the outside.

Up and up some more. We were on a narrow road in which a small car barely had enough room. There was a ton of foot traffic in addition to two-way vehicle traffic. This was rather interesting. Needless to say, we saw a lot of backing up that day.

We made it to Dominus Flevit. There is a small church here now, and this is the place thought to be where Jesus stopped off the road to pray look out over the city before he entered Jerusalem. It was definitely a nice view.

You guessed it! We kept walking up and up some more. We were headed for the Dome of the Ascension. Higher and higher we walked with breathtaking views the whole way up. We finally got there. It was pretty deserted. It was beginning to be a shady side of town, and after all, we were headed in the direction of the West Bank. A guy, who didn’t actually seem legitimate, asked for 5 shekels (about 1.25$) per person to get in. This was the first thing that cost to get into, but it was also the most unmaintained and the least crowded. So I still question the legitimacy of the guy, but oh well. It was just a small Dome with gravel and weeds surrounding it.

We stopped off at one more area for the view. Many tourists were there and gimmicky people with donkeys. The poor donkeys looked so sad to be there. We took some amazing pictures and headed down the Mount of Olives, through the crazy crowds in the Old city, and all the way back home.

A very productive day! We only had a few things left to check out in/near the Old city.

Stay tuned for Old City Adventures part 3! 

Dome of the Rock!

Skye in his scarf skirt, not covering his knees very well still

matching scarves wooo!

The Old City

Church of Mary Magdalene

Zachariah's Tomb

Stairs into Mary's Tomb

Mary's Tomb

Garden of Gethsemane

View of the Old City from Dominus Flevit

view from inside the church at Dominus

Dome of the Ascension

Old City walls seen from the base of the Mount of Olives

Old City Adventures (Part 1)

Arriving in Jerusalem mid-end of September was a bad idea. It has been holiday after holiday here beginning with Rosh Hashanah, then Yom Kippur, followed by Sukkot with Sabbaths in between. So on many of the weekdays, things are completely shut down. However, as I mentioned in my other blog, we discovered that things in the Old City are up and running. This seemed to be a perfect time to go discover the touristy areas. Not only that, but our friend, Tricia, had been living in India for the past two months and made a weeklong pit stop in Jerusalem to visit us on her way home. So the three of us discovered the Holy Lands together.

Tricia arrived on Friday evening and we got right into it on Saturday. Our new friends, Teranne and Niek invited us to go to church with them, it’s a Baptist/non denominational church, but since Saturday is the Sabbath, and Sunday here is the equivalent to USA’s Monday, they have church on Saturday morning. Veronica and Dan have also been going to the same church, so we all met up and walked to church together. AND this is definitely worth mentioning…IT WAS IN ENGLISH. I love Germany with all my heart, but man oh man did I miss hearing a sermon in English! That will be one nice thing this year!

After church we headed to the Jaffa Gate of the Old City. We had some ambitious goals of what we wanted to see, but we didn’t make it past the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This is where the Catholics believe Jesus was crucified, laid to make sure He was dead, and was buried. The reason we didn’t get much further, other than a lot of walking around in the narrow streets and allies of the Old City, was because it was absolute CHAOS. Mobs and mobs and mobs and mobs of people. All fighting to see, touch, pray and be where Jesus died for our sins.

First we walked in and climbed up some extremely steep steps to the rock where Jesus’ cross was. It was hard for me to envision this being Golgotha. I know it was 2000 years ago and things happen, and they need to preserve it. But it was all inside a church, so I guess the hill that would have been Golgotha was now the steep stairs. We entered a small room with an extremely large and pushy crowd. I don’t exaggerate when I say extremely. This was a pretty huge distraction. It made it nearly impossible to try to have a religious experience or even concentrate on the meaning. As you slowly get hoarded through while trying to keep your spot in line, which is also nearly impossible, you eventually come to this altar. You bend down get under the altar and stick your hand in a dark hole to touch a small area of the rock they believe that Jesus died on. You get about 1.4 seconds before someone else squeezes in. Then you get up and get out, and that is that. You can see the rest of the rock under a glass case built around the altar.

Next we walked past the “bed” they laid Jesus on to make sure He was dead. People were kneeling at it, laying their belongings on it- such as jewelry, rosaries scarves, etc, kissing it and saying prayers.

Then we went into another room with a big…dome thingie. It had guards and a GINORMOUS line wrapped all the way around it. This was Jesus’ tomb. I about keeled over. I was already having a hard time because inside I felt a little disappointed that it looked NOTHING like how I pictured it from reading the Bible all my life. Not that that should matter, I’m not sure why I was expecting for it to look the exact same for 2000 years, especially with all the crazy things that have happened here since then. But it wasn’t even similar. I had to just think of it as a shrine to Jesus that was built on the site. I felt like leaving. But this was as good a time as any and even though I felt disappointed it was still important to see it. It wasn’t just the fact that a huge church was built on the site that bothered me. All the people behaving the way they were in such a Holy site was also really bothering me-- pushing, shoving, cutting, rushing-- it’s fantastic that Jesus is this important for so many people, but really? I’d rather be in a gym full of elementary students hyped up on sugar. The whole reason behind Christianity is that Jesus LOVED everyone. “For God so LOVED the world that He gave his one and only Son….” “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.” “Love thy neighbor”. But apparently, in the most Holy place on earth, the place where Jesus, who brought us these teachings, DIED for our SINS, we push and shove and demand to be first. Because somehow we’re more important than the people in front of us and it’s more important for us to touch the rock before everyone else can. Maybe we think God will return before we have a chance to touch it? I don’t know, but this really, REALLY bothered me.

Anyways, we stood in line for about an hour (in a hot stuffy room shoulder to shoulder, back to chest with others) to see the tomb. The tomb is protected by guards at all times, and every two hours they change to a different denomination of Christianity. I don’t know much more about this but I was told it was quite the compromise for the different religions. The guards aren’t nice. I think the Greek Orthodox guards were there when we went in. They yelled at us to hurry even though there was a line of people in front of us and we couldn’t move. Then they let you stay in for about 20 seconds before you have to move on. It’s a small room with a marble altar and silver décor hanging everywhere.

That whole process took the entire afternoon, so we would have to revisit the Old City a few other times to see the rest of it.

The Old City is really cool, and the sites are still pretty amazing even though the set up may not be ideal. It was also great to have Tricia along with us!

Stay tuned for more “Old City Adventures” blogs!

Inside the Holy Sepulchre

In the room where the cross was on Golgotha

Where they think the cross was, just above the altar where you stick your hand in the hole

This is actually in the room just below, where Adam was thought to be buried, but the rock in the frame is part of the rock above, which is where you stick your hand in the hole. So supposedly this is the rock where Jesus' cross was, at Golgotha

Where they laid Jesus to make sure He was dead

Jesus' Tomb

The front of Jesus' Tomb

Walking around in the Old City, on Via Dolorosa

We have to walk through a fancy outdoor mall to get to the Old City, so we had fun with the sculptures.....