Day 1 Pics

First of all, I'm sorry for the delay. I probably frightened with my lack of response after my 'I'm leaving tomorrow' post for the last two days. Natural conclusion: he didn't survive - if he made it there all right and was a nice fellow he would have let us known he survived so that we don't have to worry about him. I hope you haven't mourned too much. I may get back to explaining my first few days at some later time, but at least now I'll let you see the first batch of pictures I've taken of the Holy City. I took public transportation from the airport to a bus stop on the side of the road which happened to be the wrong one, so I walked to the bus stop on the other side of the highway where I caught a bus to the Jerusalem bus center, where I was overwhelmed with the number of bus routes and lack of any information that explained where the routes actually went. So, I chose one randomly: bus route 1. (Actually, not randomly - I checked a couple days previous and saw that route 1 went to Marasha/Musrara, the neighborhood next to the Notre Dame Center. The bus passed through a lot of ultra-orthodox shopping strips and finally made it to the walls of the Old City. We turned left at the Damascus Gate
(center of the north wall) and took a left. To the right of the Damascus Gate is the New Gate, across from which is the Notre Dame Center. We started to circle the walls. On the East side of the walls, between the Old City and the Mount of Olives we hit traffic, stopped going anywhere - the bus driver finally let us out. We all walked to the South. When I reached the Dung Gate into the Jewish Quarter(southeastern corner of the city) I decided to traverse the Old City to the New Gate (northwestern corner), dragging all of my bags behind me. I soon learned that the Dung Gate is at one of the lowest points of the city. It was a trek completely uphill from one side to the other. I walked through winding streets through the Jewish Quarter west until I reached the Armenian Quarter, then I headed north to the Citadel at the Jaffa Gate and up to the New Gate via Latin Patriarchate Road. I decided to take at my camera and take pictures every time I needed to stop to rest. By the time I made it the citadel, my camera's lens malfunctioned and now it no longer works. But, here are the pictures I was able to get beforehand.