For fear that you may start violently rebelling against me if I continue to delay the anecdotes of my travels, I will try to quell your anger with more pictures.
So, without further delay, my pics for the day (more of my first day Jewish Quarter expedition): 1) This is a picture of a forum area on a level ten to fifteen feet lower than the road I was standing on. The people in uniforms are kids about my age in the Israeli army. Israeli's are required to participate in the army for three years after completing high school. You see kids between the age of 18 and 21 in uniform everywhere, especially at public transportation stops near the ben-Gurion airport. 2)This is a picture of the Ha-Yehudim (Jewish Quarter Road) which runs North-South through none other than the Jewish Quarter, looking south. To the left is the synagogue in picture 3 and the shop in picture 4, to the right is the forum in picture 1 and the mural in picture 5. 3)Hurva Synagogue as seen from Ha-Yehudim. The Hurva Synagogue is the largest and most elegant synagogue in the city, or at least I assume so because I haven't yet seen a bigger one and if it's that big, it's got to look nice inside. 4) This is the manikin outside of a formal Jewish ceremonial garb shop on Ha-Yehudim. I'm finding it very hard to restrain myself from just walking into that shop and buying an outfit. That manikin's quite classy. 5)This is a mural of some importance of something related to Jerusalem. That is a tour group in front of it. This is on a level about fifteen feet lower than the Ha-Yehudim. There are some stairs nearby that lead to a shopping center with art galleries and stores that sell primarily Jewish souveneirs to tourists - you can tell where you are in the city by whether the stores sell primarily icons or yamulkes. This mural and nearby forum area containing a few broken pillars is south of the shopping center. I entered the shopping center today and headed north, so I was unable to get a closer look at this mural. I think its just a mural of the Jerusalem marketplace back in the years of its prosperity, probably under Hellenic or Roman rule, a couple hundred BC to AD. 5)This must be an area of importance, because I stopped to take a picture when I saw a tour group that had stopped at this railing, with a verbose tour guide pointing enthusiastically. I assume that the matter of importance was the ruins below the level of the street. It seems like Jerusalem has the repeated theme of being destroyed and then rebuilt on the rubble. Because of this the streets have become elevated considerably above the old roads. Archaeologists just dig below the streets and stumble upon walls of buildings and stones in pathways of much earlier centuries. I hear that in the Muslim Quarter, they have dug beneath the Via Dolorosa, the road down which Christ walked on the way to his crucifixion, and have found the Roman roads he would have actually traversed. In some areas, these roads are made into tunnels ten to fifteen feet below the actual roads. I haven't spent much time in that quarter, and I have not yet walked the Via Dolorosa, so I'm not sure for certain. That's what my touristy book told me, though, or at least, what I implied upon reading it. 6)This is a view down a street in the Jewish Quarter. I thought the father walking with his two sons would make a great pic. 7)This is a courtyard in the Jewish Quarter, I looked and then walked in the other direction, so I'm not sure what's over there.
Well, I'm tired and I want to go to bed, so I won't keep me any longer. I apologize for lying yesterday. I did not make it to Bethlehem today, as more people were eventually invited than could fit in the car and I was the least important person; Marcela, the archaeologist for the Magdala Project, and Mariana, the volunteer coordinator needed to go to talk to someone to arrange for volunteers at the excavation to be able to travel to Bethlehem in July. Instead, I visited the Temple Mount, which was giant, and then wandered the Jewish Quarter until I stumbled into the Four Sephardic Synagogues. It was a good trade: I'll catch Bethlehem another day and I don't want to be awake early enough to make it to tourist hours at the Temple Mount again (8AM to 10AM). I woke up at 4:45AM to go to the Mass at the Holy tomb. There were about fifteen of us, everyone spoke Spanish except me - la Misa era en espanol. It was a beautiful Mass, at the physical location where Christ rose from the dead - it was amazing. So, I was up and decided to visit the city earlier than usual, so, I hit up the Temple Mount. Tomorrow, the plan is the Mount of Olives and Gethsemane.
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