Old City
Today I visited Miriam and Binyamin's school as Ayala dropped them off in the morning, then caught a bus to Jerusalem. After getting off the bus I spent a few boring and slightly frustrating hours doing errands, then made my way to the Old City and the Tabasco Hostel that I'm now staying at. It costs 20 shekels a night (about 4.5 dollars), and has nice leisurely couches strewn about the place for relaxation. The Christian receptionist from Germany had a lot to say about the region and the cause of problems here, though he had a tendency to rant uninterruptedly and with an accent for long stretches of time. Hopefully tonight I will have a chance to better test my company here, perhaps over the cheap bottle of wine I bought.
Architecturally the Old City is rather interesting. Narrow alleyways no more than two yards wide lead past the little residential enclaves, up more more narrow stairs until eventually hitting a wall, or perhaps a more busier street. The buildings feel like castles to play in; an awesome complex of mazes and lookouts suited more for children playing hide-and-seek than clumsy adults hastily maneuvering to work, or, as the case my be, their little shops. These little shops in fact line street after street where I'm staying, making an array of their Armenian pottery, Israeli sweets, drums, pillows... all the random touristy, often useless products that petit entrepreneurs sell in the third world.
After checking in, I meandered around and asked people what was interesting. I went to the tomb of...king Solamon...right? (forgetting after only a few hours ;( I never was a great student of traditional, everybody knows it, history.)The place was cool in the "my tour guide said Christ was here" sort of way, but not amazing. What was much cooler was the huge Church of the Holy Sepulchre I went into. The place was marvelously spacious and crafted, with many paintings and high spirally ceilings and stairways. The place smelled sweet...My guess to why is that religious institutions draw in more of a constituency when the place of worship tastes of rose-oil, and lilac overtakes the odors of sweaty worshipers praying. After departing holiness, I went to the West Wall, this time a Jewish place of worship. I had my "barmitzfa" of leather cords wrapped around my arm and hand, and the traditional recital of certain prayers while a strange block was placed squarely on my forhead. After that little introduction to Judaism, a few orthodox dudes started to talk to me. The elder man who mainly took an interest to me kindly let me know that there's a special place that I can stay for free... "the Heritage house?" "yes". I don't know who it was I was talking to, but I have the feeling he's some kind of respected figure. He showed my a book with his face on the cover from when he was in India. He invited me to stay (in the Heritage house) for the Sabot, gave me his name and number, and ended with "and the most important thing is to marry a Jewish girl". True words of cultural and religious chauvinism, veiled by a long-haired, smiling man of respect.
Other than a few "free Palestine" and "Che Guevara" shirts being sold (Che is just a trend anyway), I haven't experienced the social tensions of the socio/national conflict here to any measurable extent. I hope to change this, and "have my eyes opened" soon, though I believe my eyes to be more open than most already.
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Architecturally the Old City is rather interesting. Narrow alleyways no more than two yards wide lead past the little residential enclaves, up more more narrow stairs until eventually hitting a wall, or perhaps a more busier street. The buildings feel like castles to play in; an awesome complex of mazes and lookouts suited more for children playing hide-and-seek than clumsy adults hastily maneuvering to work, or, as the case my be, their little shops. These little shops in fact line street after street where I'm staying, making an array of their Armenian pottery, Israeli sweets, drums, pillows... all the random touristy, often useless products that petit entrepreneurs sell in the third world.
After checking in, I meandered around and asked people what was interesting. I went to the tomb of...king Solamon...right? (forgetting after only a few hours ;( I never was a great student of traditional, everybody knows it, history.)The place was cool in the "my tour guide said Christ was here" sort of way, but not amazing. What was much cooler was the huge Church of the Holy Sepulchre I went into. The place was marvelously spacious and crafted, with many paintings and high spirally ceilings and stairways. The place smelled sweet...My guess to why is that religious institutions draw in more of a constituency when the place of worship tastes of rose-oil, and lilac overtakes the odors of sweaty worshipers praying. After departing holiness, I went to the West Wall, this time a Jewish place of worship. I had my "barmitzfa" of leather cords wrapped around my arm and hand, and the traditional recital of certain prayers while a strange block was placed squarely on my forhead. After that little introduction to Judaism, a few orthodox dudes started to talk to me. The elder man who mainly took an interest to me kindly let me know that there's a special place that I can stay for free... "the Heritage house?" "yes". I don't know who it was I was talking to, but I have the feeling he's some kind of respected figure. He showed my a book with his face on the cover from when he was in India. He invited me to stay (in the Heritage house) for the Sabot, gave me his name and number, and ended with "and the most important thing is to marry a Jewish girl". True words of cultural and religious chauvinism, veiled by a long-haired, smiling man of respect.
Other than a few "free Palestine" and "Che Guevara" shirts being sold (Che is just a trend anyway), I haven't experienced the social tensions of the socio/national conflict here to any measurable extent. I hope to change this, and "have my eyes opened" soon, though I believe my eyes to be more open than most already.
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