Adventures and Misadventures in Jerusalem

On Friday, myself and six of my friends decided to take a bus from Ashkelon to Jerusalem.  The bus left at 2:40.  We had been up since 4 a.m. and spent the day in the pottery compound (an outdoor pavilion with tons of pottery from the site) marking the pottery.  For eight hours we literally sat on stools and wrote in tiny lettering on tiny pieces of pottery.  Fortunately we had iPod speakers, so everyone became well aware of the fact that I do indeed know all of the words to "Ignition" by R. Kelly (whether they wanted to know about that or not...).  After sitting on that stool all day I felt a strange longing for my pick axe. 
But anyway, we finally arrived in Jerusalem at around 3:30 and decided to walk from the central bus station to the Old City, where we were staying.  It was a beautiful day and much cooler in Jerusalem than in Ashkelon, which was a nice break for us.  Along the way, we were snapping pictures on Jaffa Street, a main street leading to the Old City.  Here occurred our first adventure, or misadventure.  One of the girls I was with, Delphine, was taking pictures like everyone else, when, out of nowhere, an old man with a cane approaches her.  Delphine is about the size of my pinky (see picture below).  This man starts asking her for the picture, presumably that she took of him.  After she repeatedly tells him that she didn't take a picture he raises his cane as if to hit her.  At this point, our friend Mike intervenes and basically cowers over the man until he backs off.  Needless to say, it was pretty scary. 
Fortunately, our adventures did not continue on this unlucky path.  We continued walking on Jaffa Street, stopping at the shuk (open-air market) which houses my favorite bakery Marzipan.  We got chocolate rugelach that was fresh out of the oven.  It was still so hot we couldn't even pick it up at first.

Josh, Michael and Mike on the Cita

Eventually, we arrived in the Old City and checked into our hostel, the Citadel.  We were staying on the roof, which had an unbelievable view of the Dome of the Rock.  We decided to claim the corner of the roof facing the Dome of the Rock and spread out our stuff on five mattress pads(even though there were 7 of us), which we dubbed megabed,  and hoped that random articles of clothing and bottles of sunscreen would be good enough to save our spots. 

Mike, Caroline, and Emma on the roof of our hostel

We explored the Old City for a while, went to the Western Wall and walked around the marketplace.  We went out to dinner on Ben Yehuda street and hung out at a bar for most of the night.  By 11:30 (yes, we lead particularly thrilling lives) we were dead tired and decided to return to the hostel and go to sleep.  Lo and behold, there was a large, hairy man sleeping on a corner of megabed!  As we raced for spots as far away from this hairy stranger as possible, we arranged ourselves basically on top of each other on 3 1/2 mattress pads.  For seven people.  Uncomfortable does not begin to describe it.  If one of us moved, the other six would wake up.  The one benefit of sleeping so closely together was that it was freezing and none of us had thought to bring very warm clothing.  We were woken up at various points during the night: once by a plastic bag that had rolled onto mine and Emma's head, a second time, at 3:45am, for the Muslim call to prayer, a third time when Emma's phone alarm went off at 4:53am, and then pretty much every hour after that when church bells chimed.  It was not the most restful night. 
Regardless, we got up the next morning around 8am (very late for us).  We walked to the Mount of Olives and visited various churches along the way.  The mountain itself was tough to climb as it was more of a cliff face and less of a gradual slope.  When we visited the Church of Agony, where Jesus allegedly awaited his fate, we saw a service going on.  It wasn't a mass, but there was a man singing with a guitar and priests dressed in fancy robes performing some sort of ceremony.  None of us knew what was going on, but it was still very beautiful. 

The exterior of the Church of Agony

Inside the Church of Agony

Delphine and me at the Church of Agony

After we climbed up and down the mountain, had a delicious meal of shwarma or felafel from a street vendor, we took a taxi home and spent the rest of the day relaxing poolside at our hotel in Ashkelon.  The trip was a whirlwind, but a lot of fun.  I'm glad I went, even though I went to sleep at 7:30 Saturday night (to be up at 4am the following morning).