day eight. jerusalem.

the day started at the mount of olives. the mount of olives, which is not much of a mount and the only olives to be seen are in being sold in a store, is a beautiful spot in the morning. it's immediately to the east of the old city and provides breathtaking views of the old city. 

and given that the mount is a popular tourist spot. there's camels. since we already rode a camel this trip, we opted for donkey. 

a note about the owner of the donkey in the picture. he made the mistake of not negotiating a price with me prior to the donkey ride, and assumed i was an american tourist...which i guess i am; he assumed i was paying for the donkey ride. i wasn't. my father-in-law, (who is from the middle east) was. the price of the donkey ride, after 10 minutes of animated discussion, ended up being a 75% discount to his originally quoted price. :) 

we then shot over to the jaffa gate, on the eastern side of the old city. the jaffa gate feels like it's about 6 months away from opening a starbucks. it's definitely the tourist hub for entrance into the old city. the damascus gate is just as hectic, but i enjoy the damascus gate much more. maybe it's just that the falafel is better near the damascus gate... 

we had lunch and did a bit of shopping in the jaffa gate area, but our primary goal was the short walk from jaffa gate to entrance of the western wall tunnel. 

i realize i'm starting to talk about several gates of the city. here's a helpful map for reference:

remember how jerusalem is a city built upon a city built upon a city? the temple mount was built in the first century before all of that building upon building upon building. if you want to see western wall of the temple mount as it was 2000 years ago, you can walk through a tunnel. there's lots of old rocks you can photograph; the old rocks tour 2014 continues... this is another must see in the old city. my favorites were seeing the 16 meter long rocks at the foundation (yep... 16 meters), and seeing where the foundation of the wall turned to solid bedrock further north, yet herod had his builders still carve the rocks to make them look like bricks. that's attention to detail my father could enjoy. 

we ended the day by walking through the muslim quarter, exiting through lion's gate, which is on the north west side of the old city. the bread here is awesome. and it's everywhere.

indiana, iowa, and illinois jones

 

i learned today that in the mid 1990's a portion of the temple mount area was excavated in order to create space for up to 10,000 additional people at the al-Aqsa Mosque. 

as a result of the excavation, 400 truckloads of material was removed from the temple mount area. this is a treasure trove for archeologists. with all of the war/peace/war/peace/war/peace happenings over the centuries in Jerusalem, there's a long trail of evidence. 

archeologists have enlisted help in combing through the enormous mound of material. everyone is welcome to spend an hour or two with the Temple Mount Sifting Project, where you can try your hand at finding ancient artifacts. 

we found ancient pottery fragments, coins, and metal nails used to shoe horses.  

tide

i've learned two things about hotels in israel on this trip. assuming the four hotels we've stayed in are representative of a cultural trend, a) there are no irons in the rooms, only ironing rooms- a common area where everyone in the hotel goes to share one iron and one ironing board; b) there are no clothes washing machines available.

thus, given that we are on a two week vacation, we need a solution to do some laundry. elaine and i are sick of washing our clothes in the hotel bathtub. we sought an alternative solution.

day seven. jerusalem.

we visited the israel museum at just the right time of our trip. after a day and half, i have a rough mental idea of geographical layout of the area around the old city. and yet, we still have several days to go. which is a great time to visit the israel museum. when you enter, there is a to-scale model of the old city of jerusalem. 

i stood at in the spot where approximately our hotel is located and took this picture of the model. you can see the damascus gate, where we entered the old city yesterday in the middle of the picture. the road leading away from the damascus gate and into the bottom right of the picture is the damascus road...which attentive readers will remember leads to damascus. 

the israel museum is also the home of the dead sea scrolls. they look like this:

.....you can't take any pictures. for something this cool, you need to make the trip to israel. and if you do make a trip to jerusalem, make sure to stop and see these treasures. extremely cool stuff. 

i snuck the camera out of my pocket to record the moment right before we entered the vault where the scrolls are kept. 

we left the israel museum and headed for the city of david. on the way we drove around the eastern side of the old city. i already had an idea of what to expect because i spent some time looking at the model at the museum. looking to the west, the city once looked like the picture below. this is also approximately what the city looked like from the mount of olives. 

the city of david...that's jerusalem right? well, sort of. the "old city" as we know it today, is for the most part the city that was (re)built by Suleiman; he built it upon the city that Herod built and was then destroyed and then rebuilt and then destroyed...you get the point. prior to all of that war, peace, war, peace, war, peace, war, peace, etc. david founded jerusalem, but the original, original, original city was directly to the south of what we now consider the old city. in the picture above, that means it's immediately to the left. 

this original, original, original city is what is now known as "the city of david." we went there. and the pictures of really old rocks tour continued. 

excavations of what is believed to be david's palace are underway. i have pictures of it, but it looks like...a big pile of old rocks. what is worth seeing, a can't miss if you visit jerusalem, are hezekiah's tunnels. for those of you who can cite from memory 2 Chronicles 32:30 ("It was Hezekiah who blocked the upper outlet of the Gihon spring and channeled the water down to the west side of the City of David. He succeeded in everything he undertook."), you already know what i'm talking about. for the rest of us, you can read more on wikipedia. 

the short of hezekiah's story is this: a dude named Hezekiah ruled jerusalem in the 8th century b.c.e. he pissed of the assyrians (more or less present day iraq), who then decided it was time for war (a foreshadowing of the war/peace/war/peace/war/peace cycle to come). the water spring where jerusalem sourced it's water was also the side of the city where the assyrians were going to attack, but it was outside of the city walls. not a good strategic gameplan. the solution? simple. build a tunnel under the city to move the water to the other side, putting the city of jerusalem in it's entirety between the assyrian (or any other future army) and the new water source. 

now for the really cool part. you can walk through this tunnel today. 

it was another great day in jerusalem. our kids named the tunnel as their favorite part of the trip so far. i enjoyed the israel museum. we also started the day at yad vashem, the israel holocaust museum. like the one in washington d.c., it's a mournful experience. but it was a good trip for ana. she bought a book. 

hunger strike

the boys are taking turns choosing what to wear each day. the only requirement is that they wear the same thing each day; doing so makes it easier to spot them when they run after a pigeon in the midst of a crowded street. 

but they don't like each other's choices in clothes. yesterday was ben's day and Sam spent 20 minutes complaining at breakfast. 

today is sam's day and Ben protested by refusing to put on his shoes. A hunger strike; no shoes, no breakfast. 

yad vashem

a memorial and a name  

A country is not just what it does - it is also what it tolerates 

the third wall

a tour of israel could quickly turn into a photo collage of old rocks. 

like this

Herod Agrippa started building a wall in 40 c.e. outside of Jerusalem for additional fortification. He died and the project never completed. The wall to nowhere....not good if you have presidential aspirations. 

The wall is now referred to as "the third wall"

There are still remnants of the wall north of the Damascus gate. Here's a picture from the Third wall looking south to the old city. 

There's a lesson here somewhere. A king starts an ambitious building project, doesn't finish it, and today it provides a retaining wall for a gas station. 

Read more here: http://israelyoudidntknow.com/jerusalem/the-third-wall-of-jerusalem/

day six. jerusalem.

today we spent our first day in jerusalem. our hotel is a short walk to the old city's damascus gate. it's traditionally known as the damascus gate because the road leading out of the old city ends in...you guessed it...damascus. 

the gate as it is today was build when Suleiman the Great ruled Jerusalem. the old city walls from the times of Jesus still exist. the current walls were simply built on top of the old walls. 

i have anticipated eating falafel in the old city since the day we booked the trip. i've read that the best falafel in the old city is in the muslim quarter. as luck would have it, the muslim quarter is where you enter the old city when you enter through the damascus gate. (there's 4 sections to the old city: the muslim quarter, the jewish quarter, the armenian quarter, and the christian quarter). 

so the first thing i did when i went through the walls...you guess it...found a falafel vendor. and it was delicious. i might eat the same thing for lunch every day for the next week. it's also great street food, easy to walk and enjoy while eating. 

if you enter through the damascus gate and stay on the same street, you end up at the western wall, the "wailing wall." streets in the old city look like this: 

and there's a million vendor selling all sorts of fresh delicious treats.  we had some fresh pomegranate juice along the way. 

the western wall was a once in a lifetime thing to see.

if you stand in just the right place in the western wall area, you can see the dome of the rock as well. 

and in the highlight of the boys' day, there were pigeons in the plaza in near the western wall. it wasn't the highlight of the pigeons' day.

it was a good day. jerusalem lived up to my expectations. i'm really looking forward to exploring it more over the next few days. 

mission accomplished

cows

day five. shabbat shalom.

the hotel here in jerusalem does a nice dinner for shabbot. the kids thought of their cousins. sam wanted to show timothy what he decided to have for dinner:

and what could be better to wrap up week one than a review of some of our favorite sites from week 1, all in selfies of joel and elaine. does that make them pairies? i'm not cool enough to know...

in magdalena:

at the home headwaters of the jordan river: 

my personal favorite. in the background is my homeland. lebanon:

and one more from the top of masada:

pharmacy in jerusalem

tonight elaine and i found a pharmacy while in jerusalem. vicky needed medicine. she didn't know what the pill was called, but she needed it NOW. it was for her ankles they were swollen. elaine and i were dispatched to find the pill without a name. 

shabbot. everything is closed. pill needed NOW. no name. i don't speak arabic or hebrew. no problem. 

guess what is open on shabbot? the arab clinic. no problem. 

so we walk into this place, and ask for the pharmacy. they aren't sure about elaine, but they are definitely sure about me. he's not one of us. 

we meet a nice young pharmacist who speaks passable english. good. can we have some pills. for what? swollen ankles. sure. great!!! he hands us a bottle of aspirin. that's not going to cut it. 

do you have anything else? sure. great!!! he hands us a bottle of ibuprofen. that's not going to work. 

no prescription. big problem. 

elaine says please, smiles nicely, and says, "but it's for my mom. she's in a lot of pain. paaaallleaaasse?" 

ok. he hands us some pills. tells us to be careful. says i need to pay with cash only. i give him 5 bucks. 

(note: drug prices in america are criminal). 

we walk back to the hotel. give the pill to vicky. THAT's NOT IT! 

rats. we ask her what it looks like. after a little bit of googling. we find it. i print out a picture of the pill, and we head back to see the nice arab pharmacist that is willing to sell us drugs without prescriptions on friday night. 

and it worked. problem solved. :) 

shabbat shalom

we made it to jerusalem. cool

A view from our hotel. 

masada

Masada. The ancient fortress on top of a mountain was built by Herod the Great. For two years the Romans surrounded it, built a ramp up the mountain and finally were able to siege the fortress. When the Romans broke through the fortress, 900 inhabitants of Masada committed suicide.

Masada is an awesome place. The lift ride up the mountain is worth the price of admission in itself. The views of the Dead Sea from the top of the mountain are breath taking. 

But I have some questions 

1) if you have 2 years to come up with a plan, can't you think of something better than committing suicide?

2) why did the Romans care so much? Why spend two years for the sake of capturing 900 people?

a few more shots: 

the lift from the view of one of our kids (they had the camera for a while today)

mommy and ben:

at the fortress on top of the mountain, looking towards the dead sea: