Holy Jerusalem!

With the news reports coming in that Israel was on Day 4 of air strikes on Gaza, and no intentions of halting the attacks, the four of us decided to still forge ahead with our trip planned to arguably one of the holiest cities in the world – Jerusalem. The next morning we set off for the King Hussein bridge on the border of Jordan, and by the time we paid our exit taxes and bus fares, passed through 10 metal detectors and had our passport checked out 35 times on the Israeli side of the border we finally arrived to Jerusalem roughly 5 hours later. Passing through the West Bank hills flanking the Israeli owned roads leading to Jerusalem, we drove through a whole lot of nothing for what seemed like forever – passing by the occasional village, goat or camel.

Finally, as descended down one of the many hills, we began to see the old city walls of Jerusalem. What an incredible site.

Amazing all the history and biblical spots that are all in one city! It’s hard to capture the true splendor of the place with words; and the inadequacy of the pictures to show the wonder of these sites is almost a crime! In my mind, Jerusalem hardly compares to the beauty of most of the European cities or the vibrant culture of many Latin American towns, but this ancient city held it’s own with the rich history that paved its way throughout the streets lending itself to an incredible site practically everywhere you looked!

Meike and I stayed in the Muslim quarter of the Old City at a nice hostel that had just about everything we needed – except heat!!! Except, by the 3rd night of nearly freezing to death, we finally figured out that there was a small space heater that worked to supplement that larger heating unit that was only turned on at night. Once we figured that out – no problem! Although, it was interesting that the only 2 rules of the hotel were (1) no alcohol and (2) men and women who are not married are not allowed in the same room. Welcome to the Islamic influence of the Muslim quarter. Speaking of quarters – the old city is divided into the Armenian, Christian, Jewish and Muslim quarters. But an interesting thing to note is that we heard that young Jewish men with money are buying property within the Muslim quarter to try and expand the boundaries of their own quarter… tricky!

Meike and I ran around the city for four days trying to balance site seeing with making sure the escalating Gaza massacre would not hinder our ability to cross the border back into Jordan. As the news reports kept saying they were closing down a section of the area which we needed to cross to get back to the border! We saw so many sites, ate great food, smoked the sheeshah, met some nice people and all around had a great time. As we bounced from one point of interest to another, we kept our eyes peeled on the thousands of soldiers that were deployed throughout the city to see if they looked "tense" or not. Well, most of the looked bored out of their mind everyday – talking on their cell phones, eating ice cream, drinking tea and even flirting! Haha. Although, the most action some of these guys saw during our 4 days there was an older Muslim lady who threw a shoe at one of the vendors in the market (although, to be fare, there were some protests in which stones were thrown and tear gas deployed).

All and all, the trip was amazing, and I’m glad we were able to visit this incredible city. Although, I’m sorry to report that none of us on the trip are showing any symptoms of the Jerusalem syndrome…

For more pictures from the trip click here