Greetings readers! As I predicted, I've been off the air for a while, and I apologize for that. I barely touched my computer during the 10 days of Kat's visit, we were busy nonstop! And then classes resuming sort of knocked me around for a while -- I'm finally back in the academic swing of things now, I think. I also apologize in advance for the fact that my recap of this visit will be in multiple parts: now that classes have resumed, I have plenty of reading and homework to occupy my time and only limited time to devote to blogging. I'll be sure to include a quick paragraph at the end of each update about what's going on now as well! Now let's jump in =)
My adventures began while Kat was still in the air (or possibly in Heathrow on her layover) as I made my way to Tel Aviv to meet her at the airport. I took the light rail to the central bus station and I bought a ticket to Tel Aviv and hopped right on the bus! After arriving in Tel Aviv, after having a surprising amount of difficulty finding the exit from the bus station, I made my way to the Florentine Backpacker's Hostel. I got slightly mislaid (the map in my guidebook didn't include the street that the hostel was on), but made it without too much struggle. I met some nice people, shared bread and hummus for dinner, and around 10:00, decided I really ought to get some sleep since I'd be getting up at 4:00 to go to the airport. Unfortunately, my online reservation hadn't gone through, so I was sleeping on the terraced rooftop. No problem, I thought. Except: problem. The rooftop is the one common space, so as I was trying to sleep, various others were still up drinking and chatting. I dozed off a couple of times, but largely just rested. The second time I fell asleep, I was rudely awakened by something wet on my face. Frustrated, I pulled my blanket over my head and tried to go back to sleep. Then the guy from the hostel came over and told us it was raining, and we could come sleep on the couches that were more sheltered. What a mess! So I grabbed another hour of sleep before taking a taxi to Ben Gurion airport, where I met my lovely sister =)
We grabbed a sherut (shared taxi) back to Jerusalem. We got lucky -- these taxis only leave when full, and she and I were the last two to board! Plus we were only the third stop. We decided given our mutual lack of sleep, we should nap for a couple of hours and then decide where to go from there. Kat arrived on the first day of Sukkot, so a lot of things were closed. After we awoke, we decided to walk into the Old City. I had never really explored the Muslim quarter, so when we entered Damascus Gate, we just wandered for a while. This was one of the first things we saw, and I had to take a picture:
PT friends, I will try to go back sometime and see if they are in fact "very good meals!" Then we ran into Sammy, our initially awesome and later vaguely creepy tour guide.
He offered to show us to a delicious kebab restaurant for lunch (OMG so good and worth every penny) and then he gave us a walking tour of the Via Dolorosa.
The food was delicious as promised, and I was glad to finally walk the Via Dolorosa -- I've been wanting to do it since I arrived! One of my favourite parts was the picture below: Jesus braced himself on that stone the first time he stumbled. And my teeny tiny hand got to touch it! Way cool.
We were fading fast, so after grabbing a quick ice cafe, we took a taxi back to the Kfar for another nap, followed by Kat's first Israeli falafel -- from French Hill, of course!
On Friday we rose early and caught a bus to the Israel Museum, home to exhibits on Jewish life and culture, art, archaeology, a scale model of Jerusalem in the second temple period, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. We spent quite some time in archaeology, heading through faster as the time periods got more recent. We did a drive-by of Jewish life, and wound up with the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was really cool, I highly recommend it! I hope to go back soon, as there's so much more we didn't see. The first picture below is of me in front of the dome that houses the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the second is a famous scale model of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period.
But it was time for a traditional Jerusalem shabbat! We began by visiting the shuk, which, as usual on a Friday, was teeming with Jews buying their last-minute Shabbat dinner ingredients.
We visited my favourite spice shop, and Kat bought them out! No, really, she went home with $60 of spices and tea. But she was happy with her purchases =)
After a quick lunch downtown, we visited the Western Wall, which is quite an experience on Shabbat. We sat and people-watched and chatted for a while...it was really nice!
We grabbed a sherut (shared taxi) back to Jerusalem. We got lucky -- these taxis only leave when full, and she and I were the last two to board! Plus we were only the third stop. We decided given our mutual lack of sleep, we should nap for a couple of hours and then decide where to go from there. Kat arrived on the first day of Sukkot, so a lot of things were closed. After we awoke, we decided to walk into the Old City. I had never really explored the Muslim quarter, so when we entered Damascus Gate, we just wandered for a while. This was one of the first things we saw, and I had to take a picture:
On Friday we rose early and caught a bus to the Israel Museum, home to exhibits on Jewish life and culture, art, archaeology, a scale model of Jerusalem in the second temple period, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. We spent quite some time in archaeology, heading through faster as the time periods got more recent. We did a drive-by of Jewish life, and wound up with the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was really cool, I highly recommend it! I hope to go back soon, as there's so much more we didn't see. The first picture below is of me in front of the dome that houses the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the second is a famous scale model of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period.
We headed home so I could take a quick nap to alleviate a headache, then went to a traditional Shabbat dinner. It was a lot of fun -- we met lots of other foreigners, and the food was INSANELY good. Plus we learned all about Sukkot! Definitely worth it =)
No comments:
Post a Comment