Israel Day 1

After training from Innsbruck to Munich to Berlin, then taking a bus to the Tegal airport in Berlin and then catching my flight, I finally arrived in Israel. The thing that hit me first was the heat because Innsbruck and everywhere else I've been in Europe has been temperate, but bring on the heat!

I have to admit that I thought Will was crazy when he told me to get on the Sherut from the airport in Tel Aviv and ask them to drop me off at Zion Square in Jerusalem. I mean, I wouldn't even think about doing something like that in Atlanta. But, it turned out to be perfectly safe. In fact, the square at 2 AM or so when I arrived looked more like a square at 10 PM, with all of the people. I started walking up the hill and met Will about halfway up.

It was so good to see him and hear about everything he'd been doing over the last month. In fact, we talked so late into the night that we didn't wake up until almost 11 the next morning.

After we woke up and put on the liquid sweatshirt, that's 50 sunscreen, we headed to the Israel Museum. This museum has gardens with sculptures of modern art, a model of the Old City, some of the Dead Sea scrolls and other modern art. The model of the Old City helped to get me oriented to the location of the walls, the Citadel and the Dome of the Rock today. We had an audio guide that told how and when they figured out where certain buildings had been and their best guess for others.

We then walked around the gardens and of course I took a ton of pictures and 1 really stupid one and then went inside...yay A/C...to see the Dead Sea scrolls.

After we'd had our fill of the museum, we headed back to Will's house for more water and then to the Old City. Will is staying in a private home that the owners rent out during tourist season. Apparently they don't like all the tourists, but do like their money! The owners are hasidic jews and have 2 sinks in the kitchen, one for meat and one for dairy.

We walked to the Old City and through the Jaffa gate. There, we decided to walk across the outside walls of the city. The wall we walked on was actually the second wall built because the third outside wall no longer stands. We started at the top of the Jaffa gate and walked all the way around to the Lion gate which is as close as you can get to the Temple Mount, home to the Dome of the Rock. The majority of pictures taken from atop the wall were taken looking outside the Old City, but some were taken looking inside. The Old City is very cramped with quarters for Jewish, Muslim, Armenian and Christian people. It's not very pretty though because the people are so cramped, living very close together and with narrow streets lined with shops, etc.

The views from the walk were amazing! The sky is so blue and the white buildings contrast wonderfully with it.

After making our way around the wall, we came down and went to the Church of the Sepulcher. This is where Christ was washed and where he was buried. From the outside the church didn't look like much, but the inside was incredible. I've included some pictures from both, including Christ's grave.

After Will had sufficiently walked my butt off all day and his knee was sufficiently swollen, we headed back towards his house. Keep in mind that all he and I have had to eat to this point in the day is a peanut butter sandwich so to say we were hungry is an understatement. Fortunately, Will knew of a fantastic Italian restaurant and we headed there.

The food was great and I don't think I just loved it because I was hungry! They had a special for two people that included an appetizer of bread and various veggies [I was loving it with my lack of veggies over the past two weeks!], two entres, half a bottle of wine, two coffees and dessert! Woo hoo! Will and I ate until we were absolutely stuffed. And...I ate all of my veggies which were absolutely fabulous!