Tour of the Old City

Today, we toured the Old City of Jerusalem. The tour was really amazing. It was like drinking from another metaphorical firehose - this time in Jerusalem.

Full of historical facts and sometimes emotional. The Old City of Jerusalem is famous for many reasons, such as the site of Jesus' betrayal, crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. I felt kind of guilty that I didn't know my Biblical history well enough to get all the references. But it was amazing to physically be at the significant sites, such as the olive tree where Jesus was betrayed by Judas, the pilgrimage path that covers Jesus' imprisonment, torture, carrying the cross, and actual crucifixion. We then visited the presumed location where Jesus was buried. The crucifixion site was turned into a huge church. The ironic thing about it was that at the location in the church that signified where Jesus was nailed to the cross, there was a picture of him in front of a statue on the wall. People were lined up to basically pay their respects, but to the picture, essentially an idol. But the church was run by Orthodox Christians which apparently allows that. The take-home lesson that our tour guide wanted us to leave with was that this city is full of baseless hatred and history will repeat itself unless people start reconciling with each other. Given my limited perspective of the situation, I'm learning that this place's history is like an onion - there are layers upon layers of conflict and differences. For every wrong from one side, you can find a provocation from the other side. Pretty intense.

We then came back and ate really good Domino's for dinner. It was glorious! They have a curry spice, instead of red peppers, which takes the pizza to a whole new level. Nothing else was open because it was the Sabbath ("Shabbat") and any business run by Jewish people (which, btw, our part of the city is mostly all Jewish) is closed from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday (Friday to Saturday is the weekend here). Afterwards, we had a group meeting about schedule and curriulum, and then went into the city to watch the World Cup. Everyone was cheering for the USA, but sadly, we lost and are eliminated. It was a fun experience, nonetheless and a great way to end the weekend.