Trip to Jerusalem, the second and better edition

So Thursday, Oranim, the trip organizer for all of us, took us on a trip to Jerusalem. Truly I didn't even want to go because when I went back to Jerusalem the first time about a month ago ("back" because I went on Birthright last year), I felt that I had seen it all before and felt underwhelmed, in contrast to people who feel great profound moments of spirituality there. But, since it was mandatory, I went. My biggest concern was that, since I didn't believe in the stories of the bible, it would seem like a bunch of bullshit to me. And that's exactly what it was at first, but later, our tour guide, Keren, started making the disctinction more and more between history and tradition/belief. And I wouldn't let Matt, one of the 16 of us, leave my side because, as a historian, he was able to answer all my questions...most importantly, the questions like "Did this really happen?" and "Did he actually exist?" Once these questions were answered, I could decide whether or not I would listen at any particular site.

There was even a question of whether or not I would stay in Jerusalem overnight because we had free vouchers to this one (extremely religious) hostel in the Old City. The answer to this question vollied back and forth a hundred times. On the one hand, it was a free night away from my apartment. On the other, the old city genuinely (at first) made me feel uncomfortable. I felt like I was walking around in this city that's all built on a lie and I didn't like that feeling. But after talking with Matt and being encouraged to look at it from a historical or archaeological, rather than religious, perspective, I decided to stay and it was actually a lot of fun, despite having woken up at 5:15 that morning after 4 hours of sleep and walking around in the heat all day. I learned a lot more than I was expecting to. But, anyway, here we go...

Okay so we started at the Hass Promenade, an outlook that overlooks all of Jerusalem.

 This is Mount Moriah, the mountain where Abraham was supposedly told by god to sacrifice Isaac (imagine deleting all of the buildings and structures and seeing only land...that's what we were told it looked like back then). That tower all the way in the back is the Church of the Ascension, where Jesus is said to have ascended to heaven.

We then went to the Old City, where we first saw the tomb of King David (not putting a picture up because it wasn't cool). There is no record, Matt told me, of King David ever existing, so I couldn't have been less enthused at this particular site.

Next we walked along the old city walls through the Jaffa gate to the Jewish quarter. We had some free time here. We have been learning about how Jerusalem is a city built on a city many times over. On the break, I saw this one area where you could look down and actually see pillars from when the Romans had control of this land. This was actually really cool to me; I could see an actual part of history. I think this was important for me because unlike Jewish history which much of it is based on fallacies and stories, this was history I could see with my own eyes. This intrigued me. Matt took me downstairs to the pillars and told me all about how in this exact area was the Roman cardo, an old shopping district. I loved it. It was at this moment where I realized that this city had more historical significance than I was giving it credit for.

Then we went to the much-dreaded hot spot, the western wall. I, and the many other atheists who were on the trip with me, dreaded this because it's the holiest and most spiritual area in the holiest and most spiritual city in Israel. There's so much pressure to FEEL here. And my sociopathy sees this place as a threat to my safety bubble of not feeling. Being surrounded by so many people who feel that they're closest to god at this place is very difficult for me. I feel, probably rather offensively, that these people are just so dogmatically unintelligent. But I digress. I made it through unscathed, even though I was told to cover up my shoulders, and we moved on to the most interesting part of the day.

 This was visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Christians believe that Jesus was crucified, anointed, and resurrected. It was so cool inside. First of all, seeing christians in jean capris and fanny packs was a nice break from seeing jews covered from head to toe (and I should note that these christians were just as holy and devout as the jews are at the western wall, but they didn't make me cover up my shoulders). While I didn't believe in a bit of it, it was really crazy to put yourself in their shoes and imagine what it might feel like to them to be at the "exact" spot where he was crucified and touch a rock that his body laid on. People were getting really moved. This is the rock where he was laid down and anointed:

And this was where he was crucified:

It was really cool. I didn't know that it all supposedly happened in one place (the crucifixion, anointment, and ressurection) but I guess other people knew that. There are two suggested caves that he might have been buried, and thus resurrected, in. One has thus huge ordained shrine built around it and other other is much more modest and in fact looks like just a cave. The second one was cooler in my opinion. It blew my mind that, even is jesus wasn't buried there, someone was.

After this, the whole group left, leaving those of us staying the night on our own. It was a really great time. Me, Rachel, and Nicole went to Mike's Place, the American bar in Jerusalem, where we got huge juicy burgers and fries. Then we went to collapse in the hostel after walking all day. From there we went to a really cool Renaissance Festival in the Old City. It was a big jagged circle around the christian quarter and down every corridor was a medieval act of some sort, like this. 

From there, though I was falling asleep, I was determined to make the most of this night so we headed out of the old city (beer isn't sold in the old city...weird) and towards Ben Yehuda street to find a hookah bar. We came across one where there was a deal for a beer, a shot and hookah for only 10 shekels (which is lik $2.50). So we stayed there. It got cold in jerusalem! I was wearing jeans and a sweater and was still freezing. I loved it though. It was a nice change of pace from the constant sweat stains I have.

The hostel we were staying at was very religious. It's women only and their goal is to provide a cheap place for jewish women to stay inside the old city and to provide them places to eat dinner on shabbat. As such, it's not really a "party" hostel and we had to be back by midnight or we would be locked out. Luckily this gave us a built in, much needed good night's sleep. (I talked extensively with one of the house mom's there about her religious journey. It was extremely interesting but too much to write in this blog).

In the morning we had to be up and out by 9 am. Rosie, Becca, and I headed to the Israel Museum. It took us quite a while to get there as we took the train to the shuk to grab some breakfast then jumped back on the train, got off, and still had to walk like 30 minutes to get there-next time we're taking a cab for sure. The museum was fascinating. It had this huge archaeology exhibit that was completely contradictory to creationism...something I was shocked they would have in Jerusalem. They even had a palcard saying this was when/where man invented religion and gods. I was equally, if not more, shocked to see this.

I'm glad I had such a better time in Jerusalem this trip. I don't want to dislike the city. There is so much the old city has to offer and I would have never realized that if it wasn't for Matt...so Matt, thank you for making me see this.