Saturday night

Note: Before I even get started today note that I will not use the term supposedly. Most, if not all of the things I mention here should say "This is the place where so-and-so supposedly did this or that."

Today we started out with a delightful breakfast on top of the Mount of Olives and started our tour from the top. We first walked by the Chapel of the Ascension, where Jesus ascended to Heaven (supposedly...ok just that once). We weren't allowed in though and so we kept going to view the Temple Mount from the overlook. We continued down from there to the Dominus Flevit church. Also known as the Church where Jesus wept. Following a winding path down some more we walked past the many tombs on the Mount of Olives and past the Church of Mary Magdalene. We continued down to the Garden of Gethsemane and sat under the shade of some of the oldest olive trees alive today. We also saw the rock where Jesus prayed while the disciples slept.

We looked into the Church of all Nations where a Catholic service was being held, it was lovely. Then we visited the Tom of the Virgin Mary, the first site on my trip thus far that was pretty commercialized, it was rough but visually brilliant. This is one of the many places where the Virgin Mary is said to have been entombed.

After that we took a rather hard walk straight up the hill back to our hotel where we rested for an hour before leaving to find our new hotel, the YMCA Three Arches. A very lovely building designed by Arthur Louis, the architect of the Empire State building!

We paused only briefly before heading out to the Old City, a 10 minute walk from our hotel. Entering the Jaffa gate we walked directly into the bazaar. From the very entrance it is beautiful and dizzying with the variety of smells, sounds, colors and peoples. We were called to every few feet by shop owners wanting us to look at their wares. Having decided to just look today and buy tomorrow we just took everything in.

We met a few friends from the dig for a mid afternoon snack and drinks in a hotel cafe that we reached by a tiny door in the bazaar, hardly recognizable as a hotel entrance. The cafe on top of the hotel overlooked the skyview of the Old City and the Dome of the Rock. It was beautiful up there in the shade with the breeze blowing to keep us cool.

We then went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which was built around the place where Jesus was stripped, nailed to the cross, and where he hung. This last bit is surrounded by a brilliantly colored shrine where people continually passed to kneel and kiss the rock. In the church there are many important sites such as tombs and other important places and the big importance, the place that took us a twenty minute wait for 15 seconds inside is the Holy Sepulchre, the 14th station of the cross where Jesus was laid to rest and returned to life. We waited and then entered a low doorway and knelt by the slab of marble was Jesus was to have been laid. It was a moment for great reverence and I felt it there. This also is a truly indescribable moment of our trip and I will leave it at that.

We left there and explored the bazaar a little longer and then headed to the Western Wall for the closing of Sabath. We observed the rituals and watched people and it was a lovely time. We watched the sun move across the wall and finally disappear into shadows and then slowly headed back through the closing bazaar towards the Jaffa gate, ending our day with dinner at the YMCA restaurant.

What a day....what a day.