Rain/sun

Two things I missed about Canada: the people and the rain.

We survived both flights. The airport security in Tel Aviv was supposed to be terrible -- so terrible that Seoren didn't want me to film him, in case they were to watch all the videos on my camera.

But in fact, it was straightforward. Our luggage was marked for inspection, but this time they opened it in front of us. I was worried about a short sword I had that says in Arabic, "In the name of Allah most gracious." The guy looked at it, sighed, said, "Not today," and put it back in. Meanwhile, their dangerous-material detectors (which look like toilet brushes) found something dangerous in a jar of pomegranate jam. Not wanting to open it, and not being allowed to just put it back in my luggage, they asked me if it was okay to put it in Valeria's since hers was already checked!

Also, their waiting lines had classy pictures on the barriers.

"You [people] always think we throw things [away] here," a baggage-check girl complained as she helped me re-pack. "We don't!"

The rest is probably familiar to anyone who's flown before.

When dreams come true? So this is a point in time, not so much a physical place?

I think the last panel might be a punchline, along the lines of, "You didn't see the one right beside you?"

Goodbye, Israel.

"The health coming from pine forest."

Judge for yourselves

Hello, New York.

We stopped over just long enough to have breakfast (first bacon in five weeks) and move on.

"This city is BIG!" + the alphabet. My penmanship is no better in Hebrew than in English. 

So, yes, good times. And then it was off to Toronto on a tiny plane.

I found this guy's voice inherently hilarious

And now, as a gift to those who don't remember flying before (like myself), here's what it looks like.

There are many different kinds of cloud. I call this one snow.

Flotilla.

Sometimes, clouds make you remember just how odd the whole idea of clouds is.

Lake.

Runway.

Then you see the place you're heading to.

Familiar landscape!

Seeing eye-to-eye.

At the airport we collected our things, met my dad, got airport coffee...

"Sparrows inside an airport? What a country!"

...dropped Valeria off at her house, and went home.

Turns out I didn't have to go to Israel to get a drought and dry grass.

And now, after failing at taking a shower (I forgot how my shower works), that is where I am. I'm tired and reflective... but I'm sure you're asking, "Hold on! Weren't there a few days before the last post and this one? Where did they go? Is it over already? I don't want to get up out of my seat."

Never fear! Here they are. Let me try and remember what all happened.

Oh, right. Wednesday last week.

I have no memories of that day, but that night we celebrated with the bottle of pomegranate wine, since we were all together. Julia decided to light candles and turn off the lights and put on some classical music for an atmosphere that was greatly complemented by our, uh, plastic cups.

If I recall correctly, it more or less tasted like pomegranate juice. But it was a good "family" night.

Simmon told us how he planned to leave on Friday to roam the desert with his second family, i.e. his friends from next door. They were going to rent a car, which he would drive, and they would visit various places that are hard to get to by public transit, including a Bedouin camp and, if I remember right, riding camels in the Negev.

Considering the insane driving here -- everyone's favourite thing to do is illegal u-turns in intersections -- we asked Simmon how he felt about driving. "Nah, it's cool," he said. "I drive like a maniac in Canada. The best defence is a good offence."

Meanwhile, Valeria had a class trip the next day and Friday that would take her to a Bedouin camp and riding camels, her course once again inexplicably mirroring Simmon's plans. Unlike Simmon, though, she wasn't expecting to enjoy much of the rough living! She was also to climb up the huge mountain of Masada at 4 a.m. to see the sunrise.

On Thursday Valeria was gone when I woke up. I went to class and we read a bit of Isaiah 40, which, coincidentally, is one of the songs I had been listening to lately: Comfort My People.

That afternoon Simmon and I went in search of knaffa that was supposed to be the best in Israel, according to both Valeria's guide book and the renowned chef of a restaurant in the Old City (where we went for my birthday tilapia). It too was in the Old City, an Arab sweets shop, so off we went.

The knaffa was not great, so we adjourned to the aforementioned restaurant for supper and ran into Seoren and another Torontonian named Ian, who had just returned from Hezekiah's Tunnel. After supper we all moseyed on over to the Armenian Quarter, which was beautiful:

Even their "no smoking" signs are classy. Just look at that twisty smoke!

That reminds me; for most of my time there, a shop in the Armenian Quarter was the only place I knew of that sold, or was aware of the existence of, chocolate milk.

Monks' residences in a cathedral.

A beautiful tapestry whose inscription says it commemorates the mourning of the recent death of a priest.

I might have suggested that they stick with the dove rather than the dove/angel-of-death hybrid.

And just outside, one of many posters (not all decimated) creating awareness of the Armenian genocide.

Annoyed by constant traffic in the streets, and hoping to see something more than what was "on display", we decided to walk down a residential street. (It's expensive to live in the Old City -- especially in the Armenian Quarter -- but people do it.)

Narnia?

At one point I noticed some stairs and climbed them:

"Guys! There's, like, a park up here!"

I hope it goes without saying that this rooftop "park" remains one of my fondest memories of any place in Israel.

You could see the crappy streets below where they were closing up their noisy shops.

Finally we descended and went through those streets to the border of the Christian and Armenian quarters, where you find the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and, just around a corner --

[a corner] -- 

 the Church of the Redeemer, which I never managed to enter, because it's so often closed.

But isn't it impressive? It's the one with the lamb holding a flag over its door.

Nearby there was an open plaza set like a jewel in the middle of the Old City.

"I'm in such pain!"

As the sun set, we made our way back through the Muslim Quarter with its shops.

Mountain of spices.

That reminds me of two shops right beside each other: "Sea of Herbs" and "Island of Herbs", selling practically identical spices.

We also observed how they clean the Old City; namely, with lots of suds.

And we showed Ian to the knaffa shop that was not great, but better than the one everyone else said was the best. It turned out that during Ramadan they don't make knaffa until they break their fast. They make lots of other stuff, even a baklava-knaffa mix, but not knaffa itself. :(

"Do you have 'knafka'?" -- Ian

Finally we split up, the coincidentally met party going by light rail and I on foot, to go back home. I went on foot because wanted to walk through the garbage road (the Wadi Al-Joz) once more, the one by which I had first discovered the Old City on my way to that spontaneous trip to Bethlehem.

I also investigated a bit of the Arab residential areas near the wadi. It was quiet and peaceful after what had been a long, noisy day; parents led their children out to walk in the streets, cars ambled patiently by. I didn't realize at the time that it was the inactivity of Ramadan.

In those places, it stinks of sewage, and there's a lot of garbage and bad paving. One street is interrupted by a small impromptu landfill nobody has cleared the garbage out of. The Arab districts are low on the city's priorities.

The tree-flower petals fall among the trash that ruins what should have been scenic.

At the top of a hill I went up it got better; street signs began appearing and things were cleaner.

I doubt any Arab children look like those silhouettes!

Arabic Coke cans look pretty sweet.

I think that's a religious designation, like "kosher home".

The sun began to set, so I abandoned further investigation and made my way back.

On the way, I ran into some children, and I greeted them, "Hi." They replied, "Hi!" enthusiastically. Remembering another time, when some children had said "Hello" and had been disappointed when I replied "Shalom", I wrote a short poem based on a fictionalization in which having missed my chance the first time makes it too late to speak my language with the foreign child.

...


Languages We Don’t Speak

I met a child yesterday,
the son of Cain, in the wadi.
He said Hello, I said Shalom,
he looked away, and scribbled in the sand.

I saw him just this evening, now a man.
I told him Hi, and his reply,
I heard it, but I did not understand.

...


When I returned, the others were back, and there was a great fog upon the city.

Thus ended Thursday. The next day both Simmon and Julia were to disappear: Simmon on his car adventure, Julia to Caesarea, a trip I had debated with myself about going on but decided against.

Friday.

Awake! And yep, the sun looks like that every morning.

Seoren was sick in the morning, so he didn't join me. But I set out early on a quest to acquire some items from the weekly Bezalel crafts fair that Valeria wanted. I took the light rail to HaDavidka station, which may or may not be interesting later. Then I walked in the wrong direction and ended up at a different market ("shuuk"). It's a big food market called "Mahane Yehuda".

Good news. They have fish.

I bought some lychees and some kind of weird cactus fruit -- a bad idea, actually, because in the walking to come they both weighed me down a lot and got smushed -- and picked up a Hebrew pamphlet I can't yet decipher. I think it concerns building a new temple...

Anyway, I reoriented myself and made my way to Bezalel. Random interesting sights along the way:

Not sure what this word means, but it must be very important.

In the middle of the street

There's no border between sidewalk and train tracks.

Of all the things to advertise in the City of David, they chose swimming in the 2-foot-wide Pool of Siloam?
Hebrew: "First [i.e. oldest] thing in Jerusalem"

Hey, someone should make an adage out of that or something...

Anyway. I got to Bezalel, acquired Valeria's items and a tablecloth for my family, and moved on.

I had decided to visit Gethsemane and the Mount of Olives afterwards, so I made my way towards it, via the Old City. On the way I stopped in Independence Park, the pseudocemetery Valeria, Seoren, and I had seen earlier, and took off my sandals to feel the earth and pine needles.

A half-blind cat came up, meowing most piteously, and I wondered whether even stray cats expect human help, or if it's just starving so badly it can only complain. I had nothing to give it. That does remind me that lately, we've seen a lot of cats scrapping, probably territorially.

I decided to walk around the Old City, not through it. A good choice, first because of the view:

The wall divides Arab districts from the "safe" area.

Second, because I came across a place Seoren, Julia, and I had encountered on our night-walk: Saint Peter in Gallicantu. Guessing from my very limited knowledge of Latin that the name had something to do with (a) roosters and (b) singing, I assumed it commemorated Peter's denial of Jesus.

I ventured down to it. The gate guard greeted me in French, and I replied in French, to my delight. The first thing was a panoramic view of the Mount of Olives and the Kidron Valley.

I'm not sure what happens if you click to see the full-size version, but it might be awesome, or lame.

Then the church itself.

Most of its signs were in French.

Fragment of the original 5th-century church.

 Then there was a descent to the "crypt".

These two poignantly selected scenes served as the centrepieces of the crypt church.

"I do not know him."

"Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you!"

Then there was yet another descent.

This one led to a pit of rock, perhaps an early dungeon, perhaps just an early storeroom. Nowadays it's (perhaps fancifully) associated with the house of Caiaphas, the high priest, and by extension with Jesus, who might have been kept there. In any case, it certainly evoked such a dungeon.

As I explored it, a choir of angels began to sing. Shortly afterwards it turned out they weren't angels, but a congregation/tour group in an even lower pit, which I could see through a window.

The tour guide/priest chanted them through the story of Jesus' imprisonment before his crucifixion, up to the taking of his clothing, while the group broke in with choir-like singing. Meanwhile, I sat and listened, trying to imagine the cavern being the real dungeon Jesus had stayed in. When they had finished the chanting and singing, he began an explanation/sermon.

He said that although they were very exhausted, and felt like they needed a reward of being able to actually see and touch the "real thing" after coming all this way to the Holy Land, they must not let the attitude of Thomas take over. That they were so much closer, relatively speaking, to the actual events and people, did not call for asking to see the nail marks and put their fingers in the wound.

I left shortly after that, but I was somewhat dazed, because the message had struck me directly. I realized that the disillusionment I had felt earlier, the disappointment at not feeling like the sites I was seeing were "authentic", was a result of that same attitude. In Canada, I never needed to put my fingers in the wound; why should I here? The temptation of proof is no substitute for faith.

I wandered upstairs to the archaeological zone, which was delightfully abandoned.

A plaque nearby translates: "May the Lord guard your coming and your going."

Ancient steps that may have been a part of Caiaphas's house?

Ah! Here too, that symbol!

I spoke French with the people there (for some reason it is almost entirely staffed by francophones). One person generously put down some errors I made to a Canadian accent, while another person, when I said I was from Canada, said, "Vous n'avez pas l'accent canadien!" (you don't have the Canadian accent), which made me smile. But she had a very unusual African accent, so perhaps she wasn't able to tell. Anyway, the ticket clerk spoke English to me on the way out, so maybe I was pretty easily detectable as an anglophone. Makes me want to go to France.

The time had come to move on, heading east on the south side of the Old City. From this perspective you see a lot of the Kidron Valley, and there are some residences and archaeological findings just outside the Old City's walls.

(remake)

I love yoy, too.

Old, remarkably well-preserved houses that may always have been outside the city walls.

I like perspectives from which a strand of wheat is higher than massive walls.

I told you, I swear the sun just seems bigger and brighter here!

Which reminds me to mention that at this point I was a very sweaty young man walking in incredible heat and carrying those stupidly heavy fruits and the Bezalel gifts. It was not pleasant.

Then I spotted the Mount of Olives coming around the corner (or at least a spur of it that is covered by a very uninteresting-looking beige cemetery).

Sometimes people make beige monuments for themselves.

I'm not sure what it is, but I think someone suggested it was Mary Magdalene's tomb.

Olives overlooking the Mount of Olives.

First I returned to the Basilica of the Agonies, which turned out, to my disappointment, to be a very recent building. The site has had churches on it for a long time, though.

You might remember this place by night.

Nearby was what is supposed to be the actual Garden of Gethsemane, containing olive trees at least two thousand years old. There's a fence around it, with a sign saying that this is holy land and only by special permission can you walk on it.

At a nearby shop later, I heard a girl with what sounded like an Irish accent asking the owner if he knew how she could get in. "They're right there," he told her. "Yes, I can see them," she said, "but I can't touch them!"

While he was talking with a man he called "Jimmy" to sort the problem out for her, I asked her if she was Irish. She was German, and seemed a little put off. (She also mentioned that she didn't like the American accent at all, by which I took her to mean mine.)

The shop owner was having some trouble getting Jimmy's attention, so because we were both standing awkwardly in the shop drinking water, I decided to tell her about the Doubting Thomas fragment of a sermon I'd heard earlier, considering her distress at not being able to touch the trees. But I took too long to introduce the context, and she lost interest, apparently horrified. I never did see whether she got to touch the trees or not...

Anyway, back to the basilica...

The inside wasn't actually that impressive. Apparently some Roman eagles made it in, though.

I ran into an American classmate of mine, who told me how to get around the Mount of Olives and the direction back to the dorms from the top. She had just heard a Japanese mass there. Sweet.

Anywho, after visiting the aforementioned shop, I proceeded up the mountain via a narrow road.

I passed the cemetery on the way.

Also the Dominus Flevit ("the Lord wept") church, but it was closed and didn't permit shorts anyhow.

At the top of the mountain, the view was spectacular, encompassing the Old City and more.

And a desert man up at the summit took 25 shekels to ride a camel for five minutes.

I won't soon forget riding a camel; you get half the effect of all the scenes of desert people in movies the instant it begins walking in its rolling, patient way. And when it rises or lies down, you feel (thrillingly) like you're about to fall off.

Finally the walk back home began.

Past one of the most elegant of the deadly constructions I've seen!

On the way, a taxi driver pulled up and offered to drive me back. I declined. He told me the area ahead was very dangerous. On the word of my classmate who had travelled it before, I said I thought I'd be fine. He said there was a fight or something and I could get hurt, so I had better go with him. But I found his argument quite suspect, so I just laughed and told him he might be losing his next fare by talking to me. And I went on.

It turned out to be an Arab neighbourhood -- one of the nicer ones around, actually.

How could Spongebob want to hurt you?

And the road began to join up with the road leading out of campus.

It was around 6:30 p.m., and I'd been walking since around 12:30, and carrying those stupid fruits and gifts. But when my eyes lighted on this valley to the east, it held me wondering for a moment. I'd looked up this area on the map, and I'd thought of it as the only realistic bit of desert I could walk to, being relatively close to home and not walled off like most of the desert. But when I saw it, I realized that in fact it was not reachable:

I had planned to cross the highway, but if you click to see the full-size version, you can make out the tall concrete wall on the other side of the road. I should have guessed. I felt a great disappointment, because the whole time I'd been in Israel -- and remember that my classroom looks out over almost this same area of desert -- I had wanted to step out into the "real wilderness" and feel the land itself under my feet.

I spied the little hill you see at top right, just beyond the extent of the shadow, and I decided to take what I could get, before the sun set on it. So I descended into the valley.

It looks pretty, but there was actually quite a lot of goat poop.

Finally I reached the ascent, my feet aching.

Once I had climbed to the top, it was almost all rock, and I turned around to see the hilltop I'd left.

And in the other direction, a tiny walled-off outpost, no doubt an Arab one, before the desert:

Exhausted, I set my stuff down by a rock, because the wind was very strong.

The line about Jesus often going alone pray came to mind once more, as it has on the last mountain I climbed, and I decided to conclude my long day of walking by praying aloud in the privacy of space. So I took off my sandals, remembering the instruction to Moses before the burning bush. In retrospect, I was right to do so; of all the places I went in Israel, it was this hill at the edge of the desert that proved the most holy ground for me.

My feet are a good index of the difference in tan over the course of this trip.

Holy ground is not about the revered places of the past. "You will worship neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem," said Jesus to the Samaritan woman; God is not, and in fact He never was, tied to a specific place. Holy ground is where we meet God -- wherever that may be.

I can't give you pictures or words concerning the prayer, of course.

But the experience did prompt me to add one poetic verse to the end of an as-yet unmentioned blues song I had been playing with in my head:

You can't love and be a connoisseur
for love keeps no record of right.

When it seemed like a good time to stop (and when the sun had just about set on the hill), I made my way back. On the way I met a couple of Arabs walking donkeys; as I approached, they mounted and rode off at top speed.

I had no idea donkeys could go so fast!

 As I walked back, there was a road on my left, which had this sign over it:

I felt like it was a sign that I was finally entering the real Jerusalem -- not the physical one, but the spiritual one. So it seemed to confirm the evening as the spiritual epitome of my time in Israel.

Relaxed and feeling revived despite my tiredness, I climbed back out of the valley.

At the top, people had begun to congregate. A couple of families were having a picnic with a campfire under this tiny patch of forest:

And perhaps a first love was being formed:

They may or may not have been watching me the whole time.

Finally, the sunset haze that always closes the days here sunk  over the valley.

I walked through the campus back towards the dorms.

The so-called "wall of life" on campus. I didn't find any explanation of who the names were.

  

Back at home, I found Seoren had made the one dish we've seen him make, but it's also so fantastic it warrants a description and a picture. It's meat dumplings under a cheese and butter sauce in which he has boiled all kinds of vegetables -- cauliflower, carrots, broccoli, etc. -- and some strangely delicious spices, including turmeric, paprika, and pepper. In short: delicious.

We also discovered what the "cactus fruit" was: prickly pear. We did so too late; Seoren had already handled one, and his hands burned from the tiny spines the rest of the night! We didn't dare eat one at that point. And Julia had returned from Caesarea, and Valeria had returned from her gruelling trip, and was happy about the items I brought her. We talked until we felt we had to go to sleep.

Thus ended Friday, perhaps my favourite day in Israel, after about eight hours of walking.

On Saturday I woke up early, but not too early.

The first thing I did was spread out the tablecloth for everyone's use.

It added a certain home-ness to the place.

This Flower of Spoons was made by a child in a refugee camp in Ramallah and given to Simmon.

I had gotten up early because Paul (the rosary recipient) had told me that mass was probably held at the École Biblique at 10. I mentioned this school before, but only in passing, because that time I didn't make it in. It's a French school for Bible studies and archaeology, run by Catholics, with an attached cathedral whose beauty Paul had recommended to me. So, for the first time in my whole trip, I decided to go to a Christian service.

I don't even remember how I got there, because I don't recognize the following pictures as being on the walking route:

Actually, now I remember. This is outside the Rockefeller Museum. Someone slapped a sticker ad on it.

When I got there, the gatekeeper told me mass was at 12, so I had some time to kill. I decided to head to the Orthodox cemetery Valeria and I had found closed the day we went to Mount Zion.

That meant another scenic visit to the Armenian Quarter and through the Armenian Quarter.

All of Israel may close down on Shabbat, but not Damascus Gate. They just set up tents and keep on sellin'.

Inside it is quieter.

A café where a sign above the taps warned us not to drain the Sea of Galilee.
Also, this is what we call a "soft drink". In Israel, a "soft drink" is anything that's not a hard drink.

The cemetery was pretty nice. I arrived just as a priest and some people were finishing a funeral ceremony, which I was too polite to photograph (by the by, the same goes for Orthodox Jews and for military personnel -- the latter we had been warned might be illegal to photograph!).

Everything was coffins sitting on the ground, presumably because the ground was full. But there was almost no space left for coffins either, which might have explained this structure:

Meanwhile, although this coffin involved an intentional break (but I can't figure out why) --

-- apparently somebody wanted desperately to behead angels.

:(

They also had a picture that reminded me that Byzantine graven images are different from Catholic graven images. I think I prefer Byzantine. People tend to have bigger eyes for some reason.

It encouraged me to buy a little card picturing Elijah being fed by a raven in the desert. Or rather, to take it and leave money, since the owner was busy violently shouting at someone at the other end of the cemetery. (Oh, didn't I mention that?)

There was still time to kill so I went to the adjacent church, and to my surprise found it open.

Mysterious large pinecone

Then down to the crypt where Mary supposedly grieved after Jesus' death.

Oh no! A depressing comment both on this life and the hereafter??

I left some things for the monks to pray for because, unlike all the other churches I'd been to, they didn't ask for money first.

On the way out (there was actually an exit from the crypt, yeah -- labelled "EXIT FROM CRYPT") a congregation was moving in for mass, and I wondered if I should stay at this one instead. But as they began placing their hands on the pinecone, I decided I knew nothing about this mass and shouldn't embarrass myself or disrupt it by ignorantly failing to perform the rites.

And I roamed back through the Armenian Quarter to the biblical school.

They have ping-pong tables. English-speaking Jewish children were playing nearby.

And arrow slits.

From on top of a battlement I got a sense of the security that having walls brings.

The ramparts section I was later to walk with Lyera was closed to me now.

There are many types of stone wall in Jerusalem. This is one of my favourite.

Armenian is so unlike any other alphabet I know; it's fascinating.

Finally it was time for mass. The church was impressive, probably the biggest I saw in Israel.

I was one of only three people who actually attended, excluding some robed people who entered with the priest. They sang, they chanted, they read, they spoke. It was very difficult to understand; first, it was in French, which in actual conversation I have to strain to understand, and second, there was an overpowering echo that made about one in ten words intelligible. Still, the formula was beautiful, especially the singing, and I took part in communion. I apologized to the priest after for not having known what one is supposed to do or say, and I think I offended him when I explained that I was an Armenian (I meant to say Anabaptist -- I can't think on my feet in French!).

Lyera and I arranged to meet and walk the ramparts of the Old City that evening, so before then I bought a prayer shawl (at such an embarrassingly horrible price I think my haggling skills must have broke) visited the museum of the history of Jerusalem, the Tower of David inside the citadel.

The pictures from it will be a bit haphazard, because I went through it in a haphazard way, ignoring the chronology of the exhibits in favour of what looked most interesting at a given time.

The panorama from on top of one of the towers. Hopefully clicking it will do some good.

A lump? In the stone floor? Preposterous!

The citadel from above.

This citadel is the remnant of many earlier citadels on this site, from as early as the Jewish revolts against the Greeks, then Herod's time, then more Jewish revolts, then the failing Roman Empire, then Arabs, then Crusaders (who built a moat!), then Mameluks, then Ottomans (during which time it was mistakenly identified as part of David's original city, if you can believe that!). The courtyard bears the ruins of each. Now it's a museum, and all the corridors and storehouses and guardrooms hold exhibits.

A view that holds both the Old and the New cities.

This is the base of a massive tower that Herod built. It's a lot bigger than the picture makes it look. When I saw it, my primary reaction was, "Wow. Screw you,  Herod. That's a really big tower."

(read for yourself)

Representation of the earliest evidenced settlement on the site of Jerusalem.

A cool hole in the wall.

The so-called "Tower of David".  In fact an Ottoman minaret.

At one point I felt like sitting on the walls, so I clambered up them, hoping no one would stop me; no one did. I sat comfortably up there for a while in the sun, watching the street below and thinking about my final days in Jerusalem.

The bridge to Jaffa Gate.

Time to come down.

They look pretty, but they're hard to walk on!

The top half of the Herodian tower -- you can easily see the difference in architectural style and capability -- was replaced by the Mameluks after it had been destroyed centuries earlier during the Jewish revolts.

The courtyard again.

(read for yourself)

I thought people -- especially Aaron -- would find this depiction of the Sultan highly amusing. Perhaps in ancient history this expression represented wisdom. Not nowadays.

The various figures common to a scene during the Ottoman period.

I don't know if you can read that for yourself. It says it's physical training in the early 20th century.

The complete Herodian tower (at last)

Ballista balls used in a siege against the fort in one of its very early incarnations.

"Water not safe for drinking."

A now-dry cistern from the Roman era. 

The lower level is the remnants of Herod's palace, the upper of some houses built over it later.

"Glass grass", a sign explains.

Swastikas were a common part of ancient stonework.

David.

My favourite representation of Jerusalem during the Second Temple Period (Jesus' time).

Model of the same.

Roman coin commemorating the capture of the mourning Judaea.

The more birds sitting on holy structures I see here, the more reassured I am.

I also sat in this alcove for a long time, pondering life.

Around this time, Valeria made her way to Jaffa Gate to meet me. (Amusingly, while waiting for her, I heard a Jewish man humming "If I Were a Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof.) We discovered that the main part of the ramparts was closed, but we were able to go up along a shorter one.

The ramparts overlook the areas west and south of the city, and they themselves are historically significant, both in older times and recently as the site of Jordanian defence against Israeli forces.

My camera died partway through, though, so most of these are with my phone camera.

The police station just inside the wall. Lyera: "What do they use horses for?!"

She has christened them her "happy pants".

When that was finished, we walked to one of the few restaurants open between the end of Shabbat and the start of the Jewish day of mourning for the destruction of the temple, and had a nice seafood and pasta dinner. Someone told us the light rail wouldn't be running that night (they were mistaken) so we took a taxi back home.

None for me, thank you.

While we were eating, I reflected once more on the sermon I'd heard a fragment of yesterday, and produced a poem -- aw, shucks, the music and lyrics to a song, I'll admit.

...

Saint Peter in Gallicantu

In Saint Peter in Gallicantu,

singing rooster drove me down

beneath the ground into the dungeon.

After Jesus was denied,

Peter cried, and so did I

when I heard this sermon:

“I know we are worn out;

we’ve come so far to see so much

in the land that we were promised.

But if you want to touch the cross,

turn back now, don’t come with us.

We don’t need a doubting Thomas.”

We’re in Israel, feeling disillusioned.

Tourist traps where Jesus fell

and hustlers selling us salvation.

We were turned away by Greeks

like a game of hide-and-seek

with no reward except frustration.

“I know we are worn out;

we’ve come so far to see so much

in the land that we were promised.

But if you want to touch the cross,

turn back now, don’t come with us.

We don’t need a doubting Thomas.”

We saw the place he healed the lepers

and the spot where she gave birth,

the rock on which he broke the bread,

but each time I hear the words

in my head: “Why do you search

for the living among the dead?”

“I know we are worn out;

we’ve come so far to see so much

in the land that we were promised.

But if you want to touch the cross,

turn back now, don’t come with us.

We don’t need a doubting Thomas.”

...

I have a recording of me singing the first draft; may no one suffer to have to hear it. But, since Lyera highly endorses the tune, maybe someone else can sing it someday.

Simmon returned, safe and sound, with his friends, and we all had Bedouin tea they had brought back, which was sickly sweet. (Seoren loathed it.)

And there was morning, and there was evening; Saturday (with about ten hours of walking).

On Sunday I woke up very early indeed to go to Temple Mount, just to stand on it. It was closed, perhaps in fear of some Jewish retaliation for the destruction of their temple on this holiday.

There were lots of people praying at the Western Wall, though.

So I killed time until my next excursion: back to Bethlehem, to Mar Saba, a 6th-century monastery deliberately built in the mountains in the middle of nowhere. I called Al'a, the taxi driver I'd met the first time I went (it seems so long ago!), and we arranged a price.

Driving out into the desert was an awesome (in the sense of humbling) experience.

When we arrived at the monastery, this kid --

Too cool for the likes of us?

-- offered to take a picture of me, so I shrugged and let him. He demanded 25 shekels, and I laughed; when I saw Al'a watching, I couldn't tell if he was approving or disapproving, so I said, "Eh, I'll give him five."

By the by, something interesting about learning another language is that the things in that country feel like the name in their language suits them more. For example, in Canada this would be a "kid", so I wrote that. But my first instinct wasn't "kid"; it was yeled, the Hebrew word for "child" (or walid, the Arabic word, which Al'a used).

What you can see on the left in the background is the slope across the valley. A visit to Mar Saba usually begins with a trip up some stairs that end at the bottom of the path you can see there. I started descending this side of the valley, with some excellent sights on the way:

The slanty tree is the perfect offset to the rigidity of manmade architecture.

One side of the monastery.

This is the same Kidron Valley that runs through Jerusalem. Here it seems to have acquired some non-potable water.

On the way down these stairs, an older child was going ahead of me and pointing out this or that interesting feature of the rock. I told him thank you, but I don't need a guide here. "Oh, no problem, no problem, my friend," he said. I spelled it out more clearly: He can go down the valley too if he wants, but I don't want this service and I won't pay for it. He still came, until someone up above shouted at both of us something I couldn't hear and the kid couldn't explain, so while he went back up I shrugged and kept going.

Glass.

If it's hard to tell what that protects, that's because it's not protecting anything but, paradoxically, the person who tries to climb over it. The wall just borders on more valley. It implies that the danger of falling and hurting yourself is in some way forbidden, because there isn't just prevention for doing that; it feels like there's punishment for trying. Similarly, whenever you find a fountain or a pool or something in a city, a sign will say that drinking the water is unsafe, and therefore forbidden. At first you interpret it as a clumsy way of saying "warned against", but when you see broken glass like this, you realize that they really do mean a person is forbidden from danger.

Back to the scenery!

The stairs I mentioned.

But for now, we're still going down the ones on this side...

The monastery from below. At the bottom I tried to get into a door nearby, but it was locked. :(

On the other side, the stairs get progressively worse...

...and worse.

At the top of the stairs, I paused to look around.

But I wasn't satisfied with that view of the monastery; it seemed like I could be higher up. So, with Al'a, the children, and a mysterious stranger watching me from across the canyon,

I went up a level and looked out.

But the view still wasn't the best it could be. So I went to where the stairs simply ended,

(Around this corner is the path on the slope I pointed out earlier).

and began to climb the rest of the mountain. It may not have looked gruelling in the picture, but then again, you can't feel the heat sitting in front of your computer.

At the top, I was treated to a panorama of all the surrounding desert.

Including that overview of the monastery that I wanted.

I forgot how or why I took this, but it's on the descent.

I went down and then back up the other side -- you enter the actual monastery from where I'd set out.

The stairs had some beautiful spirally curves to them.

This one feels like it forms an hourglass with the cliff above.

At the top, the second kid and the adults were convening. They asked me what was the problem I'd found with him; surprised, I said there was no problem, I just hadn't needed a guide.

"I ever asked you for money?" he said. "I ever asked for money?"

"No, you never asked me for money," I agreed. "But I didn't need a guide, so -- "

But they were ignoring me; the conversation had ended already! As I walked away with Al'a, I said, "I hope I didn't really offend him..."

"No," he replied. He thought for a second, and added, "Don't give money to any children here."

A man in front of the monastery gave me a water bottle, thank goodness, and then showed me the monastery door. A monk and a plainclothes man told me the monastery only opened in half an hour, then sat me down to listen to them argue in Greek the whole time.

Finally I was let in, and a calm yet insistent monk hurried me along from site to site.

I didn't really take any pictures inside, because it was dark and I was being hurried along, but it was cool. I guess it was like any other of these churches I've been seeing. There was one room, though, where the roof and walls were that of a cave -- the original monastery built in the sixth century. Pretty cool. Also, there was a lookout with a great view of the valley.

That last is the "guest room". They had set out drinks and crackers and cookies and stuff. "It's for you," a monk told me, and left me to sit and enjoy it. I felt a little embarrassed about receiving anything from the monks, especially the one who showed me it; they were so meek and unassuming.

After a little, a couple of other monks -- a young one with a big black beard and an older one with a grey beard -- came and sat nearby. I said hi and the young one and I started talking. He told me how "international" they are at the monastery: they have Greeks, Russians, Americans, a Canadian... I think that was it. When I told him I was studying biblical Hebrew here, he said it had been tampered with, and the Septuagint was the only real version left, so I should take Greek. I didn't agree, but I didn't see a point in contradicting him. I'd never heard anything said against the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible; besides, I'm not sure I could have argued the point, since I don't know enough about the history of the Bible. Anyway, he was a nice fellow. He also said the Greek Orthodox monastery had been continually staffed since it was built.

The monastery isn't really for visiting, I guess, because soon it was time for the visitor to leave. On the way out the man who gave me the water bottle wanted money for it and for having pointed at the door. I tried to give him a generous amount for the water bottle, at least, but neither of us had change, so he stormed off. A lesson to anyone going to this part of the world: accept as few services as possible from everyone!

The rest of that day and night I studied furiously for Biblical Hebrew, my exam being the next day.

Seems like a good time to say a tiny bit more about Hebrew:

-- Modern Hebrew pronunciation has a large influence from Yiddish, which is a Germanic language. Although Biblical Hebrew had an R like Spanish does, in modern Hebrew the Spanish are part of the Sephardim, a less respected section of the diaspora. Most people in Israel use a German R (like the French R), because of its prestige. :( Similarly, if you see a "z" written, pronounce it "ts".

-- In Hebrew, as in English, you say "before" for "in front of". That "before", though, also refers to time. And the word for "behind" also means "after". So what's in front of you is the past, and what's behind you is the future. What a reversal!

And again there was a fog over the city.

I kept hoping for rain out of all this moisture in the air.

On Monday morning it was the cloudiest it had ever been.

I went to my exam and took it.

I went up to the roof for a last look at that panorama.

Beside it, the observation tower silently insisted that I go up and see the view from there.

But it was very hard to even find the way to the tiny door in its side; when I did get to it, it was locked, so I knocked and a short man peeked out and told me no one can get in, because the tower is for the army only.

Shucks.

A few final pictures from around campus:

Lyera and I went to begin the check-out process. At the office, they had a handy model (they really love models in Israel) of the student village so you can see where it is I've been living:

Whoever can correctly say where that picture is from gets a cookie :D

After some preliminary packing, it was off to the zoo for my Last Adventure. (As usual, no one was available to come along; most of them were studying for their exams the next day.)

It was a pretty frustrating Last Adventure at first, actually. The zoo is on the exact opposite end of town, and I don't know if you've seen a map of Jerusalem, but it ain't a grid, and no buses take you easily from one side to the other. Due partially to this and partially to stupidity, it took me no fewer than three and a half hours to get there -- longer than it had taken me to get to Tiberias on the other end of the country!

Does this look like a zoo to you? No?... Welp, better turn around.

On the way, I came across a hostel where they had a book swap -- you can take any of their books, as long as you give them one in return (that you can convince them isn't crap). There was one I'd seen there before, called Because of the Angels. It's an attempt to explain a certain difficult verse of the Bible. But I had no book to give them, so I moved on.

What can I say about the zoo? I'm sure you've all seen zoos before. The two interesting elements of this one are (1) that rather than cages, most of the exhibits are done via walkways above or near a large, more natural habitat, and (2) they attempt to preserve species from the Bible, many of which have gone extinct due to climate change in the region or hunting. The last native lion was killed by the Crusaders in the Middle Ages.

Without further ado, the pictures that were interesting:

I call it "Parley Between a Vicuña and a Rooster".

I love the structure this is under.

"Family Dynamics"?

Challenge for the young'uns: can you count the deer in this picture?

"Potential Energy"?

They call it "Noah's Ark". It's a children's educational centre.

By the time I saw the lions, there wasn't much light left. But it had a mystical awesomeness all the same.

 This leopard is quite capable for her handicap.

The clowns of the air.

The zoo closed and I went to the nearby mall for my first and last pizza in Israel... at Pizza Hut!

Their menus are weird.

"Guys, we are really good at pastas. No jokes. We are just really good. Please try the pasta."

It's amazing how well pizza has caught on in Israel, considering that kosher prevents the mixing of dairy and meat.
That's how cheeses and vegetables get to be "all the toppings in the world".
They sneak tuna in there, though. It's a vegetable.

After this, I went to a nearby bookstore and bought a copy of The Jungle Book for about $5, then bussed back downtown and exchanged the book for Because of the Angels. (By the time I got downtown, I had read the first chapter of The Jungle Book and was wondering if I really wanted to let it go...) Funnily enough, when I got back to the part of Jerusalem I knew best, or much better than the zoo part, I thought to myself, "Back in my own city at last!"

I began to take the light rail back, but as it was my last night in Jerusalem, a sudden urge to see the Old City one last time seized me and I disembarked at a walking distance.

Even the Holy Sepulchre closes with a big steel door.

The Church of the Redeemer, like everything tonight, is ghostlike.

But as I reached the main thoroughfare, which I expected to find as peaceful and quiet as every other night in the Old City, with children marching through the streets in small bands and the light and sweet smell of the candy shops open, I was greeted with...

...a throbbing Islamic hoe-down!

It was Ramadan, and that means the days are quiet, the street stalls sell mysterious opaque liquids (black, white, and yellow -- the last is banana nectar), and at night, when everyone breaks their fast from food and water, the Arab Quarter holds a party.

Boiling some coffee for me in a really cool way. (The coffee sucked, though. I had to toss it...)

Conceptual art? Bad photo-taking?

I saw another toy-seller demonstrating one of those laser guns. This one made eagle sounds.

The eternal kebab grill smokes again!

So there I was, walking through an Islamic party holding a bag covered in Hebrew that contained a book on Christian theology. The coexistence of the three religions in Jerusalem, in one place and in one person. It was a pretty great send-off.

And I walked home, and everyone was asleep.

That reminds me: perhaps I felt some rain that day, in the afternoon, as I walked through the city. But I couldn't have proved it to anyone else.

And then there was Tuesday, and you already know about that.