Jerusalem Day Two

Is it December already? Wow! Today we hung out with our new German friends for the day, Thomas and Michael. While in their company laughter and deep conversation is frequent. We walked out Lion’s Gate down the hill through Gethsemane and up the Mt. of Olives. We visited a couple of churches before soaking in the view of the Old City from atop the oldest functioning cemetery in the world. Later we went on a “three-hour tour” around the city. We greatly enjoyed the history lesson from a native Israeli. We ended with a visit to the church of the Holy Sepulcher built on the site of Calvary or Golgotha, the site of the crucifixion of Jesus. The church is actually under the care of a Muslim family who open and lock the premises each evening. We also visited one of the locations of the last supper. It turns out there are many sites that claim to be the location of various religious events. It is a little unsettling to see teenage boys and girls walking around with their machine guns, real this time. Crazy to us, but the locals seem to be comfortable with it. Young Israeli’s are required to serve three years of military service. It is intriguing to see people of different faiths divided into different areas of the old city. The Armenian and Jewish quarters are in the south. While the Christian and Muslim quarters are in the Northern part. Mosques, churches and synagogues fill the skyline. Sometimes people of different faiths live in areas dominated by other faiths. One photo shows the roof-top of an Israeli family living in the Muslim quarter. There are high fences around the roof top where there is a guard on duty 24-hours a day sitting in his guard shack right next to the children’s playground, both located on the roof. Crazy! We saw the ancient Roman road that passed through the city. It is actually twenty or so feet below the current ground level of the city. There are layers and layers of ruins below Jerusalem. This evening we ate in a restaurant that recently opened, located of a side alley on Via Dolorosa. The owner told us that he found an ancient room while remodeling. Supposedly we were eating in history. Not sure, but the room was far below the current level of the city. We plan on departing Jerusalem tomorrow to go down to Bethlehem for a couple days. We will attempt to exit Israel into the Palestinian territory, where Bethlehem is located. We have contacted an organization that is connecting us with a Palestinian family to stay with for a couple days.