City of God

Walking along the old city wall
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As most people know Jerusalem is very important to Christians, Jews and Muslims. Seeing the city in person is intense. The ancient passageways of the old city crawl with Christians reenacting the crucifixion, Orthodox Jews wailing at the last remaining wall of their 2000 year old temple and Muslims heading to the Dome of the Rock. The streets are really narrow, to get through you have to elbow your way through everyone while dodging the tiny tractors and carts hauling merchandise into the market (no cars can get into the old city)

Local kids playing soccer
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What amazed us about the old city was how lived-in and ungentrified it is. There's no fancy cafes or luxury hotels, all of those are in the new city. We figure that with all the competing interests it is too difficult to develop anything trendy, so the city city stays in a neat, ancient bubble. If you ignore the satellite dishes you can imagine that the city looks almost as it did 500 years ago.

Visiting the holy city

While the wailing wall and the Dome of the Rock are heavily fortified with police and metal detectors, it's easy to get into the Church of the Sepulchre, the site where it is believed that Jesus was crucified. The church is one of the strangest we've seen, as several sects (Catholic vs. Greek vs. Armenian etc.) all battle it out to stake their claim in the church. Each sect performs rituals and they try and drown out the chants of the other sect. While we were there a small fire started from candles in one of the side chapels. The people who started the fire took off, leaving us to search out a priest for help. We found a Russian(? maybe Armenian it's hard to tell) priest who quickly assessed the situation, got us water bottles and told us to put it out. It's one of the strangest things we've done, douse a fire  on the spot where Jesus was crucified.

Old city street
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Aside from the old city we also saw other parts of Jerusalem as well. The city is really beautiful, with many different neighborhoods. The clothes you can wear in one area of town may get you in trouble in a conservative neighborhood 2 streets over. The western Jewish side is lush with many forests and parks, while the eastern Arabic side turns to desert as it heads to the dead sea. It's incredible how quickly the climate changes in Israel over such a small geographical area. We saw some museums, one held the Dead Sea scrolls and  another was a holocaust museum. Speaking of the Dead Sea, we took a daytrip there and had an awesome time floating around. Really everyone has to experience the crazy buoyancy from the salt at least once as it's a lot of fun.

Floating on the Dead Sea
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We also met up several times with our friend Koby, who we met in Sinai. He was really nice, taking us around his hometown and showing us the best night spots. After taking us to the military cemetery we realized how much conflicts affect everyone here, as he knew several of the young soldiers buried. You really can't talk to anyone long without things changing to politics, and there are metal detectors and guards posted at just about every bus station/cafe/supermarket etc. Everyone back home that doesn't vote should have to come here for a month to appreciate why it is so important and that it shouldn't be taken for granted.

Dome of the Rock
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We made plans with Koby to return to Jerusalem, as there's much more to see and do, so we'll be back soon!