Oy my feet hurt!

Sunday started out beautifully – I woke up at 10am to the smell of eggs and butter. Jonathan had fixed us eggs, pita, and sliced persimmons for breakfast, and even fried malawach (a Yemenite crepe-like pastry we're fond of) for dessert.

One thing I must recommend to anyone coming to Jerusalem is to walk the ramparts across the walls of the Old City. You get a birds-eye view of the whole city, including the Arab and Christian quarters. After we ate we walked to the Old City, and lo and behold, who did we meet but a professor from HUC who was giving a tour in Russian. We followed his tour for a bit, and from the walls we saw the Vatican headquarters in Jerusalem, the Arab market, tons of stray cats, and children playing in a playground right next to ruins of Crusader soldier barracks.

Random things: the level of the ground used to be over 10 meters lower than it is now, so now the wall is sometimes barely above the ground. We could see outside the city walls, and I now understand why Jerusalem was always attacked from the north – that's the only side where there's no valley around it, just more city (the Arab section I had never been and probably won't go to.) The Arab buildings have cots on the roofs, because in the summer people sleep outside since it's so hot. Here in winter they sell corn on the cob on the streets, it's this country's version of nuts.

After the ramparts we walked around the Armenian quarter. We went into an Armenian church, they were doing a Nativity play! Duh, I thought, I'd forgotten it was Christmas Eve, and a little boy was standing on stool, he was the angel Gabriel talking to Mary.

We started to go down the Via Dolorosa and saw the Church of Flagellation, and then the prison where Jesus was held. Antonio freaked when we opened a door and it led out to a backyard, and socks were hanging on part of an ancient wall. "They live in the prison of Christ!" he muttered. "I could never grow up in this city, it would be too weird!"

We never made it farther on the Via Dolorosa – we followed an interesting looking monk to see where he was going, and then got sidetracked. We ended up wandering through the Arab shuk, and bought fabulous baklava. Then we went back through the touristy part from yesterday. We also stopped by a place that sold antiquities to ogle the merchandise – you can buy real oil jugs and other artifacts that date from the Canaanite period to King Solomon to Roman. We couldn’t afford anything though, so vowed to come back when we had more money.

After leaving through Jaffa Gate, we schlepped to modern Jerusalem for dinner, and introduced Antonio to shwarma. Picture a hunk of meat roasting on a rotating vertical skewer – you slice some off, stick it in a pita with humus and vegetables… delicious.

After dinner we headed home to hang out and relax for a few hours. Jonathan was tired at 10pm, so Antonio and I went to the Scottish church to meet other HUC students for Midnight Mass. Mass at Christmas is a huge tourist event here – unlike the States, which is 2% Jewish and mostly Christian, Israel is mostly Jewish and only 2% Christian. All the churches know that it’s tourism day, so they pull out all the stops.

But it turned out that the Scottish Church was Presbyterian and very liberal, not traditional Catholic like we'd been hoping for. So we skipped out and wanted to go to the Church of the Dormition, where Mary supposedly went to sleep and up to Heaven. We were told it had "costumes, smells and bells" which was exactly what we wanted. But the directions we got were "follow the road down into the valley, and follow it back up again to the hill." But what do we do when at the bottom of the hill there's a freeway, a bridge, and a fork in the path? Needless to say, we got a bit lost and ended up by the Jaffa Gate, the entrance near our house. After hailing a cab and going to the New Gate, we finally got the driver to go where we wanted, to the *Zion* Gate and finally the church.

Inside we were greeted by a monk in robes. The church was amazing, a mosaic floor of the calendar with zodiac and Biblical figures. Every alcove was tiled, the ceiling was immense and above the altar was Mary and Jesus. Everywhere was writing in Latin that Antonio translated. The Mass started at midnight and lasted two hours – it was led by a bishop, was all in German and Latin (since it's a German church) except for the Gospel reading that was translated into Hebrew too. The most interesting thing was that it was packed. People (including us) were sitting two rows deep in the aisle. We had to move aside for the beginning procession, Communion, and the end. It was fascinating going there, especially because Antonio kept explaining things. Plus, it's nice to go with someone who actually knows Gregorian chant. It was really funny at the end, because everyone on the altar (Catholic bima?) processed out, and the music from the organ was still playing. Everyone was still sitting there – in Jewish services, you wait until the music ends, and that signifies the end of the service. But Antonio was getting impatient, because apparently at Mass once the bishop left, it was totally over. So he told me “Stay here” and he hopped out and started walking down the aisle. Everyone followed him - he was the Pied Piper leading everyone out of the church! At the end of the aisles he turned around and came back in to where I was, and we both cracked up.

I actually liked this Mass a lot more than the Mass I attended at the Vatican. Also, I'd never really thought of this before last night, but the pomp and circumstance of pre-Vatican II Catholic Mass is very similar how I always picture the High Priest ceremonies during the Second Temple period.

After getting to bed at 3, we were up at 8 to pack and get a rental car and leave for Masada. Basically, it's the place where the Romans besieged the last stronghold of Jews in 70 CE that were holed up in Herod's old palace. Instead of surrendering, they committed mass suicide. Here's a link to the story in more detail:

Massada

It was an amazing experience - we spent more than three hours looking at the ruins. I hadn't been there in about 10 years, and what improvements they've made! Large parts of it have been reconstructed, much more has been excavated, and the Snake Trail is no longer a trail, but an actual path that won't scare anyone. (But it's still 2 km!)

Following Masada we headed down to the Dead Sea, the lowest point of land on earth. It was already 4pm and it was too cold for me or Jonathan to go down, but Antonio swam (paddle-floated?) around for a while, collecting balls of salt lying in the water. He said he felt slimy afterwards, but I'll tell you, when I touched his arm it was so soft it felt like he'd been in a spa!

Then we drove to my grandmother's for a "nothing special" dinner of 4 courses. Now we're stuffed. I'm staying here for the night and Jonathan and Antonio are continuing on for another 4 hours to get to Eilat, the southern tip of Israel. They'll stay overnight and leave for Petra in Jordan in the morning (I'd go but I'm getting sick and another day of all-day touring would kill me). Maybe one of them will blog about it – but even if not, I'll post the pictures when I get them!