jerusalem

We arrived in Jerusalem last night and we spent the evening in, at the house of one of Micah's family friends. We, along with one of the sons in the family made this really delicious pasta sauce involving tomatoes and yogurt and eggplant... it was an experiment and I think it turned out really well.

This morning we woke up early and went to the Old City. Before we went into the Old City though, we decided to explore a little bit outside of the walls and ended up wandering into the courtyard of an Franciscan (I think?) church. While I was taking pictures, Micah peeked inside an open door because she saw a sign for a conference called "Melville and the Mediterranean." Inside we saw a table of cookies and drinks, and we heard a speaker in the next room. Since it was in English, we went to sit in the back and listen for a while... since we had eaten their cookies and all. And when we scanned the crowd of people listening, we recognized a professor we both know from UNC, Tim Marr. After the speakers finished, we went up to him and he was really surprised to see us there. Turns out he was one of the organizers of the conference, and they had been spending the past five days discussing Herman Melville's poem Clarel, which is apparently the longest poem in the English language, and following the path he took throughout Israel as he wrote it. He took us out to lunch with some of his professor friends, and it was really random and cool :)

After that we went into the Arab part of the Old City and wanderer ed through the shops for a while. We wanted to go up on the Temple Mount to see the Dome of the Rock, but we missed the tourist hours unfortunately. But I did finally get a watch, and even tried to bargain for it in Arabic. The guy said is was 15 shekels, and I said I'd give him 10, and I think he told me that it was supposed to 20 but he was already giving me a deal... but I'm not really sure. But I did need a watch and it's Carolina blue with Superman on it, so hopefully it lasts a long time.

After that we wanted to go to the Western Wall, but we were a little lost and I didn't know how to ask what it was called in Arabic to ask for it. After getting wrong directions a few times, Micah asked a person who looked like he spoke English if knew where it was. He had no idea because he was a tourist like us, but he was with his sister (they were Polish) and two Palestinian girls. His sister had studied abroad in Haifa and was back to visit, and the two girls were showing them around. After talking for a while about the best way to get to the wall, they ended up telling us that they would just go with us and show us where it was. So, we went to the Wall and it was pretty tall, but not really what I was expecting.

After we looked at it for a while, we stuck with those four and went to go eat. The two girls go to school right in that area, so they were showing us where they like to hang out and where they go to school and teaching us Arabic phrases. After we saw their school, they took us to a theatre where a lot of their friends were hanging out. They said there was a play that night, and at first we thought we couldn't go because it was sold out, but I guess that didn't really mean anything because they let us buy tickets anyway, and went into the show. It was all in Arabic and I didn't really understand anything, but one of the girls tried to explain as things went along. From what she said, I think it was about the struggle for Palestine but I'm sure it went much deeper than that. But we were probably the only Americans in there and it was really cool to see a show that only the people who live there know about.

When the play was over, we split up from them, but not before making plans to go to a debka (sp?) dance with them on Friday. We got a little lost trying to find a bus back to the house where we're staying and we were super tired after being out walking for almost ten hours, but eventually we got back. Now we're going to bed early because tomorrow we are planning to go to Ein Gedi, which is a nature reserve where Micah used to work near the Dead Sea. It has waterfalls, so I can't wait!