Tour Day 6

The internet just came back up after being down since we got back at 3:30pm. Not sure how long it will stay up; hopefully long enough to get this posted. But, alas, it did not. Now it’s Thursday morning and I hope to get this finished and posted before we move to Greece on Friday.

Yesterday (Wednesday) was the last full day of our tour. The brochure calls it an 8-day tour but the first day was just dinner and today was just breakfast. So, for all practical purposes, it was only 6 days. And this last one was a good one. Today we spent the day in Old Jerusalem.

But once again, I owe you some videos from Tuesday night’s Light/Sound Extravaganza. I don’t remember exactly what time frame the first one is from, but I think it was when the Muslims took control of Jerusalem.

This one is the destruction of the 2nd Jewish Temple around 75AD.

Again, not sure where in the timeline this one falls.

This one is near the end of the show when they moved forward in time to modern Israel.

And finally, this was the last couple minutes of the show.

Yesterday, we started at Mount of Olives above the old city. The view was spectacular and the spot most of the famous pictures of Jerusalem are taken.

We took a group photo with the city in the background. Everyone actually looks great in it, so we bought a copy to bring home. Then it was on to Church of All Nations also known as the Church of the Agony. It is a Roman Catholic Church also on the Mount of Olives next to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus prayed before being arrested.

On the other side of the street, is a view of the eastern part of the city wall that contains the Golden Gate, the only gate on the eastern side of the old city. The gate has been sealed since the Middle Ages, but its interior can be accessed from the Temple Mount. In Jewish tradition, the Messiah will enter Jerusalem through this gate, coming from the Mount of Olives. Both Christians and Muslims believe that this was the gate through which Jesus entered Jerusalem.

Once across the street (not easy as the traffic was insane), we walked past the Garden of Gethsemane to get to the entrance of the church, I was surprised at how small the garden is. Of course, some of it was taken down to build the church but even if you double the size, it’s still quite small. It is very dense with olive trees that are some of the oldest in the world, including what’s known as the Jesus tree. According to legend, Jesus planted this tree himself just a few days before his crucifixion. If that’s true, this tree is almost 2,000 years old. Just thinking about that is eerie.

The church is relatively small but very ornately decorated.

The most important part of this church is the rock where Jesus is said to have prayed before his arrest. The part of the rock that is inside the church is in front of the altar. Since they were celebrating Mass, we weren’t able to get close to it.

We did, though, get to touch the rock from the outside. Only one piece of it is inside the church, the rest extend under the church and ends outside.

Then it was back on the bus for the journey inside the old city. On the way, I managed to grab a quick shot of the Church of All Nations and the Church of Mary Magdalene, an Orthodox Christian Church. Considering the bus was moving fairly quickly, it’s not a bad shot.

The streets are very narrow so there are no cars or busses allowed inside the walls. Since we were going to be there for several hours and had a lot of ground to cover, we took the wheelchair, but it was not easy going. Peter walked some of the way, but other times I had help getting him down ramps and over the bumpy cobblestones.

The first stop inside the wall was the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall. It is made of limestone and runs, beginning to end, about almost 1/2 mile, but the part everyone visits is relatively short. It was built as part of the expansion of the Second Jewish Temple in 19BC. Back in ancient times, ground level was 30 feet lower, so the wall was pretty high.

We had to go through security to get to the wall, then Peter and I separated as men and women each have their own section of the wall. So, one of the guys took Peter while I went with the girls to our part. Peter and I had written several prayer wishes in the hotel. The women’s side is always crowded so it took a while for my turn, but I found a small niche to place our wishes and said my prayer. Adoria managed to grab a picture of me at the wall.

This was a much more emotional experience than I expected, and I shared quite a few hugs and tears with my new friends. Then it was on our way to our last site, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which contains two of the holiest sites in Christianity – the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and his empty tomb. It was a bit of a hike but for part of it we walked the Via Dolorosa, the path that Jesus walked on his way to the crucifixion.

Station 5 is where, as Jesus stumbled, he put his hand on the wall to steady himself. For hundreds of years, Pilgrams have traveled here to touch the wall at that spot. Here’s Peter doing the same.

As I said the streets of the old town are crazy crowded and lined with shops, so it was very difficult to maneuver through them, especially with the wheelchair.

But, with lots of help, we finally made it to the church.

Because of the many flights of narrow, winding stairways we didn’t go up to Golgotha (Calvary), the site of the crucifixion. Instead, we stayed on the ground level near the stone where Jesus was anointed with oil after death. Our friend, Peggy, brought us some of the holy oil she picked up at Golgotha that we spread on our hands.

While we waited for everyone to come down from Golgotha, we saw the slab on which Jesus had been cleaned and anointed with oil before burial.

Another important site in the church is the spot where Mary fell when she fainted after seeing the body of her son.

There was a beautiful mosaic on the wall near the anointing slab.

In addition to these sites, the final holy site in the church is the empty tomb of Jesus. This was in another section of the church and had a 90/120-minute line to see/touch. We were so fortunate to have Tzachi as our tour director as he seems to know everyone in Israel, at least at the sites he brings his tours. So, he talked to the priest who was guarding the part of the slab that held Jesus’ head and we were able to visit there instead. Everyone in the long line was going to the other side of the tomb, where his body and feet lay. Of course, no photos were allowed, and Peter couldn’t bend down far enough to touch the stone himself, but I touched it then rubbed his forehead. Once again, it was incredibly moving.

Then it was back outside for the walk to the restaurant we were having lunch. Peter stuck with his hamburger, but at Adoria’s urging, I had a chicken shawarma, a typical Middle Eastern dish. The chicken is cooked on a spit in the same manner lamb is cooked for a gyro sandwich. It is put into a pita and stuffed with veggies and special sauces. It was my first and was very delicious.

She also had a side of falafel, which I took a pass on as I don’t like chickpeas.

Finally, we had about 30 minutes to shop in the market around the only fountain in Jerusalem. There wasn’t any water in it, but it was a good meeting place for everyone to gather.

We didn’t buy anything in the market, but it was fun place to browse. Then it was back to the bus for the short ride home. It was a terrific day!

In addition to a bad internet connection, the other reason I didn’t finish this post last night is that about 9:30, I got sicker than a dog. We had a delicious going away dinner with our group but then about 2 hours later I started feeling sick. I’ll spare you the gory details, but I think I had a touch of food poisoning. I’ve had it before, so the symptoms were quite familiar.

Needless to say, I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night between trips to the bathroom, so by this morning I felt pretty lousy. It’s now just after 10:30am on Thursday and I arranged for a noon checkout to give me a little more time to recover. I decided to finish the blog post as I need to get used to being upright instead of flat in bed. I don’t feel great, but I’m better than I was 6 hours ago.

What’s weird is that Peter and I had the same dinner last night, but he had no problems. About 9 of our group moved on to Jordan this morning and Adoria told me that one woman in that group was also up all night vomiting. So maybe, there was a bit of bacteria in the food. Nice way to say goodbye to Israel.

Final Reflections on Israel

I was so glad to see that all of my fears about a fully guided tour were unfounded. Tzachi is the best tour guide ever, our driver (Sunni) was amazing and the people in the group were incredible. Everyone was so helpful getting us around the city. I know we couldn’t have done this part of our Adventure on our own. I’m not sure how we’re going to manage in Greece and Istanbul now that we’re by ourselves again. I keep remembering all the steep hills in both cities and wonder how we’re going to navigate them with the wheelchair.

Until this year, I had never really thought about visiting the Holy Land but am so glad we did. I’m not religious, but I could hardly help being moved by the places we saw…the birthplace of Jesus, the site of his death and anointing and the tomb in which he was laid to rest. We sailed the Sea of Galilea and swam in the Dead Sea. How many people can say that? I could have lived without the food poisoning, but that did nothing to diminish the wonderful time we had. The best part is…we made new friends. I know that we won’t ever reach out to most of them, but I hope to keep in touch with a few.

Well, it’s time for me to get into the shower and finish packing for our taxi ride back to Tel Aviv. Wish me luck. The next time you hear from us we’ll be in Athens.