Free Day in the City

Holy Cow. What a busy 24 hrs I may say. First may I congratulate BYU on actually beating OU Saturday evening (morning here). About 10 of us here at the JC watched the game...which happened to start at 2am here because of time difference. It was pretty crazy! (embarrassing for the big 12...but I was pretty impressed with BYU) By the time that the game finished it was around 5:30am here...and breakfast started in 1 1/2 hrs...so i took a 1 hr nap and got up for breakfast. Sundays here are our free days because we have the sabbath on Saturdays, like the Jewish and Muslim people here.

After breakfast I left with a good sized group to explore more of the old city. I was really questioning how much I would be able to survive today living on 1 hr of sleep...but I just returned at 5:30pm! And I am very exhausted and looking forward to going to bed very early tonight.

We began with the Rampart Walk at Jaffa gate in West Jerusalem. Basically it is a path that walks along the walls that surround the Old City. There were so many beautiful outlooks from being so high up! That only took about an hr or so. The steps were pretty steep at times and narrow, which was a little scary. It is so nice to see Jerusalem in a different perspective, instead of one of many in a jumbled crowd.

After we finished the Rampart Walk, we made our way to a restaurant in the Muslim quarter off the road that enters Damascus Gate. It was a little hole-in-the-wall place, but delicious. Ashkabars..or something like that. It was a difficult name. The 8 of us shared 2 chips (french fry baskets) 3 different kinds of humis with pita bread, folofal balls and coke in an arabic can. Yum Yum Yum. I was completely full afterwards. And it only cost us like...17 shekels apiece. ( so like...$4)

Several of us have been dying to visit the Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock, but have never been able to thus far. The visiting times are all scrambled because they are celebrating Ramadan. I was able to hang out in the Jewish quarter, which is very clean and nice, but also more expensive.

There is a shopkeeper in off Chrisitian Quarter that has a special relationship with BYU or "Mormon University" students. Shaban at Ali Baba gives us good deals...and doesn't rip off the students like many vendors will do...so we finally found his shop today and I bought some Jesus sandals! A pretty dress and a sling over purse to haul all my touristy things I take while on our field trips. All of this cost me 95 shekels..or like $25. It's great not being ripped off.

And finally after the shopping I went over to the Tower of David Museum in west Jerusalem by Jaffa gate. We are required to go there for one of our classes, so that's one assignment partially out of the way. It was basically a citadel...that was built by the many people that invaded, conquered and ruled Jerusalem over the past several thousand or so years. The history gets so complicated.

I am officially give out after a fairly insane day. Hope everyone is enjoying the Labor Day Weekend. (which is obviously not celebrated in the Holy Land)