Jerusalem and Tel Aviv

Security was so easy to get through at the Moscow airport. I had plenty of time to sit back and have some breakfast and leisurely walk onto the plane when it was boarding time. I got right behind first class, so I had plenty of leg room. I got to sit and watch as the Russians tried to decipher the English alphabet to find their seats. After the seating was sorted out, we were all given menus in English and Turkish. I was sitting next to two elderly Russian ladies. I did my best to translate the menu into Russian and then ordered the meals for the ladies. A few minutes later, the flight attendant asked me to help translate the menu for a few other people. Apparently, the English-speaking Russians wanted to avoid helping others.

Relations between Turkey and Israel are normally pretty rocky. As soon as I got off the plane I had to go through special passport control and questioning to be able to proceed onto security. Then tight security before being spit back out to the international terminal. I had four hours, which I spent between the many duty free shops. After I got tired of wandering back and forth between the shops and debating if I should shell out $15 for a small coffee (I didn’t), I was ping-ponged back and forth between gates. I would have been irritated if I didn’t have to watch the poor security guys set up, take down, move gates, set up, and take down over and over again. Yes, you guessed it, I had to go through one more passport control before boarding the plane.

I arrived in Tel Aviv shortly after midnight. Passport control took five seconds, bags unloaded quickly, and customs waved me through. Matt was waiting for me with a sign written in Hebrew. We stood outside talking for quite a bit before we realized that we should really get a cab into Tel Aviv. Matt impressed me with his newly acquired Hebrew skills as we rode to the apartment.

We all woke at a decent time considering our late night. Matt’s girlfriend, Inbal, went to her grandparents’ for Shabbat dinner. Matt made some of his amazing coffee and we headed out for a six-hour walking tour of beautiful Tel Aviv.  The tour included Rothschild Boulevard, Dizengoff Fountain, Rabin Square, the promenade, the early settlement area, an amazing lunch of pita, hummus, and olives, and meeting the infamous neighborhood shop keeper.

The next day we managed to get up fairly early in order to catch the bus to Jerusalem. Since I hate sitting on a bus in traffic, we walked to the Central Bus Station. It is in the “bad” part of town, which actually is kind of scary after dark. This end of town shelters the thousands of homeless and jobless African refugees. So, it looks rougher than it really is, but no one wants to test that theory.

Matt managed to stay awake on this bus trip and pointed out various landmarks along the way through the olive groves, vineyards, desert, and mountains. Honestly, Israel reminds me of Modesto to Sacramento in dry season.  Once in Jerusalem we stopped by Obama Shawarma and had a hearty meal before catching the bus to the old city.

Jerusalem is an arms race of Muslim and Orthodox Jews trying to have as many babies as possible. So, everywhere you look are double prams pushed by pregnant women with more children trailing after them. I got a quick lesson in the different sects of Judaism as we sat stuck in traffic.

Finally we arrived at the old city, quite a distance away from where we were supposed to meet the tour. We decided to rush our way to Jaffa Gate to meet the group, but we got lost in the winding maze that is Old City and arrived a few minutes after the tour had left (it is quite possible it was also canceled), so Matt became my tour guide. Of course we both forgot my fear of heights as we purchased the tickets to the ramparts and walked the entire wall. It wasn’t so bad, but it wasn’t so good up there in the heat of the day. I recommend doing it though!

A common street in Jerusalem.

We left the ramparts between Lion’s Gate and Damascus Gate (I became really friendly with Damascus Gate). We then jumped into the labyrinth that is the Old City. We visited the birthplace of the Virgin Mary, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Jesus’s tomb), the Via Dolorosa (the path that Jesus walked with the cross), and the Western Wall, (the Dome of the Rock was closed). We wandered through bazaars nestled in the narrow streets. Some areas are not recommended if you are claustrophobic or easily sickened by animal legs and heads. But at least try basbousa from a shop in the Muslim quarter.

After we figured we had enough of the Old City (though, I think you could live there for years and not discover everything in its dark crevices), we visited Virgin Mary’s tomb just as it was closing. And unfortunately, the World and Russian churches on the Mount of Olives were closed by the time we reached them. So we turned to the left and took some stairs leading directly to the top of the Mount of Olives. As we first started to climb the steps, olive groves and forgotten fields were to our left, while garden walls were to our right. Just when I thought I couldn’t go any further, we came across a small mosque with a white goat happily munching on the weeds. I turned my head from the mosque to a village built upon the steps—white apartments hung to the steps with rugs, laundry, and flowers hanging over the balcony rails. Women in hijab poked their head over the rails to call to their children playing ball or rollerblading on the steps.

We emerged from the village to be greeted with extremely modern apartments and a camel relaxing at a roundabout near another mosque. We walked along the modern buildings to the Jewish cemetery to get the perfect view to the Old City as the sun went down. As it was completely dark by the time we had finished taking photos, we took a short cut between garden walls and the cemetery that wound its way in front of the Russian Monastery—we were expecting to see biblical-era grave robbers at any moment. But we didn’t, unless a giant centipede qualifies.

Damascus Gate

We popped back into the old city to wander to Damascus Gate where we ate cold falafel and took the metrolink back to the bus station, which is a lot faster than the bus! We then took the bus back to Tel Aviv where we crashed in exhaustion.