December Daily {:19:} Two tombs, Western Wall, Roofs, Gates and Doors

(Updated with photos and a few more details)

To start the day off, I went with Bound downtown, and while she went to the visa office, I wandered around the neighborhood and took pictures.  I found a shop that sold beautiful mosaics.  Here's a table they made from an old treadle singer stand!

My radar kicked in and I spied some Art Nouveau!

And a tromp d'oeil!

After Bound was done at the visa office, we headed towards the Old City.  Here are some of my first views of the Old City walls, which even had a Christmas tree!

The Old City has several gates through which one can enter the city.  This time, we entered through the Jaffa Gate (named because it goes towards Jaffa).

We checked out some of the souvenir shops to get some ideas for gifts and a souvenir for myself.  They have what they call "widow's mite" jewelry, that is made from the mite coin (that archeologists have found) that would have been the kind the widow gave as an offering, and for which Jesus praised her.  They're really pretty and I thought that would make a cool souvenir.  I found a pair of earrings I liked, and when the guy told me the price (around 250), I thought he meant in shekels.  It seemed expensive, but considering it contained two coins that are 2000 years old, not so expensive.  Then we realized he said in dollars.  It was thus about four times as expensive as what I'd thought, and so completely out of my price range.  I sadly walked away with no earrings.

From there, we went to the Church of Holy Sepulcher.  There I saw some of the hill of Calvary, and one of places they say is the tomb where Jesus was buried.  Lots of tourists, not very spiritual for me.(I will blog more about that later in a separate post.)  As I was taking a picture of a door inside the church, a priest began talking to me.  He asked to shake my hand, then pulled me into a hug and asked for my email address.  That was weird.

I got to walk around on the roof of that church a bit, and that was kind of cool.

There is still quite a bit of snow left from last week's storm, and walking on it made me giddy all day.

We walked through the market, which also happens to be on the Via Dolorosa (the path Jesus walked, carrying the cross, until arriving at Golgotha).  

The market along the way of the Via Dolorosa.

A t-shirt I saw in the market that made me laugh:

City street in the Old City.

A woman touching a special spot on the Via Dolorosa at one of the stations of the cross.  My guess is that maybe tradition says Jesus fell at this spot and touched the wall there.  (It was the station where Simon the Cyrene took over the cross for Jesus.)

We exited through the Damascus Gate and headed towards the Garden Tomb, another suggested place of where Jesus was buried.

This place was so much more peaceful than the first one we went to.  Saw a hill where the side of it looks like a giant skull, which is suggested that it could be Golgatha, the place of the skull, and thus Jesus would have been crucified on it.  Really, really enjoyed all that time in the garden.  The tomb there was much more meaningful to me, despite all the tourists.

I'll blog more later about the Garden Tomb, but here is a photo of me about to duck into it.  I was super giddy.

We headed back to the Old City to go to the Western Wall.  We walked through the market again, because it's just so much fun: so full of life and colors and smells (spices), and noise...a five senses experience!

You could tell when we crossed from the Arab side of the market to the Jewish side:

There is an AWESOME painting in that area that shows the market in ancient days.  It was gorgeous.

Notice the modern boy trading wares with the ancient girl?  So awesome.

There's another modern girl wanting to trade wares with the girls near the camel...

 A replica of one of the oldest maps of J-town:

Headed into the Jewish part of the city:

See those arches in the middle of the background?  I noticed them everywhere, crossing the Old City streets between buildings.

I loved the windows and shapes of the buildings in the Jewish quarter.  There was a distinct different feel in the Jewish quarter versus the Arab quarter.  In the Arab quarter, it was fully of lively atmosphere, almost frantic, wired, electrified all the time.  But in the Jewish quarter, there was a quietness, a stillness, a calm.  There was a peace in there that I wanted to gulp up into my soul.

On the way to the Western Wall, I caught my first glimpse of the Mount of Olives (from afar) just at the beginning of sunset and it was so beautiful!  

The Temple Mount and Al-Asqa Mosque (on the left).

My first view of the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock.

We went down to the Western Wall and realized I didn't expect to see the women actually crying.  Several were sobbing even.  I was surprised to find myself so moved that I even got choked up too.

I will blog more later about the Western Wall.  There's something special about it, to be sure...

As we were going to leave, a man invited us to go up on a rooftop for a panoramic view, and it was something Bound had never done.  We were up there for sunset/dusk, and oh man!  It was so beautiful!  There was hardly anyone up there, and so to have such a great view to ourselves was incredible. 

A replica of the Temple:

Even the Temple had cool doors!  :)

The six metal stars on the left of the photo represent the six million Jews that died during the Holocaust.

On our way out of the city to head home, I spied another cool door.  Orthodox men kept going in and out of it, and I got one of my favorite photos of the day there, right at the end of the day.

I tend to be a slow processor, and need time to think through and write out thoughts...and so I think all of what I am seeing might not fully sink in and gain its full meaning until I'm back in France.  Right now it just doesn't seem real that today I walked on streets where Jesus actually walked.  That I might have seen the place where His body was actually laid behind a stone, a tomb that couldn't contain Him.  I think the thought I've had all day has been--does being here where it happened make it any more real?  I don't think it does...because faith is believing in what we don't see.  I've always believed in all the things that happened in the places I saw today...long before I saw the places.

But man alive is it neato to be here.  Tomorrow we're going to Bethlehem!