The past three days have been overwhelming for very different reasons.
1) arriving in this very foreign country with a language that isn't accessible to me
2) my first experience of wandering past narrow, stepped streets lined with merchants who want me to buy something
3) going beyond the wall into Palestine - a place that doesn't exist
4) climbing the Mount of Olives
5) experiencing the Israeli post office process
So I'll go back to Day 4 and the exhilaration of running from one gate to the one as far away as possible in 10 minutes, including a passport check and baggage security. The plane from Rome was delayed one hour due to a storm over Paris. Fortunately, planes were delayed leaving Paris, too. After I got to the gate and onto the plane, I sort of lost my grip on a sense of adventure. The flight attendants were very solicitous, telling me it was okay and I'd have four hours to relax. They brought me water and let me collect myself (the camera and laptop were still in my arms because I hadn't stopped to put them back in their cases) before moving out of first class into steerage. And I did, indeed, relax.
The sherut (small van-bus) was right outside the baggage claim doors. I sat in front of some priests from Panama and then an older Jewish couple got on. She was letting her husband, and then the bus driver, have it. I don't know what she was upset about, but before we reached Jerusalem the three of them were chatting quite amiably. She even opened a box and handed out packages of biscuits. The driver dropped them off at a nice suburban house and a woman with children came out to happily greet them.
The countryside between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is very beige.
I got off the sherut at the American Colony Hotel (the >$1,000 rooms are a little pricey for me) and took a cab to the Old City. The soldiers at the Lion's Gate wouldn't let the driver go any farther than the first arch, so I lugged my suitcase (thank heaven I had only one at this point) up the cobblestones to the Ecce Homo.
Ecce Homo, pronounced "eh-chay 'omo" is a convent of Notre Dame de Sion, and the name comes from John 19:5: "Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them "Behold the man." The sisters work to increase social justice and "overcome anti-antisemitism and any kind of prejudice in the Church and in the wider community."
Beneath the convent are ruins that archaeologists believe were built by Herod the Great around 30 BCE. I went down there this afternoon (Day 7) and it's amazing. There's a canal that provided water to the Temple Mount and a pool Hadrian turned into a cistern in 135 CE. (Don't forget -- you can double click on the photos to enlarge them to full screen.)
But back to the current convent...
I've already posted photos from the terrace. Here's where my room is (top floor, windows on the right). The room is small, but as much as I need. At night I hear the muezzin loud and clear, and Muslim children run up and down the alley outside the WiFi room. Speaking of which...it's a good thing I brought my laptop, since there's only one computer for everyone to use. The convent/hostel draws an international crowd -- French, German, other Americans.
It was almost 7 PM when I managed to make it to the front door, and I was just in time for dinner - a seated meal prepared by the sisters. The only thing I did afterwards was take photos of the city, with which I teased you on the first blog.
End of Day 4. Exhausting.
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