Someone Take the Computer Away from Me!

I just spent $40 on Christmas music from Itunes in 5 minutes!

(If you are wondering what I bought....John Rutter's Christmas Album, Sarah McLachlan's Christmas Album, James Taylor Christmas and Sting's Old English Christmas Album.  Most Merry of Christmases)

Week update...well, the fun stuff

This week I pretty much stayed cooped up in my house...and almost lost my mind.  By the time I finished homework and such it was too late to go out and I just laid in my bed being excited about all the things I wanted to go out and do, but also be frustrated that I hadn't gone out that day.  I was so busy because I actually did all of my homework this week!  I know, novel.   But today I got to shake a leg in the old city with a friend and it was one of my favorite wandery days.  I feel like I'm "seeing the sights" but also "getting down with the people".

These are some of the people I met today:

Hadda and her mother were making date cookies to sell at the Arab Orthodox Society Holiday Bazaar tomorrow.  I made eye contact with Hadda as we were walking down the road through the open front door and she invited us in.  We sat in her kitchen for a short while exchanging what little Arabic/English we knew (respectively) and she kept thrusting blobs of brown date past at us to eat.  I might be sick tomorrow, but it was certainly worth it.  Max and I are going to drop by the Bazaar tomorrow and see if we can find her.

I didn't get Mr. Painterman's name, but he showed me how he stencils and then paints his Armenian Pottery before glazing and cooking it.  Actually, I asked if he "cooked" it and he said yes,  but after I left I realized that you "fire" pottery.  "Amateur hour!"  Anyway, his shop was really neat and he let me take a picture only if he didn't have to look up.

I have literally been waiting for months to take this picture.  I saw this man (who I call CobblerWobbler in my mind, for no reason at all) on one of our very first visits to the old city and I wanted so desperately to catch him "in the act" as it were. The time never came because of the light, I was without my camera, there were a lot of people, I was too shy and many other reasons.  Today it wasn't very crowded and when I saw him fixing what looked to be one of these girl's shoes (or maybe there mother's) I sneaked out my camera and took this picture.  Well worth the wait.

His shop is just wide enough for him and his sewing machine to fit in the mouth of...well, a cave in the old city.  Rad.

Not a person, but an awesome thousand year old book that Justina at showed me at St. Mark's Church (alternate "last supper/Pentecost location, home of Mother of Mark, baptismal sight of the Virgin Mary, and self proclaimed "First Church in Christianity").  I'm not sure if it's the 4 gospels, or just the gospel of Mark.
 

A donkey.  Don't worry Burt, you are still our number one burro.   

In other news, I have the world's nerdiest secret date planned for Max tomorrow.  Sshhh, I'll tell you about later....but it involves Aramaic!

Tiny Children I Almost Stole in the Old City the Other Day

"And David danced before the Lord with ALL his might": Day 6

Tsfat/Safed was amazing.  We were only there for one afternoon and a crazy evening.  I'll let these pictures we took of Safed-ian street dancers do the talking. 

And that's it for our trip. We had a marvelous time and got to see a lot of Israel's North. ...and C.J.'s beardy Jewish twin dancing on the streets in Safed.

A Spin Around the Sea of Galilee: Day 5

Moving on (regarding our trip up north).  After studying the map for a bit we decided to take a spin around the Sea of Galilee. Tiberias is on the south western side of the lake and we decided to make a counterclockwise journey around the lake before heading up to Tsfat. After driving for a while we passed the “Yardenit Baptismal Site” where many claim that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. If you know me, I’m not very big into the “place” frenzy here in Jerusalem. What matters to me is that Christ lives and his gospel is real, but Max and I had a particularly moving experience at the baptismal site.

It wasn’t overly crowded like in the summer and we got to see a few smaller groups doing their baptism thing. We saw a group of what looked and sounded like evangelicals (some speaking Portuguese Max pointed out) all dressed in white getting baptized by the water’s edge. Some of them jumped out of the water yelling “hallelujah”, others cried, and still others were emotional but a little embarrassed about being so public (and so underdressed – those white shields do not offer a lot of coverage…).

There was a very small moment taking place just in front of us where a Dad took his teenage girl into the water to baptize her while the mother looked on. Very sweet.

But perhaps my favorite was a small group of three priests of the Greek Orthodox Church who were swimming around in the river just after baptizing a couple. Most of the Greek Orthodox men I’ve seen around the city are very serious, very reserved, and very “hard” looking. In Jerusalem they where they long black robes and black hats and they usually have very long beards and long hair. Their buildings here are very ornate and filled with gold everything – they are usually constructed in caves and crusader constructions, so the spaces are often times dank, dark, and mysterious. But these three priests had their shoes off and were swimming around in the river with such joy. They were talking to each other and splashing a bit. When they got out of the water, black garb soaking wet, they sat around and read a few scriptures, sang a few beautiful songs, and “shot the breeze” as much as someone in their position can. It was the first time I have seen the seriousness and over dramatic decorating I associate with the Greek Orthodox give way to something that looked more like Jesus would have been doing in this spot so many years ago. I still can’t get over the sight of their bare feet, kicking around in the water and then being propped up on the stones around the river’s edge. It donned on me that maybe this more relaxed attitude is a product of being in the Galilee instead of Jerusalem. People are always talking about the tension in Jerusalem, and it doesn’t really bother me, but perhaps it imbues the religious stalwarts of Jerusalem with an added level of intensity.

Halloween in Jerusalem: On Taking Candy from Strangers

Haloween is still my favorite Holiday, but without kids you don't really get invited to the dress up parties.  No matter, Max and I made our own Halloween fun almost completely inadvertently. 

Friday is Field Trip day and we almost let this one slip by without even leaving our apartment!  At  3:00 we strapped on our walking shoes and took off down the hill towards the old city.  Our initial plan was to check out Mount Zion and the Room of the Last Supper, but because Shabbat was fast arising it donned on us that everything would already be closed.  So we decided to visit the Garden tomb and some of the sites in the Christian/Armenian Quarter that we hadn't seen yet.  I'll write more about the Garden tomb later (which is really a fine site), but for now I'll skip to the spooky.

After staying at the Garden Tomb for an hour or so and sharing a cheese, onion, and tomoto Pizza at Basti Pizza on the Via Dolorosa, we trudged backwards up the Via Dolorosa to try and find Saint Anne's Church.  By this time in the day the sun was almost completely gone, or at least hidden behind heavy rain clouds. We got our first day long cold front here in Jerusalem!  I couldn't have been happier.  It rained and drizzled all day and was absolutely dreary.  Perfect.

So we started winding around through the dark and rainy streets of the Muslim Quarter with very little luck.  In hindsight I'm pretty sure the sight was closed, but it provided an awesome spook ally for Max and me.  The alleys are really narrow and really tall with trees and garbage and all manner of scary things poking out.  Not to mention the exploding feral cat population skittering about beneath our feet and popping out from cracks in the houses.  I literally screamed out loud several times in fear of squashing a rotten cat...who probably deserved it.  We came across several distant gatherings of people which added significantly to the horror.  In the dark we couldn't tell if they were young Arab shabab waiting to capture lost tourists, Israeli Military planning some sort of coup, or just generic hooligans.  It's one thing to be afraid of the dark, or of getting lost, but to add the fear of getting caught in sling shot crossfire (or worse) is something else entirely.

So we gave up on Saint Anne's.  But we were still lost.  Not really lost, we just didn't know where we were on the  map and only generally the area that we needed to go.  It's not normally a problem, but there are some places here that you don't really want to wander into, much less at night.  But as we were walking towards what we thought to be the Damascus gate a Muslim couple with a baby in  stroller pulled up beside us.

"Hello.  Where are you from?  Would you like to come in for tea?"

It was either straight from every horror story you've ever read or the Bible.  Who knew they had similarities!  Turns out it was the Bible.  We explained to them that we didn't drink coffee, but that water would be fine.  So the five of us, two unnamed Arab parents and their little girl, Max and Myself shared a glass of water out on the porch, under the rain drizzles.  How great is that!?  It's absolutely an Arab thing.  At first I thought "I don't know if I'll tell my Mom", but when we didn't die I thought it would be safe to tell.  People just like the share here.  It's like trick or treat every day!