Blog post from Caden: Yesterday we slept late and missed breakfast. So my Mom snuck banana bread to us from her conference. After breakfast we got ready, and went into town where we had a tour. Before the tour we snacked on some local bagels and juices. The tour took us through the Mt. Of Olives, A very old olive Grove, the stations of the cross, a spot where we could see the dome of the rock, and the tower of David. It was a long day with a ton of walking, and we had to cut the tour short because everyone was so exhausted. After the tour we took 2 cabs home, and the adults got ready for their dinner. But my dad got food poisoning and didn't go, and my mom stayed home and did laundry. All of the kids met up at the Busers and played Roblox. The end.
Jonathan said that some historians speculate that Jesus was executed here, just outside the Old City walls. The explanation had to do with the logistics of moving Jesus between locations.
Some of the ruins within the Old City
An Armenian nun asks Seb to kiss a fragment of the skull of John the Baptist in the Eastern Orthodox Church in Jerusalem.
Man-Picking-Nose in some of the markets in the 4-Quarters of the Old City.
Some of the best food we had in all of Jerusalem at this middle-eastern restaurant.
Little did I (Corey) know that the food poisoning was already at work (I think I got it at breakfast eating cold meats). Even if I knew that, I probably would have kept eating this delicious food.
Jonathan, our guide, did his undergraduate at Indiana Univ and his graduate work at Harvard. He was incredibly informative and passionate...maybe a bit too much for the kids.
The old guys smoking a little Hookah.
The Rock of Calvary, in the Holy Sepulchre, where Jesus was crucified. There is a small hole below the altar where you can reach down an arms-length to touch the stone. Sadly, one of my memories of this Holy place will be of the rude people (thankfully, not Americans) behind us complaining that people were taking too long to touch the stone. They also yelled at Jonathon for not moving the line along faster...although I'm not sure how he could have possibly done this. He handled it well -- I'm guessing he has to deal with this sort of behavior a lot.
A look from below of the Rock of Cavalry.
This is us, about halfway through the tour (maybe 2.5 hours at this point). You can see the fatigue setting in.
This is the Stone of Unction, which is a large slab of stone placed inside the church of the Holy Sepulchre, between the Golgotha (the hill of the crucifixion of Jesus), and the Tomb of Jesus. Jesus' body was laid and prepared for burial here and we noticed a lot of people overcome with emotion here.
We got yelled at for taking a photo here (the tomb where Jesus was placed, called Aedicula) -- not because you can't take photos, but because it took too much time and this young priest's job was to get us in and out quickly. It was also just a few minutes before 4pm and it was closing and he wanted us out! I'll never forget him slapping the wall 'informing' us that our prayers were over and we needed to exit!
We all found it so odd that people graffiti'd this wall.
Sweet Julia journaling during the tour so she doesn't forget what she is seeing.
Ok, in fairness to me, I look pregnant here ... and I'd like to think I don't always look this way. At this point in the tour, I started feeling pretty ill and it felt like my stomach had a gigantic balloon in it and it was slowly being aired up more and more. Turns out, that was mostly true and the balloon would exceed its capacity just a few hours later.
Seb had a lot of questions for Jonathan!
This old fella would not leave us alone! He chased us down after we left and showed us 6-inch thick book showing (allegedly) who had purchased ancient relics from him. It included names such as Barak Obama, Michael Jordan, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, etc. Jonathan said it was probably true, but he also said this guy does this everyday. He was also angry that we were listening to a tour guide talk about 'modern' history when he could tell us about things that existed thousands and thousands of years ago.
These two became good buddies!
Can you see the pain?!
The guarded gates to the Muslim living portion of the Old City where you can't go as a tourist without special permission.
At least they were friendly...
The Mount of Olives. This is the traditional site of the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed just before he was betrayed by Judas Iscariot. The church in the foreground is the Church of All Nations (Basilica of the Agony).
To Jonathan's dismay, we all had to tap out after this. It was an awesome tour, but going more than 4-5 hours it tough in the heat with kids. I think he had another 2-3 hours planned for us.
\Inside the Church of All Nations. The rock where Jesus prayed on his last night. This is the other place where we saw a lot of people overcome with emotions. There's actually a name for this condition when it becomes acute and people need to seek medical attention. It is called the Jerusalem Syndrome. One of the treatments is to leave the Old City.
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