We spent Saturday afternoon and night walking through the Old City and visiting all the religious hot spots: the room where the last supper was (it was heavily populated by stray cats and tourists from Japan and England), the Western Wall and the kotel tunnels.There was so much to take in; a call to prayer from the mosque followed by church bells, the new smells at nearly every turn.
I
hadn't really thought about how being there would make me feel. When I walked up to put my paper in the Wall I literally felt my heart shake and my eyes welled up. I'm not sure where my reaction came from--the Wall, the history, the intensity of the people around me, the moment I took to write on a piece of paper and the time I spent thinking about the people I was writing for...I don't think I need to be sure.
After an outdoor pizza party we walked through the kotel tunnels. While I did enjoy the tour, I have a slight fear of small spaces, no sense of spatial relations and no knack for engineering so I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the logistics and not get smooshed.
I feel like I have been here much longer than a few days and have to pack up to go to Tel Aviv after stops at the Jerusalem Post and the Prime Minister's office. I'm looking on the schedule for downtime and there isn't any. I'm looking forward to getting a chance to actually think more about some of the conversations I have had and some of the people I've met.
