Ah Jerusalem!

International travel does strange things to time, and jet lag is just one type of time distortion possible. There is also the experience-photograph-upload-blog time delay phenomena. For example, yesterday Nadav, Aaron, and I woke at 4am to hike up Masada, an ancient desert fortress, to watch the sunrise. But today I will write about the events of Jan 3. An upcoming edition will chronicle everything between then and that.



Careful readers will remember I landed in Tel Aviv on Jan 3 at 3am. Anya and Nadav, pictured above in all their awesome cuteness, picked me up at the airport. Earlier that day they picked up Aaron, and they had only arrived a day earlier. We returned home to sleep for a few hours, to comfort our circadian rhythms, since they were all rattling from stress and confusion, and we had a long day ahead of us.

First order of business was an awesome Israeli breakfast, not pictured above or below. Cucumbers here are a force to be reckoned with. Their crispness knows no bounds, and I now understand what it is that Nadav is always trying to approximate back in the bay area. Brokers and farmers take note: Nadav is willing to trade various parts of his body for such cucumbers in the united states.



Today was Devora's tour of Jerusalem. First, we had to find Devora's place, which turned out to be quite hard. Anya, Nadav's co-pilot and navigator, despite numerous hardships, managed to get us there. It took a while, and that night she literally had nightmares about navigating Jerusalem, and rebuilding the city on a grid.

Jerusalem, you see, just like San Francisco, is built on this absurdly hilly terrain. SF is a grid, making it pretty navigable, but the roads often take these crazy slopes, like Lombard. In Jerusalem the roads follow the contours of the topography, making them vertically less comical, but navigationally absurd. It's like a city planner sat down with a spirograph, a french curve, and a six pack. Throw in some construction and traffic, and you have all the makings of a blockbuster traffic thriller. Voila!



Devora, true to form, had a scholarly and entertaining tour for us on the theme of wall building in Jerusalem. Pictured above and below is the simple barrier that blocks some gunfire angles from an Arab part of town into Gilo, which is a Jewish development across the 1948 cease fire lines. During the last Intifada, there was gunfire directed at the houses here, and the government dropped these blocks into place to protect the residents.



It's interesting that to make it less ugly, the people who live in Gilo painted a mural of what is on the other side. The picture, of course, is not as pretty as what was originally there, but it was a lot friendlier too, I suppose.



Devora then pointed out that the ancient walls of Jerusalem were also built as a security measure, just like the separation barrier pictured above that intends (and seems to) block suicide bombers from entering Israel from the West Bank. So, walls and security is an old obsession. I think that membranes, walls, and dividers of all kinds is fundamental to the shape of the universe and all living things. This wall is not nearly as gentle to the landscape as the ancient walls of Jerusalem, or even the simple blocks that protected Gilo. It's pretty ugly, but seems to get the job done.



Here is an open air market in Jerusalem. Well, I thought the Berkeley Bowl was the best grocery store in the world, with the Lonely Planet backing me up, but there's simply no contest.



Here are some delicious borekas, food of champions. Devora took us, along with David (pictured below), to an awesome Iraqi Jewish restaurant in the market. There wasn't much veggie fare, but it was awesome. Who would have thought that matza ball soup, for example, could be improved upon? Put meat inside, and you have Jewish dumplings.



This is the first Jewish settlement outside of the old city. Nobody lived outside the old city until the last hundred some years, it turns out, and the Jews were particularly reluctant to leave the familiar, comfortable, and secure enclave inside. Old habits die hard.



Next, we said goodbye to Devora and David, and headed towards the old city. Behind Anya you can see the walls that enclose old Jerusalem.



We walked through an Arab market towards the Western Wall, but got lost. A nice Arab kid pointed out where we had gone wrong.



I can't help it, here's another picture of Nadav and Anya:



Here is the Western Wall, and, new for us, some new Israeli Army pledges doing some kind of institutional ritual. The Wall is the last remaining wall of a large support structure, on top of which was the ancient Jewish Temple that figures centrally in all kinds of Jewish belief and ritual. That Temple was last destroyed by the Romans. Now, on top of the Temple Mount, is a very old Mosque that is is very important to Muslims and the Palestinians. Nothing is simple here.



Some Jews come here to pray, and some put little notes on pieces of paper that they slide into the cracks between the stones. The Army pledge thing was new to us. Boys, about 18 years old, seemed to be getting inaugurated into the Army. There wasn't much wind, so the Israeli flag had some kind of rod in it to keep it up. Like Prozac, but for flags.

That's all for now. More pictures and adventures coming soon.