Jerusalem, Part 2

Last two days in Jerusalem. For these days the tour is officially over and we are on our own. Yes that is just a little bit scary, but only a little bit. We can walk from our hotel to what is called the old town of Jerusalem. Half of the walk is next to a park and the other half is through a nice mall. So not bad. The whole walk is about ten or fifteen minutes.

Went to the wailing wall area again. They have a tour of underground areas of Jerusalem. It has been in wars so much that there is layer after layer there. It was interesting. What you see of the wailing wall actually goes a lot farther down. The whole thing is massive.

We then went got in line to go onto the temple mount. It is under Palestinian control, but the allow tours there - a couple hours in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. It must be part of some kind of agreement they have. It was quite clear that they didn't really want us there. But it was still interesting to go there. You can go right next to the Dome of the Rock. You can't go in. If you did it would probably spark World War III.

We walked down to what is called the City of David. It is in the valley and where Jerusalem was in about 1000 BC. You can go through Hezekiah's tunnel. People that have claustrophobia should go there. I do and I did. You had to turn sideways for a lot of it. It was rough. I had to do a lot of positive self talk to my self. But I made it.

Next day. We walked to the Israel Museum. It is massive. You can see the Dead Sea Scrolls there. It has mummies, idols, and all kinds of stuff. It is right next to the Knesset, the Israel government building.

There were some logistical issues that evening. We had to get a van to get from the hotel to the airport at Tel Aviv. From there its to San Fran and then Portland. It went fine, but the Israel transportation process doesn't function as smoothly or politely as in the U.S. Speaking of the U.S., I loved Israel, but it is really, really great to be back.