Jerusalem, Israel

We are now staying in Jerusalem, Israel and the first day that we got here we roamed the city with a tour guide and just got a "smell" for the city as he put it. Our group is staying within the Christian Quarters and the maze of markets makes it difficult to see any of the surroundings. I almost felt claustrophobic due to the amount of people trying to sell me souvenirs. This completely went against what I had imagined of Jerusalem: dirt roads and hillsides on a wide open landscape. In reality, behind the westernized, crowded society, Israel is a green and lush land.

With our 70 year-old Armenian tour guide, we went through the Four Quarters of Jerusalem. We began in the Christian Quarters and went to King Herod's palace where he decreed to have the children of Bethlehem killed because he was threatened by Jesus' coming.

Next, we were in the Armenian Quarters where we weren't allowed to see much because only Armenians are allowed in the church, but we learned about the history and how they commemorate the Armenian Genocide annually. We also went outside the gate in order to "climb" Mt. Zion which was only up 5 stairs until we got to the top. Then we were able to see the Room of the Last Supper which was turned into a Muslim mosque as well as a synagogoue at a different time. It was definitely weird to walk into the replication of that room and see the Qur'an written in Arabic and the niche that points to Mecca. A few feet away was the Tomb of David and he was buried there 3,000 years ago. We walked into the tomb and the men had to wear yamakas and be separated from the women. After following a hallway, David's giant casket was about 6 feet high and 15 feet long.

After this, we made our way over to the Jewish Quarter and saw the tourist-filled Wailing Wall. The bottom portion of this wall are the remains of King Herod's temple and it was filled with little notes written with people's prayers. Then we followed Jesus' trek to Mt. Calvary by way of Via Dolorosa. There were checkpoints along the way that marked all the events and times Jesus stopped. At the top of the hill is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and this is where they claim Jesus was crucified and buried. It was disturbing to see people weep and bow down on slabs of rock that they believed Jesus touched. It was as if they were worshiping the items and rubbing them to gain something superstitiously. This church disturbed everyone in my group and a lot of us were not sure how to feel being there. One thing was for sure, Jerusalem was not what any of us were expecting.