The Heerings were staying in the same hotel as we were in Jerusalem, so we hung out with them alot. The first picture is at an Italian restaurant in downtown Jerusalem, and the second one is of me, Eitan, and my brother in front of our hotel. My brother has awesome cheeks, eh?



Going to the Kotel (Western Wall) and praying there on Shabbat (even though I got a horrible sunburn) was really amazing. Since my brother just had his bar mitzvah, he got to partake in leading one of the many services there. It was pretty darn awesome. We also went there several times during the week (which is when I took all of these pictures). From there you could also see the Dome of the Rock, and the Al Aqsa Mosque. You could hear the call to pray from the Mosque all over the old city, five times a day.


My dad is the one with the blue baseball cap.


My brother putting a note in the wall.


My brother and dad put on their tefillin there, but in this picture my brother had already taken his off.


This is the Old Cardo - remains of this huge marketplace in the Old City (what was Jerusalem thousands of years ago- modern Jerusalem extends way outside the Old City walls) during Herodian times.


One of the walls of the Old City.


Ruins of a small marketplace outside the soutern (I think?) surrounding wall of what was the Holy Temple. It's intersting that ancient texts describe this little market place and an arch (ruins of which you can't exactly see in this picture-it got cut off, sorry) in this exact spot. That was pretty cool, I think.



Here are ancient tunnels along the very bottom part of the Kotel and underneath pretty much the entire old city. During the Herodian era, since Jerusalem is on hills, Herod wanted the city to be completely level. So he had the city built around the surrounding temple walls on top of arches, which created these tunnels. Many parts of the tunnels were used as vaults and water cisterns. The first picture is part of the Kotel, and that part of the Kotel is said to be the best place since it is closest to where the Holy of Holies in the Temple once was. That is also why the Western surrounding wall is considered holy-ish (and not the southern, northern, or eastern) since it was the closest of what remained of the temple to the Holy of Holies.


We went through the Arab quarter of the Old City (and I'm still alive, see?). There was a Young Israel right in the middle of it! Absurd? I think so.

Masada

Here is part of Masada. I won't write the entire Masada story here, but if you really are dying to know it, ask. Yeah.


Ah and on the way to Masada we stopped at this gas station where some people were offering camel rides. One of them put this bedouin head covering on me. Cool.

Ein Gedi
Ein Gedi is I guess a park where a whole bunch of natural springs are in the middle of the desert. It's so amazing. You're in the middle of the desert, and once you hike up in Ein Gedi you see water and plants! It was really cool.




Yeah yeah I know my shorts are poofing out and all that. =P