Change of plans
I'm leaving tonight for Eilat, rather than this morning, and I'll be gone all of Friday and Saturday. Hope I get to do some good diving.
Went to the Garden Tomb yesterday. It's a little walled-in enclosure just outside of Damascus Gate, with a small tomb and a garden, as the name suggests, and a view of the side of a hill which does actually look a bit like a skull. This and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre are the main rivals, as I understand it, for the site of Golgotha and Jesus' tomb. I have no idea which is more legitimate, maybe I'll learn that in my Archaeology of Jerusalem class.
Tuesday night (or Wednesday morning) I went on a night trip through a small neighborhood that was one of the first built outside the Old City walls. It's got about forty synagogues crammed in among the houses, supposedly because of all the immigrant and ethnic groups that came to settle during some kind of land rush, and they all had different customs so they all built their own synagogues. It was pretty interesting to see some of the Rosh Hashana services being held (the ones held pre-dawn are called "Slichot," where they're asking for forgiveness for their sins before the new year) but by then the guide had already dragged us over the entire neighborhood at 5 in the morning, so by the time we got out of the fourth synagogue I was actively looking for an opportunity to shove him in front of a bus. I got back after sunrise and crashed.
Went to the Garden Tomb yesterday. It's a little walled-in enclosure just outside of Damascus Gate, with a small tomb and a garden, as the name suggests, and a view of the side of a hill which does actually look a bit like a skull. This and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre are the main rivals, as I understand it, for the site of Golgotha and Jesus' tomb. I have no idea which is more legitimate, maybe I'll learn that in my Archaeology of Jerusalem class.
Tuesday night (or Wednesday morning) I went on a night trip through a small neighborhood that was one of the first built outside the Old City walls. It's got about forty synagogues crammed in among the houses, supposedly because of all the immigrant and ethnic groups that came to settle during some kind of land rush, and they all had different customs so they all built their own synagogues. It was pretty interesting to see some of the Rosh Hashana services being held (the ones held pre-dawn are called "Slichot," where they're asking for forgiveness for their sins before the new year) but by then the guide had already dragged us over the entire neighborhood at 5 in the morning, so by the time we got out of the fourth synagogue I was actively looking for an opportunity to shove him in front of a bus. I got back after sunrise and crashed.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home