My Jerusalem Life

June 29th

Today we had our first class on Islam. It was really interesting and I got some clarification on the religion and mainly on its origins. One thing that I have been wondering about though, are the different ways the women dress here. Some wear long black cloaks that look heavy, some wear the entire black dress with only their eyes showing, and then others wear flamboyant and flashy headscarves with a normal western outfit on over pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt. But today in class we learned that they all wear their respective coverings according to their particular sect of Islam. I want to learn now what all those are.

After class and lunch we had a long afternoon of free time. We went to the Rockefeller Museum in town, it has ancient coins, pottery, stone carvings, marble statues, wood carvings from an old Mosque and just fun things to look at. It was air-conditioned and that was very needed. Afterwards we went to Aladdin’s a money changer that takes American checks. He had Jazz bumper stickers on the walls and notes from past students for future students. I had a note from Cami my sister, Anne Kelley and Kristen Irvine, all of whom were here Winter or Spring semesters. I felt loved! After that, we went to walk along the ramparts (the city walls). We walked past tons of shops and moseyed our way over to the gate to get on the walls. I was happy to finally make it to the walls because I wasn’t in a shopping mood and we were taking FOREVER! We passed Shaaban’s store who loves the BYU students. Cami told me I have to go to his shop, and we didn’t have time, but Shaaban chased us down to double check that we were BYU and to give us cold drinks. It’s so funny. His sign says BYU shop on it, and he has BYU flags and a picture with him and Steve Young. I have yet to go in the shop but he apparently has an Oregon flag too! He gave us a shortcut to Joffa gate where we started the ramparts walk, and we walked along the ramparts, stopping for 100 times more pictures than I would have taken if we did it my way, but it was still fun. Here is our group:

Here are a couple other pictures from our walk:

The gold dome is the Dome of the Rock, one of the holy places of Islam, and the street is an upper shot of the entrance from Damascus gate. We walk down this street everyday and there is a delicious falafel place at the end apparently, but we have yet to find it open.

We got falafels at the end and then walked over to see the Dome of the Rock, but were too late so continued on to see the Western Wall. I was surprised at how many women there were. It seemed there were more women there than men, but I can’t be sure because the women’s worship area is a lot smaller. It was really cool though, and I felt kind of emotional there. I don’t know if it’s because there were people all over praying, obviously very emotional and spiritually connected as they rocked back and forth praying. It was really neat to be there. Here’s a picture of me standing in front of the wall:

We came home and ate dinner quickly before going to a fireside by Elder Neuenschwander and now I’m procrastinating my homework, but this is kind of a journal entry so I feel ok about that.