Can't believe I am still awake! I couldn't sleep on the plane at all!
But I wanted to send a few pictures from our first day in Jerusalem. We
left Dallas at 10:30am on Saturday, April 21, sat at the JFK airport for
5 hours before taking of in a 747 jumbo jet for Ben Gurion airport. We
were able to be fully rested to start our trip so the first day of
travel wasn't too bad. Until 1:00-6:00am on the airplane. Sleeping
sitting up... no good. We were fed breakfast then and started to see
some high, snowy mountains in Europe, the Mediterranean Sea, and then
the straight coastline of Israel. So adrenaline
started carrying us at that point! Everything went smoothly getting off
of the plane and through the airport. Thankfully, the trip has been well
planned. We got a number of stamps in our passports and have gone
through many security checkpoints just to get into the country.
Here is our bus for the trip! We were picked up at the airport by our driver, Nael, and drove for an hour into Jerusalem. We are traveling with about 40 other people mostly from our church. We prayed as a group as we drove out of the airport for the many answered prayers for our safe arrival. We thanked God for the opportunity to be in his chosen land and excitedly looked forward to seeing Israel. We quickly started ascending the hills out of the flat plain/coastline where the airport was into the Shephelah (foothills) and then into the hill country I was getting sleepy on the bus ride, but our trip leader Todd had lots of interesting things to point out as we drove along.
We are staying right in Old City Jerusalem! This is us walking into Jaffa Gate - the gate leading to the road to Jaffa/Joppa. Our bus dropped us off at the bottom of this hill and we climbed many stairs up to the Old City. There was a road that we saw with a few cars on it. But most of the roads in the Old City are only for foot traffic (and some motorcycles)!
Look closely - sign for Jaffa Gate
Just inside the gate we turned up the first road and were at our hotel! The Gloria hotel has been a very authentic experience so far. Made out of the required stone facade, decorated in a very Israeli style, kind of cave like but very comfortable. We are staying on the 1st floor (which is actually the second floor because they start counting their stories with the ground level first like in Europe) and have a very comfortable room. We appreciate our leader Todd seeking out this very authentic hotel right in the heart of the Old City instead of the more modern ones in the outskirts of Jerusalem.
The street outside of the hotel
Our room! We dropped of our luggage and were in our room for literally 5 minutes before we hit the road again. We were told not to even test out our pillows yet :)
In the lobby of the hotel about to head out into the city
Here is our bus for the trip! We were picked up at the airport by our driver, Nael, and drove for an hour into Jerusalem. We are traveling with about 40 other people mostly from our church. We prayed as a group as we drove out of the airport for the many answered prayers for our safe arrival. We thanked God for the opportunity to be in his chosen land and excitedly looked forward to seeing Israel. We quickly started ascending the hills out of the flat plain/coastline where the airport was into the Shephelah (foothills) and then into the hill country I was getting sleepy on the bus ride, but our trip leader Todd had lots of interesting things to point out as we drove along.
We are staying right in Old City Jerusalem! This is us walking into Jaffa Gate - the gate leading to the road to Jaffa/Joppa. Our bus dropped us off at the bottom of this hill and we climbed many stairs up to the Old City. There was a road that we saw with a few cars on it. But most of the roads in the Old City are only for foot traffic (and some motorcycles)!
Look closely - sign for Jaffa Gate
Just inside the gate we turned up the first road and were at our hotel! The Gloria hotel has been a very authentic experience so far. Made out of the required stone facade, decorated in a very Israeli style, kind of cave like but very comfortable. We are staying on the 1st floor (which is actually the second floor because they start counting their stories with the ground level first like in Europe) and have a very comfortable room. We appreciate our leader Todd seeking out this very authentic hotel right in the heart of the Old City instead of the more modern ones in the outskirts of Jerusalem.
The street outside of the hotel
Our room! We dropped of our luggage and were in our room for literally 5 minutes before we hit the road again. We were told not to even test out our pillows yet :)
In the lobby of the hotel about to head out into the city
Our leader Todd led us out into the city to a shop in the Christian Quarter owned by Shabban - a man he has been doing business with in a fair manner for 20 years. We changed our money there into New Israeli Shekels and got our senses FILLED with the sights, colors, and smells of all of the shops in the Christian Quarter.
We walked around a little bit outside of our hotel and then went back for dinner. The food was wonderful... hummus, lots of vegetable salads all with a different seasoning, seasoned yellow rice, meat in a creamy sauce, pita bread and pasta. And cake for dessert.
After dinner we went back to our room for literally 15 minutes before we were off again for the Western Wall. We wound our way past the Christian Quarter and through the old city for the maybe 10-15 minute walk to the wall from our hotel. We had to go through security again at the entrance to the wall and have our bags and cameras xrayed.
Matt and I descending the steps into the prayer plaza with the Western Wall behind us. The bottom 7 rows of stones are huge in size and were laid there by King Herod when he rebuilt the temple (there are also many more rows of stones underground). The top rows of the wall were reconstructed a little over 100 years ago.
The wall was a very worshipful area full of many Jews there to pray as their ancestors have been praying in this location for hundreds and hundreds of years. The wall is the remains of the outer courtyard of the temple in Jerusalem. The temple first destroyed in 586 BC by the Babylonians, later rebuilt by King Herod and was destroyed again in 70 AD by the Romans. There are remains of the other 4 walls as well and I believe we will also see the Southern wall and Northern wall. If you look closely in this picture, you can see the small pieces of paper containing prayers that people have put into the crevices in the wall.
The men and women have separate areas that they can go to pray that are separated by gates. Here is my view of the wall from the Women's Side. Hundreds of women and their children prayed here using prayer books, laying their hands on the wall and chanting.
The men were also very worshipful in their prayers with many of them bowing repeatedly as they prayed, chanting, singing and almost all of them wearing the same clothes. Many men had peyots (the curls the grow on the side of their head and never cut), wore black suits, white shirts, and black hats. Matt said many of them also had on almost identical glasses.
We saw a number of young-looking soldiers with machine guns in this area and near our hotel but never felt unsafe or even unwelcome. The hotel staff greeted us warmly as did the shop keepers (of course). I feel like I am a big dollar sign walking through the Christian Quarter as EVERYONE has something to show me. We haven't bought anything yet (except a bottle of water for 5 shekels) but are taking it all in and deciding what souvenirs we'd like to have. Saw many cute camel stuffed animals and tshirts with any character and the world "Jerusalem" on it (Hello Kitty, Angry Birds, Smurfs, even BYU Cougars).
We were able to check in on the kids and talk to Oliver before we went to bed and that was wonderful. They are doing well and are being well taken care of by Granna and Papa! We went to bed at 9pm local time (1pm Texas time) and fell asleep immediately. I woke up at 2am after sleeping for 5 hours and then laid in bed for another hour before I gave up on sleeping. I might try and lay down again in a bit. Matt has been snoozing next to me the whole time (he did on the plane too). I guess I'm a lighter sleeper!
We love everyone and look forward to updating you about our day tomorrow/today which we have been promised will be incredible!
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