and I was like "Jeeeerusaleeeem"

So I wrote a wonderful eloquent blog, if there could be such a thing with such a name, and then pressed the "publish button" on this horrible computer and poof gone, just like that, so hopefully I can scrap together a meager imitation of the previous brilliance describing my trip to Israel.... Jerusalem in particular....

okay, so my pilgrimage to the holy land. We started out our trip checking into a hostel with a lot of character in the pouring rain on Christmas day. Awww Petra Hostel, how we do love thee. It was nice because there were 7 of us so we had enough to fill a room of bunks by ourselves. Well there were technically 8 bunks, but Matt stepping onto his top bunk, actually managed to step *through* the thinner than plywood contraption holding up the "mattress" which actually might be one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life, and laughed so hard that I cried, but then again I was also really tired, so that could've added to the general silliness and glee of the group.

It seems impossible to recount all the sights, and not only impossible, but really boring to list every single holy place we came across while in Jerusalem. If you want to learn about those, read teh guide book, I'll focus more on my experience in the city. Our hostel was located in the Old City, which is where we spent most of our time seeing the sights during the day, but everything shuts down at night, which is when we went out! The nice thing about staying in a hostel is you can be lucky enough to be plugged into this fantastic transient adventurous community of instant companions brought together by your mutual isolation in foreign surroundings. We made many of these friends. After a few days in teh Petra hostel, and bidding most of our group adieu, Matt, Kim, Alex (a new friend from New York) moved to another Hostel which was less expensive and much nicer, amazing. The Tabasco hostel was remarkably clean for one reason. As explained to me be the front desk worker whose name I have forgotten, the guy who cleans the hostel is OCD and "even when there is no dirt, he sees teh dirt in his head and has to clean it again" hmmmm, well teh bathrooms were spotless. It was a bit tricky getting dressed in a shower stall (Kim and I were the only two girls in a room of about 10 bunk beds and 10 young strapping men and one old guy, and a middle aged guy with dreds) so we had to get dressed in the shower essentially. no problem, all part of the fun of communal living.

Another interesting quirk about Jerusalem is something called the "Jerusalem Complex" where people start to think that they are biblical characters, see visions, hands coming out of the walls, you know things like that. In fact, the same nameless desk worker was telling me of how they use to have someone who called himself King David and a woman who called herself Mary Magdeline staying at the hostel, they of course got together and moved on. I heard about this queer occurrence just a day after Alex and I had been talking in the Petra Hostel, when a guy came and talked to us for at least, at LEAST 30 minutes about how he didn't have good credit now because his credit cards had the mark of the beast and that the credit card companies were cursing him. hmmm... what it sounded like to me was that he spent money over his limit and he couldn't' pay the bills on time, but sure, mark of the beast, why not? at least he was creative.

The entire time I was in Jerusalem, seeing the holy sights I could not escape this not so holy feeling. It was a combination of the commercialism of God in the form of plastic baby Jesus and holy water from the river Jordon and the constant Israeli military presence. I've said it once and I'll say it again, when you are sitting with your friend at a bar and a group of teenage boys come in with huge oozies strapped to their backs, I don't care how cheerful you are, that kills the relaxing mood right there. It was a reminder that even though we were in a holy city, we were so close and surrounded by modern military action and war. The sacred and the secular seem to be favorite travel companions. My trips down Via Dolarosa, seeing the room of the last supper and Tower of David were mingled with new friends, romance, and good food. I'm not entirely sure that pilgrimages are not meant to be a blend of both human and divine goodness, how are we to know God, but through others, surely not through the spot on one brick building that is historically recognized as the place of such and such and so and so. I think Chaucer described the journey best in Canterbury tales, where very human, very real people strove to get closer to God, but also wanted to travel, see the world and meet new people. All in all, I would say that my trip to Jerusalem was a microcosm of the life of a YAGM, we want to do well and grow closer to God, but we are also human, flawed, fallen, and far from perfect. So I have to give a little shout out to Chaucer for saying it best, Wife of Bathe, the Miller, Pardoner, coming from different backgrounds, experiences, but all trudging along that same path to get a little closer to the Women upstairs and if we are lucky make some friends along the way.

THe view from Mt. Tabor was breathtaking, this was probably my favorite stop on our tour around Galilee, on the top of this ridiculously curvey road which almsot made me car sick... it was 100% worth it.  

Karen, Kim, Lisa and myself as we started off into our holyland adventure! this picture was taken on the first day of our trip right after a ten hour busride just on the Israeli side of the border. hoorah! 

Rachel and Kim in front of the St. Catherines during Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve

Palestine

One of the boys walking through the Refugee camp, you can see all the message board writing on the wall, each color is from a different political group, the scarf around his neck is a common site, so show their support of Yasser Arafat

processional in front of the church of the nativity on Christmas eve day 

Merry Christmas From Palestine

So I just returned from one of the most amazing trips of my life. There is so much to say that I decided to write it in at least two chunks... so the first "blog" will be about our trip to Bethlehem, nestled in Palestinian territory. So we load up the bus to take our ten hour ride to Israel, cross the border with little trouble and then take another four hour bus ride up to Jerusalem (on the way we had a rest stop at the dead seas where I touched the water!) When we arrived off that bus in Jerusalem, I could not believe my eyes, it really is the 51st state, everything just like at home (except for the massive amount of military and Jewish folk.) After walking through the checkpoint to Bethlehem whatever preconceived notions I had about Palestine melted away. It is a beautiful area, but the difference in wealth by just crossing through the check point was astounding. In Bethlehem, there is graffiti everywhere in different colors (which I later learned denoted messages from different activists group around Bethlehem) But the people were amazing, so kind and helpful and welcoming, but I could go on for days about their generosity and hospitality. So anyway...we arrive at our hotel attached to the church of the nativity, and it is fantastic, a real bed with a real pillow, I can hardly believe my eyes, and there are marching bands warming up outside for the big parade on Christmas eve day. So after seeing all the sights we went to a fantastic Bach concert, and straight to bed. Christmas eve day is the busy day in Bethlehem, with parades and balloons, cotton candy, kids in Santa suits everywhere, choirs singing. Apparently the two big instruments for parades in Palestine are bagpipes and drums, because I saw at least 5 different groups with that musical conglomerate. Looking at the crowd, you wouldn't' know if you were at the Macy's day parade in New York or in Palestine, it was, well, magical....

Before I forget I should also mention a few things that I learned while I was there, a few main points, if you will, as it were. So right now the Israeli es are building essentially a cage around Bethlehem, the fence surrounds the territory so completely that they cannot escape from any side without permission, and permission is very difficult to obtain. So that means no access to all the wonderful modern miracles that lie within a mile of their house, no farmland that has been in the family for generations, and no homes or houses. We also had a tour of a Palestinian refugee camp courtesy of a man named, i kid you not, named Jihad Ramadan, and he showed us some of the sites of Israeli bombings, when people are marked for whatever reason, the military simply comes into the camps id the middle of the night, tells the people to clear out and blows up their apartments, the particular apartment we looked at was located on top of a preschool, why don't we ever see that on FOX news? where you at CNN? So now imagine the small town where you grew up had a fence around it that you could not pass through, that you had no contact with anyone outside your town in at least three years. I would go mad! But this is the situation that many Palestinians face, and those are the lucky ones, at least they can still live in their homes, that their land hasn't been fully taken over by Israeli settlers, and at least they don't live in a refugee camp.

okay back to Christmas eve, so we went to the St. Catherine's for Christmas eve service, which was crowded, but pleasant, I preferred the service we went to earlier that night at the local LUTHERAN church which was in English, Arabic and German. just my style. Oh and did I mention that it rained on Christmas eve and Christmas day? that was fantastic, clean rain too, not like the rain in Cairo, and it was freezing cold, I wore two pairs of pants almost the entire trip. I loved it. Oh and I was interviewed on CNN radio, live at five as the token American tourists in Bethlehem, we were few and far between. So that is the nutshell of my Christmas experience in Bethlehem, oh and the falafels there are fantastic. Tune in next time for "Rachel goes to Jerusalem"