September 19, 2007

Laura White
September 19, 2007
Today was a free day in order to prepare for the trip to Egypt. Some of the people in the group decided to go to Tel Aviv today, but I was among those that chose to stay in Jerusalem. In the morning a group of us went to Aladdin’s to change money for Egypt and proceeded to browse through the market on our way to West Jerusalem where a large group of students had decided to meet for lunch. We ate at a shop on Ben Yehuda Street, some of us buying schwarma and others trying falafel. It was fun to meet there all together and try some of the food – it was quite tasty. Mostly though I think everyone was dying of thirst and most of us bought water or soda or something.
After lunch the group decided to split and go in their various directions. A group of six of us wanted to explore West Jerusalem a little more so we found the Ethiopian (Abyssinian) Church on Ethiopia Street. It was on a small, un-crowded road with nice houses on both side and beautiful gardens we could glimpse over the walls. The Ethiopian church itself was in a small complex. We had to take our shoes off before entering the church itself which was a round building. It was colored brightly in pinks and blues and had an alter in the center, which we walked around. It was one of the most unique and colorful churches that I have been to here in the Holy Land though each one has been interesting. Across the street from the Ethiopian church was the house of Ben Yehuda – who “invented” and was a proponent for modern Hebrew. As far as we could tell, there was no tour or anything of the house so we just looked at it from the outside and wandered away.
Our wanderings took us to a rather large sign that indicated that we were about to enter Me’a She’arim – since we weren’t properly dressed to enter the area we decided to make our way back to the Jerusalem Center via the money changers (half our group hadn’t gone yet) and see what we could find on the way there. We tried to visit the Russian Church, but it was closed. Then we just walked outside of the Old City. It was a nice day and it got cooler as the day progressed. It was fun to explore West Jerusalem a bit because I hadn’t really been there yet. At first I just thought that West Jerusalem was too commercial, but as we explored some of the less busy streets they were really pretty. It was an enjoyable day – ending up in the Jerusalem Center with dinner and playing games that night.