New Adventures Around Every Corner

     Today was our first full day in Jerusalem. Now, you know your in a foreign country when they serve fish and olives for breakfast. After breakfast, I went outside where an young Israeli man taught me how to ride a bike. First, he had me to downhill without touching the pedals to get a feel for balance and using the hand-brakes. Then he had me go downhill normally. I kept looking to close to me and running into posts and curbs. The man told me, "Look at least 30ft. ahead of you, just like when driving. You do have cars in Canada?!". It was pretty funny. He later had me go uphill, which was rather difficult. I was doing better than William though, he biked right into a pole and fell off his bike. Megan had a much more difficult time learning than I did and the bike rental man drove us in his stick-shift truck to the first location.

     We waited about an hour for the rest of the group to catch up to us. While waiting, we almost got pooped on by birds, got glared at by a dog (and just about every person that walked, biked, or drive past us), and got honked at by every taxi that passed. Once everyone else arrived, we met a Palestinian man who shared with us his struggles growing up in Israel.

     Afterwards, Megan and I took a taxi (while everyone else rode bikes) to our next location, the Jaffa Gate. While waiting for the rest of the group, we walked around Teddy Park. Once we met up with the group we stopped for beverages. I got some fresh squeezed pomegranate juice! We ate lunch at a nice (somewhat expensive) restaurant called Versavee. The food was awesome! Did you know here French fries are considered to be a type of salad? So is pita bread dipped in hummus. After that, we visited the Wailing Wall. Their were some gunshots nearby, but none of the locals seemed to notice or care.

     While their, I put a prayer in the wall and spent some time talking with a woman from New York who believes that a third temple is going to be built and that Jesus will return their. From the Wailing Wall, we could see the Dome of the Rock, but we didn't get any closer than that. From their, we walked the Via Dolorosa ending our tour at The Church of the Holy Sepulcher. We biked back to our hostel (Megan and I rode tandom bikes with our tour guides). We had dinner here and met as a group to debrief the day, read some scripture, and prepare for tomorrow. So far, this trip has been great!