First trip to Jerusalem.

We drove straight to Mamilla Mall, parked underground, and successfully used the Pango app which we recently discovered after finally getting a 100 shekel parking ticket in Kfar Saba where we had been nonchalantly parking wherever we could find a spot for the past few weeks.  This app lets you pay for parking, usually only a few shekels, wherever you are in the country.  Then we headed for the Aroma Cafe at the end of mall just before the Jaffa Gate to get some energy for the afternoon.  We walked straight through the Old City to the Western Wall – I remembered the straight path from the last several times I’ve been here – but we walked right past the Wall and out the Dung Gate, down the street a bit and over to Ir David, the City of David archeological site and location of Hezekiah’s water tunnel walk, which the kids had been asking to do again. (we had done it last year as well).  You can read about it online; basically its a 40min walk single file through a pitch-black, underground, carved-through-the-rock, water tunnel, in mid-shin deep water, which was commissioned by King Hezekiah during the end of the First Temple period to draw water into the walled city so they would have a secure water source.  Despite it being our third time, we forgot to bring flashlights, but they were happy to sell us for four shekels a couple of small LED lights for the trek.  The kids absolutely loved it.  Then we walked back up to the main center through an excavated portion of a drainage path which flowed underneath the main roadway leading up to the Second Temple.  Apparently many Jews hid in that drainage tunnel during the Roman siege and they have found coins, cooking utensils, and even a small pomegranate shaped golden bell which may have adorned the High Priest’s robes as he walked above.  

We walked back through the Dung Gate and met our friends at the Wall, where we approached it for the first time.  I made this trip bearing some gifts and tidings from various people in the US, including money for charity in Jerusalem and a request for a note to be put in one of the cracks in the Wailing Wall.  It was nice.  I felt like a spiritual emissary.

Afterwards, we had dinner at a very good restaurant along Mamilla Mall.  Where we all checked our email and messages.  And I thought of the strange but vibrant juxtaposition of old and new that is Jerusalem.