Old City Strolling

My day started at 3:30 AM with a key being repeatedly inserted into my door. I jolted out of bed, assuming it was my roommate but not certain since I had no idea when she would arrive. After some heart-pounding moments, I realized it was her and, after introductions, we both slept till 10 AM. I guess I was more tired than I realized.

We spent the day strolling around the Old City through Jaffa Gate, visiting The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Western Wall, a beautiful scenic point above the wall, and the archeological excavation. It was really cool because I was able to share some of the things our tour guide in October had told us.

I was impressed yet again this trip, and it was mentioned by my roommate, Tiffany, at how SMALL the Western Wall is. I think it's one of those psychological things where you expect it to be huge because it occupies such an important part of history, conflict, and news stories. Then you get there and it's really quite small. It reminds me of the time in All Quiet on the Western Front when the Kaiser comes to visit and they are all shocked at how short he is. A man with such power should be much larger, they say.

 (I felt the same way about the Hope Diamond {unrelated}. "Biggest diamond in the world!" they said. "Make sure you see it!" they said. Waited in line 2 hours in 1996 on our senior Model UN trip only to get to the case and ask, "Where is it?" It was that tiny jewel on the pillow. I expected a boulder. 😂) (Sorry. I really hope discussing the Hope Diamond and the Western Wall in the same context isn't sacriligious.)

After a forever long and hot walk back (that included stopping at the market for a six pack of nearly 2 liters of coke), we rested for about an hour before our first meeting.

The meeting was really ... surprising, intimidating, and thrilling. :) There are around 40 of us, not the 8 I initially thought. There are only about 13 Americans. The majority are French-Canadians! There are probably half K-12 teachers (or less) and the rest are either college professors, academics, or historians. There are three USHMM employees here, a German girl who is living in Mexico and teaching, a girl from Romania who talks and acts just like Gabi Tallant 😉, a lawyer/judge turned high school history teacher, and a civil rights journalist. Most interesting of all, a man who was a student in The Wave class and who created the documentary on it!!! I'm so pumped to learn so much with such a stellar group. I'm definitely jv compared to these guys, but I don't mind. :)

I'm finding it impossible to add pics from my phone, which requires me to download them from FB onto my computer, then switch wifi from my phone to my computer (and yesterday it took forever to get it BACK!), then add pics from the computer to the posts. I'm going to wait till I get to Yad Vashem today to add pics and see if that pattern works better.