Walking, Walking, and more Walking

On Friday, we had a tour of the Old City, some time off, then an optional visit to the Great Synagogue for Shabbat service followed by a Shabbat meal. I, of course, took advantage of all optional opportunities. :)

The tour of the Old City was interesting, for certain, although I think it would have been more interesting to me had I not just done a walking tour of the Old City (with a FANTASTIC guide) in October. We visited the Western Wall and then did something we had not done before, and that was visit the archeological ruins at the south wall. The coolest part of that was, as we stood there, we could hear the murmur of the Muslims praying just on the other side of the wall at the Temple Mount. Due to the fact that we are here during Ramadan, it's looking unlikely that we will have a chance to visit the Temple Mount, which disappoints me since that will be TWO trips to Israel without a visit to the Temple Mount.

At the Church of the Holy Sephulchre, I left the group since I had been to that church both in October AND on my first day in Israel when I took my roommate to see it as we strolled the Old City. I, admittedly, got a little cocky and decided to make a detour. I'm not going to detail that story here (it is posted on my other blog, athenajdavis.blogspot.com), but I did gain some insights from it that I will probably work through and post later on my other blog.

I didn't get back to our hotel until 5:30 (for those keeping score at home, that's 5 hours after I left the group and 6.2 miles later. Help us.), so I was pretty rushed to clean up and get ready for Shabbat service. I'm going to be completely honest here... I was really nervous about attending the service. Not because I wasn't interested, and not because it's not my religion, but because I wasn't certain what I was supposed to do! Ephraim gave us an elaborate schedule of the service and talked us through it, which was helpful. In the service itself, it was an Orthodox service, so women were upstairs and men down. We watched Steffy (one of our program directors) and mainly just followed her lead. It was really a unique experience.

Our Shabbat dinner was also pleasant. Ephraim explained the customs of the dinner, then we enjoyed a meal together. I am slowly finding a little niche other than just being friends with my roommate (whom I LOVE), so we had a great talk at dinner. Three people on our trip are employees of USHMM so I was able to pick their brains a bit. I got one incredible piece of news about one of the authors we study in HLit, but I'm going to save it till we get to her in class. :)