Day 7 Exploring the Old City

We managed to sleep in pretty late this morning: 10 o'clock! Yumm. Laid around a bit, had some pastries for breakfast.

The elevator freaked me out last night. Observant Jews can't press the buttons on the sabbath, in the same way as they can't do any kind work or carry money. So the elevator has a Sabbath setting where it simply stops on every floor. It took quite a while.

In the morning we checked email and wrote and read a bit. At two we met our group at the Jaffa Gate of the Old City and were led onto the ancient fortification walls. It was a beautiful walk behind churches and overlooking gardens and rooftops. We walked along the perimeter of the Christian Quarter and into the Muslim Quarter, and came down over on that side of the Old City. There's a whole dimension of the city that most tourists never see, and can only be seen a little bit from the ramparts. Rooftops are treated like courtyards or rear gardens in the Old City. The residents spend the cool hours of the early evening above and unseen by the tourists and pilgrims.

Today I heard the Muslim Call to Prayer for the first time since being in Morocco. They competed with the church bells of the Roman Catholic churches. I must say I don't always like the bells (the clanging chimes of St. Patrick's in San Francisco, for example), but the church bells here are quite nice.

Rivalry is everywhere here. The Catholics built a grand Church of the Holy Sepulcher on the supposed site of Jesus' crucifixion and burial. So the Muslims (under the Turks) built two mosques on either side with minarets taller than the gold cross of the church. Meanwhile, the Protestants, contrarian by definition, insist that the burial site of Christ is actually on another hill outside the walls of the City. Meanwhile, Jews are buying property in the Muslim quarter and displacing Palestinians. Legal, but provocative. Everyone has equal opportunity to be insulted.