So yesterday was really interesting. I slept in as long as I could to finally grab a full night's rest (which is impossible in Irbid). We did not go to the museums as planned, because it was still part of that holiday, so they were closed. Instead we walked to and up the Mount of Olives to try and find the Garden of Gethsemane. After walking around the old city, we climbed the thousands of steps and hills beside the cemetery of Jerusalem with its rows and rows of grave markers. At the top is a spectacular view of all of Jerusalem. After that we made our way along the top of the mountain towards the large steeples that seemed to say, "Hey look at me, I am the Garden of Gethsemane. They weren't. Eventually we gave up and asked a man in Arabic where the garden was located. He kindly informed us that it was down the mountain. We descended the mountain passing small villas and large gardens, not expecting to find Gethsemane, but woe upon our expectations we saw an engraved sign that said "Hortus Gethsemane". (Right next to the Lion's Gate of the Old City. We could have avoided all of that mountain climbing business) With olive trees that are aged at being there at Jesus' time of prayer, that was definitely the best experience that I have had here.
We were pretty tired after all of this because we had just climbed a mountain and descended so we decided to mosey on back through the old city and grab a bite near the hostel. On the way I found an Ole Miss shirt in Arabic, Coca-Cola shirt in Arabic and a few surprises for the fam.
Also stumbled upon some pro-Palestinian graffiti in a part of the city, was quite beautiful.
So we got back to the hostel and decided to try and find a bar to get a couple of beers, eventually we settled on one about five minutes from our hostel. And it became one of those nights...
One of those nights where the only guy sitting in the bar has a mohawk and is really friendly and speaks Hebrew, Arabic, Finnish, and English fluently and he is only 18 and he runs his own business and he graduated from the Culinary Institute of America at age 16 and where it is happy hour for 7 hours and you drink two pints of beer because the second one is free and the Finnish guy thinks you are funny Americans and buys you a glass of Finlandia, his favorite vodka and you drink it to be polite but he says the conditions for him buying is that you have a second vodka and keep up the conversation and you don't want to be rude so you indeed drink a second one and he invites you to a bar near your hostel where Israeli blues is playing where they have free shots and you go and have a beer and with the beer comes two free shots of something foul but everyone around insists that you take them so you don't want to be rude so you take them and you realize that you never ate dinner and all of this is on an empty stomach so you begin to feel really drunk and you smartly make your way back to the hostel and pass out feeling like a loser...
Yay Jerusalem
The 2000 year old Olive tree
We were pretty tired after all of this because we had just climbed a mountain and descended so we decided to mosey on back through the old city and grab a bite near the hostel. On the way I found an Ole Miss shirt in Arabic, Coca-Cola shirt in Arabic and a few surprises for the fam.
Also stumbled upon some pro-Palestinian graffiti in a part of the city, was quite beautiful.
Backgammon in the Old City
So we got back to the hostel and decided to try and find a bar to get a couple of beers, eventually we settled on one about five minutes from our hostel. And it became one of those nights...
One of those nights where the only guy sitting in the bar has a mohawk and is really friendly and speaks Hebrew, Arabic, Finnish, and English fluently and he is only 18 and he runs his own business and he graduated from the Culinary Institute of America at age 16 and where it is happy hour for 7 hours and you drink two pints of beer because the second one is free and the Finnish guy thinks you are funny Americans and buys you a glass of Finlandia, his favorite vodka and you drink it to be polite but he says the conditions for him buying is that you have a second vodka and keep up the conversation and you don't want to be rude so you indeed drink a second one and he invites you to a bar near your hostel where Israeli blues is playing where they have free shots and you go and have a beer and with the beer comes two free shots of something foul but everyone around insists that you take them so you don't want to be rude so you take them and you realize that you never ate dinner and all of this is on an empty stomach so you begin to feel really drunk and you smartly make your way back to the hostel and pass out feeling like a loser...
Yay Jerusalem
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