Good Friday in the Old City

Katrine and I went to the mid-day procession on the Via Delorosa for Good Friday. And we got a front row seat to all sorts of craziness.

We hung out, squished against the display of an Arab clothing shop somewhere near station number four. For over 35 minutes, thousands of people filed past us. We saw crucifixes ranging in size from twelve feet of metal and carried by several monks to hundreds of little wooden ones each clutched in the hands of believers. Some were silent, some were praying, some were singing, some were crying, some were smiling, some were talking on their cell phones.

And yep, there was even the guy doin' the Mel Gibson, with the crown of thorns covered in blood, towing a big honkin' wooden cross. We are still debating whether the blood was fake or not. In his wake was a big loud speaker with a woman plaintively crying "Help him! Help Jesus!"

The crowd was very pushy as they passed us. I got felt up by so many nuns it isn't even funny.

Despite being in the Holy city on one of the the holiest days of the year, Katrine and I didn't feel holy, we just felt squished.

Buying Spices in the Orient

James has been trying a new recipe each weekend. Last friday he bought all the key ingredients for a new experiment before Shabbat started.... except the spices.

Since we were planning to go to the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem on Shabbat anyway, we detoured through the old city to buy some spices in the Arab quarter.

There are many spice sellers with huge colourful displays of their wares. We chose one of the ones that has a huge pyramid of spices on display out front. The choice was a little intimidating as you can see.

James had put his short Arabic course to work that morning and wisely translated and wrote down the names of what he needed in what I call doodly-doop-doodly-doop.

This crusty old man took his list and just started filling bags, despite the fact that we only needed one tea spoon of each. But, it was the old city, and the spices that perfume the air are cheap. Poor James' fifty words of Arabic caved under the pressure and he and the crusty old spice seller had to regress to James' better second language: Hebrew.

Anyone need any tumeric?

Siu's first days

For months I have been telling Siu Jerusalem is perfectly safe and that is never rains.
Sure enough, the day he gets here, there is the first rain in a month( but only ten minutes) and there are bad things going down in the old city. But these things blow over most of the time, and the old city is back to its usual self.

So Siu is off today for a most worthy endeavor: intentionally getting lost in the old city just to see where it takes you.

He arrived Sunday night and presented us with an entire suitcase full of halloween candy, salt and vinegar pringles, ketchup pringles, popcorn seasoning, coffee, halloween decorations, my long lost birthday present (collected set of Hamish MacBeth DVDs), and all sorts of treasures from the home land courtesy of my mom and Siu himself.

Two bags of mini coffee crisps. TWO whole bags!

I woke up the next morning to James tiptoeing over to the suitcase of yummyness, trying
to score some twizzlers before I woke up.

Chutzpah at an all-time low

We are all friends and family here, right? Because right now, I feel like an idiot. You guys all know that I have skied the Feuz Bowl, repelled down buildings, tossed wrenches at bears, jumped off waterfalls and strapped myself into a jellybean of a boat and attacked big rapids. Right? My womanly chutzpah is at an OK level, is it not?

Today was the group outing (plus James). We went for a late breakfast and then had a tour of the City of David, which is outside the city walls but the actual site of the original "Jerusalem". Learned some cool things, and then the 15 of my research group plus about 15 others headed to the famous and still flowing water tunnel that diverted the spring to a big pool to ensure the city's water supply in ancient times.

Part of the tour is to wade through the cool running water of the twisty tunnel for forty minutes with flashlights as your only light source. Sounds great right? I was all gung-ho.

The tunnel was about two feet wide and about 7 feet tall at the start with a couple of stooping steps necessary. I headed into the tunnel just in front of James and behind him was a four hundred pound man whose girth spanned the entire width of the very narrow tunnel.

"I think someone in our group is might get stuck." James whispered in my ear as a joke. I was not impressed.

I could only really see six feet in front of me before the next turn and had the 20 odd members of our group in front of me. Behind me, the fat man was clapping loudly and yelling encouragements in the dark to the screaming girly members of his family behind him. I was stuck. No where to go. My heart started beating faster and faster and it was all I could do to keep from panicking. In essence, I freaked the heck right out. There was no way I was going to last forty seconds let alone forty minutes.

Luckily there was a spot to the let the fat man pass at his impossibly slow waddle and then I – in almost a blind panic – pushed past the screaming girls to get back to the entrance. I was almost in tears and breathing very heavily.

Forty minutes later, my research group emerged out the other side and realized, "Hey, where's Janet?" I was somewhat hoping that a rumour would spread that I was pregnant (pregnant people weren't allowed in) since that seemed less embarrassing than the truth. But James told them I was claustrophobic, and now my entire research group and my boss know I am an irrational wimp. I feel humiliated.

Shot from the hip

Every once in a while, amoungst all the blurry photos of legs, ceilings and empty walls, I find something beautiful. Enjoy.

Happy Easter Everyone!

I have been slow on describing Good Friday in order to give James' Science paper as much time as possible as top item. (Yes, another shameless plug).

On Friday morning, James and I hoofed it to the old city without coffee to be there for 6:30 am. We were a little late and as we rushed around a corner, were met by a crowd of 150 or so Lutherans, Anglicans, Episcopalians (American Anglicans), Presbyterians and, get this, Arab Lutherans. Besides the suspiciously large numbers of fair people, my religious compatriots were easy to pick out by the weak and slightly shy singing.

We made our way along the narrow passage of the Via Dolorosa, which legend states is the route Jesus carried his cross to be crucified. Along the way there are stations where different events are said to have happened, such as each of his falls or when Veronica wiped his face. The stops are marked with shrines on the side of the wall or itsy bitsy little churches that seemed to have been hewn from the old city rather than built.

At each stop one of the ten or so Reverends with accents from all over the world did a reading and a prayer. James proudly told me later that he thinks "our Rev", a real booming Scotsman, had the best voice of them all.

We ended not at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is run by the Catholics, Orthodox, Armenians, Coptics and the Ethiopians, but next door at the Church of the Redeemer, which is run by the Lutherans but takes in every one else.

Why the early hour? Probably to avoid the open stores with the shameless hawkers and the crowds of the other brands of Christianity doing the same thing throughout the day. As it was, there were people singing in French and Latin behind our group, we passed a group of nuns, and shortly after we finished James and I had to stop for a procession of about 50 monks followed by 30 priests followed by 100 or so people.

I had been expecting to see people carrying giant life size crosses and performing painfully acetic pilgrimages, but perhaps it doesn't actually happen that often or we were too early risers for the crazy folks with Jerusalem Syndrome. The morning was quiet and, well, quite pleasant.

True to form, James claims he has filled his church quota until Christmas and I went to Easter Sunday service solo this morning.

I saw Jesus yesterday

I saw Jesus yesterday in the old city. He was drinking an energy drink, because the Messiah needs a bit of a pick me up after returning to save mankind. Seeing as I had accidentally picked up someone else’s grocery bag on Friday and had been enjoying ill-gotten pastries, I really didn’t want to talk to Jesus. So I shot this pic from the hip.

Jerusalem syndrome is the real deal, and if the Israelis catch you strutting around proclaiming to be King David or the Second Coming, you end up in the nut house on a good dose of antipsychotics and get a free a plane ticket home. Apparently most of the people who get this are protestant Christians and have come from very conservative, literal-interpretation-of-the-bible upbringings. I will admit that my upbringing was a little more apple pie than most, but thank goodness my parents are evolutionists.

What I want to know is, who sold that guy his outfit? REALLY? Come on!

On another note, Thursday was Einat’s going away party. She has finished her masters and is going to Cambridge for a PhD. We were discussing the posh English accent she is going to get to supplement her Hebrew one. James suggested to the group that talking with an English accent requires not moving your upper lip, i.e., having a stiff upper lip, and proceeded to demonstrate. Amit, in a vain attempt to gain a posh British accent, was holding down his upper lip with his finger and asking everyone “Do I sound Eengleesh?” in his thick Hebrew accent. Assi, our local cynic, replied acerbically “You sound like a sixty year-old woman.” I got a horrible fit of the giggles. Despite the tears of laughter rolling down my face, I couldn’t help but watch Amit’s attempts at a stiff upper lip. It was like watching a train wreck. I have been giggling about this all weekend.

The Viennese waltz, box springs and TV remotes

Just so you know, the old city of Jerusalem is everything you would expect it to be. Except smaller. Three major religions have their most holy sites all with one square kilometer. Besides the many religious sites, it is comprised of narrow, windy and confusing streets providing a sensual onslaught of all things for sale: spices, meat, clothing, candy, veggies, giant trays of baklava, shoes, tacky religious icons, and a surprising number of TV remotes. But outside the gates is another story; it is a busy modern city perched on a series of hills. Busses are zooming by, cars honking, everyone is on their way to work in the cement jungle. And now, I need to find an apartment in said jungle.

Sadly, many of the apartments in the areas around the campus have been bought by rich Americans, fixed up, and are being rented out as short term “luxury apartments” to religious tourists and are way out of my price range. However, there seemed to be a few half decent places on the internet within our meager budget.

Today, assisted greatly by my labmate and car owner, Itzik, I went to see three apartments. I have one word to describe them: slummy. As an example: one promising place was described as large, two bedrooms and furnished. When we saw it, it was old, dirty and the furniture dusty and 40 years out of date. A room was still full of the previous tenant’s stuff. The bed is just a mattress on the floor, described the slimy rental agent as we came into the bedroom. I asked “where is the mattress?” He responded “This is the mattress.” I said “that is not a mattress,” and he insisted that it was.

It was an old box spring. Lying on the floor.

And for the privilege of sleeping on it, I would need to pay 4000 Shekels, or about $1300 CAD. Not to mention the $350- 400 of municipal taxes and utilities I would need to tack on. These apartments make my hovel in Edmonton look like a castle.

I did learn a useful tidbit today. James and I are ideal tenants because we are likely to pay all of our rent and we will leave after two years for sure. Apparently it is really hard to evict a tenant here. I will have to exploit this point.

Itzik was horrified by these places. He says we will keep trying tomorrow. Maxie has found a good place so I will stolidly remain optimistic.

On a good note, my labmates seem friendly, the lab well equipped and I am SOOOOO ready to get going on my project. Today, I learned some exciting (but secret) things about the preliminary work already done by a PhD student that I will be working with. My fingers are itching to set up some reactions.

It is my last night in the Austrian hospice and there is a concert upstairs for all of the Austrian ex-pats. I am listening to live big band music in the old city of Jerusalem. Weird.

Good Lord, what have I done?

My second night in Jerusalem was not a good one. I got into a big stew about “I don’t belong here”, “What the hell am I doing here”, “I am too old for this”, “I can’t do this”…etc. I stewed so much that I couldn’t sleep, gave myself a wicked headache and a tummy ache to boot. My imagination ran wildly through the dark hours in my hostel bed. In the morning, it was all I could do to force down a bowl of fruit cocktail without throwing up. I took another body and jaw clenching nap and then later in the morning my heart gained some courage and told my aching tummy to get a grip. I decided the word for the day was “plucky” and I got off my butt and wandered the streets of the old city. I figured I have to take ownership of the place and get out there and explore. Make it my city. After three hours of wandering, sight seeing, and gaining some much needed confidence, I felt much better.

The hero of this day was my hostel rommie Maxie (short for Maxiemiliane) from Germany. She too is studying at Hebrew U (a different campus though) and arrived three days before me and is in much the same boat. I think she figured out what was going on and did her best to be sympathetic and encourage me in her own way. She brought me pistachios. You can always win my loyalty with food.

Welcome to the Maple Shekel

Hello all to my crazy adventure of a little Dorset girl in the holy city: Jerusalem. I arrived a few days ago on a plane that was so old I was gripping the ashtrays in the arm rests. I made my way through the night to the Austrian Hospice (truly an oasis in the chaos of the old city) and only got slightly scammed by my taxi driver (I was haggling for the first time ever, how good could I be?). I had a life-reviving shower and blissfully crawled into my domatory bed. Is seemed like only seconds after I layed my weary head that I was woken up by an Arab man loudly singing though a speaker pointed directly at my window. The pre-dawn call to prayer was the most beautiful and haunting thing I had ever heard, and I was enchanted by the voice in the dark - well, for the first five minutes. After twenty minutes, I decided not to look for an apartment in the Muslim quarter.

Well there is entry one of several crazy adventures. Get ready for posts on, forging for food in the old city, the Holy Church of the Boogers, om-pa-pa music, slimy rental agents, and other great adventures yet to be had.

Your pal near the centre of the universe,
Janet