Day 51

This morning was the Old Testament midterm. It was a lot harder than the last one, with a lot of details about places and scriptures but I think I did ok. We had ANE for an hour after that, then I watched You've Got Mail with a few girls before lunch.

After lunch I took a nap until we could go out at 3. We went over to West Jerusalem first, because my roommates had never tried Challa bread, but they ended up being out of the good kind at the bakery we went to so we got fruit smoothies instead. While we were walking back toward the Old City, we heard a bunch of music coming from a couple streets over so we went to check it out and there was this huge street party! There was really good music and a bunch of people dancing, so we hung out there for a little bit.

We had to stop by Shaban's so people could exchange money, and I bought a sweet tshirt and a necklace from him. We stopped at this Christian place that is a “guesthouse” for pilgrims. I talked to the guy at the desk there, and he was telling me about all the people they get from Italy, Spain, and South America who come stay there while they are visiting the Holy Land. There are a lot of really cool hostels and hospices that seem like they would be really fun to stay at if I come back here some day.

As we were walking back toward Damascus Gate, we went into this little shop and ended up talking to this Palestinian man for a while. He was talking about the Conflict, and his feelings about how unfair it was for the Arabs to lose their land and become refugees in their own country. It is always interesting to hear peoples' personal experiences and how they view what is going on and how it affects their day-to-day lives. This man had a more down-to-earth perspective than some others do. When we asked him what he thought a solution might be, he said there could never be peace without the Palestinians getting back to their homes and their lands. He said there are many people who fled during the war who still have the keys to their homes and are waiting for the day when they can safely return to them.

After dinner a Jewish man came to teach us some traditional Israeli folk dancing. It was really fun, there were a lot more steps than there were for Palestinian folk dancing, but they weren't too complicated. There was a lot of shimmying and one part that was kind of like a Virginia Reel, it was pretty sweet!