My first week in Jerusalem is now over and I can official say that the honeymoon feel has worn off. I don’t want to make it seem like I don’t enjoy being here, but I am beginning to see the city for the city it actually is.
Probably the best way that I could explain Jerusalem, outside of all the amazing historical sites, is that it is sketchy and expensive.
First, Sketchy. Walking in Jerusalem from one side of the city to another should not be done. That is because the city is sketchy. For example, a few days ago I was at a friends house and after hanging out I decided to walk home. They lived on the south side of Jerusalem, while the student dorms are on the north side. The walk was a little more than an hour, but was quite stressful. After walking around the old city, which was not a big deal, I then entered into a Palestinian nieghborhood. Probably not the best place to be wandering around and hoping that it leads to the university dorms. Well, while I was walking through the prayer call went off. Usually the prayer call kinda freaks me out because it is some guy just reading stuff off in arabic. This time I surprisingly felt much safer when the prayer call went off because I figured that the Palestinians would be much less likely to mess with me during a prayer time.
Thank the Lord that they didn’t mess with me. There is one great thing about being in Israel, and my friend Funny (yeah, thats her name, shes Swedish) said it. “God really protects his children here in Jerusalem, it’s his city.”
Second, Money. One would think that coming to Israel (the middle east) would mean that everything is cheap. Like I could go to the shook (market) and buy food for an entire week for like 5 dollars. Yeah, not so much. Every little thing here is expensive, and it has totally blown me away. I have spent more money in the last week than I have spent in a long time. My advice for anyone planning on traveling to Israel is this: Bring everything you can from the US. I thought it would make life much easier by just bringing a backpack. Possibly if my only time here would have been traveling.
1 Comment
July 4, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Time for a new entry dude. Its almost been a week. BTW, do you need money? If I had any I would send it.