12 Hours in the City

This is me in front of the housing place of the Holy Sepulchre.

Again, this is the house of the Holy Sepulchre. The mass we went to was right in front of it.

Today we woke up bright and early and left the center at six with a group of people to attend a Catholic mass in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I have never attended another religious service before and it was interesting but it also got boring because the entire thing was in Latin and the chanting and singing seemed very repetitive. I am so glad that our church services are nothing like that.

The service was performed right next to the Holy Sepulchre which is where most Christians believe Christ's dead body once laid. After the service everyone got in a line to have an opportunity to go in and see the Sepulchre and we joined in. Basically the sepulchre is a piece of stone, definitely not from that time but recreated, inside a little dark house thing inside the church. The whole church just kind of has a weird feeling because it is so dark inside and there are several different religions that seem like they are competing when they have services at the same time. This church is a pilgrimage site for many different sects and I could tell that the people there cherished the opportunity to participate in the services and see the sepulchre. The whole thing was definitely an interesting experience. After mass we walked around the church for awhile (it is huge) and then headed to the Eastern part of the city.

After exchanging our money, we headed back to the Old city which is where we spent most of the day looking around and shopping. We also climbed up onto the path on top of the old city walls and walked around so we could have a good view of the entire city and especially the main sites in the old city.

I also had the opportunity to wander around the Jewish quarter of the old city today and eat my first ever Schwerma which is basically a pita filled with lamb meat, cucumbers, tomatoes and a ranch-like sauce. It was actually pretty good and I enjoyed it, even though I am always a little wary about food purchased in the old city.

After we were completely worn out, we took a taxi back to the center and got back around 6 p.m. making our day in the city 12 hours long! It was a really long day and I am exhausted but once again I got to experience a lot of new things and interact with some interesting people.