Not a Vacation

There's no one I'd rather be on vacation with than Larry. Oh wait—this is not a vacation. We're working. That's like getting paid to read books. Oh wait—I get paid for that too.

May no one ever catch me complaining about my life.

We woke up rested this morning (I went right back to sleep after blogging), ate a delicious breakfast of pitas filled with cream cheese, cucumbers, tomotoes, and some sort of spice, and walked across the street to (the more expensive) American Colony Hotel where our tour bus was picking us up.

Larry doubted me only a little bit when the bus was late, but he made up for it by thanking me all day long for arranging such a wonderful trip. And it was wonderful. We went to the birth place of John the Baptist, to the Mount of Olives where we had a panoramic view of the old city where we could see so many of the Biblical sites we had read about since children, to the Church of the Agony in Garden of Gethsemane, to the burial place of King David, to the Upper Room. For lunch we ate at the very lovely Tomb of Rachel Kibbutz.

In the afternoon we took a whirlwind walking tour of the Old City. (Larry gets big points for walking through his pain without complaining once.) We entered through the Zion Gate in the Armenian Quarter, walked through the Jewish Quarter and on to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which is said to be where Jesus was crucified and buried, down the Via Delarosa (in reverse), which is the path Jesus took while carrying the cross, and ended at the Western Wall. We exited through the Dung Gate and were dropped off, exhausted, at our hotel.

I wish I could insert every photo we took and describe in detail all of the sites and the emotions they evoked—but you'll have to read my book to get that.

One of my favorite parts of the day was after the tour, when we meet Nasser, an Arab fellow who is helping us prepare for our trip to Jordan tomorrow. But you'll have to wait until next time to hear the rest of that story.