My trip to the Old City of Jerusalem and the Lost City of Petra

The itch to travel got the best of me in late December. I hadn't traveled overseas for a while and it seemed like the internet kept showing me one travel-related story or ad after another. It was a sign, I thought. 

So the weekend before Christmas I searched for flights to countries I had never visited, and ended up finding flights within my budget to....Israel for lat December. It was a part of the world I had put on my future 'to go' list, but mostly because I thought it would be cool to see the pyramids in Egypt. However I couldn't find decent flights to Cairo, so I stayed in the region and settled on Israel. 

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Now the challenge for me was to gain a better understanding of the political and religious situation that has kept Tel Aviv / Jerusalem / the West Bank / Palestine, etc in the news on a seemingly daily basis. The learning aspect is another reason I love travel. You get to see for yourself what life is like, talk to people, notice things that perhaps you don't see or hear on the news. That said, I admit that I did have a little anxiety as I kept clicking on stories and trying to understand the history of the region. 

I only was only going to be out there for a week, so I would have to site-see and take in as much as I could in a short amount of time, considering the size of the area and all the history surrounding it. I landed in Tel Aviv, took a shuttle to Jerusalem, and immediately started walking. 

The first place I went to was the Mahane Yehuda Market, not far from the Old City, on a Friday afternoon. I had basic knowledge of the Jewish people's respect for the Sabbath, but saw it first hand with the buzz of people trying to buy food, etc before the sun went down - at which point it seemed like the city completely shut down. And then like a light switch it came to life on Saturday evening. 

I walked to the Western Wall to see the thousands paying their respect to the sacred ground. I walked the narrow, cobbled-stone alleys of the Old City of Jerusalem, trying to envision this area thousands of years. I found a pizza joint that was open late, and had interesting conversations with the waitress on why the place was open when so many others were closed that night. 

The next day, after walking through the market in Muslin quarter of the Old City, and seeing the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Christian quarter, I took a bus to the wall that was built to separate the West Bank from Jerusalem. On the other side, I was in Bethlehem, and I fearfully accepted a taxi ride to the Church of the Nativity. He clearly didn't like the Jews, and cursed when pointing out that they and Americans had made him and his Palestinian people 'prisoners' in their own land. I was not about to offer an opinion, so I was thankful he brought me back to the border and let me get back into the Israeli-controlled side. This wall was, I learned, built by the Jews to try to prevent more vehicle suicide attempts from the Palestinian inhabited West Bank. It's all still difficult to understand.

I took a five hour bus along the coast of the Dead Sea to the southern city of Eilat, from where I then walked over to Jordan and channeled Indiana Jones as I hiked the Lost City of Petra, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. It was my first time on a camel. This was an impressive historical 'park,' seemingly in the middle of no where but kept surprisingly intact given it is was used as a city or society thousands of years ago.

I stopped to float in the Dead Sea on my way back up, a crazy experience that no matter how much I read about, I still couldn't comprehend as I leaned back in the water and literally floated without effort.

I celebrated New Years in a city which supposedly doesn't celebrate it on the same day us Westerners do. Note: they do celebrate our New Years in Jerusalem, in a very similar way to any big U.S. city. 

I walked the Via Dolorosa - the Stations of the Cross - and prayed at the Church which sits on the place where Jesus was crucified, and holds the tomb in which he was buried. I walked the city of Jaffa in Tel Aviv, and took a stroll down the beach.

There really are too many thoughts, feelings, and mental notes from the entire trip. In short, Jerusalem (or the area in general) is a fascinating yet complicated place to fully understand, even while there, as this Holy Land is claimed by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. But it's definitely a place to see.