Jerusalem : walking the wall

Today's post will be a fairly short reflection as it was an unstructured day . As an extrovert I mostly enjoy exploring with others and sharing perspectives. The group that I'm traveling with are mostly from Ottawa and many of them are at the same united church there. They all connected prior to leaving so i was coming into a group already formed. They have all gone out of their way to include me and to make me feel welcome. They have been a great group to travel with and I am grateful for their kindness. However, on this free day I was feeling the need to strike out on my own and simply wander and see where it took me .

I started by hopping on the public transit rail tram and just rode it for a while until a new area caught my attention, got off and wandered around . Occasionally I would see a street name that I recognized and I'd wander down that for a while until I got distracted again. It's interesting to see what things from the West get imported to this part of the world, fashion wise, product wise and of course "culture" wise. I took a picture of a McDonald's menu in Hebrew - Yuke ! Of all the things ! I had just been lamenting the day earlier that the fast food here , like falafels, is so much tastier than what we serve.

Did some banking and then headed to the Jaffa gate of the wall surrounding the old city. Wandered inside the old city for a bit among the shops and various merchants and then went up on top of the wall and walled along the top of the wall from the Jaffa gate to the Damascus gate taking pictures, reading historical signs and notes and getting a birds eye view of things. Sights, smells and sounds have a way of embedding themselves. One of the big challenges here is garbage . The Palestinian areas are not served well with collection and there is little if anything in the way of recycling . Because of that, garbage is often thrown where ever and it gets blown around, attracts stray cats, can be smelly and is an eyesore.

Struck up the odd conversation with folks while sitting and observing and carried on so till mid afternoon when my camera battery died. Headed back to the hotel for a time of writing and reflecting before our lecture on Islam at 5 pm .

Dinner at 7 and as I was heading to the debriefing, a colleague from Winnipeg dropped in to see if I was around. We had a brief chat and will perhaps share a drink together before leaving Jerusalem . It was good to have some unstructured time today.