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Heather's Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 8/20/00 -------------------- 8/19/00 8/18/00 8/17/00 8/15/00 8/14/00 8/12/00 8/11/00 8/11/00 8/10/00 8/10/00 8/10/00 8/9/00 8/7/00 8/6/00 8/5/00 -------------------- Heather's Introduction

August 10, 2000

August 10, 2000
Part III

We were able to see this new Menorah, a Jewish Candelabra, that has been built out of pure gold, for the rebuilding of the Temple. It was very beautiful.

On our way out of the Cardo, we ended up on a very narrow street that was leading us to the Wailing Wall. It was terribly crowded because it was the eve of a Holy Day, Tish Ba'av, a memorial or remembrance day for the destruction of the temple. (It is actually a day of mourning for the Jewish people.) The Wailing Wall was packed and so I didn't go down to pray. Anyway, this arrogant young guy decided he was going to turn down this narrow street packed full of people in his convertible. He nearly ran over a few of them. Well, another guy from the crowed, got really mad at him and started making comments as he was driving slowly by. The driver stopped the car, jumped out, and they started fighting. Well, someone else jumped in, and they both threw this driver back into the car and started beating him senseless. My dad and I just happened to be caught right in the middle of all of this, directly behind his car. It didn't take very long, and it was pretty scary, but the driver finally left with his car, and the crowd moved on again. It was only slightly stressful!

After seeing the wailing wall, we went to a newly excavated area directly behind the wall, underneath the Dome of the Rock, which was the original Temple Mount. It was really amazing to see. Most of it is ruins from the destruction of the Temple in 190 AD, and also from an earthquake that happened sometime after that. They left the stones exactly as they had fallen, or exactly as the earthquake left them. It is so interesting. Some of these stones are as big as cars or more!

We walked through a plaza area, over to where they have uncovered Byzantine era houses with mosaic tile floors and everything! Dad explained to me how you could tell the original size of the room by locating the border edge on the floor. In the Byzantine era, they used a two tile deep border around the edge of the room. If you can't locate this border on any side of the room, it means that the room was larger, and that walls were added later. We found this to be true in many of the rooms we looked through. It was fun!

We went to see the steps of the Sanhedrin, which led up to the original Temple. The steps have been restored so that you can walk up and down them, and they were kept in the short-step, long-step form that it was originally in. These steps were specifically designed to keep the rhythm of the Psalms that the people sang as they ascended to the Temple.

We were pretty hungry, so we continued on to a Greek/Arabic restaurant in the Christian quarter called "Papa Andrea's". We sat on the rooftop overlooking the city. The rooftop had thin coverings to shield you from the sun. They looked like they were made of goat hair, something that the Bedouins use in making their tents. It stays cool in the summer and in the winter, the hair expands to close the small gaps to keep rain out. We had something called "The Jerusalem Plate" which was a small sampler of different ethnic foods. Wonderful food! It was a nice place to rest for a while before we had to walk back to the car.

On our way back to the car we came across some soldiers that were taking a break. I asked if we could have our picture taken with them. They were more than willing! I think they love that.