Last few days.

We did a brief tour of Jerusalem. The city blew my mind and gave me a lot to think about in terms of the arbitrary construction of boundaries & borders, the taking of cities, the beauty of old spaces, and wanting to learn Arabic badly. I don't feel like talking about what it meant politically to me, so I will avoid that...

Walking around the old parts (i.e. pre-19th century) made me giggle when considering the idea of historicity between different places (i.e. what is "new"...19th century onward in Jerusalem versus what is "old" in the states, i.e. anything over 50 years old). Here are the walls of the old city, these ones built sometime in the 16th century, with me for scale:


Aside from the market and the general aesthetic pleasure of the city,the funniest part of our wanderings was how we would consistently stumble upon Christian holy sites inadvertently. This has more to do with the Christian worship of holy objects than any plan on our part. The best moment was when we came across the Holy Sepulcher, i.e. where Jesus is said to have been crucified and buried. So yes, "I found Jesus." We didn't know where we were, except it seemed important because there were lots of tourists. Noam asked one of the security guards, and they laughed and explained what it was. Here's what it looks like from the outside:


A few highlights of the short trip were the many vista points we went to with amazing views of different parts of the city where I could consider how random the boundaries of Israeli annexation were (like squid tentacles...). The best was the last day when we accidentally found the Virgin Mary's grave (underground) and then hiked up the Mt. Olive to look out west toward the Old City and West Jerusalem at sunset. Below is part of the view:


Now I'm back and getting ready to start packing. I have one more evening here, and then I head off back to Providence via Zurich (where I will find some way to entertain myself for 24 hours). Apparently there is indeed a "timekeeper" museum, i.e. a watch museum, and the Lindt factory tour (!!!) with free chocolate, but it is unfortunately closed the day I am there.

What a weird end to this weird trip it shall be.