West Jerusalem

This morning a group of seven of us (Allison, Diana, Jason, Carrie, Dan King, Corina, and myself) went out and explored West Jerusalem for our free day. We meant to walk to the Israel Parliment building and take a look there, but we actually ended up at the City Hall instead by accident. We went with the flow and looked at a huge scale model of the city that they use for planning purposes. This thing was incredible, it had all of Jerusalem in a little model. It was probably about the same area as our swimming pool, so it was really quite a thing to look at. We all felt a little ripped off when we realized that the Mount of Olives, including the Jerusalem Center, wasn't on it. We asked where the Parliment building was and learned that it was way further than any of us wanted to walk, so instead we went and explored West Jerusalem some more.

Our goal was to find a pastry shop that everyone around here keeps talking about. In that process we found a pizza shop called The Big Apple and I had my first piece of Kosher pizza. It was actually really good; I have been craving pizza for a very long time now. It hit the spot and it was super cheap since 7 of us split a whole pizza. A friend and me found a neat little designer dress shop that we perused through for a little bit. Then we were all off to the market/pastry shop.

I think the highlight of my day was when we were walking in the market and we came upon a butcher's van. You can probably imagine what a butcher's van may look like; the back was wide open and hanging up on racks were animal carcasses everywhere. That's not even the best part. There was a man in the van and he had a grocery cart on the ground. Into the grocery cart this man was throwing HUGE cow heads. One after another after another. Into a tiny grocery cart. We all stopped dead in our tracks and were mesmerized by this, something none of us had ever seen before! One of the cow heads even had its tongue hanging out. He packed that cart full and just wheeled it in right into the market. It was disturbing to see, but totally epic and hilarious at the same time.

I really liked being on a different side of town, but it really made me realize how poor the East (Palestinian) side of Jerusalem is and how much of an injustice the Israel/Arab conflict is. On our way back to the Jerusalem Center, we were talking and realized that the Jerusalem Center wasn't on the map because we are located in East Jerusalem. Since East Jerusalem is populated by Palestinians they didn't even put it on the map. I'm glad that I live on the East and more on the poverty side of Jerusalem so that I can really get a feel for the difference between the Israelis and the Arabs. I can see the right on both sides and understand why it's such a heated conflict, but being here I can really see the injustice and the way the Israeli people treat the Palestinians. It's not right at all, it's very dehumanizing and condoning. That was the impression I got from experiencing both cities and peoples.

For the rest of the day I'm just going to relax and do homework and the such. Today was a long and very fun day, my feet are hurting and I'm really tired. Thank goodness for free days to break up the monotonous weeks of classes and homework.