Dominating the Sky Line: The Dome of the Rock

Definitely one of the coolest places we visited was the Dome of the Rock. It really does dominate the skyline in Jerusalem, you can see it from all of the rooftops! I had read online that you could visit it, even though some people think you really can't go up and visit it. Lately, there have been a lot of issues with access to it being blocked off by Jews and Muslims alike, and it has caused a lot of tensions. It definitely isn't a place that you visit on Birthright trips, so I was super

excited that Josh, Steph and I could go. It is only open for a few hours in the morning, and then later in the affternoon for just one hour. One lady told us that Jews aren't allowed up there, and we saw some signs saying that they shouldn't, but what the security was really worried

about was anyone praying or showing religious symbols up there, because along with the Dome of the Rock, there is the Al-Aqsa mosque, which is the third holiest place in Islam. We waited for a while for the line to open, and then quite a long time to get through security. Then, you have to walk up this wooden walkway which goes over the Western Wall.

I had wondered what that walkway was for, it really does cut right across it. Steph and I were very respectful and covered our heads. It was such a beautiful, beautiful site. The Dome of the Rock is up this set of stairs, all alone on this big platform. And it is huge, and beautiful and so wonderful! I really enjoyed visiting it! After the one hour was up, some policemen came to escort us out, through the Muslim Quarter. A lot of the shops which I know are there usually were shut, but we did manage to get some amazing Israeli orange juice!

A happy, happy man with his Shwarma

We ended up eating so much falafel on our holiday! But Josh was really excited about getting some Shwarma. After we visited the wall, we stopped at a little touristy place to get falafel and shwarma. The funny thing is, even the cheap touristy places are yummy. There are all sorts of toppings and sauces and pickles and coleslaws to try too! So he tried a turkey shwarma with a mango sauce and it turned out to be really good! I was pleased because I got to just have some balls of falafel and some taziki sauce, which was the perfect little lunch for me!

Wailing at the Wall

We left our tour for two reasons - it wasn't particularily good, but also we wanted to be able to visit the Wailing Wall and the Dome of the Rock, which is only open in the afternoon for just one hour. So we headed over there, and that is where we encountered our first Israeli policemen.

The way on the map to the Western Wall was blocked, but there was another way there. They said that path had been closed because of the violence. We headed down the other path, through security, and then we were at the wall. It was different than I remembered, but I was so excited that we got to go up and pray at the wall! I remember not going up to the wall to pray as a child. But this time, Steph and I headed to the women's side. It was much smaller than the mens, and much, much busier than the men's side!

There were lots of women praying, and seats for them to sit and read their bibles. We had written our prayers on little, tiny pieces of paper, and then pushed them into the cracks on the wall. It was a really wonderful experience. You could tell that it was an important place, and Iit was definitely the highlight of our day.

In Jerusalem

We arrived Monday afternoon, flying into Tel Aviv, where we got our car rented (which took forever) before finding our way to our cute little apartement. There wasn't really a lot of time to do too much, so we mainly explored the old part of Jaffa in the evening, and found a great falafel

stand to have dinner at. We actually didn't find much apart from falafel stands, so we ended up going there quite often! The next morning, after planning out what we would do each day, we decided to start with Jerusalem. While Israel has often had issues, it had really been having quite a few attacks in Jerusalem, so I was a bit nervous. We found a nice place to park, before heading towards the old town. Once we got to the gate, we decided to join one of those

free walking tours which made me feel a little better about wandering the city with a group. ( It seems in Israel, everyone is with a tour group). So we got to learn a little more about the Armenian Quarter ( which I had known nothing about before) and see one of the sites where they think the

Last Supper took place. The Armenian Quarter isn't terribly full of tourist sites, but it is very cute and full of little tiny alleys. From there, we went to the Jewish Quarter, which is where we left the tour to head to the wailing wall. After our visit to the Wall and the Dome of the Rock, we discovered the Christian Quarter too, where we visited the Church of Holy Sepluchre too. The Muslim Quarter was mainly blocked off with police, but I had forgotten how lovely Jerusalem was, and how interesting each and every little alley was!

Reactor Number 4

Ater Pripriyat, one of our final stops was at the site of the famous disaster, Reactor Number 4. I had known before the trip that they had covered the reactor with a sarcophagus, and were doing another one to replace it, but I hadn't expected them to actually be using the other 3 reactors! The radiation wasn't very high in front of the reactor, but much higher than in town. I just couldn't believe that people still worked there! Ater we visited the reactor, and concluded the tour, we drove back to Kiev. We got a dinner just down from the hotel, which was great and checked out the food court. In the morning we were heading to Israel!

Steph in the Swimming Pool!

After the school, just next door was a swimming pool, that actually hadn't been abandoned that long. Our tour guide said that it had been used by the workers in Chernobyl as late as 1997! The gym floor was practically sodden through, and falling in

some places, and the whole side of the building was gone! ( No health and safely here!) But the coolest for Steph was the swimming pool, mainly because she spends so much time in the pool! The pool was huge, with really high diving boards and a super deep end. While everyone else stood on the side, looking at how big an empty swimming pool is, Steph climbed right in!

The coolest part of Pripriyat

Ater exploring Pripriyat, the tour guide let us explore the old school and the old swimming/gym complex. It was so nice to be able to have some time to do some exploring to ourselves. Ukraine really does have different health and safety laws than the West, so really, we were walking into places where the floor had given out, and there was tons of debris, but the tour guide was just like "be safe!". Haha! We started exploring the school. It turns out Pripriyat had tons of schools because they had tons of

children! We found a cafeteria full of gas masks, and big, empty windows. We headed up the staircase and found all sorts of abandoned classrooms. Some still had work and books laid out, and some were all messed up. But it was interesting to see the labs and what they used to teach, what the maps looked like, and as a teacher, it was the best part of the tour!