4 May Sunday

Twinkle, Twinkle 4th of May,
You sure are a happy day!
We went to class and then had fun,
Ignored homework ‘til we were done!





Today we had the priviledge of meeting our two local instructors for our modern near eastern studies classes. Ophir Yarden, born in the United States is teaching our Judaism studies class and we were all interested in what he had to say today and bombarded him with questions about Judaism in general. Dr. Adnan Musallam from Palestine is a very loving man and intrigued us all with an introduction to Islam. However, the addition of two classes that would be completed in just 2 weeks and assigned a 10 page single-spaced paper amid other assignments was enough to overwhelm us. Fortunately, this wasn't enough to stop us from enjoying our first day of free time in Jerusalem. Most people seemed to take advantage of it, and as for us, we went to the Via Dolorosa--the fourteen steps of the Holy Cross and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We enjoyed our first experience in the old city, and met some shop-owners and learned that some are nice and give you juice while others will swindle you faster than you can learn their names. But I guess that's all part of the "full experience". Then we studied our brains out.

The Via Dolorosa starts at Lions' Gate/St. Stephen's Gate, which is in the east side of the Old City. The second station is St. Anne's Church. The church is on the site where Mary supposedly gave birth to Mary. It's a 12th-century French church run by the Order of the White Fathers. There was a man there who tried to take our money when Allison took a picture by the door. We couldn't figure out why, because we didn't know where we were at the time. I just learned that it was the St. Anne's (which costs 5 shekels to enter) and now it all makes sense. Rest of the stations are as follows:
3. Beit Hisda Pool
4. First Station-the site of the Antonia Citadel, now the Omariyya School.
5. Second Station-Franciscan Biblical School
6. Lithostrotos
7. Convent of the Sisters of Zion
8. Austrian Hospice
9. Third Station--Polish Catholic Chapel--where Jesus fell for the first time from the weight of the cross
10. Forth Station--Church of Our Lady of the Spasm--where Mary passed out after Jesus passed her with the cross on his back.
11. Fifth Station--Franciscan Church--where the Roman soldiers had Simon carry Jesus' cross
12. Sixth Station--St. Veronicas's Church--the home of St. Veronica, who dried the brow of Jesus as he passed
13. Seventh Station--Jesus fell for the second time
14. Eighth Station--Jesus speaks to the daughters of Jerusalem

The stations seem a bit sketchy. The second station, for example, is the site where Jesus received his cross and started carrying it. I'm not sure how anyone could know that, but let us not trifle with details. It's a very famous Christian site.