Eric and I drove up to Jerusalem 3 days ago. On the way we saw a few camels that were dressed up in some colorful garb. I really knew nothing about the place until I arrived. I got a map that showed all the super cool places/religious sites and realized I knew nothing. So yesterday I went on a tour which was awesome because our tour guide told us everything.
I’ve been extremely active the last few days which has caused quite a bit of pain in my recovery. I can feel where the metal bars are wired to my ribs. I can feel the metal digging in and carving its place in my ribs. This keeps me from doing quite as much as I would like.
This morning I woke up and bounced my way across Jerusalem to the Muslim quarter to check out the Al Aqsa mosque. There is a rock here that the Jewish faith believes the entire world was created around and the Muslim faith believes Mohammed rose to heaven there. I got there 10 minutes before it closed to visitors so I was basically walked through by the guard but it was still super cool.
The day went on, it got hot as balls again, and I hike back to the hostel to take a little rest. I was on my computer outside when a little cat jumped up on my computer and snuggled into my barrel hat for a nap. There was a girl outside who owned the cat who thought it was funny. Her name is Maali and I noticed she was packing a hookah. I asked if I could join and soon I was sharing a hookah with an Arabic family of two sisters, a brother who is a body builder who got first in a competition for all of Israel, and the Mom. They were impressed by my hookah smoking skills so they invited me to dinner. It was a super authentic and delicious meal of chicken cooked with rice with yogurt. It sounds boring but it was extremely delicious.