Touring in Jerusalem and The Dead Sea

In the last couple of days since leaving the Weizmann Institute, we have managed to pack  a lot of things in!! We left Weizmann early Thursday morning (yesterday) and went straight to the Old City of Jerusalem, where we spent the entire day. 

Before yesterday, we had all been so focussed on  Weizmann and the tournament and Physics related things that it was strange all of a sudden shifting our focus to history and religion and trying to understand how this important ancient city fits into our modern world.

The Old City of Jerusalem is an incredible place. It is divided into four quadrants and each is completely different from all the others. We started by walking around the top of the wall that surrounds the city (the rampart). We walked around most of the Armenian quadrant and then descended into that part of the city to visit some beautiful old churches on Mount Zion. Amongst these, we saw the Church of Maria, which is where Mary died and is buried. We also saw the room where The Last Supper took place. 

After the Armenian quarter, we crossed into the Jewish quarter where we stopped for a huge Falafel-centric lunch. We walked over to the 'Wailing Wall' and were overwhelmed by both the sheer number of people as well as the intense security. Here we had to say good-bye, temporarily, to Mr. De Stefano who had to visit the wall on the 'men's side' while the rest of us stayed on the woman's side. There were a lot of people praying vehemently at the wall and some of us wrote wishes on little pieces of paper and stuck them in little crevices of the wall (amongst the hundreds of other similar notes). 

From the Jewish quarter, we walked through the mysterious looking streets of the Arab section. There were lots of little shops lining both sides of the narrow street which was covered from above in many sections (sort of like a tunnel).  We couldn't help but be sucked into a few t-shirt shops and we managed to find a cool shirt with Physics equations and Hebrew writing!

After the Arab quarter we went to the Christian section where we visited the church that has been built around the skull shaped rock on top of which Jesus was crucified. It was an incredible church and also included inside it, the cave from which Jesus resurrected. 

We finished our tour by taking a drive up to the top of Mount Scorpus where we could get an awesome view of the entire old city. 

Today (Friday) was an equally busy day. We left Jerusalem early and started to drive towards the Dead Sea. We were in the van for about five minutes when we found ourselves, completely surrounded by desert. Not long after that, we pulled off the road and everyone was taking turns riding this random camel that had been standing next to the highway (with her entrepreneurial little owner). After that interesting stop, we continued on to Massada which is this amazing ancient fortress that dates back to Herod's time. We took a cable car to the top and learned all about the four different civilizations that have occupied this amazing structure over the last 2500 years. 

After Massada we finally made it to the Dead Sea where we visited a spa. After a quick lunch, we put our bathing suits on, had a mud bath and then went 'swimming' in the Dead Sea. All in all, an incredible experience!!