Holy Water, Vampires and Youth Hostels (a post by Jason)

July 13th    

     We also had a slow start today.  Apparently Eli slept in the bed with his sister most of the night.  When he woke up, he came into our room and said, "I didn't dream I was Jesus!" to Alysia.  Her response was, "And how do you feel about that?" to which he replied, "It's good, because then I wasn't all bloody".  
     The kids needed some down time this morning--from walking around, not from being traumatized by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre--so they took naps, read, and played a few games on the iPad in the hotel room.  Alysia was close to finishing a portion of the Sepphoris glass, so we decided to hang out in the hotel room until she finished working (around dinner time) so we could all enjoy Jerusalem together.

     Our first stop was the Albright Institute, where we lived in ’96, so we could drop off some of the glass from Sepphoris.  We also traded in a few reading books, and the kids got a kick out of seeing a photo of us and everyone else who lived at the Albright in ’96. We also got to see a few old friends, including Hisham again.   It was really great to see him.  Alysia hung out with him in the kitchen a lot during the year, and we still have his recipes for Lentil soup, Potato soup, Moukloube, as well as a few others.

     After the Albright we headed to the Old City.  We walked through Herod’s gate on the north side, just east of Damascus gate that leads into the more residential part of the Arab Quarter.  We had not walked this way in quite some time, but fortunately we found our way pretty easily.  We went to the Western Wall again and then on to the rest of the Jewish Quarter, but it was around 5:00 on Friday night (Shabbat) and everything was closed.  We then headed to the Christian Quarter and checked out a few shops.

     Although most restaurants were closed, we found a little place near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  Here we had some fresh pomegranate juice, French fries, some Arabic salad (tomatoes, cucumbers and onions), hummus, and some grilled meat.  It was wonderful sitting outside in the Old City for dinner.

     The previous day when we were in the Old City, Eli noticed some ‘Holy Packs’ and said that he wanted one.  But, he also seemed to want just about everything else so we kept on walking.  At dinner he noticed the Holy Packs (Holy Water, Holy Olive Oil, Holy Dirt, Holy Incense, and a cross) in a small shop next to our dinner restaurant.  He asked about them again, so we told him to go ask about the price.  He found out that they were only 15 shekels (~$4) so we gave him the money and he got his Holy Pack!  He was very pleased, and this was his first solo purchase.  He also purchased a cross with Jesus on it.  He said it didn't freak him out like the painting at the Holy Sepulchre because 'Jesus wasn't all bloody on the cross.'  We decided that saying no to him buying religious stuff will just make him want it more, hence the purchases.

     Then Eva told him that the Holy Water and cross could kill vampires, which he thought was very cool.  Eva was even a bit jealous of his purchases, and wanted to purchase some Holy Water of her own.  Here you can see him with both his Holy Pack and his cross.

You can see from his drawing today that it made a big impact on him.  The caption he asked for says "Jesus Pack to kill vampires because it has holy stuff!"  There are only four bottles in the actual pack; maybe we need to ask what the fifth bottle is in the drawing.  It kind of looks like the holy lipstick pack:

      On the way out of the Old City we took Alysia to the Hostel where we got engaged in 1993.  We went inside and checked it out again, the bottom of which looked pretty much the same!  We talked to one of the people who worked there and asked him about the old name of the Hostel, which is currently named the Hebron Hostel.  He reminded us that it used to be named the Tabasco Hostel, which we had forgotten until he said it.  It was great that this place still exists in the Old City and that we could bring the kids back to it!