At last - photos of Jerusalem

I was able to post a few pictures of my recent trip to Jerusalem. The first two give you an idea of what its like in the Old City, its is walled all around and almost exclusively made of stone! There is no bare earth or wood, its all stone, and the passageways are all narrow. The third one is me beside the grave of Oscar Schindler of Schindler's List fame. You may remember at the end of the movie that some of the people he saved placed rocks on his grave, that's where I'm standing, beside his grave. And there are lots of rocks on it!

The fourth and fifth photos are from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City. This is believed to be the site of Jesus' crucifixion on Cavalry, where his body was lain when it was taken down off the cross (in the fifth picture I'm kneeling beside it) and where the tomb was located in which his body was placed. These sites are all in the Church, which is really an amalgamation of a number of churches. Very moving place to be. There were Franciscan monks walking around singing and several processions which I never figured out what they were for and a lot of people.

The Old City contains this church, the Al Aqsa Mosque which is the third holiest place in Islam and the Western Wall which is sacred to the Jews. Although there were soldiers everywhere (and are they ever young! 18-19 years old) the security measures didn't feel that severe. Probably because it was relatively peaceful at the time. It felt good to be going there as a UN peacekeeper.