David Mark Erickson

[Author's Note: I'm going to play catch-up a little bit with posting about my travels and other stuff.  I tend to have a self-created high standard for what I think I should be posting which actually acts as a barrier.  So, I am going to call myself out this and post more often.  So, expect a small flood of  posts over the course of the next days.]

So, Jerusalem.  What can I say about the single most important city in the Western hemisphere?  I spent 4 nights there and barely scratched the surface.  Geographically, the city is not laid out in such a way that it is easily accessible.  The roads twist and turn around the various hills and valleys and the different neighborhoods lie at funny angels to each other which strangely reminds of me bread dough – when you kneed and fold dough it just keeps expanding and filling the space.

I spent most of my time in the Old City which is an amazing place.  As a traveler, I never felt safer (expect for maybe in Syria) wandering the narrow streets and alleys.  The Old City is kept amazingly clean and the shop merchants, while overly friendly, as a rule, do not seem too pushy with their invitations to visit their shops and to buy their mass produced trinkets and wares.

What was really amazing was the realization of how deeply Jerusalem is embedded into my psyche, and I would say the minds of anyone raised in a Judeo-Christian country.  It was amazing to see sights like the Western Wall, the Tomb of David, The Cenacle (a probable location of the Last Supper), the Dome of the Rock, the Dormition of Mary (the place where Mary fell into her eternal sleep) all layered and stacked on top of each other.

To see Muslims, Christians and Jews as well as tourists, those visiting for religious reasons and those as standard travelers, from all parts of the world mixing in the narrow streets of a city that has over 3000 years of history is, well … I don’t really have any words for how it is!! You really should see it for yourself.

I would seriously encourage everyone to visit at least once in their lives