Whirlwind Times

I made it safely to Jerusalem yesterday. Things got kicked off quickly here with a tour of the Old City, and a night spent wandering around the shops and tourist attractions. Today we spoke to a pastor at Christ Church about the Jewish roots of Christian faith and then spoke with a representative of B'Tselem, the leading Israeli human rights organization. Both were very powerful and I am happy to be back in Israel/Palestine. My heart is so joyful, overwhelmed, saddened by the reality here, and excited to learn more. I know I need to update everyone on the previous two countries of residence, so here it goes:

1. Syria: My Syria experience has really convinced me that I will live there one day. It is a fantastic country with fantastic people, and most importantly fantastic prices. I bought some DVDs for about .75 cents, so good. Don't get too excited, friends, they are all Disney movies in Arabic to help me practice. the biggest problem in Syria is that no one is allowed to talk about politics out of fear of the secret police, called the Mukhabarat. They are not good news, and everyone is hush hush about criticizing the President/King man. It is really problematic for my love of debating politics and pissing people off. But what Syria lacked in politics it made up for in food. This is a food journal...
It started at a little place I like to call the Krak de Chevalier: the coolest crusader castle of all time. We explored for a long time, which included going into dark secret tunnels, spitting down the cracks over doorways, which the crusdaders typically used to pour hot oil on the people storming the castle, and then of course, I mumbled about a few of the castle walls and towers. After that I was sufficiently hungry. The restaurant at the Krak is inconceivable. First, the very Syrian own is very gay, complete with French tipped nails and overly sculpted eyebrows. But the man really knows his chicken. But before that, we all enjoyed a large amount of random "salads" which are appetizers that require pita to eat. All delicious, but OH THE CHICKEN. Barbequed, then smothered in butter garlic sauce. Nothing like it.
After that the grou loaded the bus and headed to Maloula, a small Syrian town which speaks perfect Aramaic, the language of Jesus. We saw a few holy sites and heard the Lord's prayer in Aramaic (really beautiful), and then headed to Damascus for three nights. Damascus rocks. The old city is beautiful and clean, it is easy to navigate and full of little treasures. I want to live there and make friends with the great shopkeepers. I could survive off of lemon ice drinks and cheap chicken sandwiches. Life would be perfect. Then came the lecture at the U.S. embassy in Syria. This only reconfirmed my need to Syrian-ness. The man who spoke to us was intelligent, well informed, fairly critical of the U.S., and his breadth of Middle East experience had me salivating. I will definitely pursue this path further. We additionally met with a couple working with the Mennonite Central community and ate our way through the city. Syria has fantastic ice cream: a prefer the "Best Ice cream" shop to the "Oldest ice cream" shop. Definitely. There are also very fresh chocolate croissants and delicious amounts of freshly squeezed juice. I left Syria unwillingly, but I was excited to move on to:

2. Jordan: Not the best country in the world, but it featured some great things. A very briwf visit of two nights left us a little confused about Jordanian food (we actually got lunch from Safeway-the real thing- twice and ate breakfast and dinner at the hotel). But we did hear from a professor about trends in Jordanian society, which turned out to be the typical "it all comes down to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict" speech. But it was insightful. The best part was that I got to hook up with an old friend I spent some time with in Palestine last summer, Julia. She came with the group to the Dead Sea for the rest of the day, and we got to spend time catching up and encouraging one another. LOVE HER. It was good to get some new energy and find equal amounts of passion in someone. We left Jordan for the border the next morning...

Now I am sitting in the Austrian Hospice in the Old City, on the path of the Via Dolorosa. What can be better??????