The Fear of Missing Out

There's a acronym that's been thrown around at the center. It's FOMO, which stands for Fear Of Missing Out. We've already been here an entire month, and we've got 2 and a half month left. When we first got here, we were like "Oh, we can come back, we still have  3 and a half month." But way too quickly the time has passed, and seeing as how this could be our only time in Jerusalem, there is a lot of stuff that we need to see. Today, I went to the Temple Mount, the Pools of Bethesda, St. Anne's church, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and the Tower of David museum.

There are several entrances to the Temple Mount, but only one of them is for non-Muslims. To get to it, you have to walk all the way around to the Western Wall, then climb up a wooden ramp that is completely enclosed to get to the top of the wall. The Temple Mount is a lot bigger than one would imagine. It's huge! We didn't get too close to the al-Aqsa mosque, but we went right up to the Dome of the Rock and touched it. It really is a beautiful building. The entire middle is covered in tiles, including the gutters. And of course, that golden dome, shining in the sun.

Something that amuses me is the Western tourists who come to these places entirely unprepared as to the the strictness of them. When we were at the Temple Mount, a man put his arm around a woman to take a picture with her, and several people started  yelling at them to stop touching. My favorite is that while generally the girls will think to cover up, guys don't always. They think that they'll be ok to go to some places in shorts. Except it isn't ok. So to be able to go to the sites, they go and buy a headscarf and tie it into a skirt because their legs need to be covered. Not going to lie, it totally makes my day to see a guy in a headscarf skirt. They look so uncomfortable!

Our next stop was the Pools of Bethesda and St Anne's Church. There really wasn't a lot to see with the pools. The ruins of several old churches, a cistern with monster spiders in it (I saw one as big as my palm, stretched out. I was so out of there!), and one pool that had been excavated and still had water in it. It was still cool though. St Anne's Church was amazing. It's an old church, very beautiful, and the acoustics in it are amazing. The priest who was there was cool with us singing, and so we sang several hymns. The notes just reverberated around the room. I really hope that I have the chance to go back and to sing there again.

Our next planned stop was the Tower of David museum (remember the castle museum I talked about earlier?), and on the way we passed right by the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. One of the guys I was with, Tyler, hadn't been there yet, so we stopped for a few minutes so that he could have the chance to go inside. We didn't really stop and look at anything, just did a quick walk-around, but on our way out, we ran into a former Jerusalem center student from last year there with his little brother. Apparently, they're backpacking across...I'm not sure exactly where, this isn't a great place to be alone and American. But they were near the area, and decided to stop in Jerusalem. It was funny, the former student recognized us as Jerusalem Center students, then we saw their BYU backpacks. Just one of those crazy random happenstances.

Tower of David, as it was before, is AMAZING! It just makes my day, going to a castle. This time, we got an audio tour, and so we got a lot more information out about things. When we were about halfway done, two different schools came and were getting tours of the museum. Lot's of crazy, yelling children isn't good for an audio tour. But it was kinda fun too. For several of the rooms they had museum staff dress up in character and explain things to the kids. There was one guy dressed up like a Crusader. He spoke Hebrew with a French accent, and would hide and jump out and scare the kids. There was this one girl, he scared her so bad she started crying. It was really great.

To end our long, action packed day, we had to go to West Jerusalem and get some ice cream. Ice cream is a ton more expensive here than back home, but that could also have to do with being in a tourist area. Oh well. It was really good. I got pistachio and strawberry with white chocolate. A quick word on pistachios, they're in everything here! Well, deserts at least. Pistacio in chocolate bars instead of almonds. Pistachio ice cream. Pistachio baklava. Chocolate covered pistachios. Pistachios are sold on the street by vendors. I love pistachios...but why are they everywhere?