This past Sunday was our last free day before finals week set in, so a few of us wanted to get out for a little while instead of being stuffed in all day studying. What better thing to see than the Dome of the Rock which closes at 10am?? So we headed off to find a HUGE tour group had just arrived, and we wouldn't be able to make it inside with enough time to look around.
THATwas fail #1.
Our lovely tour guide Jaquel, who is sweet enough to always carrying her Jerusalem Travel Guide with us wherever we go, took us in search of this huge palace in the Old City. We walked up and down the streets asking everyone we saw if they knew how to get to this beautiful palace--nobody knew at all what we were talking about. Interesting. We finally come up on this green door with an old moldy apple smashed to it, and as a COMPLETE JOKE Jenessa says that was the palace! We look up and realize that "beautiful" edifice from the picture in the guide book is what you see pictured here:
We weren't sure what was going on because there was a school inside this "palace." Finally Tommy realized that the last line of the site said "This palace now serves as an orphanage, and is no longer open to the public..."
THAT was fail #2.
We then made our way into the Jewish Quarter to explore because we haven't been over there much. We came across a really old wall and a lot of other old stuff to look at.
Making our way out of the Jewish Quarter, we saw some little Jewish boys playing soccer. Remember
THIS post about how fun it was to play soccer with the Palestinian children? Well, Jewish children are quite the contrary. As soon as we made our way over to play for a minute, I got back handed by one of the kids and we all got yelled at.
THAT was fail #3.
This was my Jenessa picture of the day. Sweet solos in front of random stuff in the Old City! Ha!
Later that night, there was an in Jerusalem activity to see the movie "Taken 2" because it takes place in Istanbul, which we've all now been to! We decided to make a trip out of it and eat at this Waffle Bar in West J that we've heard raving reviews about.
The Waffles were absolutely NOT a fail, but fail #4 would have to be my killer outfit out on the town.
One of the best waffles I've ever had in my life. And it didn't hurt that they had pizza there too, of course...
After dinner we had to catch a cab over to the movie theater to meet up with the rest of the group. When our sharut finally arrived THIRTY minutes late, he didn't speak a LICK of English, and started taking us back to the center instead. Alta was an angel and did all the in between stuff on the phone with security. The sharut driver finally found the "cinema" after pulling over twice to ask the locals for directions... (Don't taxi drivers know the city like the back of their hand?!)
THAT was fail #5.
Once we got there, the man duped us into paying twice as much as we normally do because of his jaunt around town for the past 30 minutes -- because it was our fault.
THAT was fail #6.
We made it to the movie only 10 minutes in, and I'd say the movie was fail #7. The coolest part was seeing all the familiar sights of Istanbul (which was actually super cool. But dumb movie, I don't recommend it).
After a day of fails we finally made our way back to the center to continue studying for finals week (which has also been a fail).
The greatest part is that we were all cracking up the whole time, and aside from some minor exceptions, there weren't any break downs in the process. It was a hilarious day--one for the books, as always.
