Dome of the Rock

Old City of Jerusalem, Dome of the Rock

From a trip I did in 2003... it was one week till the uni started again. I had been working for about a month at the hospital and had saved up some cash for a short vacation. I decided spontaneously to visit Israel... At the airport I could negotiate with El Al for a cheaper flight ticket and so my first flight ever took me to the 'holy land' - a very interesting and intense experience the way I recollect it. I came to talk to youths from different religious backgrounds and learned some funny peculiarities about the Old City of Jerusalem. I was not allowed to enter the temple mount but the muslim guard wanted to date me for dinner... At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre a 'guide' tried to trick me and take my money and at another Christian church some guy came up to me and started talking about love... Anyway, I came there to learn about the history of the place and I soon realized 4 days would not be enough! I still absorbed as much as I could, walked the streets of the Old City up and down countless times to be able to recollect later the different sites I had been visiting. The last two days I spent at the Dead Sea in Ein Gedi. It was great to bathe in the Dead Sea and drift on the salty water after a long day in the desert. Then I went back to Tel Aviv and stayed up during the last night, when invited to a Russian birthday party, where it had apple cake, vodka and dancing, which was huge fun!

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