The Holy Land

I woke up at 2am, unable to fall back asleep, so I went outside on a quest to buy cigarettes. One thing I noticed was that Tel Aviv apparently doesn't sleep. There's something going on and people walk around all of the time, even most stores are open 24/7. Half of the city consists of gay bars and nightclubs, while the other half smells like weed. I found cigarettes quickly and headed back to the hostel where I hung out with people until it was time to catch my bus to Jerusalem. I realized that getting up at 2am hadn't been my best idea and decided that I would try to fix my sleeping pattern. Although I had been very euphoric in general and about traveling specifically, the sleepiness pushed my mood down a bit. I spent the bus drive listening to music and daydreaming about seeing Viktor again. We arrived at the religious capital at around 9am and started our walking tour around Old Jerusalem by the Jaffa gate. We walked through the Christian quarter to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to look at Jesus' tomb. Afterwards we walked through the bazaar and ended up at Via Dolorosa, the street Jesus had to walk up with his cross, before continuing through the Muslim quarter to the Western Wall where a Barmitzva took place. As beautiful Jerusalem is and as interested I am in religious history, part of me felt weird about being in such a highly religious place. We walked through the Jewish quarter where I got myself some street food falafel before returning to the Christian quarter where we checked out a rooftop restaurant and I finally got myself shawarma with chili sauce and tahini. We then went to the holocaust museum which was a quite depressing experience. Especially the memorial for the 1,5 million murdered children was tough to take in. After I was done, I sat down in the café of the museum where I spotted Jonathan, our guide and pretty chill jewish guy, praying in the middle of the café. I sat down with him afterwards and talked about life in Israel and traveling while smoking some cigarettes together. We returned to Tel Aviv where I got myself some sabich before falling asleep at a surprisingly reasonable time.Read more