I'm back in the U.S.S.R, boy.... You don't know how lucky you are (da na na, da na na da na na...) Sorry. Beatles. I'm in Moscow. Got here a couple of hours ago. Haven't seen much yet, except that they don't call it 'McDonald's' here, they call it 'MAKPOKKLOP' or something. I've figured out that the Cyrillic 'P' is pronounced like we pronounce 'R', but beyond that I'm totally lost. They have this whole other alphabet... one of their letters looks like a very large triangle squatting on a coffee table, and another looks like a neutered asterisk. I can see Red Square from my hotel room... for all that money I paid to Space Adventures, I bet half of it went to this hotel. Talk about overdone... well, I have internet finally, so I won't complain.
So I came out good on the EKG! Whew! No problems there. Except for that whole thing with the... well never mind. I won't bore you with my medical history. Suffice it to say, when I die, I WILL be famous in certain medical communities. At any rate, I am healthy enough to fly in a Mig-25. Yay me. Or, as my friend Jen might say; "I KNOW!!!" (2!)
So Jordan was okay...I got all my Dental, Cardio, and Optical stuff taken care of, (5 pairs of glasses! 5!! They're so cheap in Amman!) and then I took a couple of day trips. I went to Jerash, which is an old Roman Ruin city, and Ajloud, A castle that some old Muslim king (I want to say Saladin?) built on a big hill one day, and the next day I went to Jesus' Baptismal site, took another dip and mud coat in the Dead Sea, and went to Mount Nebo, where Moses gave up the ghost. Very nice. The next day I was supposed to go to Petra, but I had already been there before. As anyone knows who is well-versed in the rules of hypertrekking, (and if you're not, go here.) back-tracking is best avoided, as points can not be awarded twice for the same destination. So, having one day left before I had to catch my plane to Moscow, I threw all caution to the wind and headed to Jerusalem.
The border between Jordan and Israel is THE MOST HORRENDOUS BORDER EXPERIENCE EVER. I had a day, but I did not arrive in Jerusalem until noon, and I was lucky. I will pass some info on here, to anyone who finds themselves at that border in the future: pay the 100 dollars for the V.I.P. transfer service! I wouldn't have done it, except that I only had a day, and after seeing what happened to the poor slobs that decided to save a bit of money and go the normal route, I thank Jehovah on my knees every day that I did take the V.I.P. service, otherwise I'd still be waiting to have my colon searched, and thanking the border guards for the opportunity.
At any rate, without going into a full-blown book about it, I will give you my two largest impressions of Jerusalem from the 5 hours I spent there.
The First: It is the most multi-cultural, multi-religious place I have ever seen, and I am in awe that it hasn't exploded yet. The Jews bang their heads on the Western Wall (I was there on Sabbath) which is the only "truly" holy site that the Jews have in Jerusalem. Right on the other side of the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall, there is a Muslim Temple, which is the 3rd holiest site in the world for Muslims, which no one is allowed to enter, not even on the grounds, unless they are Muslim. This sucks for the Jews, because their Messiah won't be arriving until the Jewish temple is rebuilt there. I think that's why they bang their heads on the wall, but I could be wrong. My main thought here was, "Jews look silly enough with those funny hats, funny songs, funny dancing and really funny hairdos... banging their heads on the Wall probably isn't the best thing for them to be doing." But what's cool is that even though the Muslim Temple grounds are off-limits to infidels, I paid a guy 20 bucks to unlock the school door which abuts the temple grounds so that I could climb to the roof and sneak some photographs of the temple. I think that counts for some pretty good points.
The Christians don't really seem to have much of a presence in the city except for a few key spots... The stations of the cross of course, and a few churches. BUT... The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is located on the spot where, according to some long dead Greek Queen named Helena, Christ was whipped, nailed, hung, annointed, buried, and risen before Mary Magdalene, the church is a total Christian Denominational WARZONE! They have split the church into sections; The Greek Orthodox Christians have all of the good stuff, thanks to Helena, who built the Church in the first place. There is a particularly nasty fat bearded Greek priest at the door to Christ's tomb; I watched him grab a little old lady who was trying to cut in line to see the tomb and whip her around like a dead cat. There is a small section for the Coptic Christians; they have a piece of christ's original headstone, apparently, and burn lots of candles and incense. And you thought candles and incense was only for devil-people and pot-heads, shame on you. The Assyrian Christians have a small temple in the church, as well do the Ethiopian christians, perhaps more widely known as the Abyssinians. And the Franciscans... well, they seem to be the runts of the pack. They got Mary Magdalene's garden, where the angel appeared to her and told her to shut up, stop whinging, and go tell everybody that Jesus said "psyche!"... all of which brings me to the 2nd observation:
Christians like to take really spiritual, holy things from their own religion, and bury them in churches. In the space of about 100 meters, I saw from Golgotha to all of the other places I just mentioned, and aside from the rocky top of Golgotha, which was displayed in a glass cover, I saw only marble, candles, and other holy claptrap. It appears that once something significant happens in the spiritual realm, the old Christians felt an urgent need to entomb it. And this is not the only place, because I also did a little mandatory border-hopping....
... And went to Bethlehem! Which is in Palestine territory. Great story. I asked a guy in the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre if I could get to Bethlehem before it got dark... he hesitated a second, looked at his watch, and said, "Normally, no
way. But today you are lucky; you've met me. I have a cousin in Palestine. He has a
car. We will go to the border and sneak around the guards, hop in my
cousin's car, and he will take you to the Church of the Nativity, then
bring you back." Sweet! So we went and saw the Church of the Nativity. Same thing. The actual birthspot of Christ, the manger (5 feet away) and the altar of the 3 wise men, all buried fairly deep within a church. Nothing to indicate that the description in the Bible had anything to do with the reality you were seeing. Lots of Holy claptrap.
There is something deep and important in that idea, but I will leave it alone. Come to your own conclusion.
Anyway... I spent the night in Jerusalem, got up early and came back to Amman... the border crossing was a little easier, but not much, really.
Now I'm in Moscow, and this is no longer a blog entry, but a massmail. Sorry about that.
I'll be posting pictures from these trips at my smugmug page real soon.
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