Short and Sick (2/2/09)

Today honestly was one of the worst days on this trip so far for me. Ever since I woke up, I have felt horribly nauseous and could barely go anywhere. But, I fought through the crappiness and went ahead and traveled with the group instead of staying at the house, even though today was the one day this week we walked to our destinations. The first place we walked to was the Western Wall, or Wailing Wall as I usually call it, by walking through the Damascus Gate, through the Muslim quarter, and then to the Wall. Instead of having free time by the wall at first, we went into the Western Wall tunnels. Here we saw the very bottom, original stones from the time of Kind Herod and tunnels that the Roman soldiers used to walk through. It was pretty cool but unfortunately because I felt like I just wanted to crawl in a ball the whole time I wasn’t paying much attention. Once we got we through with the tunnels, we were able to have some free time at the actual Western Walls. I went up to the wall and said a small prayer and then looked over the small separation wall between the men and women’s side of the wall and watched 3 barmitzvas! Its so crazy how different cultures can really be… After all that jazz at the Western Wall, our guide took us through the Jewish quarter and explained all it’s history. Once we were done with that, we went to our next destination – the Temple Mount. We weren’t able to go into any of the mosques because we weren’t Muslim, obviously, but all the detailed décor of the buildings were pretty awesome to see, especially the Dome of the Rock. I actually found out on this trip that on his deathbed, King Hussein donated $7 million to put real gold on the dome of the Dome of the Rock. While we were there, there was a worker putting the gold on the roof. Only one time you’ll be able to see something like that! Once leaving the Temple Mount, we walked to the Old City into the Muslim quarter. There, we had lunch at the “greatest pizza place in Israel.” It definitely wasn’t as good as pizza in the states, but as for Israel, I’d have to agree with their motto. After eating I was luckily able to find people to walk back to the house with me so I could lie down and feel better. I ended up sleeping for 3 hours! It was great =]  I ended up finding out the reason behind my nausea and sickness all day…dehydration. Who would’ve thought?! Julie’s lesson for the day: DRINK TONS OF WATER!!