Every time I've come to the Old City before it had always been on a day when the Arab residents were protesting something regarding Al-Aqsa mosque. Finally, instead of walking through streets of locked metal doors I was immersed in the chaos of the Arab market. I wandered through the busy streets full of vendors, tourists, and locals just trying to pick up any slight pieces of Arabic conversation I could while scoping out a good destination to spend my morning.
One point while I was walking the Arabic going on all around me became overshadowed by the noise of loudly sung hymns. I looked around and quickly noticed a large swarm of pilgrims flooding the street lead by a group of foreigners carrying a large cross. As if walking around the Muslim quarter signing hymns wasn't stand out enough, they all wore neon yellow vests reading "march for peace" and were carrying olive branches. As much as I could tell some of the marchers were having an immensely spiritual experience, I didn't really want to be associated with the swarm of foreigners so I ducked into a smaller side street where I preceded to watch more neon vests walk by while listening to the Arabic commentary by the other gathered observers.
As I loitered, one Arab man came up to me and encouraged me to 'go back and join the others'. At which point I promptly turned on my heels and walked into the local Arab cafe right near me and displayed my finesse at ordering a drink in the local dialect of Arabic. To sort of combat the locals commentary of how much I didn't fit in, I decided to do exactly the opposite and made myself at home. Nursing a cup of tea I was eventually embraced into the daily on-goings of the cafe. Nearby shopkeepers streamed in and out asking for refills on coffee or tea. A local joined me at my table and proceeded to work on his finances while getting into heated discussions with his friend who worked at the cafe.
The location of my tea break.
My company in the cafe. Even conversations about paychecks and taxes sound poetic when handled in Arabic.
My afternoon consisted of finding a sunny spot in my apartment to curl up and get cozy with my Belief and Ritual in Islam class readings. Surrounded by A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani and nearly deteriorated pages of Helmut Gätje's The Qur'an and its Exegesis I got a productive head start on my midterm papers while actually just procrastinating my Arabic homework.
In reality, the 'productivity' was just a cover to make me feel okay about taking the entire night off too. After (his) class Noah and I headed straight for Cinema City to catch the new Hunger Games movie and afterword we joined the mass collective of students at a "cultural rave" downtown. Part art fair and part public concert, we loitered amongst the crowd while Arabic, English, and Hebrew lyrics competed with heavy bass to fill the streets.
Noah and I in the theater before the showing of the Hunger Games.
Adrian and I at the cultural and music festival. The art instillation behind us is a giant elephant.
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