Lady Omega

Back with the news from the war zone – i’ve been really busy with my work so i had no time to write anything. Not so long ago we went to Jerusalem and Bethlehem (Palestine) to check out Jesus places. It was really cool, i took unbelievable amount of pictures, even though i’ve been to Jerusalem before.

Everything started with this (which promised the safe journey):

In the morning, we went to Gethsemane garden – the garden where Jesus and his disciples had the last supper, the night before the crucifixion. The olive trees in the garden are around 2000 years old.

We also were lucky to witness an apparition of a lovely nun and a monk collecting olives from the holy trees, and, of course, many other fools like us were taking pictures of them:

And here’s where Jesus was arrested after Judas betrayed him -

The Gethsemane grotto:

We walked the Via Dolorosa and visited Church of the Agony, which contains a bedrock where Jesus prayed before the night of his arrest:

The church:

The bedrock:

After that we went to visit the Tomb of Virgin Mary:

The outside:

The inside:

We also checked out the Church of Mary Magdalene, which is a Russian orthodox church -

The outside:

Russian orthodox monk cat:

Due to the vow of silence it couldn’t respond to any sounds we made.

No fun allowed!!!!:

All of the above is situated at the Mount of Olives. And this is the view one can see from it:

The Gate:

The Golden gate of Jerusalem – the oldest gate – through which the Messiah will enter Jerusalem on a white donkey. There is an ancient cemetery close to the gate, so these will be the luckiest ones to be resurrected before everyone else.

And then we went to Bethlehem, had some nice food there and visited the Church of the Nativity – where Jesus was born.

Church of the Nativity – the door:

Jesus’ manger:

This is the place where Jesus was born!!!

To get into that grotto (called the Nativity Grotto) we had to be surrounded and trapped by the Greek orthodox middle-aged women who wouldn’t stop singing in a boisterous manner, and at some point i thought i was going to have an attack of agoraphobia. We had to move very slowly and eventually we reached the spot. I do not want to imagine what happens at this place on Christmas.

The wall which separates Israel and Palestine:

Monger square – the main square in Bethlehem:

This guy can play with his foot:

Palestinian beer:

The birth is cool and everything, but we had to head out to the Holy Sepulchre. Palestine seemed like a nice place, and certainly, no one was running around with guns on this side of the wall as well.
So, the Holy Sepulchre – where Jesus died.

The outside of the church:

The stone of the Annointing:

This is where Jesus’ body was prepared for burial and annointed with oils. Some people want to kiss it, some to touch it, and some to annoint their plastic bags and towels.

The tomb:

This place is believed to be where Jesus’ body was laid in the tomb. The vase of candles marks the place where his head was. The banner behind it varies with the liturgical seasons: this one is after Easter and says “Christ is Risen”.

The plaque!:

It says – have mercy on your servant Kaiaphas.
( yay!!! they mentioned the name of my band!!!)

After that, we went through Jerusalem market to the Wailing wall, and from there, through the Dung gate, we left Jerusalem and went to where dung goes -out, down from the mountain and home.