Jerusalem sights and sounds

My strongest impression of Jerusalem, so far, is the sound of the place ... especially the way people's footsteps echo in the narrow stone streets of the old city, but other things too. People's voices, speaking any number of languages. Kids playing soccer or volleyball anywhere they can find a place. Today, after a long tiring morning (the wise start early, before the sun gets too hot and everything shuts down), I found the Austrian Hospice coffee shop for a little lunch and a cool place to sit. They were playing some of my favorite light classics such as Rachmaninoff's Paganini Variations. But around half past noon, the muezzin next door had another idea. He and Rachmaninoff traded phrases for a while.

This morning I was able to walk up to the Temple Mount and walk around the Dome of the Rock. It's an amazing place and while the mosque itself was closed, you can see quite a lot - the beautiful delicately painted ceramic exterior for example, and if you look at just the right angle you can even see how the light comes through inside, through a glass door. I found someone good to show me around, who knew some short cuts and explained something about Moslem prayers and what the different things in the courtyard are for - seats and water faucets for washing before prayers, niches that face Mecca, several little subsidiary mosques for use by the people who work there.

In the afternoon I found my way part way up the Mount of Olives. There are several churches on the way. My favorite is Dominus Flevit, which is a small friendly Franciscan place a good stiff walk uphill. Instead of stained glass, they have a plain glass window over the altar, looking out over Jerusalem, and with natural tree branches in their garden framing it on either side. Anyone who manages the walk is welcome to sit in there as long as they want and think about how Jesus wept over the city. On the way back, I passed the Garden of Gethsemane, which I had visited earlier, and was given an olive branch from one of the trees.

This is a wonderful place, and I won't pretend to be able to figure it out at all.