First walk Through the Old City

I've been super tired due to jetlag but I feel like I am doing a bit better than the one time I went to England and took a week to adjust to the time, although I did miss dinner tonight because I fell asleep and woke up 3 hours later. It has been a good few days, I am getting to know people slowly, I already have some people that I feel will become really good friends. The conversations of "where are you from?" and "oh, do you know_____?" are getting a little redundant, but its a social ice breaker that is an easy resort that makes things less awkward when first meeting someone, and I guess its more naturaly for us to figure out someones geographical background and all the implications that can have to their upbringing and rhetorics. I have been relatively silent, which is a bit out of character for me, but when I am put in situations like this it takes me some time to open up. So the Center here overlooks the City, if the curtain is open I can see the Dome of the Rock from my bed. It's an absolutely breathtaking view. I can see the old city walls, which date back to 1600 AD, so not actually Christs time, but they reuse stones that did come from his time, so pieces of the wall, streets, and buildings date back to Christ's era. We did a 5 mile walk around East Jerusalem and into west Jerusalem, West Jerusalem is very european and modern, but when you go to the old City, things go back a hundred years. There is a lot of bartering that can be done when buying things within the old city that you can't get away with outside the old city. Walking the small crowded streets of the old city, though it is loud, with tons of shop keepers yelling to get your attention to buy their merchandise fashioned to sell to pilgrams who have traveled here (ex: Kippahs of all kinds for Jews and Crosses and carvings of Christ for the Christians), I can still get a sense of reverance and peace, an unreal feeling that the Savior was here. We walked the route to which some Christians believe was the route Christ carried his cross down, and we saw a little memorial for the place where he tripped with the cross which lead to them giving it to simon. Though we are unsure of the exact location, even President Hinckley said of the garden tomb, "it was here, or near here that the savior was risen...", though it isn't completely sure, as I walked past that I felt a feeling of reverance and gratitude. I also got to touch a slab of stone in which many believe Christ was anointed and prepared on before they laid him in the tomb at the Church of the Holy Seplicure, I fell behind in the group and stooped down and rested my hand on the stone, I looked over to see an African lady, Kiss the stone, then place her forehead on it, this she did three times. I observed her worship and admoration for the Savior and wondered what sacrafices and at what costs she traveled here, what a blessing it was to be around people praying and truely touched by the magnificance of the structures, the historical sites, and the events that they glorify. Truely a beatiful thing, though I was sweating and jetlagged, it was special.