NorthEastSouthWest

Walking the wall
Watching history go by
Not understanding a thing
It feels a lot different from last time I came here

The wall. The walls.
The wall in the distance: dividing. The wall I’m walking on: surrounding. The wall I end up on: leaned against.
When you sit in the middle of it all, TV news suddenly become understandable

I take a break, I eat a falafel
There’s kippaot and there’s kids
There’s many languages
There are soldiers walking around, there are tourists walking around
Strange and sad that this alltogetherness can’t be lived peacefully. Otherwise this would be a very, very cool place, in addition to being amazingly beautiful.

I’m off to the second part of the wallwalking
The falafel lies heavily in my stomach

Kids playing. Thank God(s) some things are normal everywhere.

The longer part of the wallwalking is: a bit too noisy at the beginning
But then: breathtaking
School kids playing during their break
A million satellite dishes or more
Laundry drying in the sun
A few hundred meters away, as if put there accidentally, the Dome of the Rock, its cupola shining golden, it seems strangely out of place in this sea of light grey, a bit of black, a few pine trees. Too colourful even for the red shirts and blue pants that must be already dry at this stage.
There are the sounds of the world below and there are a few people on the roof tops here and there, but not many.
And I wonder why the whole city isn’t up here, it’s so peaceful, it seems to be a totally different world from three stores down.

Wallwalking. A stop to take in the view.

A whole day walking through marketed streets and I haven’t bought a thing. Very proud of self. But that bowl and a backgammon need to go back to Europe with me. Later.

Walked a million miles
Went up the roof of the Austrian Hospice
Had the city, once again, to my feet
Loved, once again, what I saw
A sea of beigegreyish roof tops
Crosses, loudspeakers, flags. Each one a symbol for one of the religions.

Crossed. In the middle of it all.

No food after 4:30, 5:30, 6:00 p.m., so we walked another million miles to find that restaurant that doesn’t exist anymore
A few ‘Give me money!”-encounters and “This is a very fancy restaurant”-hints and many many minutes later, we finally find a nice place.
They have hot chocolate soufflé for dessert, so the choice is easy (and we’re so hungry by now that we would’ve eaten the waitress)

At the end of the evening I find a taxi that is willing to take me back to East Jerusalem, but the driver, as all the others, doesn’t know where N’s street is and keeps asking me for directions and I keep telling him that I have no clue. Luckily, the person on the other end of his Funkgerät/cellphone/magic device seems to have a GPS so there I am: in front of house no. 9 that doesn’t have a house number.