Our New Digs at JUC

Whoever knew that walking around a school that is basically just one small building be so much work? Well, if the school was built in 1850 by the Greek Orthodox who liked stone building and no sense of western layouts, it's quite a hike to get from one place to another. Stairs are as plentiful as dandelions in an overgrown lawn. Some rooms are halfway between being upstairs and downstairs. The distinction between "inside" and "outside" becomes fuzzy and meaningless. This openness is exaggerated by the fact that there is no such thing as a noise law in Jerusalem. Church bells can be heard across the city, at the most random hours of the day. At night, the amphitheatre and clubs in the Hinnom Valley, just down the hill from campus, plays music, usually European disco style, until 3 a.m. 

The school is also right across the valley from the New City, which is very modern European-style city with Western-style shops, cafes, supermarkets, and businesses. I had this Iced Coffee down there last night which was so amazing.

Hinnom Valley overlooking King David Hotel and the business district.

The small rock lined road in the bottom of the picture leads to JUC.

Think New York is a city that never sleeps? Israelis don't even start a party until it's after midnight. Though tonight as I write this there is a big rock concert at the amphitheatre and I heard the Matrix theme song not to long ago, and they're shooting off fireworks from the garden about 100 feet from campus, so we're all going to go up on the roof and watch them. Yay!

The school itself is on the very edge of Mt. Zion, which is actually just the western hill of the Old City, not the ancient site of Mt. Zion. The Old City wall is just around the corner and we can enter the Old City from either the Zion (Armenian Quater) or Jaffa (Christian Quater) gates. The school is built on top of the remains of the ancient city walls. The walls that surround the city now date to the Ottoman empire, though parts of that wall were built upon the the Herodian walls, which you can see down the street from us. Where the school is located was supposed to be included in the Ottoman walls, but the engineers were lazy and cut the SW corner short. But the sultan made them pay for that mistake with their heads. Oh sweet Ottoman justice. So to make a long story short, we're just about as close as you can be to the Old City without actually being in the Old City. Very nice. 

Zion Gate, very small but services very large cars