Hitchhiking in Jerusalem

One day during my first week in Jerusalem, I decided to take a bus straight to the Old City from work.  The “Old City” is the part of the city that is encompassed by the ancient walls of old Jerusalem and includes the places such as the Temple Mount with the Dome of the Rock, the Wailing Wall, the 4^th century Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and many more old historical sites.  It is very touristy and as you walk through, the streets are filled with Arab merchants selling things from their shops.  It is a completely different world from where I live, where I rarely even see Arabs. 

            I walked through the Old City for a little bit, ate a falafal pita sandwich, bought some groceries and decided to walk home.  I underestimated the amount of time it would take, and an hour and a half later, I am finally approaching the security gates by where I live on campus.  Now, there are three Hebrew University campuses in Jerusalem, the Mt. Scopus campus by the BYU Jerusalem Center with all the humanities, the Ein Kerem campus with the medical school (where I work, very West Jerusalem) and the Givat Ram campus with the math and sciences (where I live). 

  I am not sure about the other campuses, although I am guessing that they are similar, but for Givat Ram, the entire campus is surrounded by a barbed wire fence, with only three entrances to the campus.  These entrances are guarded gates with Israeli soldiers that check ID and make sure you are supposed to be on campus before letting you in.  This is nice because I feel very secure once I am on campus, but it is also surprisingly inconvenient. 

Only one entrance is open all the time and it just happens to be the north entrance on the opposite side of campus from me at the south end.  The Givat Ram campus is shaped like an oval, which makes the walk from the north end to the south about 1km.  When I am coming from someone’s house in the south, as I often am, it takes an extra 40 minutes to walk to the north end and back down to where I live.

            So after walking 1.5 hours, I am standing at the south security gate by where I live, and the gate was closed.  There was no guard and no way to get in.  It was so frustrating and I was so tired from walking with all my groceries and couldn’t bear the thought of walking another 45 minutes.  Just then, a car pulled up to the gate, trying to get through and I noticed that the car was an Israeli couple.  I flagged them down and asked for a ride to the north gate.  It was my first hitchhiking experience in Jerusalem!

Falafel in the Old City!