Morning in the Old City

One of the ways that security is manifested in the Old City is how early everything closes. Shortly after sunset, even the Muslim shopkeepers have closed their steel gates in front of their shops. The streets are bare and occupied mainly by soldiers and boys playing soccer. Our hostel closes its gates at 11:00. That's not too eraly to go to bed though, because the city wakes up very early.

At 4:00 or so, the mosques give the first call to prayer. Ther loudspeakers of the hearest one are right over our windows and we are in a fine position ot listen to the performance. It doesn't help much that the standard call to prayer is altered for the morning calls to include the statement that "prayer is better than sleep, so wake up and pray".

For those who fall asleep again (or managed to ignore the first wake up call) there are soon children running up and down the street under our window and yelling. They show up at about the same time as the light. Although our room is never dark because we have no curtians to shut out the street lights, when the sun rises it is very hard to ignore the increase in brightness.

Finally, to top it all off, the toursits kick in. As early as 6:45, some groups of pilgrims will show up outside our gate and start singing hymns. They actually sound pretty good. It's fun to watch all the different groups go by. Some have matching blue or yelow hats, others actually have matching outfits (the ones from Africa), and some are all clergy in matching habits.

Oh, and if you are still asleep, there are the ice-cold showers...

pilgrims singing in street