Blog/August 2008/Aug 15th/Sarah

So today my parents decide to wake us up real early so we could go to "עיר דוד", or "City of David", which is this whole archaeological expedition thing. Kinda cool, right? Well, not really, as I was definitely not in the mood for it. I'd stayed up late, and I just wanted to sleep the day away, shower, eat the shabbat meal, and go to sleep again.

Whatever.

So I'm dragged off to this place. [interjection: It was about 90 degrees. In the morning.] I knew that there was some sort of water trail thingy, and I'm not at all looking forward to it, sloshing around in a river.

Well, I thought it was a river.

Turns out, after trudging down about 300 stairs, we come to these caves that lead into dark, narrow tunnels. I'm not exaggerating at all, honestly. You need a flashlight to see in front of you, and have to walk single file because it's so narrow. At some points in the tunnel, you have to duck as well, to avoid the low ceiling. The water in the tunnel sloshed around my ankles--and sometimes knees.

In hindsight, it's pretty cool, but as soon as I entered the tunnel, I felt a small bubble of panic well up in my chest. I kept insisting we go back, but as it was a one-way tunnel, we couldn't, and my parents made me go on. The bubble had risen to my throat like the beginnings of vomit, and my breath was coming in short bursts. The scene from Star Wars where Han, Leia, Luke and Chewy are all stuck in the garbage compactor and then the walls close in on them and nearly crush them kept playing over and over in my head, and I felt like I couldn't breathe.

By this time I was scared and panicked and felt like I was about to either puke or pass out. My parents kept telling me to just breathe, calm down. My father stopped and turned around (he was in front, I behind him, then Daniela and my mother in the back) and made me breathe in and out slowly. It helped, but I was still nervous throughout the entire trek (about half an hour, maybe more), and was exhausted when we came out the other end and had to practically climb a mountain just to get to the place we started from.

After I had "recuperated", we went to this movie thing that was showing at עיר דוד. It was all about the history of our land and so forth and how Jerusalem grew as a city. The cool thing was that it was in 3D. I propose that all movies be made in 3D, because it's so much cooler that way. It kind of made me feel a little cross-eyed, though.

That's my tale of woe. Hope you enjoyed it.