When I talk to many of my Palestinian friends about Jerusalem it is normal for a glazed look to come into their eyes, for them to stare off into the distance towards its walls and wonder aloud what it would be like to freely travel to that spot just up the road.   Yesterday I got to accompany one of those friends.

Areej got a one-day pass to go to Jerusalem, something not easily obtained. She had an appointment for an interview at the US consulate for a visa. How many times would I have this opportunity, to go along with a Palestinian friend who normally cannot travel to the city? So even though I had just returned from Turkey the day before I choose to go on a days adventure.

We took a large six-door taxi to the checkpoint and walked up through the metal fence running parallel to the WALL, pretending not to know each other, trying to not say anything so that there would be no questions as to why I was with a Palestinian. Once inside the checkpoint building we stood in line, waiting to go through the metal turnstile that let only a few through at a time to pass through the metal detector and up to the guards. I immediately was faced with my first sense of privilege. When the metal detector went off even though I had removed everything from my pockets and slid my camera and belt through the machine I just flashed my American passport at the guard and they waved me through. Minutes earlier we had watched an old woman repeatedly go through the metal detector and set it off. A man I presumed to be her son kept helping her try and figure out why she kept setting it off, she seemed disoriented and confused. It was obvious to me that she was a tourist. The speaker above our heads crackled to life, spitting out words in Arabic till finally they realized she was a tourist and found one of the Israeli guards who spoke English and just told her to go on through. This is how I knew that if I produced my passport I could walk through.

We both made it through the checkpoint and boarded bus #124, finally speaking to each other when Areej sat down next to me. The bus began to move and rolled down the streets and into the outskirts of Jerusalem. I became Areej's tour guide, an unfamiliar role. She had only been to Jerusalem twice in the last 8 years and asked questions about where the bus was going, where we would get off while staring out the window and commenting on how large some of the settlements surround the city had grown. I, who have been to Jerusalem many times now, was confused by being a guide for my friend who is from this area.

We stepped off the bus at the Damascus gate entrance to the Old City, the glorious gold Dome of the Rock mosque peering out over the wall around the city. Areej took a moment to take it in, her deep inhale and misty eyes reveling in this moment. We wandered down through the gate and into the Muslim quarter. Areej followed behind me, unsure of her steps. I led us down onto the Via Dolorosa and to one of the guarded entrances into the mosque area where the Dome of the Rock and Al-aqsa mosque are. This began a strange series of occurrences where vendors, soldiers, people on the street throughout the entire day would take one look at Areej and I and somehow miss the fact that she is Palestinian while trying to greet us, usher us in to their stores, question where we were going, etc. in English. Every time Areej answered them in Arabic.

After determining that I couldn't go into the mosque area until after 12:30pm when prayer time was finished we wandered back around the Old City and found the church of the Holy Sepulcher, a place which is kind of significant in the religion that I was raised with. It was humbling in a strange way to stand in front of the place where a slab marks the spot that Jesus' body was prepared for burial after the crucifixion and see people bend down to put their heads upon it.

It was finally 12:30pm and we walked up to one of the entrances to the mosque area but again I was turned away, I couldn't go through the same entrance as Areej. I had to go through the gate that rose up above the western wall. So, through two metal detectors and up a questionably constructed wood monstrosity of a bridge that rose up above the western wall, bringing in to view the hundreds of people in the courtyard praying; past two sniper sentries lounging in the corner of one bend in the bridge with their huge weapons causally leaning on their bodies. Areej met me as I walked through the open doorway and together we walked out into the square, dwarfed on one side by the Dome of the Rock and on the other by Al-aqsa, both curved historic half spheres rising up around us.

I finally found a place that my American passport couldn't get me into. I didn't even attempt to go into the Dome of the Rock but I watched as other tourists tried and then complained because they couldn't go into the holy site. Areej walked in, shrouded in a headscarf and wrap around skirt, the first time I had seen her in this kind of dress. She told me later that she went down into the cave underneath the mosque, down to the rock that Mohammed ascended to heaven from for a night's journey. The look in Areej's eyes when she came out of this place, this place she could hardly ever visit, that Muslims from all over Palestine struggle and fight to get into, on a piece of the land stained with the blood of countless holy wars...I can create the images of what we did while we were there but I can in no way capture the emotions, the significance, the reality of this journey for both of us.

Two places of religious significance in our varied histories though both of us freely admit our struggles with Christianity and Islam, visited together on a one-day pass. The rest of the trip is really just a series of details. I sat in the quiet of the garden tomb while Areej went to her interview since I found another place that my American passport would not get me in to, the American consulate after 11:30am on a Tuesday. It was quiet in this place that some believe to be the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea even though there were a plethora of tourist groups wandering about with tour guides who told a monotone version of the history of that area outside the Old City walls and overlooking the blue bus stop that I use to catch the bus back to Dheisheh.

Darkness was drooping over the hillsides as we sped through the checkpoint that usually doesn't require you to stop on the way out of Jerusalem a little after 6pm. Areej let out a sigh and then we both took in the sight on the construction on another section of the WALL near the village of Al-Hadr, the huge metal beams sticking out of concrete foundations in the ground, their huge solitary upright forms sneaking out of the shadows of the night. Ill leave it to the reader to determine how seeing this felt after the journey of the day.