The Sound (and Lights) and the FURY

One of our more humorous experiences of the trip happened the night of the Tower of David Sound and Lights show. We got back from class and had almost two hours before we were supposed to meet (those who wanted to) for our optional excursion to the Sound and Lights show. A little group of us girls decided to go eat dinner at "my restaurant" in Mamilla Mall before the show and just planned to meet the rest of the group outside the Tower of David. Our meal took a little longer than we anticipated but we left in plenty of time to get to (what we thought was) the appointed meeting place at the appointed time.

So we waited... and waited... and waited... and finally I went to the Tower to see if they might have already gone in and the person working the entry said the Yad Vashem group was already inside the walls. I went back and got my buddies and we went in where we caught sight of the backs of a few of our group members as they were swallowed up by the crowd entering the courtyard where the show took place. We asked at the gate if we could go in (without tickets) since our group had already entered and they refused, sending us to the ticket window. We tried the ticket window and explained that our group left us without our tickets. They refused to allow us to enter, even though they had proof of payment for 37 from Yad Vashem. The man at the gate came to talk to the ticket sellers (all of this in an unknown tongue... ;) ) and then we were sent back to a younger guy at the gate. Meanwhile, ALL of the waiting crowd had gone in and the show was soon to start. A teenage girl and her mom was at the gate, listening to all of this transpire. The younger girl kept talking to the boy at the gate and I gathered she was working on our behalf (in Hebrew).

Finally, the man who was in charge came to the gate and told the boy he could not allow us to go in, no matter what all we offered (including getting our tickets and bringing them back, getting a group member to bring them out, etc). At that point, the mother of this teenage girl starts LETTING THE OLDER MAN HAVE IT. I mean, she was wearing him out. They kept screaming back and forth at each other in Hebrew and we were basically just swiveling heads like people at a tennis match. I also caught myself nodding along with her, which was hilarious considering I had no clue what she was saying. FINALLY, she must have prevailed because he agreed to let one of us go in to find our group and the other two had to go all the way around the Tower of David to the exit, meeting the one who went in for the tickets. (This is what lead to my roommate, Tiffany, crawling up and down rows in the dark whispering, "Yad Vashem! Yad Vashem!" which is basically the equivalent of whispering, "Holocaust Museum! Holocaust Museum!" in a dark movie theater in the US...)

As we turned to run around to the exit, I looked at the lady and her daughter and said, "Thank you all so very much. We REALLY appreciate it." She said, "I told him I was ASHAMED he treat you this way! ASHAMED of my countryman, treating guests like that!" :) I walked away with a newfound resolve to speak up more often when I see situations where I can help someone out, especially when there is a language barrier.

That angry Israeli lady was our friend that night. :)