The Jordan River and the Red Rock of Petra

By the side of the Jordan River. Right before I took this picture a man baptized his 2-year-old infant. That would be the coolest to be baptized in the same river as Jesus!

My class and I traveled to Jordan for 4 days, and it was awesome! The first day, on our way to Petra, we stopped at the Jordan River and saw the traditional site where John the Baptist baptized Jesus. The Judean Wilderness surrounding the river was sparsely vegetated, and a lot different than I had imagined. It kind of reminded me of Tucson because it was pretty deserty, but it had a little more greenery. We also went to Mount Nebo, which is where Moses saw the promised land from before he was translated.

On Mount Nebo

The first view of the Treasury in Petra from the canyons

Monastery in Petra

The next day was Petra! Our hotel was right near the entrance to Petra, so at 7:30 we started walking down the canyons to the actual ruins of Petra. As I was walking down the last canyon, I turned a corner and saw the treasury building in Petra. It was amazing; so ornately carved yet also so large. I honestly find Petra more amazing than the pyramids, which is saying a lot because I’ve wanted to see the pyramids ever since I was 8 years old and checked out every book in the library about it. There are tons of buildings in Petra, and in its heyday there were 30,000 people living there! I would highly recommend seeing this to anyone. It’s incredible.

On our third day, we went to Amman, Jordan’s capital city. We went to the old Roman city of Jerash, and it definitely reminded me of Rome. We saw lots of ruins and then went to a gladiator show! The costumes were pretty authentic, and they had gladiator “fights” complete with fake blood as well as a chariot race. It had a lot of history intertwined with the fighting, so I learned interesting things. Afterward we went to the branch in Amman and met the branch president and district president. I learned that the Church was given property in Abu Dhabi (which is in the U.A.E), but right now a refugee camp is on it, so before we can build a church there, we’ll have to relocate them. Later that night I went to the Mecca Mall and saw a movie! I haven’t been able to feel American like that for 2 months, and it was so nice.

At the Mosque

Roman ruins in Amman

Today we went to the King Abdullah Mosque and then the Citadel in Amman, which had more Roman ruins. It was a pretty low-key day, and we actually made it back to the Center in 4 hours, including border crossing time. Tomorrow we’re going to Eilat snorkeling, so I’ll keep you posted!

Crepes!

Today the part of Jerusalem we live in was closed to students because of the protests going on as offshoots of the fighting in Gaza. So we decided to take a taxi to West Jerusalem (which is the nicer part) and went to a crepe cafe. It was really good! I think one of those would really flourish in Provo. I'll have to look into it... Tomorrow we leave for Jordan and we'll be gone for 4 days. I'll write again when we get back!

Hezekiah's Tunnel!

At the 3-d movie they showed before we went to David's City

Today I went to King David's City. It was so fun! I got to see archaeologists at work and walk through Hezekiah's Tunnel. The story behind Hezekiah's Tunnel is really interesting, so I think I'll tell you all about it. Orginally, Jerusalem got its water from a spring outside the city walls called Gihon Spring. However, since it was outside the city, if Jerusalem were ever under siege they would be without a water source, so when Hezekiah was king, he had a tunnel dug to move it inside the city. He followed the prophet's council when he did this, and as a result was promised that Jerusalem would not be taken by the Assyrians, who were rumored to be coming to overtake Jerusalem. He said that not a single arrow would enter the city, which was a miraculous promise since that was one of the main ways the Assyrians usually took cities. Well, the Assyrians came and camped out. The next morning, they "woke up dead" according to the Bible. Bible scholars think that the black plague was sent upon the Assyrians, so many people died and the rest left.
Today, I walked down Hezekiah's Tunnel. It was definitely one of my favorite things I've done since I've been here! Basically, Hezekiah's Tunnel is a little bit wider than my shoulders and has water that goes up to my calves. It takes about 20 minutes to walk through, and it's so fun! It requires a headlamp which makes it more of an adventure. If you ever go to the Holy Land, I would totally recommend doing this.

Walking through the tunnel. This was at one of the deeper spots in the tunnel.

This was an "after" picture. Our pants are pretty wet!

The Pool of Siloam. This is where Jesus healed the blind man by putting the clay on his eyes. It's also where Hezekiah's Tunnel ends. The Pool used to be full, but since they started regulating the water it's been empty.

Spelunking in Zedekiah's Cave!

On Thursday we only had 1 class, so I basically had a free day. I decided to go to Zedekiah’s Cave with a few other people, and it was so fun! Apparently Zedekiah’s Cave started out as a natural cave, but by the First Temple Period, it was used as a quarry; the stone was even perhaps used as building blocks for Solomon’s Temple! It’s been quarried out a lot and it goes down really deep. There were lots of signs that said “No Passage” or areas that had chains to deter exploring, but there was a certain section that didn’t have any warnings yet was off the trail. Well, we took the lack of chains to mean that we could go there, and it was so worth it! We crawled through tunnels and ended up in a small chamber that had water dripping in it, making new cave formations. I’ll definitely be back there soon!

This was in the hidden chamber. Don't we really look like we fell?

An Earthquake, Snow, and Breakdancing Jews

Jews breakdancing to a dreadlocked jazz-playing saxophoner. You don't see that every day!

Hello my loyal readers! Sorry it’s taken so long for me to update…I really don’t have a good excuse but I resolve to do better. Since I last blogged, I’ve seen quite a few things:

We went to Jericho and saw the excavations of the walls. These aren’t the walls that fell down when Joshua besieged them, although at first the archaeologists thought they were. In fact, these predate those famous walls by a few thousand years. However, the walls that probably were Joshua’s walls have been carted off as rubble and probably will never be found again.

Some walls in Jericho. I learned that not only is Jericho the oldest continuously occupied city in the world (since 10000 BC), it's also the lowest city in the world.

Next we went to a monastery on the Mount of Temptation, where Satan tempted Jesus after 40 days of fasting. Quruntal Monastery was so cool because it was built into the side of the mountain! Inside one of the chapels they have what they believe is one of the rocks that Satan asked Jesus to turn to bread. The view from up there was amazing, and the Dead Sea was so close!

View from the top of the monastery

Inside the monastery. On one side is the rock of the mountain, and on the other is the living quarters for the monks!

We went to the Bell Caves, too. A long time ago the residents used to quarry rock from here and they eventually made caves in a bell shape. They were really large and airy. We were singing because the acoustics are so good in the cave, and it must have woken up the bats, because one of the girls in my group had a bat poop on her! Later we went to different caves (I can’t remember what they’re called), but I got to crawl through a long tunnel into a deep cave where the Greeks used to keep doves. I love spelunking!

At the Bell Caves

On another field trip, we went to the Valley of Elah, where David fought Goliath. We each got slings, and after seeing the fight reenacted, we got to practice throwing stones with them. It was so fun!

I didn't do very well with my slingin' skills. I need a little more practice. But I sure look fierce!

I have also been privy to lots of odd natural occurrences lately (well ok, two). On Monday I was sitting in the cafeteria eating lunch when all of a sudden the table started shaking. At first I thought it was maybe just some construction, but the shaking went on for about 30 seconds or so, much too long for that. It was an earthquake! And yesterday, some of our classes were canceled because of snow. I never thought I'd have another snow day after living in Connecticut, and especially not at college in Jerusalem. But even the slightest amount of snow shuts down the city, and as a result I had a pretty relaxed day (which was nice for a change).

Today we went to the Yad Vashim Holocaust Museum. I’ve been to a couple of these. They all seem to have the same presentation, but I enjoyed this one because we had a tour guide who told us stories of some of the victims and survivors; it made it a lot more personal. One cool story was about siblings (a boy and a girl) who were separated as they went to concentration camps. They both survived, and one went to Canada while the other went to Israel. They’d both heard from different sources that no one from their village survived, so they didn’t look for anyone from their family. Last year, the woman’s grandchildren had to do research on their genealogy and they knew that all of their grandmother’s family had perished in the Holocaust, so they looked on the Yad Vashim website to find records of them. Well, they found a testimony from their grandmother’s brother that said she perished in the Holocaust. They found out his information and they reunited after 65 years of being apart! I thought that was incredible.

Well, that’s about it for now. I promise I’ll do better keeping you updated from now on!

Things I Miss About America

As I have almost reached my one-month mark abroad, I have to pause and reflect on my time here. I've loved every minute of it, but there are definitely some things that are less than stellar here. Therefore, I have come up with a list of things I miss about America:
1. Lane, my family, and my friends
2. Free toilets with toilet paper, paper towels, and soap
3. Mexican food
4. The ability to have more than 7 choices of what to wear each morning
5. Understanding what people are saying
6. TV!
While most of these things are not important to my survival, they do make my life more enjoyable and so I'm counting down the days until I can return to indulge in these pleasures!

Egypt and the 10 Plagues

Sunset in Luxor

This sign was in my room on our overnight train from Luxor to Cairo. You can enlarge it by clicking on it-you HAVE to read it

I just got back from Egypt! It was awesome to see so many of the world-renowned archaeological sites I’ve been hearing about my whole life. I saw the pyramids, Hatsheput’s Temple, and King Tut’s sarcophagus. I also went on a carriage ride (I got to drive for a bit!) and went shopping at a famous bazaar.

Even though I got to do tons of fun stuff, I still experienced a little taste of what the Egyptians might have endured when Moses sent the plagues on them. On our first day in Luxor, I came down with the flu and so I had to stay in. The next day I decided to go out even though I wasn’t feeling totally recovered. As we went in Ramses IV’s tomb in Valley of the Kings, I started feeling faint, and about 2 minutes in I flat-out fainted! Needless to say I didn’t get to see the other tombs planned for the day. The day after that I inevitably caught a cold, which I maintained until the end of our Egypt trip. Oh well, if you’re going to get sick in a country, it might as well be one where there’s a history for you to follow!

Me at the reins in the carriage

Zhoser's pyramid (the first pyramid ever built in Egypt)

My one hookup in Egypt. I know, he's pretty old.

The pyramids! Well, one of them. It was one of about 4 rainy days that they get every year. Go figure it would happen to me!