Just As He Has Said

After less than 5 hours of sleep I very confusedly woke up to my alarm at 5 am this morning, wondering what on earth that obnoxious sound coming from my phone was (despite the fact that it’s the exact same alarm I use every morning). Then I quickly remembered: it’s Easter!!! I met up with friends and went down to the bus stop at 5:30, making it to the Garden Tomb just a few minutes before the gates opened at 6. We enjoyed some confused looks from the bus driver wondering what on earth three foreigners were doing on his bus before dawn.

There was already a huge group of people waiting at the gates of the Garden when we got there, but we actually managed to file inside in a quite orderly fashion and found seats just next to and a little behind the podium they had set up. Now to back up a bit, the Garden Tomb is the place Protestants believe the tomb of Jesus was located, (meaning the site of Jesus’ burial and resurrection). The reasoning behind this belief is that this tomb is cut out of the rock, items found around it indicate it was the tomb of a rich man (so it could have belonged to Joseph of Arimathea), it’s located near a garden, and a rock face very close by resembles a skull (Golgatha). These all match up with descriptions of Jesus' tomb in the gospels. The pastor opened the service by saying, “On a morning quite like this one, almost 2000 years ago, an incredible event happened in a tomb in a garden. And it very well may have been this very garden we’re sitting in today”. Talk about a powerful statement.

Up until now I have been attending all Catholic ceremonies relating to Easter, so it was nice to be back in my comfort zone of Protestantism with songs I know, a format I follow, and a congregation similar to me. It was an incredibly beautiful time of worship with lots of singing (which is the mark of a good service in my opinion). The sermon was focused on the disciple Thomas, and asking the question of how we can believe that the Resurrection happened. I thought the pastor was an excellent speaker, so that, the music, the atmosphere, and the location combined made for an absolutey amazing service. The joy and energy of the place really was something to behold. I’m so glad I am lucky enough to be here on this geat day!!

Following the service, we made our way to the Old City into the Church of the Holy Sepluchre (we decided to double dip our church services to get our fill of some Resurrection happiness—plus, we wanted to cover our bases and go to both the Catholic and Protestant-believed sites of the Resurrection just to be able to say that no matter who’s right, we were there).

After waiting for several hours, most of which were spent standing in a very small crowded space, the mass began. Oh boy was I in for a treat. The entire thing was in Latin. Beginning to end. And, it lasted 2 hours. 120 minutes of all Latin….standing. Oy vey. It was certainly an experience. Let’s add to this the fact that there were entirely too many people packed into one space to be even remotely safe, and to make matters worse, there was some maintenance man who felt it was necessary to wade through the crowds carrying wooden benches from place to place (for no apparent reason) and nearly knock me and several old women out in the process. Oh and lets not forget that we’re all holding Easter candles. That are lit. I feel like the fire hazard alone is something to consider. When they brought the hosts out to perform the Eucharist I legitimately thought I was going to get trampled in a stampede, but then a procession began which has now been deemed “the Procession that never ends”, meaning we couldn’t even get out of the building because they closed the church doors. Finally the mass was over and they opened the doors, giving us a taste of freedom, but it was shortlived because soon after a tidal wave of people waiting outside the doors descended on us poor mass-goers who were just trying to vacate the darn church. At this point everyone starts throwing elbows, screaming, pushing, and performing every other extremely counterproductive action to get where they want to go. I’m pretty sure I crushed the bones of the poor fragile old lady standing in front of me because a huge man and woman behind me were two arm shoving me into her. I was squeezed so tight I could not breath for half a minute or so. It was intense.

Yet, I made it out in one piece, found my friends, and we practically ran out of the complex to the gate of the Old City. However, I’m making this sound like a huge miserable disaster, which it was not. As we were walking away all three of us said that we were SO glad we had gone. I mean, Easter Mass in the Church of the Holy Sepluchre is bound to be a zoo, but it’s definitely a must. Who knows if I’ll ever be in Jerusalem on Easter again and I’m so glad I got to have this experience. Seeing some really big guns in the Catholic church (judging by the elaborateness of their hats of course) process around in this incredible building where they believe the Resurrection happened, accompanied by Fransiscan monks, nuns, other priests, and pilgrims from all over the world was pretty darn cool. Plus it was really interesting to contrast the Protestant service of the morning with the Catholic Mass….I definitely know which I liked better (for the record, even my Catholic friends felt the same way, and assured me that this was NOT normal procedure for the masses they usually attend).

So Happy Easter from the Holy Land!! He has risen and it’s a beautiful beautiful day in Jerusalem. I leave tomorrow morning for Turkey so you can look forward to tales and pictures from that in about a week’s time!!

Sooooo Holy

One of the things I was most looking forward to about this study abroad experience was being in Jerusalem during Easter. Well, Holy Week has arrived and it is even more insane than I expected. The Old City is absolutely packed, there is security everywhere, hundreds of tour buses line the streets of the city, and signs directing pilgrims and/or tourists to all major sites in the Old City have been specially posted for the occasion. I’ve tried to take full advantage of being here during this special time, and though it means being pushed and shoved and groped and yelled at and suffering through surprisingly irreverent crowds, it’s been awesome. Here’s a recap of what I’ve done so far:

Thursday morning began with a Jewish event actually, the twice-yearly Birkat Kohanim. During Pesach and Sukkot a special blessing is given out to the Jewish community by the Kohanim (priestly class). Thousands of religious Jews gather at the Western Wall for this priestly blessing so I went down to check it out. A news report I read said 10,000 people were there throughout the day, reciting their own prayers, receiving blessings, or just watching. It was a very cool event to witness. I took a video but it didn’t come out well so I’ll just give you a link to my friend Cody’s video because his camera is way better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ru5IhojZRk&feature=player_embedded

From the kotel we headed to the Coenaculum, or the room of the Last Supper, the site tradition recognizes as the location of Jesus’ last meal with his disciples. It being Maundy Thursday and all, a visit to the room of the Last Supper was a must.

That afternoon we attended a Feet Washing Mass in the bascilica of the Ecce Homo convent in the Old City. It was one of the few English masses we found for Holy Thursday so I thought it was going to be really crowded but it wasn’t at all. It was actually a really nice, small, peaceful service. Since it was the feet washing mass the priests washed 12 peoples’ feet in the front of the church and then set up hand washing stations for the rest of the people in attendance. Each person went up to the table, had their hands washed, and then stepped to the other side of the table to wash the next person’s hands. In that way we were all being served and then serving ourselves, taking the words of John 13:14 to heart. Despite not being incredibly familiar with the procedure of Catholic Mass, I really enjoyed the service a lot. The church itself was also gorgeous.

From this mass we walked from the Old City to the Garden of Gethsemane (just like Jesus did...minus the cars and streetlights and city walls and tour guides to dodge of course). Here was our first experience with the Holy Week mob scene. They had not yet opened the gates to the garden so there were tons of people just waiting outside. Once the gates opened we rushed into the church and despite getting there an hour early just barely managed to find seats in the Church of All Nations (the church inside the Garden). Also known as the Basilica of Agony, this church is absolutely beautiful, but I have never seen it so full as it was Thursday night. The Holy Hour we attended consisted of scripture readings, singing, and prayers, but they were conducted in about 7 or 8 languages. First would be a song in Latin, then a reading in French, a song in Arabic, a prayer in Italian, another reading in English, and so on. It was a really interesting idea and a very beautiful event.

The next morning, Good Friday, we again went down to the Old City to take a walk down the Via Dolorosa led by a group of Fransiscans. The Via Dolorosa follows the path of the 14 stations of the cross (which, not being something really discussed or emphasized in the Protestant church, I didn’t know too much about in detail before I came to Jerusalem). At each “station” there is a marker on the wall and a church belonging to various Catholic and Orthodox denominations. We had a hard time navigating the Old City because lots of streets had been blocked off by police barriers but made it to the first station just in time for the procession to begin. At each station one of the brothers would read allowed what the station was in Latin, then English, then Spanish, and between each station the whole procession would speak or sing Our Fathers and Hail Marys. While it’s difficult to be particularly reverent while in a huge procession through streets that are now packed with stands selling falafel and baklava and stores hawking kitch touristy merchandise, being part of this huge institutional event was so awesome. The last 5 stations take place inside the church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was an absolute zoo. I definitely almost got trampled several times. But that’s okay because it was really cool anyway.

Today was the event I have been REALLY looking forward to: the miracle of the Holy Fire. Every year on Holy Saturday there is a procession into the Church of the Holy Sepluchre, during which an Orthodox priest enters the sepluchre itself holding a bundle of candles (after being checked by an Israeli soldier to ensure he has no matches or a lighter) and after saying a special prayer, comes out with the candles lit. He then leads a procession around the sepluchre and passes the fire to the thousands of people gathered. Witnesses say the fire doesn’t actually burn you. This fire from God is supposed to be the oldest regularly recurring miracle in Christianity (it’s been recorded as occurring yearly since 1066). While I’m not sure I buy the whole miraculous fire bit I was still really really excited about going to the ceremony and being a part of the event. This morning we got to the Old City with about 3½ hours to spare, allowing us plenty of time to navigate the crowds and hopefully secure some kind of place in the church. What we were met with, however, were worse crowds than I have ever seen in my life (we were at a standstill for a good 20 minutes on one street) and every single pathway to the Christian quarter blocked. We tried literally every possible street and route to where we needed to go but kept finding ourselves trapped by police barriers. After over an hour of wandering we finally asked one of the policemen who informed us that we were not allowed to go into the Christian quarter because only those with a police pass were allowed entrance, and the police passes were given out to only 30,000 people thus we could not get one and therefore we were not getting into the sepluchre, or really any part of the Christian quarter until after the Holy Fire ceremony was over. This was certainly news to us because in all our reading about the ceremony and talking to people about it (including the folks at the Christian Information Center in the Old City) we had NEVER heard of this pass business. We found out later that passes are distributed by local parishes, and since none of us belong to an Orthodox parish we probably couldn’t have gotten one anyway. REALLY???? Jesus died for me too, people. Come on now. Anyway, super disappointed we dejectedly left the Old City making lots of bible puns about being denied three times and having no room at the inn and other such witticisms. Holy fire fail. I’ll settle for a poor-quality video instead.

http://www.oodegr.com/english/ekklisia/holylight.htm

The plan for tomorrow is to attend a sunrise service at the Garden Tomb and attempt again to get into the Sepluchre. We’ll see if they have room for us this time….

I feel like this post is ending on a sour note and I don't want that. Holy Week stuff has been AWESOME so far. This small disappointment is just a little glitch in the plans, and my most anticipated event (tomorrow's sunrise service) is still to come. I'll be back tomorrow with (hopefully) good stuff to tell. Happy Easter to all!!

A Whirlwind Northern Tour--Part 2

From Tsfat we drove to Nazareth, where we spent that night. I just have to say something about our hostel in Nazareth because it was without a doubt the most beautiful hostel I’ve stayed in. It was a 200 year old Arab mansion that has been restored for use as a guest house.

You can see from the pictures how nice it is, but most of the charm of the place was the volunteers and staff who worked there. They had freshly baked cake 24/7, an unbelievably helpful staff, and a free tour of the Old City every morning, led by a volunteer who is just really passionate about Nazareth. Which brings me to the next morning. We took the tour, led by Linda, who is completely impossible to describe, but let’s just leave it at bizarre as they come. Her tour, however, was wonderful. She took us a little off the beaten path. We went into the White Mosque (going into a mosque was a first for me), all throughout the marketplace (where she pointed out the best food and her favorite vendors), into a Spice Mill where we had a 5 shekel taste test (for 5 sheks, less than $1.50 we could try anything in the store: nuts, dried fruit, delicious mixes, etc), several architectural gems, old houses, and the coolest: the residence of the bishop of the Greek Orthodox church, under which they recently found 1^st century caves into which we were able to go. It was a really cool fun tour and I got to see a ton that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. She also talked a lot about grassroots programs that are going on to bring Jews, Muslims, and Christians together in Nazareth. As the hometown of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, Nazareth has its fair share of religious sites, the most impressive of which is the Basilica of the Annunciation. My pictures and descriptions don’t do it justice so look it up because this building was just sensational. And also huge.

(This is another old Arab mansion in the Old City that has been dated from the Roman period!)

(The church above is the Greek Orthodox church of the Annunciation, inside of which we witnessed a baptism of an adorable little baby, and it's also the source of Mary's Well which I didn't talk about in this blog because it was a stone building that had graffiti all over it and therefore not cool at all.)

I really liked Nazareth a lot. Every single person we met, talked to, bought things from, etc was just incredibly friendly! People were excited to talk to us, asked us questions, wished blessings on us, and were altogether so welcoming. The town itself was a really interesting mix of people. It wasn’t too big or too small, and despite being touristy still felt really authentic and lived in. I also had the best baklava I’ve ever had in my entire life. And really delicious kanafeh. I highly recommend a visit there if you go to Israel.

After our Nazareth tour Saturday morning we headed off to meet our doom. And by meet our doom I mean go to Megiddo, which is where the battle between Good and Evil at the end of the world is going to happen, according to the Revelation of John (The name in Hebrew is Har Megiddo, which is where the name “Armageddon” comes from). Aside from being where Armageddon is supposed to happen, Megiddo is not that cool. It’s basically ruins from a bunch of different time periods on top of a big hill, which would have been cool except that I’ve seen lots of ruins and the novelty is beginning to wear off. (Read about the history because it actually is very interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Megiddo) Very untypical of the three of us, Dana Cody and I decided to completely disregard the educational aspect of Megiddo while we were there and instead create a narrative of the end times whil wandering through the park. Each place we went we added a new piece into the saga so by the end of our tour of Megiddo we had invented a version of Armageddon that is rivaled by none. To give you a little glimpse of our creation I’ll just tell you that all Harry Potter characters, the Pevensies and Aslan, Jesus, Anderson Cooper, and Atticus Finch all play important roles. I’ll be happy to give you the details if you ask. We REALLY loved Megiddo, mostly for this reason. There was also a really cool water system that included a tunnel underneath the tel. That was fun.

(Dana and I are scared of the apocalypse)

(as one of the four horsemen, I'm slaying Dana. Of course)

Sunday morning we (sadly) left Nazareth for Akko, a city on the Mediterranean north of Haifa. Akko has a great old city right on the shore, so there’s the really cool feeling of the ancient walls, old synagogues, churches, and mosques, a bustling marketplace with really narrow stone streets, and structures like a lighthouse and citadel, but it’s on the sea so it’s even cooler. We were lucky enough to witness an Arab-Christian Palm Sunday procession which mostly involved teenagers looking anything but enthused. We also ate at Chumus Said, which was praised by Cody’s travel book as the best Chumus in Northern Israel….but I think our expectations were too high because it was not that great. Oh well.

Driving down the coast we next stopped in Haifa, where we just did a few highlights rather than a comprehensive tour of the city. By far my favorite were the beautiful Bahai Gardens. The Bahai Faith is a monotheistic religion that basically believes in the correctness of the major figures of all religions: Moses, Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha, etc. Each came into the world and preached what the people of the world needed to hear at that time. The Bab was one of the leading figures in the Bahai Faith and though he died in Akko, his tomb is in Haifa so this shrine is a popular destination for Bahai pilgrims. Regardless of the history, the place is just gorgeous. We could only go into part of the gardens (and the guards were really intimidating with all their rules) but it was enough to be really really impressed with the beauty. The whole complex is really cool.

After visitng a few other sites in Haifa including a Carmelite convent and church, and a cave where the prophet Elijah supposedly lived (the one who went to heaven in a cart, Michal Roni and Youval), we drove to our last stop of the trip: Caesarea! I had already visited with family but Cody and Dana had not. If you want to see pictures and/or read my description, go here: http://syadlin.blogspot.com/2011/02/fabulous-weekend.html

We pulled into Jerusalem late on Sunday night, exhausted but so sad to come to the end of the trip. Luckily the fun wasn’t over yet because we left early the very next morning for a visit to Kibbutz Hatzerim, where my dad grew up and grandfather currently lives, and then to my aunt and uncle’s house for our Passover seder! Good times were had by all, as is always the case with my family, and though Dana and Cody went back to Jerusalem Monday night I stayed with family for another day. This week I’ll be catching up on work and being uber Eastery and then I leave for Istanbul on Monday!! Chag Sameach and Happy Easter to everyone!!

A Whirlwind Northern Tour--Part 1

I’m going to attempt to relate the past five days to you as accurately as possible but I’m afraid my command for words is not really adequate enough to really convey just how incredibly amazing my Spring Break has been so far. So here goes nothing. (Also, we did so much and met so many ridiculous people that this is just going to be a sweeping overview, and you can ask for the ridiculous stories at a later date)

I, with two darling friends Dana and Cody, left Jerusalem early Thursday morning, cruising happily in our rented baby blue Hyundai aptly named Santiago. Despite having to wait a while at the rental place and having our vehicle checked at the checkpoint leaving the West Bank (we had to drive through it to get to our first destination), we arrived at our first stop close to on schedule. (We were actually somewhat happy that we had some glitches early on because that got the inevitable “hiccup in the plan” that must happen on every trip out of the way).

Our first stop was Bet She’an National Park, the most amazingly preserved ruins of a Roman town that I have ever seen. I remarked during our time there that the place was like an ancient playground. You can run through, stand amongst, climb on, nap on, and really in any way you desire interact with the crumbled walls, discarded stones, and fallen columns that lie all over the place. I never imagined being able to get so up close and personal with history anywhere, so I was just giddy with excitement the entire time. I was worried that since Bet She’an was just so cool everything else on the trip was going to be a disappointment. Not true.

From Beth She’an we continued north towards the Sea of Galilee. On the way we stopped at Belvoir Fortress, the ruins of a hilltop castle overlooking the Jordan Valley. Since it was a National Park we would have had to pay to get in and since we were only coming for a drive by we decided to skip the park itself and just go to a look out point. Here we caught our first glimpse of the Sea itself!! We could see for miles and miles in all directions and view of the Jordan Valley was absolutely stunning. This exclamation about beautiful views will be a recurring theme in this blog post.

We came upon the Galilee from the south and caught the road that goes completely around the entire sea, which we followed clockwise, stopping at strategic points along the way. Our first stop was Yardenit, a baptismal site on the Jordan River and supposedly where Jesus was baptized. Aside from the powerful religious significance the place is just absolutely stunning. The “mighty river Jordan” flows so peacefully though lush vegetation and they’ve turned this place into a beautiful little alcove. We saw tons of people getting baptized and even saw some wildlife (lots of fish and a pair of beavers). Probably the highlight though was the biblical passage from Mark translated into many languages. One was Hawaiian Pidgen, which, frankly, seemed unbelievably offensive. I’ll let you judge it for yourself though.

Stop #2 was Kibbutz Ginnosaur, the site of the Jesus Boat! During a time of really low water level in the Galilee in the 80s, two Kibbutzniks stumbled upon the remains of an old wooden boat. Through a lot of scientific testing and sophisticated technology in regards to transportation and preservation, the boat was moved to a museum and determined to be from the first century, essentially the time Jesus and his disciples were living in the area. There’s lots of speculation about who actually used the boat, but nonetheless, looking at a 2,000 year old wooden boat was pretty neat.

One of the cool things about this trip was that since we had our own car we could be spontaneous. If we saw a brown sign pointing to a site that sounded interesting we could check it out because we were very much on our own schedule. I’m so glad we did because I don’t think I ever would have stopped at the magical land that was the Greek Orthodox church on the northern shore of the Galilee. The first thing we saw when we walked into this church was a gigantic and gorgeous peacock, sitting in a tree! I, as Cody said, “Nearly laid an egg on the path” when I saw it, because let’s be real, who expects to see a peacock sitting in a tree in the middle of Israel? I certainly didn’t. There were actually 5 or 6 of these beautiful birds around the grounds of the church, as well as olive trees, lemon trees, hibiscus plants, and other beautiful shrubbery. Whoever did the landscape design for this place is amazing. There were even frogs in the little pond, sitting on lilypads. SO perfect. The church itself was, as all Greek Orthodox churches are, incredibly ornately decorated as well. We were also able to go down to the shore of the lake and get our first feel of the sea. I’m so glad we stumbled upon this church because it was such a hidden gem.

Unfortunately the rest of the sites around the Sea were closed by the time we finished with the Jesus Boat and Greek Orthodox church, so the rest of the day was spent just driving, finishing the Galilee loop. Yet this drive may have been one of the most breathtaking I’ve experienced. At one point we had to stop the car on the side of the road because Cody had a spazz attack saying “It’s just so beautiful we have to take a picture”. Dana could not stop saying “I just feel so lucky” and I must have uttered the most terrible cliches over and over again because of my loss for words. " Honestly we were all just so taken aback by the beauty of the lake, the surrounding hills, the sunset, the greenery—everything was amazing. We stopped at several lookout points to take pictures and enjoy the beauty, which my camera really inadequately captured. To finish off our first day, we explored a little bit of Tiberias, a pretty happening town on the western shore of the sea that treated us quite nicely.

On our way out of Tiberias the next morning we paid our respect to two big names of Judaism, visiting the tombs of Rabbi Akiva and Maimonides (aka the Rambam). My Orthodox Judaism professor will be proud. Moving from Judaism to Christianity we next drove through Migdal, the town where Mary Magdalene was from. There wasn’t really anything to see there but it was a beautiful little town so it was nice to drive through. Next was Capernaum (Kfar Nachum, in Hebrew), the town mentioned a few times in Matthew as the place Jesus settled and “called his own” during the portion of his life in the Galilee. This is also where Simon Peter was from, so there was the remains of an old church that was built on the site of another church, which was built on the remains of another church, which was built where Simon Peter’s house was. There was a modern church built on the same grounds. Next to the churches was the ruins of the town of Capernaum from the 4^th century and really impressively preserved remains of a synagogue from around the same time. Again, the grounds of this place were really beautiful and well kept, with a gorgeous beach and view of the sea. I feel like I must have said 8,000 times “This is unbelievable” or something along those lines referring to how spectacular the region is.

The church of the Primacy of Peter (above) and the church of the Multiplication were two other stops nearby Capernaum. The Church of the Multiplication commemorates the place where the miracle of Jesus feeding the 5,000 was supposed to have taken place. Our last church of the day was definitely my favorite: the Church of the Beatitudes atop the Mount of Beatitudes, overlooking the sea. I wont try to describe the church, I’ll just let you look at the pictures, because it’s just dazzling. I read the first part of the Sermon on the Mount out loud on the balcony of the church while Dana and Cody pretended to be disciples. It was pretty awesome.

Leaving the Galilee region to the north we next drove up to Tsfat, the birthplace of Kabbalah (the mystical form of Judaism). Tsfat is really high elevation-wise, so the views from the city are really beautiful. There are trees everywhere and it’s definitely greener than anywhere I’ve been in Israel. We spent most of our time in Tsfat in the artists colony, perusing galleries with amazing paintings, prints, jewelry, and other types of art. It reminded me a lot of Jaffa, where we went earlier in the semester. I even bought a little print (the only thing I could afford—oh how I wish I’ll one day have the disposable income to spend on art).

I'm going to leave it at that for now, and write Part 2 soon. As always, check out facebook for many more pictures, since this is just a sampling. Thanks for reading and I'll be back soon with more!! Chag Sameach to everyone :)

The Hopes and Fears of All the Years

Last Saturday I took a trip to Bethlehem. I hadn’t yet been, despite the little town being only a 20 or 30 minute trip from Jerusalem. We started with the Church of the Nativity (built over the cave where, as the name implies, Jesus was supposed to have been born). I have to say, I was underwhelmed with the place, despite the incredible religious significance. The church itself is really impossible to identify (no signage directing you there or marking the door or anything), the entrance was a door that could not have been more than 4 ½ feet tall. When I have to significantly bend over to get through a doorway you know it’s too small. The church opened up into a little entrance room with absolutely nothing in it whatsoever, just wooden beams on the roof (trying to look like a barn, perhaps?). The sanctuary was also very odd—it was huge but very plain. There was an altar and really ornate decoration in the front of the church, as you would expect out of any kind of cathedral, but the rest of it was very very plain. It was as if they were trying to make it super beautiful and threw in every possible holy or even remotely-religious sign into the altar and then lost interest and left the rest empty. Every square inch was either totally overdone or completely left alone. We had to go around the back and down some stairs to the shrine that marks the birthplace of Jesus. We waited in line to kneel down and see the star that marks the magic spot, and luckily it was pretty empty that day so we didn’t have to wait for long. Again, the whole area was just very strange. There was ugly cloth hanging everywhere and strange chandeliers that were only half lit and a bizarre cage around part of the wall—I was just very confused the whole time. We continued to follow the corridor and it opened up to a very beautiful sanctuary that was clearly much more modern. I liked that one a lot. We also followed a staircase down into “the grotto” which consisted of a cave with random tables, chairs, crucifixes, and latin phrases all over the place. Again, there was no signage or anything explaining what was going on. I decided to start making up a significance for everything. At that point the visit got a lot more fun.

Our next stop was the Milk Grotto which, if you can believe it, was even stranger. The story of the Milk Grotto is that Mary and Joseph stayed there while they were fleeing from Herod’s slaying of the baby boys. While encamped there, a drop of milk fell from Mary (while she was feeling the baby) and turned the ground white. Now there is a convent and church on this ground. Our favorite part of this shrine was the plaque that said “Cryptus Lactus”. That was funny. There was also a pretty complex on the roof with a cemetery and a nice view of the city.

Aside from the disappointment of the religious sites, I really liked Bethlehem a lot. It’s a small and pretty city, with peaceful streets and a buzzing but not bustling local population. We walked through the market a little bit and got a good feel for the vibe of the place, which I enjoyed very much. We also checked out some of the olive wood carving shops, and I got a really nice ornament that I’m excited to add to our collection. I figured when Bethlehem, it’s pretty necessary to get a Christmas accessory. The trip also made me really excited for Christmas despite the 8 month wait…there were banners and Christmas lights everywhere. Christmas all year round doesn’t sound like a bad thing to me!

Now just to inform you of what’s to come: On Thursday my Spring Break commences!! I’m spending the first chunk of time up north, the Galilee, Nazareth, Akko, and Haifa are the big places I’ll be hitting. Then I go down south for the Passover Seder with my family (and RONI IS COMING) and I’ll spend a few days after with them as well. Then I’ll be back in Jerusalem for a few days Good Friday through Easter (potentially braving the crowds at the Church of the Holy Sepluchre for Easter?) and on the Monday after Easter I fly to Istanbul for 6 days!! It will be a busy 2 ½ weeks but I’m SO excited about what’s to come!! So stay tuned for what’s sure to be a plethora of stories and pictures from the next couple weeks!

Desert Adventures

I know you were all waiting in anxious anticipation for my newest blog post so I apologize for my delay. In doing so many fun things I’ve been really neglecting school work, so I had to catch up on some of that before I could justify doing things like blogging. But now I want to tell you about the exciting desert adventure I had this weekend!

Thursday night I, along with 4 friends, took a bus down to Masada with the plan of hiking the famous monument for the sunrise on Friday morning. Masada is a hilltop fotress located in the middle of the Negev (the Judean Desert), famous as the site of a Jewish revolt around the year 70. According to the most widely-accepted and archaologically corroborated version of the story, the Jewish Zealots fled to Masada after the destruction of the temple and were followed there by the Roman army. The Romans laid siege to the hilltop and after building an entirely new ramp to the top, broke through the walls built by the Zealots, conquering the fortress. However, the Jews decided that rather than allowing themselves to be conquered and committing themselves to a life of slavery under the Romans they decided to kill themselves. So around 960 Jews committed suicide on the mountain rather than submitting to the Romans. Because of this incredible story Masada has become a really important part of Israeli history and culture, both as a symbol of the strength of the Jewish people in the face of oppression and as a landmark to antiquity and heritage. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada) Aside from all the historical stuff, Masada is just an awesome experience in and of itself. The hike is very steep, about 350 meters basically straight up, and the view from the top is phenomenal. The Dead Sea is very close so from the path and the top of the mountain itself you can see a gorgeous view of the Sea, Jordan on the other side, and the surrounding desert. Since we made it up for the sunrise the view was even more spectacular. We had a little complication with daylight savings time starting that same morning and our phones not automatically changing but we powered up that hill and made it without missing the sun.

Atop the mountain there are pretty well-preserved ruins of the fortress as it was during Roman times. There is a church, a synagogue, two palaces, mosaics, a really neat water cistern, etc.

That afternoon we headed over to Ein Gedi, where there is a public beach and access to the Dead Sea! We all laughed at the sign on the beach instructing swimmers of how to enter the sea: “Wade until you can squat then lean back gently”. Despite our mockery though, this proved to be the most effective way to enter the water. This was my second time in the Dead Sea (that I can remember) and it was no less bizarre an experience than the first time. It’s pretty hard to not float, if you’re on your back and try to stand up it takes a lot of effort to force your legs under water. Flipping over onto your stomach is funny too because you don’t want to get your face anywhere close to the water because of the salt, so you end up flailing trying to float on your stomach while craining your neck back to protect your face. Just watching people’s reactions to the Dead Sea experience provides hours of entertainment. We swam/floated/drifted over to a cove nearby in order to access a pit of the famous dead sea mud which we slathered all over our bodies. After rinsing it off my skin felt softer than I ever thought possible. It was very cool. A downside to the Dead Sea experience is that even the smallest cut on your body stings terribly in the salt water, and because all the rocks on the beach and on the sea floor are encrusted with salt they’re super sharp. So someone as clumsy and injury prone as I am had a little bit of a rough time handling myself, but luckily everyone looks like a fool at the Dead Sea so I fit in quite well.

We spent Saturday at the Ein Gedi nature reserve, basically a tropical oasis in the middle of the desert. It’s mentioned in the book of 1 Samuel that David goes there when he’s running from Saul who is trying to kill him. Today it’s a popular destination both for tourists and for Israelis taking a day trip to do some hiking. There are water falls, caves, canyons, ancient ruins—it’s just a really beautiful places. We spent several hours hiking up onto the cliffs surrounding the preserve, and in doing so witnessed some absolutely stunning views of the Dead Sea and desert surrounding the preserve. My favorite place we hiked to was called Dudim's cave, but I prefer to refer to it as Dooms cave. Several of us commented that we felt like we were in Lost or something like that. It was really really cool.

As always, check out facebook for more pictures. What's here is just a sampling.

On Sunday, after spending the day working on a paper, I joined my friends for a birthday celebration. We went to Beit Ticho, which is a house turned museum in Jerusalem known for it’s delicious restauruant. We read about it in our Hebrew textbook so we’d been dying to try it. It certainly did not disappoint. If you’re looking for a nice meal in Jerusalem, Little Jerusalem Café in Beit Ticho (The Ticho House) is an excellent choice.