Day Four - Jerusalem New Testament City tour

I’m still sick so this will be on the short side.

Today we spent most of the day on the Temple mount. In case you are curious what the Temple Mount is, it is the place where the temple used to be and the courtyard that surrounded it. As our teacher Todd said today, it is pretty amazing that we were even allowed onto the temple mount, it is a place with a lot of tension. The Temple mount currently has two major buildings on it, the Al-Aksa mosque and the Dome of the Rock. There is also an underground mosque called the Al-Marwani mosque there. Since it is where the Temple used to be, it is far and away the holiest place in Judaism. There are some Jewish people who will not even go up on the mount to avoid the possibility that they would desecrate the area where the holy of holies of the temple was. They believe that not only is it a the place where the temple was but also that it is the place where Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac.

(the Dome of the Rock)

The temple mount is the third holiest place in Islam, they believe that it is the place where Mohommed ascended to heaven on a horse and spoke with Allah. There is a rock inside the dome of the Rock that they say he ascended from. It is the same rock that the Jews say that Abraham sacrificed Isaac on. It is also the same rock that was probably in the Holy of Holies and the ark of the covenant sat on.

Part of what is interesting about all of this is that the Muslims say that the temple never stood there. They don’t want to admit that the Jews might have a prior claim to the area. They won’t let anyone do any archeology inside the temple mount, you can get arrested for praying inside the temple mount, or having a Bible or a tape measure. It is definitely the most Arab feeling part of Jerusalem that I have been in so far, the dome of the rock is really pretty, but some of the other buildings are more run down, and part of the temple mount has become a trash dump. In fact most of the eastern side of the temple mount, what used to be Solomon’s colonnade, where Jesus met with his disciples and the disciples met after he died is just piles of rubble and trash.

(pile of trash in what was Solomon's Collonnade)

After we were inside the temple mount we looked at some of the archeological digs on the southern end of the outside of the mount (there is some work that is done outside of the mount.) The coolest thing that we saw there were the gates that used to be the entrance to the temple. There were three gates that were the entrance to the temple mount complex, it would take them through and underground tunnel up into the courtyard. The exited through double gates that were further west. The only exception to this is when someone was in mourning, then they came in through the western doors moved around the temple in a clockwise motion and then exited through the eastern doors.

(me standing next to what is visible of the exit gate of the old temple.)

(Apparently Tuesday's and Thursdays are big days for BarMitzpha celebrations here. Underneath the canopy a 13 year old boy is blowing a shophar. a giant horn (musical) made from a giant horn (animal). Then the guys in white start playing drums and singing (he lai, lai, lai, lai...) and march the kid (still under the canopy) up to the wailing wall to read from the Torah and pray. Down in a hidden part of the wall we saw them doing somehting similar for a girl, and she was putting on a phylactry, box on forhead, and then a thing around her arm and wrist. It is usually just resevred for men and they would have done up where they were having the drum-horn party she would have been arrested.)

After that we went and looked at the ruins of a house that is from the same time and is very similar to what the house where Jesus was interrogeted by the Jews after he was arrested (the high priests house) looked like. In fact, since the high priest would have had one of the nicest houses in the wealthiest part of Jerusalem, it could have been the actual high priests house.

After that we went to a place that is called David's tomb, but probably isn't where David is buried, then we went to the traditional site of the upper room where the last supper happened. The building is too new for it to be the actual site, but it our teacher Todd thought that it seems to be in the right area where the last supper took place.

Tonight we went to a tunnel tour of the western wall of the temple mount (the same wall where the Jews pray.) It turns out that a large portion of the Arab quarter of the city has been built on an artificial platform sometime around 1200 (maybe, it may have been the 700's, I'm not sure on that one. The tunnel was really cool, it goes along the western wall, under the Arab quarter of the city.

One more thought for the night.

We spent a lot of time around the temple today, and there was a lot of talk about the holiness of the the temple and the holy of holies. It is something that the religious jews are passionate about. And it is a place where God's presence used to dwell. But in the same way that God's presence dwelt in his temple, it dwells in those of us who are Christians. So as we walked through the temple mount today, God's presence came through with us and dwelt among us as it used to dwell in the holy of holies, and then as we left it was still with us. The access to God that used to come through the temple is available to all of today regardless of where we are.

That's it for tonight. Tommorow we are going out to see the territory of Benjamin, down to Jericho and over into Samaria. Until tomorrow, thanks for reading.

Jerusalem Day Three - Old testament tour

Jerusalem, Jerusalem. I feel like I know this city (at least the old city) and if you told me that I have only been in this city for about 54 hours I would call you a liar. If you showed me my airplane itenerary, took me back through my pictures and my blog, reminded me that it is December 30th and on December 27th I was back in LA...well I guess I'd have to believe you, but it sure feels like we've been here longer. All of the stress of flying in on El Al feels like it happened 100 years ago.

(music side note: If I asked you to guess which country I have seen the most tourirsts in Jerusalem from (other than our group), what country would you guess? Did you say Germany? If you did you are wrong, the winner is definately France, followed by Russia. This may be because there are a bunch of french people staying in our hotel. In fact they are in the lobby around the corner from me having a beer-cigarette-piano party. Whoever is playing piano is pretty good.)

Another note before I get started. I am starting to get sick, I woke up with a sore throat, and as the day went by it moved to my sinuses. I am pretty sure that if I had some airborne and about 12 hours to sleep I'd be fine in no time (about 12 hours). Unfortunately I forgot to bring my airborne (I'm pretty sure it's at home next to my watch and sunglasses), and 12 hours of sleep doesn't seem likely for a few weeks. I'm mentioning this for two reasons: 1. I'm going to keep this post kind of short and to the point so I can get some extra sleep tonight. 2. I would really appreciate it if you all would pray for me (and about five or six other people on our trip who are sick) that I would get well soon, and that the sickness wouldn't slow me down at all, physically, mentally or spiritually. Ok, now on to Day three.

We begin some days with a lecture, today was one of those lecture days. Todd (our teacher) began our lecture by saying, "You will learn more today than you ever have in your life...at least in one day." I don't know if that is true, but I took 22 pages of notes in my field notebook today. Some of them were really cool notes where I would try to make a quick sketch of the area that he was talking about (wall, tomb, city map) so that I could make my notes on top of it to help me remember better. Most of them were just writing.

Our first stop today was this old hotel that was the first hotel in the old city, they didn't really take care of it so now it's a hostel. From the roof you get a really good view of the city, the picture above is from that rooftop. You can see the dome of the Rock there and pretty much the whole mount of Olives in the Background. If you want to know what Herod's temple would have looked like in the city imagine the dome of the rock, but twice as big in every dimension and made out of polished white marble. Must have been impressive. Those clouds in the sky turned into rainclouds, it was pretty wet and cold today, a bad day to be sick.

Today was our Old Testament day so we looked at a bunch of walls, different building periods for the city, and different expansions and destructions. I thought it was awesome but the pictures are pretty dull so I won't post many. We looked at Hezekiah's broad wall which he built to protect the city from the Assyrians, and spent a lot of time talking about David's city. Isn't David's city Jerusalem you ask? That is a good question, and the answer is...kind of.

Jerusalem in David's time was small. How small was it! (sorry I'm sick, it does awful things to my sense of humor) Well let me show you how small it was.

This picture above is of what us ol' Jerusalem vets call the eastern hill, specifically the southern side of the eastern hill. See the spot where I drew on the picture with an ugly red line? that line runs along the slope of the hill, near the vally, the eastern wall to David's city would have been somewhere around where that line was.

Ok, now look at this picture, see where it overlaps with the other one? The white stone and the wooden building with the green roof? Ok, good. Now look at the flags that I circled and highlighted with ugly red and yellow? That is where the the western wall of David's city was. See I told you, small. the city was a lot longer north south than it was east west, but all in all the city was 10 acres, it got bigger with Solomon (30 acres) and with Hezekiah (150 acres).

At the end of our time in the city of David we spent a lot of time discussing and exploring the water system of David and Hezekiah's Jerusalems. Included in that was one of the coolest things I have ever done.

(Look, people doing archeology! Those rocks are something called the pool tower of the spring of Gihon. They were here in David's time but they date all the way back to 1800 B.C. That would be Abraham's time when Melchizidek was the king of Jerusalem, which was called Salem back then.)

So Hezekiah didn't think it was a good idea to have a spring outside of the city, especially when the Assyrians were coming to attack him, so he built a tunnel to bring the water from the spring that was near this tower underground into the city of Jerusalem. It was dug about 40 to 50 feet below this tower in the picture above, through the limestone bedrock. It ended up being 1750 feet long, all dug with pickaxes and shovels. Workers started at each end of the tunnel and then met in the middle. Think about that, they had work crews that started on two sides, dug a tunnel with pickaxes and shovels, and met halfway, deep underground without GPS or anything else. And the tunnel isn't straight, it is in an S shape. Did I mention that they did this in 701 BC?

Today I got to walk through this tunnel, and it was awesome. Definately one of the coolest and the most Indiana Jones things I have ever done. The tunnel has water in it, most of the time it was shin high, the for a little bit it was mid thigh. It was never wide enough for two people to walk side by side, a few times my sholders brushed the walls on both sides. Usually it was four to seven feet tall (I bumped my head a lot) but at the end it is closer to 30. It is dark, you can't see without a flashlight. Did I mention it was awesome? Imagine walking through a dark narrow tunnel with these dimensions and water levels. Imagine knowing where the tunnel ends up but not knowing what lies being the range of the flashlight. Imagine this walk taking about half an hour. Imagine it being awesome and you can get a sense of what it was like. Imagine walking through the tunnel with a beautiful Israeli archeologist behind you and racing the Nazi's to some important secret and you can imagine the Indiana Jones movie I was making up as I walked through the tunnel.

Where are my pictures of the tunnel you ask? Well...I kind of thought that the water would be deeper so I passed my camera off to someone who didn't go through the tunnel. I did get someone else to take a picture of me doing my best Indiana Jones pose in the tunnel though and I will post that as soon as I get it from them. I do have to warn you though, my best Indiana Jones pose looks a lot more like Derek Zoolander's Blue Steele than Indy.

Ok, I need to stop and go to bed (I haven't even gotten to everything we did before lunch) so here is what else we did today. Visited the pool of Siloam where Jesus told the blind guy to wash his eyes in John 9, spent a lot of time with a 1st century model of Jerusalem that was a 1:50 scale (I hope I said that right, it's fifty times smaller than actual size.)

Oh, did I mention that we saw the Dead Sea scrolls today? We did that too.

Tommorow is our last day focused on Jerusalem, we're doing a New Testament tour. As always, thanks for reading.

Israel Day Two - Overveiw of the Old city

Ok, this is a long post and I need to go to bed before the hotel lobby clerk kills me. Sorry but these first three pictures aren't in order, I'll just label them and you can read about them below. I also apologize for any spelling or grammer errors, no time to proofread tonight.

(the via dolorosa and the ecco homo this is the man arch - arch dates to 130 AD, not the time of Jesus)

(Pools of Bethesda, I think I forgot to mention this, where Jesus healed the lame man)

(The dome of the rock on the temple mount.

Jerusalem, a city full of surprises. Sometimes there are surprises like: "Remeber how we were awake all night long because of the construction working yelling and using jackhammers until 5:00am? Turns out our window wasn't closed right." Or, "You guys have been working on this preview homework for an hour and a half? What page are you on? Oh...you guys are doing the wrong stuff, you need to do this stuff, it's way shorter." (and it was) Then there are surprises like, "We are about to go into the church of the Holy Sepulcher, this is probably the place that Jesus was not only buried, but also crucified." All of those things happend today, as well as a few other surprises that I will mention later. I will try to do my best to fill in the highlights of our travels today, but it is pretty late (working on the wrong preview work threw me a little behind) and the jackhammers did keep me up most of the night (I am confident tonight will be better), so this may be a little short or incoherant or maybe both.

(Belltower and entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher)

Today started with a pretty good breakfast and a lecture on the geography of Jerusalem (you might not believe it, but it was awesome). Then we headed out to the city. Our first stop was the Chruch of the Holy Sepulcher, which is the church of the holy tomb. Back in the day, wherever Christians thought that Jesus had done something awesome in a place, the built a church over it. This changes what some of those places look like (you'll see with the pictures of the Holy Sepulcher), but it is a good thing in that the locations of a lot of these sites were preserved because they had churches sitting on them. There are six different Christian sects that control part of the church of the Holy Sepulcher (from here on I'll abbreviate it CHS). They have so much trouble getting along with each other it is a regular thing during Easter to read about fistfights between priests and monks of different sects (Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Coptic, Armenean, and Etheopian) because they were getting in the way of each others celebrations. The relationships between these Christians is so contentious that none of them actually have a key to the front door of the church. A muslim family has had the key to the door since the 12th century, and they come down and unlock it every morning and then relock it every night. Part of the sad thing about this is that this is how the Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem see Christianity. The Jewish tour guides talk about how this is the holiest site in Christianity, this is the Christians wailing wall.

The difference (in how I see it) is that the Jews see the wailing wall as all that remains of the temple where God's presence dwelt (and they stay still dwells). The site of Jesus death and ressurection is a very special place, but is not a place that we think God's presence is manifest in any way different than any other places. Jesus is God, he did amazing work at the site of CHS, but it is still not the same as the wall.

I think I am going to go back to the CHS at some point this week when I have free time. I was still in, "hold on, this is probably, the place, where Jesus died and was buried?" mode when I walked through it. I knew that it was a possible site for his tomb, but I was blown away by him being crucified there as well. I wasn't really able to process that this was the place where Jesus paid for the sins of mankind on the cross and then defeated death. I would like to go back there and spend some time reflecting on that.

(Side note, currently it is about 11:00pm in the hotel, I'm the last guy in the lobby working on his computer. Around the corner is what sounds like a guy trying to impress a girl with his Arabic guitar and singing. I don't know if she is impressed, but I thought I was listening to a cool cd until I heard them start talking to each other. Pretty awesome.)

Here are some pictures from the CHS, I guarentee that they look different that you imagine them.

(The site of Jesus Crucifixion, you can see rocks from the hill in the glass cases to the sides of the giant crucifix.)

(Inside this building is Jesus' tomb. There is not much to see there, the tomb was completely destroyed by an Egyptian kalif in 1000 AD. (or something like that, i don't have my notes with me) He was the guy who created the Druze religion.)

(Guitar side note, the guy has moved into somethink like an Arabic version of Bron ayr Stomp.)

I have more to say on the CHS, but I still need some time to process that place and go back to it again. I'll try to say more about it later.

(Guitar guy is now playing Neil Young, Heart of Gold)

After the CHS we walked through a good chunk of the Arabic Quarter of Old Jerusalem. There is something about this city. By lunchtime I was pretty sure that Jerusalem is far and away the coolest city I have ever been to. That may still be true, but as the day went on we learned and heard more about the tensions and conflicts that exist in the city (mostly Jew and Arab). Serious business, serious tension. At the same time, walking around Jerusalem it is hard to imagine that this is a city where people hate each other and kill each other. This is a special city, a special place. I have felt it walking around. This is God's holy city, the place that he chose to dwell in and the place that he will reign from, and I really felt some of that as we walked around.

( I should note here that when I say Jerusalem, I mean the old city. It is where we have spent all of our time and will spend all of our time. the new city is about 110 years old, sections of the old city and the area south of it are closer to 4000 years old.)

We left the Arab Quarter through the Damascus gate to the north and then climed up the ramparts and walked along the old north wall east, and then south along the east wall.

(View of the Arab quarter of Jerusalem from the Old wall. The gold dome in the background is the Dome of the Rock, the muslim shrine that is built on the temple mount. This (unlike the Christian and Armenean quarters is mostly residential. Jews try to buy the land from the Arabs so they can control more of the old city, they do this buy working through middle men that keep the identity of the buyer secret. If an Arab realter sells property to a Jew, on puropse or on accident, he is killed.)

Walking along the old wall, Jerusalem had two more surprises in store for me. The first I didn't get a picture of but I wish I did. I was walking up to an arrow slit on the wall (the walls are from the middle ages), looking though my camera lense when all of a sudden my right foot stepped into empty space. There was an square hole on the floor of the wall, about 18" by 18", that dropped all the way down to the next level, about 20 feet. As I stepped through the hole my right elbow caught me on the edge of the wall right in front of the arrow slit and my left foot was on solid ground, so I wasn't hurt and my camera was ok (which is what I was really worried about). All in all it was pretty funny, but I didn't get a picture of the hole. I have been very careful to look where I step since then though.

(uh, the american girl is trying to impress the arab guy by singing Alanis Morriset now but she can't remember all the words. bad move)

As we walked along the top of the eastern wall (Suprise!) we had a great view of the Mount of Olives. Mountains in Israel aren't like they are in the US, they aren't peaks like Pikes peak or Mount Shasta where you can see them and say "here it is" they are more like ranges that run for a few miles. The mount of Olives is a small range that runs for about two and half miles. We'll talk about it more when we go and visit is, but today we did read about the Day of the Lord in Zecheriah 14. I was going to copy and paste the sections from the Bible, but apparently blogger isn't too fond of copy and paste so I'll just say grab a Bible and read chapter 14. It talks about the Lord descending onto the Mount of Olives and vanquishing the enemies of Israel. I think (it's getting late and my minds getting fuzzy.) it's also the place where Jesus ascended to heaven will descend again from heaven.

(The southernmost part of the Mount of Olives. Everything that is white and looks like it could be a building is a grave. Try to look and see that there is a hill that descends from Jerusalem (where this picture is taken) then meets a valley and then the Mount of olives begins. All the little white things on the mount are Jewish graves, they believe (according to that Zechariah passage) that this is where the ressurection will take place, and if a body isn't here, then it will have to burrow underground to get to here and be ressurected. You have to be a very rich or very important Jew to be buried here, sometimes both. The white things on the Jerusalem side of things are Arab graves. Graves are a good way to hold property (it's hard to move a graveyard) and the area behind some of these graves is the golden gate, where the Messiah is supposed to enter into Jerusalem by. If he has to walk through a graveyard to get to the gate he will be ritually defiled and not be allowed to enter the city. Did I mention that there is Arab Jewish tension in this city?) The garden of Gethsemene is also in this picture, a building with a cool mosaic at the base of the mount of olives.

Whew it's getting late, the guitar folks are gone and the guy at the front desk is tapping his foot waiting for me to leave. So...after that we went to a roman fortress (name escapes me) where the Roman soldiers lived, tradition says Jesus was scourged (tradition is wrong on this one) and the via doloros began (place where Jesus walked his cross to golgotha. I'll explain another time but...Jesus probably didn't walk the via dolorosa, it was likely that Pilate wasn't staying at the fortress but at Harods Palace which is on the other side of the city. From this fortress we were able to have a good view of the temple mount and the dome of the rock and then we walked along the via dolorosa back to the CHS and then to our money changer and our hotel. all in all another good day, another long day, but I am looking forward to tommorow.

Tomorrow we will still be in Jerusalem, we will do an Old testament tour of the city. As always, thanks for reading.

Isreal Day One - LAX to Jerusalem

Wow, what a day. As some of you probably know I am taking an interterm class this January (and end of December) in Israel. Today was the first day of our trip, we left LA on El Al airlines, flew directly to Tel Aviv (in an incredibly long, 14 hour flight), and then after dinner some of us took a walk down to the wailing wall. It was a really full, really stressful day, but the ending was incredible.

This moring (techinically it was yesterday morning, but for me it was this morning, I finished packing my bags and then headed out towards LAX. We had some textbooks that we had to bring for this class, and they were kind of heavy, so I weighed my suitcase three different times and then dumped stuff out three times before I finally got it under fifty, then I left.

(What I packed into my bag before I started dumpin stuff)

I dont' know if any of you have flown El Al before, if you haven't, let me tell you about them a little bit. They are (I think) the only Israeli airline, and they have (I think) the best saftey record in the world. The reason that they are so safe is because they have the most intense security I have ever seen. I am sure that the security was increased because of the guy who tried to blow up the airplane a few days ago, it is safe to say that it was the most stressful departure I have ever had.



After I got to the airport, I began to wait in line with our group, we got there early (and it was a good thing) so that they could get us in before the rush. Most airlines have ticket agents who work up through the line and help to make sure that everyone can get through the process as effeciently as possible. El Al has security agents that work their way up through the line to see if you need to be pulled out of the line for further questioning. At first I wasn't worried about anything, the security girls seemed nice and some of them were really cute, and when one got to me it was a pretty easy exchange. When she saw the stamps for Arab countries in my passport I had to explain what countries they were and why I was there. I thought it went well, but then she left for a moment and brought a pretty large and intimidating guy, whose indimidation had nothing to do with his size. Our exchange went like this:



Him: I am head of El Al security, tell me about countries in your passport.
Me: (nervous) all of the countries? You want me to name them?
Him: Arab countries.
Me: uhh, Egypt and Dubai, the United Arab Emerites. My dad works for an oil service company and I was visiting my parents when they were there.
Him: Which company.




I named the companies that Dad had worked for and he said, "Petroleum, ok." And walked off.

Then the cute security girl was back, and she was very nice, but she did ask to take all of my carry-ons to search them before I brought them onto the plane. She told me that I could take my wallet and that I would get everything else back at the gate when I boarded. She wouldn't even let me take a camera book that I had with me in my coat. "This feels heavy for a photography book, we better check it." All in all a little scary and pretty inconvenient, but not awful, at least not until I saw the big security guy pull another one of the girls on our trip off to the side for a longer questioning session. She has lived in both Lebanon and Jordan and has a number of Palestinian friends, which it turns out is big trouble in El Al's eyes. They made all of us, even our trip leaders Dr. Rigsby and his wife Donna head through to the gate while she was still off to the side of the ticketing desk while they decided what to do with her. Half an hour before boarding word came down, El Al decided that she couldn't fly. They ended up moving her to Lufthansa, and she'll get her and meet us tomorrow, but I didn't find that out until after we landed in Jerusalem. It was pretty intense. At that point I was thankful that mom and dad were here for petroleum reasons and not other ones. Otherwise I might not have been on that plane either.


At the gate, before I got my carry-ons back they tested my shoes, boarding pass, and passport for explosives residue (that was pretty cool) then we load up on a bus that takes us to a special boarding area that is far away from everything else. Police cars escorted our bus to the special El Al boarding area and there were police at the boarding area too. My carry-on had been completely emptied out and then repacked. Anything with batteries had the batteries removed (including my noise reducing headphones) and my camera had been tested at different settings to make sure it worked.


As for the flight...well it was long and uncomfortable. We sat on the tarmac for an hour before we took off (leaving an hour late), I guess there was a bag the decided was suspicious and took out of the plane. There were lots of noisy kids, I was stuck in the middle seat, and the seats were very, very tight. The only other flight that compares to the sheer uncomfortableness was an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to LA (that then broke down and spent the night in Oslo before resuming again).


I was very, very tired when we got to immigration and met an immigration agent who must have been the sister of the scary El Al security guy. Eventually she let me through and I actually made it to Israel. The airport is pretty nice. There was set of posters on the wall that had the "first man" of a bunch of different countries. Socrates for Greece, VanGogh for Holland, Motzart for Austria. The first Isreali man? A cactus. I've been in this country for less than a day, but I get it.


Jerusalem is a realy cool city with a distinctive feel. I think it is one of those places that you would never mistake for something else. All of the buildings have to have the same limestone facade so that the city looks uniform, it gives it a really old, cool feel.

(Jerusalem from our bus as we drove in. Every building in the city has this same limestone facade.)

We are staying in a hotel right inside the walls of the old city, the gloria hotel.

(a hallway in our hotel)

After dinner about twenty of us went off to look at the western wall. I thought we were going to the western wall of the old city, near the Jaffa Gate, which is right by our hotel. Instead we walked further into the old city, through narrow, winding streets filled with shops selling identical souveniers, we walked through the Christian Quarter, the Muslim Quarter and into the Jewish quarter when we turned a corner and, wow, we were looking at the temple mount. The western wall is also called the wailing wall. It is all that is left of Harod's temple, the one that Jesus overturned the tables in. It was the outer wall of the temple, inside the wall now stands the dome of the rock. Standing there and imagining what the temple must have looked like, all I can say is that it must have been incredible. We walked down to the wall took pictures and prayed. It was pretty incredible to be there, to be at what is left of the temple. There are signs around that ask you to respect the place where God's glory dwells, which is what the Jews believe. Some Orthodox Jews walk backwards when they walk away from the wall so that they don't turn they backs on God or his glory.

You have to wear something covering your head when you go to the wall (if you're a guy, girls need to have no head coverings). They provide cardboard Yamikas for you as you go up there to pray. Praying down there at the wall was pretty amazing. Amazing enought that when I walked away I walked backwards.

(The western or wailing wall where Jews still come to pray and stuff prayers into the cracks in the wall. The men and women pray seprately, men on the left and women on the right.)

(Me in front of the wailing wall.)

A long day ended up being a long post. We are in Jerusalem all week, tommorow we officially begin our tour of the Old city of Jerusalem. As always, thanks for reading.

Celebrating the end of summer school

This is how I celebrated the end of summer school. Now I know what a dog that sticks its head out of a car window feels like. It took me about 20 seconds to figure out how to breathe, (through the nose) after that it was awesome.

Paris - Day Three

Today was the last day of the trip, tomorrow we head out to the airport and fly back to the U.S. It will be nice to get home, but I have a lot to do. We get home on Monday evening and I have a full day of class and work on Tuesday. I also have to move this week, which will be a pain but I’ll get it done.

With all that coming up this week I took it easy today. This morning we went down to the Cathedral of Notre Dame and went to Sunday mass. The service was cool but I was a little disappointed in the building. I probably would have loved it if I hadn’t visited St. Peters in Rome a few days ago, but I did so when I came in the first thing I thought was, “where is all the color?” The building is very big, but it is also very gray, and while the rose design stain glass windows are nice, they look a little dull when compared to the mosaics at St. Peters. I think St. Paul’s outside the wall in Rome was more beautiful too.

(Notre Dame)

The acoustics in Notre Dame are great though and they have a giant organ, and a great choir, so it was really fun to listen to the music. Some of the organ music was pretty dramatic and gothic, a good match for the cathedral.


After that we grabbed lunch and I decided to break away from the other people that I was with and head back to the hotel. I was tired and I needed some time to be by myself. Since the metro stop was on the way, I ended up stopping by the Louvre again to see if they had any paintings by El Greco. I spent about two hours in the museum again, this time just in the section devoted to the Italian and Spanish painters. Even then I missed some stuff but I was able to see some great paintings that I missed yesterday. They have some great paintings by Leonardo and Raphael that I missed yesterday. They also have some cool stuff by Caravaggio and Annabel Carracci. When I finally made it to the Spanish painters I did find a few paintings by El Greco, so all in all it was a good trip. I stopped by the Mona Lisa and the sculpture of Cupid and Psyche again today as well and today Cupid and Psyche were definitely my favorite. It is such a delicate sculpture compared to the rest of the marble statues, and it’s newer so the marble is cleaner and smoother.

(Cupid and Psyche)

(The Winged Victory of Salmonthrace)

After the Louvre I headed back to the hotel and took a little nap. Then the rest of my roommates got back so I tried to go to sleep for a while but I was unsuccessful so I gave up and went to Starbucks for a Latte. After I got back we headed up to Montmartre for dinner.
Montmartre was more of what I expected Paris to be like. It is the Bohemian part of the city, where the painters and the musicians all live, and the streets and squares are smaller and feel cozier. We stopped at a great little restaurant and had a fantastic, fantastic dinner. I had a glass of champagne, escargot, steak, a pear tartan pie with ice cream for dessert and a cup of coffee. It was the best meal I’ve had in a long time.

(Top, Sacre Coeur, bottom, the steps leading down from the Sacre Coeur.)

After that we went up to the Sacre Coeur, and looked out on the city. It was different view of the city than the Eiffel tower view. From the Sacre Coeur, you see everything but it isn’t as small, instead of just seeing the lights of the city, you see all the buildings but they look like big doll houses. It was pretty cool. After that we headed down to the metro and rode it back to our hotel. I’m surprised how safe a city Paris is. Even riding on the metro at 11:00 pm, it felt totally safe, I even saw girls that were going down to take the metro by themselves as we came out.
And that was it for today.

All in all it was a good birthday in Paris. Like I said tomorrow I’ll be back in L.A. I’ll try to get some stuff about Rome written and hopefully posted while I’m in the airport and on the plane. Until then, thanks for reading.

Paris - Day 2

Today was our first full day in Paris. We went to the Louvre and the Musee D’Orsay. We were going to go to the Rodin Museum but when we got there the museum was closed. A huge police blockade was stopping traffic and blocking off a section of the city where there was a protest against Israel (and where the entrance to the Rodin museum was.) I tried to get closer to the protest to see what it was like but there were literally 30 to 40 police vans lining the streets and blocking off the section where the protest was.

On top of missing out on the Rodin museum, I also left the memory card for my camera in my computer again (I did that once in Rome too,) so I wasn’t able to take pictures of anything today. To make up for it, here is another picture of the Eiffel tower from last night.

So far I have been surprised by how happy and friendly the French people seem. The city is a lot cleaner and more open than Rome is. That also means that it has less personality than Rome. It is a cool city though. I think that it would be really easy to live here (if you could afford it, it’s pretty expensive.) I honestly think Paris may be the foreign city that is most like the U.S. that I have ever been to.

The Louvre was a cool museum, but it is so big that it is overwhelming. It is probably the biggest museum I’ve ever been in. There are three different sections and each section is as big as a normal sized museum. The most famous things that we saw at the Louvre are: the Venus De Milo, the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory of Samothrace and Michelangelo’s Dying Slave. The coolest thing may have been the statue called “Cupid and Psyche” but I did think the Mona Lisa was pretty cool. I know it’s a bit of a cliché, but there is something about her smile. I whenever I looked at her it seemed like she was just about to or just finished smirking.

After a stop at Starbucks we headed over to the Musee D’Orsay, which was really great. I was worried about time since I wanted to see the Rodin museum too, so we started at the top floor and worked our way down (the top floor has the impressionists.) They had some great and really famous paintings by Manet and Monet, Cezanne, Renoir, Gauguin and Pissarro. My favorite paintings were by Van Gogh and Degas. Even in a museum section that has all the great paintings that this one did, the colors in the Van Gogh’s were just amazing, the only things that were even close were some of the pastel drawings that they had up there. And Degas had some really cool paintings too, I even got a print of a painting called something like ‘Blue Dancers’ (the title was in French, so I’m guessing.) But maybe the best thing I saw in the whole Musee D’Orsay was a statue of a little girl ballerina by Degas, it was amazing. If I had my memory card with my camera I would show you a picture of it, but as things are you’ll have to trust me.
It turns out that we had plenty of time to see all that we wanted of the Musee D’Orsay, it’s not nearly as big as the Louvre, so when we all had our fill we headed off in our ill fated trip to the Rodin museum.

After our unsuccessful attempts to get close enough to the protest to see part of it we walked back up to the Eiffel tower then up to our hotel and rested for a little bit. After that it was off to dinner (tonight was McDonalds) and then over to the Eiffel tower. In general, the Eiffel tower is just way cooler than I thought it would be, especially at night. It’s awesome. We were able to make it up to the top tonight and the view of the city from up there is breathtaking. I didn’t get any pictures of that either, I will try to get some that other people took and post them.

That was it for today. Tomorrow we’re going to try to catch a church service at Notre Dame, go into the Catacombs at Notre Dame, and maybe climb up the Arc de Triumphe. For my birthday tomorrow night we’re going up to Montmartre (the bohemian part of the city) to find a cool café to have dinner in and then we’ll head over to the Sacre Coeur. And then the next day it’s off to the airport and back to L.A.

As always thanks for reading. Until tomorrow…

Paris - Day One

I know I'm behind. I have a lot to say about my days in Rome, but again I'm too tired tonight. I will try to fill in my time in Rome soon and upload some pictures from Athens and Rome, but not tonight.

I am in Paris, most of the class is on their way back to L.A., but five of us are staying in Paris for a few days. I'm staying at the Marriott here (thanks mom and dad) and it is really nice. After we flew into Paris today, took a bus from the airport to the city, and then dragged our bags to the hotel we rested for a few hours. After that we walked out to the Eiffel tower, which is really, really cool. We were going to go up to the top, but it was so windy tonight that the top level was closed, so we'll try again a different time. After the Eiffel tower we walked over to the Arc de Triumphe and up the Champs-Elysees. We had dinner up there and then headed back over to the hotel.

Tomorrow we're starting out with the Louvre then headed to the Musee D'Orsay and then the Rodin museum. We'll see what we do after that. Thanks for reading.

Day 23 - Rome

Rome is great. If you haven't been to Rome you should come. It's that good.

Today we went to the Vatican, saw the Vatican museum, the Sistine chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica. Then we went to St. Paul's outside the walls, which was built over Paul's burial spot, then we went to the church of the three fountains, which was built where Paul was beheaded. After we got back to the hotel I went out and had dinner (lasagna and espresso) then walked to the Spanish steps and the trevi fountain. On the way back to the hotel I stopped and had gelato, the chocolate chip is pretty much the best chocolate chip I've ever had.

I am almost falling asleep as I write this, so I will stop now. I will try to come back tomorrow and fill in a little bit more about the stuff we saw today and post some pictures for today and the last few days. I will just quickly list the things that took my breath away today: the Disputa and the School of Athens (Raphael painted them on opposite walls of the same room,) the Sistine chapel (seeing a picture isn't in the same universe as seeing the real thing,) the Pieta, my first steps into St. Peters, my first steps in St. Pauls, and the front facade of St. Pauls.

More to come tomorrow, until then, thanks for reading.

Days 21-22 - Athens to Corinth to Athens to Rome

No pictures again today, I'm too tired to upload them. Tomorrow I should have time to post pictures for both the last post and this one.

This will be another double post. I’m here in Rome and I’m pretty wiped out. We have two more full days here and then I have three days in Paris and then back home.

Yesterday we woke up in Athens and then drove out to Corinth, the Acrocorinth specifically, which is this huge hill where the temple of Aphrodite was. Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty, so naturally her temple was a huge brothel. Corinth was a big time port city, any ship travelling east or west would travel through Corinth so the temple of Aphrodite was the first stop that a lot of the sailors made as when they got to Corinth (and let me tell you, that wouldn’t be easy, we drove half-way up the Acrocorinth and it was still about a 45 minute hike up to the top.)

Every other year there is a Talbot class that goes to Turkey, Greece, and Rome and the alternate year a class goes to Israel. There are some people on the trip this year that went to Israel last year and yesterday a girl came with us who went to Israel last year but now lives in Greece. She is starting a ministry here in Athens that is focused towards girls who are involved in human trafficking. I guess Greece is one of the top ten countries that are destinations for human trafficking (Italy and the U.S. are also in the top ten.) The girls get tricked into thinking they are signing up for a job and then are forced into prostitution when they get to the new country. She told us about one girl who she met at a women’s shelter whose story is pretty typical. She is a Ukrainian girl who was from a small town and applied for a job to work at the Athens Olympics. She went through a whole interview process, she was 17 but lied and said she was 18, she said there were 13 and 14 year old girls who did the same thing. She got the “job” and so did a bunch of other girls from her town. The girls all left on a bus, thinking they were headed for Athens. The bus took the girls to Istanbul, where they were checked into a hotel and brutalized for a couple of days to break the girls and get rid of any resistance they had. After that they were taken to Athens (prostitution is legal in Greece) and forced to work in a brothel where they worked 14 hour days and saw 20-30 clients a day. The girls are threatened if they try to leave, if threats to them don’t work their families are threatened (the girls give all their personal info when they think they are applying for a normal job.)

It was pretty wild to hear Kelsey (the girl who is trying to work with these girls) talk about that then go and visit one of the major prostitution centers of both the Greek and Roman worlds. I’m not sure what the temple of Aphrodite was like, but I’m sure there were plenty of things that went on like that in the 1st century as well.

After the Acrocorinth we went and visited the old forum (or agora) in Corinth, had lunch, and then visited a shop where they made authentic museum copy pottery and statues. I got two small pieces, a little vase with Hector on it and a little container that had Achilles. I really like both of them. Before we headed back to Athens for the night we visited a port town that Paul stopped at on his way back home from his second missionary journey. I skipped some rocks there and we tried to get Jin to break open some sea urchins but she said they were too small to eat.

After dinner a few of us hiked from the hotel up to the top of the highest hill in Athens, it was really cool. It was another beautiful night and we had a great view of the city. We looked down on the Parthenon, which was cool. There was a church up top there, and we prayed for a little bit and then headed back to the hotel.

This morning we got up extra early, headed to the airport, and said goodbye to Athens and hello to Rome. The flight wasn’t bad but it was delayed about 45 minutes and then it took forever for us to get our bags so we were a little behind schedule for our first day in Rome. From the airport we drove straight to the town of Ostia which was the primary port for Rome for a while, and then was the secondary port for Rome. If Paul ended up going to Spain like he said he was going to in the book of Romans, he would have come through Ostia.

After that we drove to the Appian way and walked the last two miles into the city, which was the main road into Rome and the road that Paul took. Then we saw some catacombs and then drove to the hotel.

Our hotel here in Rome is very nice, it’s about ten minutes from the Coliseum and the Forum and it is practically across the street from the church called St. Peter in chains, which has Michelangelo’s Moses. I had pasta and pizza for dinner (it was great,) gelato for dessert (won’t get banana again,) and then walked around and saw the Coliseum and the Forum (St. Peters was closed; I’ll try to see it tomorrow.)

Tomorrow morning we’re going to the Vatican and St. Peter’s basilica, and I’m really excited about both of those. We have seen a whole lot of archeology stuff, and I’m ready to see some art. So tomorrow is the Sistine chapel, the school of Athens, and I think the Pieta. And I’m sure there will be other really cool stuff too.

Until tomorrow, thanks for reading.

Days 19 & 20 - Delphi to Athens to Athens

We’ve got some internet troubles at our hotel here in Athens, so no pictures right now, I will try to upload some if our internet situation improves here or if the internet access is better when we get to Rome.

I know that I said I wasn’t going to post two days at once again, but I’m going to give it a shot again. This post will cover yesterday and today.

Yesterday we went to Delphi. Delphi was the religious center of Greece and much of the surrounding world. There was a temple to Apollo at Delphi, and at the temple they had an oracle that people believed Apollo spoke through (Apollo was the god of divination.) It started out that one day a year (April 7th) the Pythoness (priestess) would come out and answer questions. Eventually they would do it once a month (the seventh day after the new moon) nine months a year (Apollo apparently wintered somewhere else.) So nine days a year people would come to Delphi to ask the oracle what they should do. The oracle always gave these mysterious answers that could mean anything, but people believed they were from the god. There was a king (I think the Lydian king, they had a city in what is now Sardis, Turkey. One of my favorites on this trip) who asked the oracle if he should go to war against the Persians. The oracle answered that if he warred against the Persians, a great kingdom would be destroyed. So, thinking that the oracle gave him the ok to go to war, he attacked the Persians and lost and his kingdom was destroyed.

Ten percent of the spoils from battle always went to the gods, and Delphi was where that ten percent was offered. So there were all sorts of monuments that were built as offerings to the gods at Delphi. Most of them are gone, but a few of the Athenian things were still there. One of them was a treasury that the Athenians built to commemorate their victory over the Persians at Marathon.

We had a beautiful day at Delphi, so it was really fun to hike up the mountain and look at all the stuff. I was even able to crawl underneath the foundation of the temple of Apollo where the Pythoness would go to get the answers of the questions from Apollo. That was fun; I also hiked up to the top section of the city on the mountain and saw the theater and stadium that were there. You’re not allowed to climb on a lot of that stuff in Greece like you are in Turkey, but it was fun to see stuff that was in really good shape.

After Delphi we drove to Athens. Athens is a really cool city. We had great weather here yesterday, and today the high was in the mid fifties, which is great. After we checked into the hotel last night we walked out and saw some of the city. We saw the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier, which became I lot more impressive when I found out that each of their shoes weighed six pounds (there was a whole lot of high stepping and holding the feet out in the air.) Then we went to a gyro place, had dinner, and then walked out and took some pictures of the Acropolis at night.

Today we went out and saw the remains of the temple to Zeus, then went over to the acropolis, where we saw the Dionysus theater, which is the oldest theater in Europe, then we hiked up to the top of the Acropolis. There we had a great view of the city, and the Parthenon and another temple was up there too. It was a great place to see the old Agora, Mars hill and other old places in the city. After spending some time up there taking pictures we went down to Mars hill, where Paul may have made his defense to the Areopagus. Then we went down to the old Agora, and went to the other place where Paul’s defense to the Aeropause may have taken place.

All of that stuff was great, but seeing the theater was one of my favorites since it is so old, then every famous Athenian has probably seen a play there. If Socrates or Plato had seen a play in Athens, they would have seen it there. Pericles was probably there, Alcibiades probably lived there. If Paul went to see a play in Athens it would have been there (and there is an interesting line in his defense to the Areopagus that is very reminiscent of Aeschylus’ Eumenides.) And the great Greek playwrights, Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides probably all debuted plays there.

After that it was on to lunch and then the Athens Archeological museum. When we got back from the museum we had a little church service, and that was it for the group activities for the day.

I went out to dinner with my roommate Brian and some other people, we went to a crepe restaurant where I got a calzone, but should have gotten a crepe. After dinner we walked over to a hill in the city called the hill of the muses and hiked up it. It is pretty close to the Acropolis, and gave us a beautiful view of the city. It was such a pretty night, it was great sitting up there and looking over at the Acropolis and out over the rest of the city.

Now is a good time to note one of the really strange things that I’ve noticed in almost every city we’ve been to, in both Turkey and Greece. There are stray dogs everywhere. In the places where there aren’t stray dogs, there are stray cats. And we have a tendency to pick of the dogs as members of our groups. They just follow us along, herd the people at the back, and bark at cars or motorcycles that drive by.

I don’t know if it is us or the dogs, but even tonight, when six of us hiked up to the hill of the muses, we picked up two dogs that followed us up, down and almost all the way back to the hotel, about a two hour walk. They even chased off some other strays that got close to us, it was pretty cool.

Well I had better go; tomorrow we’re driving down to Corinth and then back to Athens for the night. Then Tuesday morning we fly to Rome. As always, thanks for reading and until tomorrow…

Day 18 - Kalambaka to Delphi

Today was a good day, we did a lot of driving but we saw some really cool stuff. We started up by driving up to Meteora, which is home to some pretty wild rock formations that have a bunch of monasteries and convents on top of them. We visited the monastery of the Holy Trinity (part of James Bond, For Your Eyes Only was filmed there,) and St. Anthony's monastery, which has nuns, not monks.

(The mountains that the monasteries are on top of. Holy Trinity is on the rock to the far left.)

(Holy Trinity is on the right.)

The views were pretty incredible, Holy Trinity was pretty small, I'm not sure how many monks it can hold, but it can't be very many. St. Anthony's was bigger, and it looked a little more comfortable than Holy Trinity, I'm sure that is due to the women's touch. Holy Trinity had a better view though. The monks and the nuns asked that we not take pictures so i dont' have any to show from inside either monasteries or pictures of the views of their "backyards." And I don't think I can do justice if I try to describe them, so I'll just have to keep those memories to myself (at least until some of the people who decided to take pictures anyway forward some to me.)

After the monasteries we went to an icon factory/souvenir shop. They showed us how they make icons and then they try to get us to buy them. I like the artwork on some icons so I was planning on buying one if I found one I liked, and I did find one I liked, so I got it. I also got a really cool Greek vase that I hope I will be able to find a partner for before I leave Greece.

Emily, you will be interested to know how they make the paint for the icons. They mix natural powders with egg yoke and vinegar (I think it's vinegar) and then they paint that on a cotton, gesso canvas. Then they put the canvas on a wooden base and add gold leaf and stuff like that.

Our last stop today was Thermopylae, it's the battle ground where the Persians and the Spartans fought. If anyone wants to read a fantastic book that is based around it, read Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield. It's a novel, but it's pretty accurate and it's a great read.

(The monument to the Spartans at Thermopylae)

The monument to the Spartans has a giant statue of Leonidas the Spartan king who led the 300 Spartans and the other 3700 Greeks against the Persians. The gates of Thermopylae were about 60 feet wide and the Greeks held off 250,000 (modern guess) Persians for two days. On the third day the Greeks were betrayed by a shepherd who led about 20,000 Persian infantry on a mountain trail around the gates, behind the Greeks. When the Greeks realized that they were betrayed they sent most of the Greek troops home, 1000 stayed to hold off the Persians as long as they could. The law of Sparta was that everyman who went to Thermopylae must fight to the death, so all 300 of the Spartans remained. After the other Greeks retreated, the remaining 1000 charged the Persian army that was waiting beyond the "hot gates" (translation of Thermopylae) to kill as many as they could. The Greeks fought until they didn't have any spears left, then Leonidas was killed. After that the remaining Greeks retreated to the hill of Kolonus, where they could fight from high ground. Herodotus says that those that still had swords fought with them, the rest fought with hands and teeth. Eventually the Persians killed them all with arrow fire. The Greeks were all buried on the hill of Kolonus where they fell.

(The hill of Kolonus)

There is a grave stone on top of the hill that can be translated into something like this:

Go tell the Spartans, Stranger passing by,

That here, obedient to their laws we lie.

(The gravestone on top of Kolonus. There was a wreath and a fresh rose on top of it.)

All in all a little over 1000 Greeks died. About 20,000 Persians were killed.

There is an inscription under Leonidas' Statue as well. It is a quote of his from the battle. Before the fighting started the Persian emissary came to Leonidas and gave him the terms of surrender that Xerxes, the Persian king, was offering. The emissary ended by telling Leonidas and the Spartans to lay down their arms. Leonidas simply replied, "Come and take them," which is only two words in Greek. Those two words are inscribed under his statue, Molon Labe.

Well, that's it for today, Tomorrow we're going to Delphi and then on to Athens. Until tomorrow, thanks for reading.

Day 17 - Thessaloniki to Kalambaka

Here is yesterday's post from Kalambaka.

This morning we left Thessaloniki and drove to Berea. Before we left I walked down to the Starbucks by the sea shore and started the day with an Americana, that was nice. Berea was the town where Paul went after he was run out of Thessalonica, it is notable because the Jews there searched to scriptures to see if what Paul said about Jesus was right and many of them believed. There wasn’t much to see in Berea, there is a pretty cool mosaic where they think the synagogue he preached may have been and there is a spring near there as well (synagogues or places of prayer always had running water next to them for the ritual washings.)

(The mosaic of Paul at Berea.)

When Paul left Berea (some of the Jews from up north who didn’t like him came to town and tried to kill him,) he went to Athens, most likely by way of a ship from Dion. So we also visited Dion today. Dion was an interesting place. It is right at the base of Mt. Olympus, where the Greeks believed the 12 main gods lived. There is an interesting story about Dion and Alexander the Great that Josephus wrote about that we heard today. Before Alexander went on his conquest that ended with him as ruler of everything from Greece to India he went to Dion to make sacrifices to Zeus and dedicate his army. And apparently he had a dream in Dion. We find out about the dream when Alexander gets to Jerusalem, when he sees the Jewish high priest Alexander goes up to him and bows down before him. And when Alexander’s generals ask him why Alexander is bowing to anyone he tells them that he saw the high priest in a dream he had at Dion. Alexander was in his tent, thinking about how he could move east and defeat the Persians and he fell asleep and had dream, where a man dressed like the high priest (including the name of God across his forehead) told him that he should go forward with all haste because he would be successful against the Persians and the man dressed as the high priest told Alexander that he would go before Alexander’s army and would make sure they were successful. And the high priest in Jerusalem was the first person that Alexander had seen who was dressed as the man in his dream, so Alexander bowed before him and told him that he would grant the Jews anything they wished. They asked that they be allowed to keep their own laws and Alexander happily agreed.

(The altar at Dion where they made sacrifices to the gods of Olympus.)

(Mt. Olympus, it's elevation is about 10,000 feet. The base of the mountain is at just about sea level.)

The other place that we visited today was called Vergina. It was the royal burial place of the Macedonian kings. Phillip the Second, Alexander’s dad was buried there, and Alexander IV, Alexander the Great’s son was buried there. It was pretty cool to see some of that stuff, it’s amazing to see how good gold looks 2300 years after it’s buried underground. The crown that they put on Phillips corpse when the burned in on a pyre looks like it was just made yesterday. It is a gold crown that is shaped to look like a really delicate oak branch full of leaves. It was way different, and way cooler than what I typically imagine when I think of a crown.

(The mound that Phillip II's tomb was buried under.)

We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside Vergina because the findings there haven’t been published yet, so I was going to say that I sketched what the inside of the tomb looked like then show pictures of us getting attacked by mummies but I’m too tired to do that now. I did draw a couple of pictures of mummies on the bus, mostly playing checkers, I might post those pictures later.

Tonight we’re staying in Kalambaka, which is right at the base of the mountains that have the Meteora monasteries. Tomorrow we’re going to go visit an icon factory, where they paint icons, and visit one of the monasteries, it is supposed to be one the most beautiful places in Greece. Then we’re going to visit Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans and a few thousand other Greeks held off the Persian army (not sure on the exact number, I think Herodotus says it was a million or five million or 10 million or something like that,) for four or five or six days (I’ll give you the real numbers tomorrow.) Then we’re spending the night in Delphi, which was the center of prophecy in the pagan Greek world.

Day 16 - Kavalla to Thessaloniki

Here is my post from two days ago, I only have a few minutes here so I won't post yesterday's post until tonight, assuming I have internet, at Delphi.



Compared to the days that we had in Turkey, the days that we’ve had in Greece so far have felt really light. Today we drove from Kavalla to Thessaloniki, and on the way we stopped at Amphipolis and Apollonia. There wasn’t really much at either place, there was a giant statue of a lion at Amphipolis and Apollonia is a relatively new site, it is still mostly farmland. They have an interesting way of doing archeology in those fields. The Archeologists rent out a field for one season, do all the work they can then cover it back up with dirt and the next season the farmer plants it again.





(The lion of Amphipolis, it's about 30 feet high. A person standing next to it gets up to about the second row of bricks.)



Once we got to Thessaloniki we went to the museum here. It was a pretty nice museum, in Turkey most of the museums that we went to were mostly little places that held things taken from the local site. Most of them could be thoroughly examined in 20 to 30 minutes. The Thessaloniki archeological museum was bigger, cleaner, warmer, and looked very professional. There was a bunch of cool stuff there, Gordon, our teacher, took us to look at about 15 things that had biblical relevance, but the section with the stuff from the tombs, which was apparently the best thing to see in the museum was closed because the rain was messing with the lights in there (it rained most of the day today.) There was some cool finds from Apollonia, which was fun to see, and some really interesting stuff there about Alexander the Great.




(A funeral vase from the museum.)











(A fish mosaic for dad and Emily. Below is a close up.)





After the museum we went to our hotel, checked in, then had lunch (late lunch, it was about 3:00, I was starving.) Then we walked up to look at St. Demetrius church, which was really pretty inside. It is a Greek Orthodox church so there were a lot of icons and mosaics. I really like the artwork on some of the icons, I guess the monasteries that we are going to visit in Meteora (two days from now) are the best place to buy icons and I would like to pick up a few cool ones there. We were going to visit the crypt, but it was closed. Apparently they changed the hours pretty recently.




After that we walked down to the Roman forum (agora) here in Thessaloniki. It is a second century forum, but it is most likely right on top of the 1st century forum that Paul and Silas and Timothy were in.



Thessaloniki is a cool city, one of the advantages of having a light day here is that we had a chance to walk around and see part of the city. I really enjoyed walking around but there are parts of the city to avoid. I guess they have riots here every night in the university district. A few weeks ago (maybe at the beginning of December?) a policeman fatally shot a teenager in Athens (maybe?) and students have been rioting since then. Here in Greece the universities are places where the police can’t come and arrest people, so the kids all wear black masks so no one recognizes them, they riot close to the university, the police tear gas them, they run back to the university, and the police don’t chase them. I stayed away from the university district and walked down to the waterfront and got a Thessaloniki Starbucks mug, it’s not as cool as the Antalya mug, but that’s ok.




One of the cool things about travelling in Greece so far is that our route has been the same as Paul’s was on his second missionary journey. He came into Neapolis, went up to Philippi, then when he got run out of Phillipi he came down to Thessaloniki by way of Amphipolis and Apollonia, then after getting run out of Thessaloniki he went down to Berea. I’m not sure where exactly we’re going tomorrow but I do know that we’re going to Berea and that we’ll be spending the night in Meteora (which Paul didn’t visit, so that will be our first deviation from his journey in Greece.)



Well that’s enough for today. Thanks for reading and until tomorrow…

Day 15 - Kavalla

Today we focused on the city of Phillipi. We began the day by going to take a look at the ancient harbor of Neapolis that is here in Kavalla, and we saw a church that is allegedly on the place where Paul took his first step into Europe. We also saw some aqueducts in town and made a quick stop at a museum. Then it was off to the remains of the ancient city of Phillipi.

(The ancient harbor of Neapolis)

Phillipi was the first major city in Europe that Paul came to and worked. It was in Phillipi that he met Lydia, it was in Phillipi that he was thrown in prison for casting out a demon. It was in Phillipi that the prison that Paul was in was hit by an earthquake, but by not escaping he kept the guard from committing suicide and then converted him. And the book of Phillipians was written to the church in Phillipi.



The city itself was founded by Phillip II of Macedon (Alexander the Great's dad) because there were some very wealthy gold mines in the region. And there was also a huge battle where Mark Antony and Octavian (who eventually became Cesar Augustus) fought Brutus and Cassius for the future of Rome. Mark Antony and Octavian won so the Roman republic was dead forever and from then on (after Octavian defeated Mark Antony) Rome would always have Emperors.


Before we saw the actual city of Philipi we went down to the river to the spot where it is pretty likely that Paul met Lydia and baptized her. It was pretty cool to see, they have a little baptismal in the river now and there is a really beautiful church there too. After that we went up to the archaeological site.

(The section of the river where Paul met Lydia and baptized her)

There has been a lot of archaeological work done on the city which was cool to see, especially after seeing how much stuff in Turkey hasn't been done. We saw the theater, and had a few performances, (Dr. Rigsby sang a love song to his wife Donna, then we had a worship song in Chinese and one on Korean.) Then we saw the commercial agora, which was where the demon girl followed Paul and Silas shouting "These are servants of the most high God!" then an annoyed Paul cast the demon out. We saw the area where the judgement seat was at the agora, where Paul and Silas were pulled and then sentenced to prison, and then we saw the prison that they were probably in (there are a few hypothesises about that) After that we hiked up to the top of the Acropolis, which was a pretty good hike, it was really cold out today, but by the time I got to the top (about 30 minutes) I had taken of my coat, my sweater, my hat, my glove (I had lent my other glove out to someone,) and was just in my tee-shirt.

(Paul and Silas' prison)

From on top of the Acropolis our teacher, Gordon, gave us the layout of the battle between Mark Antony, Octavian, Brutus and Cassius, and we were able to see the different areas where the armies were laid out, their advantages and disadvantages and how it all played out. Then we hiked back down, picked up the folks who didn't want to do the hike from the coffee shop and loaded the bus back to the hotel. All in all a good day.

(The plain where the battle of Phillipi took place.)

Tomorrow we are going down to Thessaloniki, with stops at Apollonia and Amphipolis along the way, and tomorrow night I'll be posting from Thessaloniki. Until tomorrow, thanks for reading.

Day 14 - Canakale to Kavalla

Well, we're in Greece. Tonight and tomorrow we actually get to stay in the same hotel, which is really nice. I did a bunch of laundry (in the sink) and now it's hanging out on the balcony. I wasn't really excited about hand washing my clothes and I've found it pretty unsatisfying but it's the only option so that's what I do. Whenever I'm washing them I just keep thinking that no matter what I'm doing, my clothes aren't going to be as clean as they would be if I had put them in a machine. All that being said, since we are at this hotel for a few days I washed some shirts and a couple of pairs of jeans because I knew they would have time to dry before I packed them back up again. I just hope that hanging them out on the balcony won't make them smell like exhaust.

Today was mostly travel. We left our hotel at 6:15 so we could take a ferry across the Dardanelles strait and then drive through the Gallopoli region for a few hours until we got to the boarder. I guess up until a few years ago the boarder crossing was pretty intense, you would unload from your bus in Turkey, exit through customs, then walk the 3/4 of a mile that is between the boarders, with soldiers and watchtowers on each side, then have to bribe someone to let you into the Greece side (or maybe it was bribe someone to get out of Turkey, I'm don't quite remember.) Now there is a bus that takes you from one side to another and you just unload for the exit stamp on your passport from Turkey, then a customs agent from Greece collects everyone's passport in a big stack, then takes them off, stamps them and brings them back. No intense walks and no bribes, all pretty boring. The bathrooms were an adventure though, I guess that's better than nothing.

We stopped in Alexandrapolis to talk about the Island of Salmonthrace and have lunch. It was really cold and I left my gloves in the bus, which was a bad decision. Our new teacher Gordon, told us the four reasons that Salmonthrace is important (he also gave us a quick and easy cure for tear gas just in case anyone decided to go looking for a riot in Thessaloniki or Athens, the cure is to eat a raw onion.) Salmonthrace is important because: some of mythology says that Poseidon, god of the sea, watched the Trojan war from there, it was the home of a major mystery religion in the New Testament times, Paul was there twice, maybe four times, and the statue 'winged victory of Salmonthrace' is from there. We got into more specifics about the mystery religions and Paul's time there (2nd journey and maybe 3rd) but I won't get into them here.

In Alexandrapolous one of the girls, who hadn't told her bank that she would be traveling abroad, had her debit card eaten by a machine because her account was on hold and she couldn't get it back because the bank was afraid of fraud. That was pretty terrifying to the rest of us, but I think just about everyone else told their bank where they were going so we didn't have any problems. I think I'll be nervous every time I use an ATM from now on though.

After Alexandrapolis we drove to Kavalla, which is on the ancient city of Neapolis, which was the port town to Philipi. Paul sailed into Neapolis when he crossed over from Asia to Macedonia. Philipi isn't around anymore but Kavala is a pretty big city. Before we got to the hotel we walked along some of the Egnatian way, which ran from Neapolis to Rome. That was cool, it was a section of road that Paul walked as he went up from Neapolis to Philipi.

(Above, modern day Kavala. On the other side of the finger pointing out to sea is the ancient port of Neapolis.)

(A section of the Egnatian way just out of Neapolis)

Tomorrow we visit what's left of the ancient harbor of Neapolis, check out a museum here in town, then head up to Philipi and hike to the top of the Acropolis (the hill that the city was built on.) Then it's back to our hotel here for the night.

Thanks for reading and until tomorrow...