Day 20 - Last day in Israel

Bad internet again last night. Good internet (fast and free) at the airport this morning though. Here is yesterday's post.

I write tonight with a heavier heart than usual. Today was the last day of our trip. A few hours ago I said goodbye to friends new and old and waved goodbye to the bus as it drove away. This has been an absolutely wonderful three weeks, I learned so much, I had a serious amount of fun, and I really enjoyed the people that I was fortunate enough to spend time with.

After the bus drove away Bill, who runs the program here in Israel that we went through, IBEX, invited me and Janette (another “deviator” like me, she is flying out to Greece in the morning) down to his house to sit and chat for a little while before we called it a night. We met his wife and one of their kids, and we met two of their spring semester students who just arrived today. Bill and his wife were incredibly friendly and hospitable, and Bill even gave me directions to see a really cool place in Jordan when I get there (the place where Jacob wrestled with God).

But enough for what went on tonight, I’ll give you the rundown of what our last day in Israel was like. This morning we had two tests, a test on the northern areas that we were in this week (Galilee and the other places up there) and our final, which was a regions and routes final. For the final Todd gave us a passage of scripture and we would look it up and then have to mark what region the event occurred in or what route the people took. I did well on the final and pretty well on the earlier test. I do make dumb mistakes on tests from time to time and I made one on the first test today. The first question was, “Caesarea was built by (blank).” I thought that was a strange question, but I answered it with what I thought the best answer was and put, “slaves.” The actual answer was Herod the Great, which makes a lot more sense than slaves.

After the tests we bussed into Jerusalem for our last free day in the Old City. We said goodbye to the world’s greatest bus driver, Joel, who has really taken care of us the last few weeks. He interpreted for us whenever we stopped for lunch, he helped us out with all kinds of extra things, he invited us to his house for dinner and he introduced us to his family. Joel, our Bedouin bus driver, was absolutely wonderful.

In the old city my friends Derek and Rebecca and I wandered around and actually got a fair amount done. First we went back to the church of the Holy Sepulcher, to spend a little bit more time taking the place in and thinking about what Jesus did there (that is where he probably died on the cross and rose from the dead.) It was good to spend more time there, it was kind of crowded but it was still good.

After that we went to lunch. We went to the same pizza place that we went to last week; it is in the Christian quarter of the old city and just makes great pizza. I don’t know when I will get a chance to have their Arabic Cheese pizza again (I’m not even sure what kind of cheese they use), so it was good to have it one more time.
After that we climbed to the top of the tower of the Lutheran church. It was another beautiful day, 70 degrees, brilliant blue skies with no clouds, so we had a great view of the city when we got to the top.

After that we did a little bit of shopping (actually the shopping lasted for a while) then Derek and I headed off to get one last look at the western wall, especially on Shabbat (Sabbath). It was still pretty early in the afternoon so it wasn’t very full yet, but as we stood there looking at the western wall and the temple mount we realized that the first night that we were in Jerusalem a bunch of us went over to the western wall and looked out at it from the same place we were looking at it. It was a good bookend to the trip to begin it and to end it by looking at the temple mount. There is so much history, so much passion, and so much tension tied up in the temple mount that in many ways looking at it is like looking at Israel. It reminds you of what this country used to be and what it is now and the different dynamics that have played out here over the millennia.
When we got back to the hotel we packed up, had dinner and then had our departure party. There were many more performances tonight, some that were absolutely amazing, especially a quartet that sang in Korean and English, they were unbelievably good.

After the party the goodbyes began. The first to leave were Todd, our teacher, and the Broscious family (husband, wife and two great boys) who were flying to Dallas. And after they left and the bus arrived it was time for the rest of the goodbyes.
And that was it for today. Tomorrow morning I have a 2:45 am wake up call, and need to be up by the reception desk by 3:15, and at 3:30 there will be a shared ride van (fortunately we’re the last stop) that will pick up Janette and I and take us to the airport. After that I’ll be off to Jordan for a few days to see dad and a few more sights before I head on home.

Until tomorrow, thanks for reading.