I love the Israeli airport security personnel! It’s true, I had great experiences with just about everyone that I ran into today. But before I get to that I’ll give some impressions of Jordan and Israel.
Jordan…Jordan is full of really, really nice people, which is kind of like saying that a girl has a great personality. Just about everyone in Jordan was incredibly friendly and accommodating, almost no one spoke English, but everyone was friendly. The Marriot was incredible, everyone there was amazingly friendly and helpful. At breakfast yesterday when one of the guys there found out that we were driving to Petra he ran off to pack us up some fruit, some pastries and some water from breakfast to take with us to have for lunch as we drove. Almost everyone there was like that, the went above and beyond to help us.
That being said I thought that Jordan would be more western and more cosmopolitan than it was. Jordan was a lot more like Egypt than Dubai, and I didn’t expect that. There were a lot of really poor people a lot of Bedouins shepherding goats and living in tents, a lot of people selling vegetable from makeshift stands next to the highway.
Traffic in Jordan was not fun, I was glad Dad was driving. People seem to consider lanes more as suggestions than as rules there. I saw more than one car drive down the freeway (two lane) centered over the dotted line. It would be hard to make the street signs more confusing and still have a system to them. Some of the signs I never figured out. I saw signs on the freeway that simply had an “x” on them. I saw others that just had a “!”. Sometimes the “!” signs would be coupled with another sign so that it would say something like “camel!” or “two people holding hands!” I started to take a picture of one once, but I stopped when I realized it said “military checkpoint!” (military folks typically don’t like it when you take pictures of checkpoints).
Jerash (Gerassa) was really cool. Mount Nebo was cool. I think that the place where Jacob wrestled God would have been awesome if we could have gotten there. Petra was a bit of a disappointment, I had heard that it was so incredibly amazing that I expected to be blown away and I wasn’t. I sure my reaction has something to do with the seven hours round trip driving that we did as well as the fact that the entrance fee was literally five times as much as anywhere else we went.
Even with the really nice people, Jordan still felt like a place where everything kind of depends on who you know. There didn’t seem to be a set way of doing things, everything kind of had an Egyptian, “my friend, let’s sit down and talk” feel to it. (But the people were way less pushy and more genuine than people in Egypt.) Jordan is the kind of place where a lot of stuff just doesn’t make sense to people from the west.
Israel…Israel is a place where things do make sense. It is a country that was born out of the holocaust, it is a country where 40 years ago (20 years after the holocaust) all of its neighboring countries prepared to simultaneously attack it in order to “push Israel into the sea.” Since then they had suicide bombers walk into restaurants and cafes and kill innocent people. People in the cities bordering Lebanon used to sleep in bomb shelters because they never knew when Hezbollah would launch the next rockets into their town.
In light of all this, the security stuff in Israel makes sense. They are especially careful with everyone who has been to a country they are not on friendly terms with. (there is official peace with Jordan, but relations are not great. I have a Jordanian road map that has the west bank and half of Jerusalem within the borders of Jordan.) I don’t like how things are with the Palestinians, but I’m not sure what Israel could do differently and still protect its citizens. I’m actually amazed at their passion for this land and their willingness to face all kinds of danger to keep it.
That being said, Israel is not a good country towards Christians. Christian tourists are one thing but Christians living here are another. It is illegal to proselytize to people 18 and under, and there is an actually anti-missionary organization that is trying to make it illegal to proselytize at all. The anti-missionary group has deep ties with the state department and works to make it very difficult for Christians to get visas to live and work in Israel. Our teacher in Israel, Todd, is back in the states working on a PhD because he was deported from Israel. In fact the people at the church we visited said that the number one thing that we could pray for was that people could get and keep their visas. Life is even more difficult for Jewish Christians in Israel. A Jewish Christian cannot emigrate to Israel, and if a Jew in Israel converts to Christianity there is a good chance that their Rabbi will denounce them which typically results divorce with their spouse and shunning from everyone else.
As for my time here today…my battery is running low and I’ve got the wrong adapter with me (Jordan uses the British plug, I forgot to change it back to the European plug that Israel uses.) The people in Israel today were awesome. I went to the transit desk after I arrived from Jordan, and they decided that the easiest thing for me to do was to exit like I was leaving the country, grab my bags and then check in like I just got the airport. Then the transit desk guy walked me down to baggage claim (taking me through the staff passport line, which was super fast) and warning me to expect some questioning from security because I was coming from Jordan. We even talked about LA a little bit (he’s been to Disneyland, he thought the one in Paris was a little more authentic looking.) Then the security girls were really nice, one even gave me bubble wrap when she was looking through my luggage to wrap my starbucks mugs in (after she tested them to make sure they weren’t bombs). And when I got to the ticket desk I found out that I had a window seat! I was positive I would have a middle seat. I even called El-Al yesterday morning to try to get a window seat and the lady on line told me that there wasn’t any left. So when I got my window seat…best surprise ever.
It’s funny how expectations can change experiences. Today I expected to be seriously questioned, have my bags searched, and have everything I am carrying tested for bomb residue. In knew that it wasn’t anything personal, the people here would just be trying to keep everyone safe. So when all of that stuff happened, I was ready for it and had a really good time with it.
I’m almost out of juice here so I think it’s about time I sign off. Thanks taking the time to read about what has been three of the best weeks of my life. I had an amazing time in Israel and a great time with Dad. I’m sure this blog was boring at times and for that I apologize, blame lack of sleep and my limited writing abilities for that, the trip itself has been amazing.
Until next time…Shalom.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Day 23 - Petra
(Dad and I in Petra)
(part of the entrance canyon)
(The treasury, in indiana jones, this is where the holy grail was. It might still be there, we weren't allowed inside.)
(The inside of one of the biggest royal tombs. You can see how cool the rock is here.)
(The monastery, look close and you can see a person standing right at the base of the doorway.)
Petra, Petra Petra…Petra was…cool. I’ll be honest, there is definitely a “once you’ve seen one giant temple facade cut into the rock, you’ve seen them all” effect at Petra. The things are cool, and the canyon that you walk through to get there is cool, but a lot of them look pretty much the same. What’s impressive about the place is its sheer size. Petra is really, really big. There were a couple of times when we thought that w had seen everything and then we walked around a corner, or looked over a hill and saw that the city stretched out a lot farther than we thought it did.
(part of the entrance canyon)(The treasury, in indiana jones, this is where the holy grail was. It might still be there, we weren't allowed inside.)Most of the facades have been worn down by erosion, so they weren’t as impressive as they used to be, but the stone that they were cut into was pretty incredible looking. It was layered in a way that made it look like cool wood grain. (or marble, but I don't think it was marble)
(The inside of one of the biggest royal tombs. You can see how cool the rock is here.)If you are into hikes Petra is a cool place to go, it looks like there were a bunch of different places that you could hike around and see different stuff. We went up to see the monastery, which is at the far western end of the city. We had to climb 800 steps to get up there, but if there is anything that the last three weeks has prepared me for, it is hiking up stairs.
(The monastery, look close and you can see a person standing right at the base of the doorway.)
The monastery was cool, it looked a lot like the treasury, but you could go inside of it. (you couldn’t get inside of the treasury) These facades are so big and impressive but the insides are pretty small. I think that most of the facades were tombs, I guess that you don’t need to a very big inside if all it is going to be is a tomb. It was a little weird to be at a city like that and see all the places where they buried people, but not be able to see where the people themselves actually lived. There is only one standing building that is left in Petra, it is part of what may have been the main temple there, no houses or any other buildings are left.
Petra was all that we did today, it took us three and a half hours to get down there and three and a half to get back, and I’m pretty wiped out. We had good weather today, which was nice, Petra would have been awful yesterday in the rain, and tomorrow it’s supposed to snow down there.
Tomorrow I head back to the US (although it will be a long, long trip) and dad heads back to Bahrain. I’ll try to post one more time from the airport in Israel, assuming that I have my computer. (you never know with el-al)
So until then, thanks for reading.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Day 22 - Jerash and some off the beaten path exploration
(Gerassa)
When we went to bed last night, we were in the middle of a pretty serious thunderstorm and when we woke up this morning, it was still raining. That is good news for the people in Israel (it was raining over there too) and the people here in Jordan. Our waiter at the steakhouse we ate at tonight (I won’t tease you by telling you how good it was) told us that it has been the biggest storm they've had in three years.
Since it was raining we decided not to make the long drive down to Petra today (it will take about three hours to get there). Instead we decided to do what we were planning on doing on Tuesday, head up to Jerash (ancient Gerassa) and then try to find the place where Jacob wrestled with God.
(a much better sign for Gerassa than the actual one)
We got a little bit turned around on our way up to Jerash (highway detour = 1 hour of being completely lost.) Jordan isn’t the most friendly place for non-Arabic speakers (or readers) to drive. We had a map, but while the road numbers are in English numbers on the map, the numbers are rarely in English on the signs. We made it out to Jerash eventually, but it took longer than it could have if we knew where we were going or if roads were consistenly marked. When we finally made there we were wondering how we were going to be able to find the archeological site. We had a hard enough time finding the modern city where everyone lived, how were we going to find the ancient one? Fortunately it is gigantic and the main road runs right next to it. Which is good because the sign for the parking lot and ticket office said, “Crafts center parking.” And then in small letters, “(archeological site)”. I think the craft center was the gift shop.
Gerassa was a really cool site, it was huge. Dad had never seen a Roman city before, and this one was a great one to start with. He said he thought it was as cool as the pyramids in Egypt. It took us three hours to walk through the site. It had two theaters, a hippodrome (for horseracing), temples to Zeus and to Artemis (which were later turned into churches) and some great, great roads. It is funny with all that cool stuff that is still there, it is the roads and the sewage systems of these Roman cities that I think are the most incredible. There were circular stones in the road that I think were kind of like ancient manhole covers (or maybe drains). You could see a few feet of empty space under the street through some cracks and the water still drained into them pretty well. I’m amazed that the stones of the streets haven’t collapsed into sewer yet.
(One of the super awesome streets. Lots of pictures of Gerassa, I know, but give me a break, this was the only dry part of the day.)
After we left Jerash we tried to make it down to ancient Succoth and Penuel and Mahanaim. Bill Shlegel at Ibex (the group we went through in Israel) gave me directions at his house the other night. He said that from the Dead Sea, you take the road that runs alongside the Jordan River north to a city called Dayr Allah, which is where the ancient city Succoth was and where the Jabbok river runs into the Jordan. Up the Jabbok from Dayr Allah are the two tell’s of Penuel and Mahanaim. Where the Jabbok river cuts through the mountains is probably the pass that Jacob took when he came back into the promised land. Mahanaim is the place where Jacob wrestled with God, and somewhere between Penuel and Succoth is where Esau intercepted Jacob before he made it back into the promised land.
Dad and I decided that we would try to make it to Dayr Allah from Jerash, so we would have to cut through the mountains and drop down into the Jordan rift valley north of Dayr Allah then head into the city from the north side. That sound like a simple scenario, but without highway numbers it was more on the exciting side. It took us through a pretty mountainous hilly area of Jordan and through a lot of small towns where I’m pretty sure tourists never go.
So we drove through these small (and pretty poor) towns listening to the Rolling stones and Grand Funk Railroad, trying to matchup anything we saw written in English with stuff on our map. Somehow we made it down to just north of Dayr Allah without incident, rain and sometimes really thick fog not withstanding.
Eventually we made it down the Jordan and then to south to Dayr Allah. Dayr Allah was another place that doesn’t see tourists, the roads were full of people selling vegatables (there are hundreds and hundreds of greenhouses and gardens in this part of Jordan. After some driving back and forth (and crossing through a military checkpoint a couple of times,) we found the Jabbok river and started to work our way up towards where the two tells are. There wasn’t an easy road back there, we just kind of pointed ourselves east and tried to keep the gap in the hills (caused by the river) in front of us. We drove back far enough that I think I saw the first of the two tells about a quarter mile in front of us, then we hit another military checkpoint. There are a ton of military checkpoints in Jordan, I bet in our two days here we have driven through 20 military checkpoints, and in almost all of them when they see that we are white guys driving a rental car they wave us through. Here they did not. They asked us where we were going. Not many people here speak English, including the guys at the military checkpoints, so when they asked neither of us where quite sure how to say, “we are trying to find the unexcavated tels of Mahanaim and Penuel.” Dad looked at me and I looked at the guard and said, “we are looking for two archeological tells…” The soldier continued to look at me so I kept talking, “…they are like hills that ancient cities are buried under…” At that point the soldier said, “passports please” and asked us to pull of the side of the road. Apparently I gave him the wrong answer.
The soldiers had us pull our car over and open the trunk. He looked at our passports, looked through our trunk and our car and then asked us again where we were trying to go. At this point we decided that better be dumb tourists so we took our road map and asked them how to get to the Dead Sea. They gave us back our passports and pointed us back down the road that we came from. At that point the military guys became pretty friendly, dad told them the eight words that he knows in Arabic and they enjoyed that. One of the guys introduced himself to us, Faraz, and then they waved us goodbye. I think that ultimately they were trying to help us, they just didn’t see any possible reason that tourists would want to go down the road that we were trying to go down. Or maybe they were keeping us from trying to blow up the dam that was further upriver. Either way, we weren't able to make it up to the tells. So we went back down to Dayr Allah then headed back south to our hotel at the dead sea.
And that was it for today. There is still a pretty serious storm going on outside. Hopefully it rains hard all night and then clears up tomorrow, but even if it doesn't we'll be headed down to Petra in the morning.
Until tomorrow, thanks for reading.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Day 21 - Mt. Nebo and the Dead Sea Marriot
(The pool at our hotel)
(sunset over the dead sea)
When I bought my visa, the guy told me to go over and line up in line one. Who was line one for? VIP’s and Investors. Sometimes the American passport is really nice.
Dad got there to pick me up right as I walked through, so the timing was perfect.
The hotel was about 45 minutes from the airport but we made a little detour on our way to go see Mt. Nebo. Mt. Nebo was the place where God took Moses to look out over the promised land before he died, and then where he was buried. It was a little hazy today so we couldn’t quite see all the way across the Jordan rift valley, but we could see a good portion of the rift valley and Dad was really excited to see Jericho.
(The view from the top of Mt. Nebo, I'm guessing it was a little bit clearer when Moses was up here.)
After that we were going to go look at the Bethany beyond the Jordan site that some people think that Jesus was baptized in, but there is really no way of knowing exactly where that spot was. We actually drove up there, but the whole thing felt too much like a Egyptian tourist trap (even though we were in Jordan). A guy came up to us and told us that we had to take a shuttle to the site, that we couldn’t walk. He told us that he would be our guide, that the tour would take an hour and that the next shuttle would be there to get us in half an hour. The prospect of spending the next hour and a half at the mercy of our self appointed tour guide pretty much decided it for us so we turned around and left.
Then it was on to the Marriot at the Dead Sea. Once we got here our day pretty much ended. I won’t bore you with the details, but it mostly involved really good food, naps and sitting out on the patio looking at the sunset and then lightning storm (it actually rained a little bit.) Tomorrow we are headed off to Petra, which will take up pretty much the whole day (it’s a pretty long drive). Until then, thanks for reading.
Then it was on to the Marriot at the Dead Sea. Once we got here our day pretty much ended. I won’t bore you with the details, but it mostly involved really good food, naps and sitting out on the patio looking at the sunset and then lightning storm (it actually rained a little bit.) Tomorrow we are headed off to Petra, which will take up pretty much the whole day (it’s a pretty long drive). Until then, thanks for reading.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Day 21 - Ben Guryion Airport
Life is full of lessons. That sounds familiar to type so I wonder if I have mentioned it before. The lesson that I learned today is why you are supposed to get to the airport three hours early for an international flight.
It is currently 5:54 am in Jerusalem and I just got to my gate. I got here at 4:00 am. I bet I spent a total of 15 minutes waiting in line between walking in the front door and walking here, the rest of the time was spent talking to security people, running my bags through x-ray machines, having my bags checked and tested for explosives, finding out that I have a total weight limit for my luggage (and finding out that I am over it) and paying the overweight fee. The people here were really nice in an Israeli way. They are serious people, but they will smile a little bit if you are friendly and keep talking to them. Sometimes they will even chat back.
At the airport here you have to go through a security check (a person who checks through your passport and talks to you about why you were in Israel, a longer question and answer process for me than at other places.) After that you run all of your bags through an x-ray, then you go through a security check where they look through your bags and compare them to what the x-ray read. I’m not sure if this check is for everyone or just for me. During that time I found out that my cord for my laptop wasn’t able to travel with any of my bags, they put it in a separate box, and because of that box I had an Israeli security person who walked around with me for what I’m sure they thought would be a short trip but it ended up being a rather long one. When I went up and checked in they weighed all of my bags and told me that they were over the total weight limit (the counter lady was nice and knocked off a few extra kilos) and I told me that I had to check one of the bags I was going to carry on (it was too heavy) and that I needed to go pay the extra fee. Since I was going to check a new bag, I had to take that bag back to the security point and they needed to search it more thoroughly and give it a different security “ok”.
Then we went to the line where you pay the overweight fee (which wasn’t that much, $21), which actually had a pretty long line. At that point the guy who was escorting me and carrying the box with my computer cord in it checked his watch and realized that he was supposed to be somewhere else at that point, so he apologized (he was pretty friendly and actually pretty funny). Took me back to the security desk, where I waited a few minutes for someone else to be available to escort me around and carry the box with my computer cord. Lucky for me my new escort ended up being a cute girl who took me back to the “pay for being too heavy” line then over to the ticket counter where I could finally get my boarding pass. Then she walked me over to a big elevator where she waited to put on the box with my computer cord, gave me tips on where not to shop in the mall (unsolicited, I think she was warming up to me) then she sent me on my way.
After that it was just the regular security checks, bag checks, and passport checks until I got here to my gate.
This is a bit of a goodbye to Israel. I’ll be here for about seven hours when I fly back later this week (hopefully that will be enough time to make it through the airport security check and the El-Al security check.) Assuming that my computer cord arrives with me, my next post will be from the Dead Sea Marriot in Jordan. And I promise, that one will include pictures.
It is currently 5:54 am in Jerusalem and I just got to my gate. I got here at 4:00 am. I bet I spent a total of 15 minutes waiting in line between walking in the front door and walking here, the rest of the time was spent talking to security people, running my bags through x-ray machines, having my bags checked and tested for explosives, finding out that I have a total weight limit for my luggage (and finding out that I am over it) and paying the overweight fee. The people here were really nice in an Israeli way. They are serious people, but they will smile a little bit if you are friendly and keep talking to them. Sometimes they will even chat back.
At the airport here you have to go through a security check (a person who checks through your passport and talks to you about why you were in Israel, a longer question and answer process for me than at other places.) After that you run all of your bags through an x-ray, then you go through a security check where they look through your bags and compare them to what the x-ray read. I’m not sure if this check is for everyone or just for me. During that time I found out that my cord for my laptop wasn’t able to travel with any of my bags, they put it in a separate box, and because of that box I had an Israeli security person who walked around with me for what I’m sure they thought would be a short trip but it ended up being a rather long one. When I went up and checked in they weighed all of my bags and told me that they were over the total weight limit (the counter lady was nice and knocked off a few extra kilos) and I told me that I had to check one of the bags I was going to carry on (it was too heavy) and that I needed to go pay the extra fee. Since I was going to check a new bag, I had to take that bag back to the security point and they needed to search it more thoroughly and give it a different security “ok”.
Then we went to the line where you pay the overweight fee (which wasn’t that much, $21), which actually had a pretty long line. At that point the guy who was escorting me and carrying the box with my computer cord in it checked his watch and realized that he was supposed to be somewhere else at that point, so he apologized (he was pretty friendly and actually pretty funny). Took me back to the security desk, where I waited a few minutes for someone else to be available to escort me around and carry the box with my computer cord. Lucky for me my new escort ended up being a cute girl who took me back to the “pay for being too heavy” line then over to the ticket counter where I could finally get my boarding pass. Then she walked me over to a big elevator where she waited to put on the box with my computer cord, gave me tips on where not to shop in the mall (unsolicited, I think she was warming up to me) then she sent me on my way.
After that it was just the regular security checks, bag checks, and passport checks until I got here to my gate.
This is a bit of a goodbye to Israel. I’ll be here for about seven hours when I fly back later this week (hopefully that will be enough time to make it through the airport security check and the El-Al security check.) Assuming that my computer cord arrives with me, my next post will be from the Dead Sea Marriot in Jordan. And I promise, that one will include pictures.
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.
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.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Day 19 - travelling back down to Jerusalem
I've had internet trouble the last few days so I haven't posted anything, but here is what I've typed up. I'm not going to upload any pictures yet, I want to get this stuff posted while my signal is still good.
Well today was our last study day in Israel. After a late start this morning (we didn’t have to leave until 8:30), we headed off to the Jordan river. We came up to a spot that is a kind of commercial spot where people can come and be baptized.
They say that it is near the location that Jesus was baptized, but our teacher Todd is pretty sure that it is too far north for that. I’m sure that the people who run the area that we went to wouldn’t be happy to hear that since they charge three dollars for a small bottle of “holy water” and six for a bigger bottle (the bigger bottle is probably about 8 oz.) The “holy water” is just water from that spot on the Jordan.
The Jordan river looked pretty small. In fact, it didn’t look much bigger than some of the streams that were headwaters of the Jordan. I think that is mainly because the Sea of Galilee is the main freshwater reservoir for Israel, so they take a lot of water out of it and not as much ends up in the Jordan. Although in Biblical times the Jordan wasn’t the most imposing river either. It was never as impressive as the Nile or the Euphrates, but because it runs along a fault line, it runs in a really narrow canyon that in some places are really impassable. So even if it is not imposing, it is still a pretty substantial barrier.
After the Jordan River we went to Beth Shan, which was known as Scythopolis in Jesus time. It was a pretty big and pretty impressive Greek city in Jesus time, it was part of a bunch of Greek cities in the area that were called the Decapolis. It’s funny, after all that time that I spent in Turkey Greece and Rome last year, I feel a little bit like the Greek/Roman city designs are old hat for me. I was definitely more worried about our Beauty and the Beast performance that we did in the theater there than I was about taking notes when we were in the teaching part. The city was cool, it was familiar in some ways, it was pretty big, and even though it was in ruins they have reconstructed enough of it to get a feel for how impressive the city would have been before it was destroyed by a big earthquake.
Our performance in the theater went well. There were five of us and everyone who wasn’t Belle played a bunch of different parts. I have sung the Gaston parts from Beauty and the Beast in the shower plenty of times so I had my Gaston voice down when I was him. It was fun, everyone seemed to enjoy it, and I’m glad it’s over and I don’t have to do it again. I spent most of the morning before our performance wondering if I had caught the stomach flu that has been going around or if I was just nervous. Turns out I was just nervous. I felt fine after we were done.
After Beth Shan we went to Ein Harod, which is the spring that Gideon brought his men to when his army dropped from 10,000 men to 300 men. It used to be bigger, I guess there used to be a lake there. Now it is just a little stream, somehow they control how much water runs out through the stream so that there can be a nice park around the spring and not a swamp like there used to be.
And that was it for what we did today. After Ein Harod we drove back to Jerusalem, to Yad Hashmona, where my camera was waiting for me and we checked in for our last night as a group together in Israel. Most everyone else leaves tomorrow night at midnight. I leave at 7:00 am two days from now to meet up with Dad in Jordan for a few days before I head back to the states on the 21st.
Well today was our last study day in Israel. After a late start this morning (we didn’t have to leave until 8:30), we headed off to the Jordan river. We came up to a spot that is a kind of commercial spot where people can come and be baptized.
They say that it is near the location that Jesus was baptized, but our teacher Todd is pretty sure that it is too far north for that. I’m sure that the people who run the area that we went to wouldn’t be happy to hear that since they charge three dollars for a small bottle of “holy water” and six for a bigger bottle (the bigger bottle is probably about 8 oz.) The “holy water” is just water from that spot on the Jordan.
The Jordan river looked pretty small. In fact, it didn’t look much bigger than some of the streams that were headwaters of the Jordan. I think that is mainly because the Sea of Galilee is the main freshwater reservoir for Israel, so they take a lot of water out of it and not as much ends up in the Jordan. Although in Biblical times the Jordan wasn’t the most imposing river either. It was never as impressive as the Nile or the Euphrates, but because it runs along a fault line, it runs in a really narrow canyon that in some places are really impassable. So even if it is not imposing, it is still a pretty substantial barrier.
After the Jordan River we went to Beth Shan, which was known as Scythopolis in Jesus time. It was a pretty big and pretty impressive Greek city in Jesus time, it was part of a bunch of Greek cities in the area that were called the Decapolis. It’s funny, after all that time that I spent in Turkey Greece and Rome last year, I feel a little bit like the Greek/Roman city designs are old hat for me. I was definitely more worried about our Beauty and the Beast performance that we did in the theater there than I was about taking notes when we were in the teaching part. The city was cool, it was familiar in some ways, it was pretty big, and even though it was in ruins they have reconstructed enough of it to get a feel for how impressive the city would have been before it was destroyed by a big earthquake.
Our performance in the theater went well. There were five of us and everyone who wasn’t Belle played a bunch of different parts. I have sung the Gaston parts from Beauty and the Beast in the shower plenty of times so I had my Gaston voice down when I was him. It was fun, everyone seemed to enjoy it, and I’m glad it’s over and I don’t have to do it again. I spent most of the morning before our performance wondering if I had caught the stomach flu that has been going around or if I was just nervous. Turns out I was just nervous. I felt fine after we were done.
After Beth Shan we went to Ein Harod, which is the spring that Gideon brought his men to when his army dropped from 10,000 men to 300 men. It used to be bigger, I guess there used to be a lake there. Now it is just a little stream, somehow they control how much water runs out through the stream so that there can be a nice park around the spring and not a swamp like there used to be.
And that was it for what we did today. After Ein Harod we drove back to Jerusalem, to Yad Hashmona, where my camera was waiting for me and we checked in for our last night as a group together in Israel. Most everyone else leaves tomorrow night at midnight. I leave at 7:00 am two days from now to meet up with Dad in Jordan for a few days before I head back to the states on the 21st.
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