A Day in 'The Holy City'

Just studying :)

Things are really beginning to wrap up here. Everyone is hard at work studying, but we have done some activities to keep ourselves from working too hard! I am so glad we have, otherwise it would be too easy to let the last couple weeks go by without any appreciation.
Tuesday I went to the "Bible Lands Museum" with a few other students, since entry was free over Passover week. It was really neat, there are a lot of cool artifacts there, and a lot of inscriptions. A lot of the stuff there was really old, as in back before the Patriarchs. The fine art etc really makes you realize that people back in the 4-3 thousands BC weren't primative, they left some awesome stuff behind, and had massive cities!

The Roses in the garden have been gorgeous this week!

That night I tagged along with the Church in the east class for their tour of the Church of the Holly sepulcher with their professor. I learned a lot! Four of us went out to get Falafel before we met the professor at the church. Dan, Kyle, Susannah and I were all there (Plus Erin) and that was the same team we had day 2, when we did an Old City scavenger hunt, and had to go buy Falafel. That night we got totally ripped of! I think we paid almost 20 shekels for a falafel, and this time we only paid 10 shekels. We must have learned a thing or two about Jerusalem ;)

Simba! Sitting by me while I read my
Bible in the Garden

Full moon! Must be Passover.

 Wednesday we went to a park with lovely gardens, and a hiking trail to a Roman Bathhouse. We grilled burgers, and had pop and chips (and Matzah bread), watermelon and brownies. For the record, feta cheese is really good on a burger! After our picnick we drove to the coast, and set up camp on the beach at Tell Dor. It was a perfect day, full sun, but not too hat, and a nice breaze. We swam, built sand castles, and played frisbee in the shallow water. Afterwards, I went for a walk to loo around the tell. It was breathtaking. Some of the Tell has been excavated, but not for a while, so it is mostly grown over with flowers and grasses. It is right on the coast, and some of it's masonry dropped right off into the water. The water was so pretty, sort of teal colored near the shore, and the waves were pretty big past the swimming area. Because there is a lot of kurkar rock there, the waves would crash up against the kurkar shelves and breakers not too far off shore. It was beautiful. I forgot to take my camera, so sorry there are no pictures, but on the upside, it helped me be purposeful about remembering it in my mind's eye. At one point I found the guys who had headed up the tell before me, and we found some cool things on the shoreline right at the base of the tell, including a shrimp! I don't think I've seen a live one before, besides in fish tanks. All along the path there were tesserae, square tiles for mosaics. The site must have had a lot of mosaics, because the tessarae were everywhere. I took a couple small ones to see if I can make earrings out of them. It was a good day.

This is part of an Egyptian Wood Coffin, about 4 thousand years old!

Yesterday I met with the others staying over the summer to talk about work schedules for May. I'll only be here helping out for a week, but I am so glad to have a place to stay, and I think I'll enjoy the work. It will be sad having most everyone else leave though. We also had our departure meeting yesterday.
This morning we played what might be our last Frisbee games in "hell!" Every Friday we go to a field in the Hinnom valley, (Gehenna), to play. I have liked it a lot, and we had a very athletic group this semester, so games were lots of fun and usually quite a few people participated. This morning wasn't just another game, though, we had a full fledged competition! We had four teams of four, and played several games to determine the winners, who would get JUC T-shirts. several people who normally don't join in came and played, and several came to watch and also take care of the babies. It was lots of fun. Our team (Blue Team) played first, but lost to grey. We beat the other two teams, so we had another chance to beat grey, but, alas, we lost again. I think we played pretty well though, and second place is nothing to sneeze at!

Eating Falafel in the Old City

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, (Church of the resurrection)

Richard put together a "Fantasy Frisbee game," where people could anticipate who would win, and who would make the most scores etc. He even filmed the tournament!
What a fun group this has been! It will be hard to say goodbye.
I am tired out now! After a shower, laundry, and lunch I studied Archaeology. That will be my most challenging final, there is a lot of information to review, and the final is 100% of my grade. I think if I take enough breaks, though, I will be able to get through it all, and hopefully have something to say to whatever questions he asks us (the final is all essay form, and 2 hrs long!)
This evening we have Shabbat dinner and Vespers, something I always loo forward to.
There is so much to be thankful for, I feel blessed in so many ways to be here.

Just a random photo of playing with Will after lunch!