Wow, this week has been crazy busy and so amazing. I have loved every minute of it. We have done so much traveling around the country and seen so many awesome sights. Let me try to tell you about them all.
We are studying at Jerusalem University College for a two week historical geography course. This consists of getting up bright and early each morning, jumping on the bus after a quick breakfast, and heading off to all reaches of the country of Israel.
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, in the morning we had 4 hours of class time, lunch, and then in the afternoon got walking tours around Jerusalem. This included going to see the Temple Mount, Western Well, Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the City of David, walking through a water filled tunnel, going to the Mount of Olives, and various important historical sites around the city. Wow. I just love Jerusalem. So much history of the Bible, so much history in general, and it is a beautiful city. Below are pictures from Jerusalem.
A night scene of New Jerusalem from the roof of JUC.
A view of the Old City of Jerusalem from the City of David.
A view of the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.
A great picture I caught of the sun rays while walking through the old city.
Then on Thursday we traveled to different locations around the city of Jerusalem so we could get a picture of the lay of the land. We saw Jerusalem from almost all the different approaches, North, South, East, and West. We started off in a beautiful hiking area called Safat, went to Mt. Scopus on the Mount of Olives, for lunch we had a picnic on the "hill of evil counsel" (ironically this is where the UN building is located), then we went to some archeological dig site towards the western part of Jerusalem.
The last three days have passed in kind of a blur so I will go through them quickly. We went to Shiloh - site of the wilderness tabernacle, Gezer, Bet-Shemesh - possible home of Deliah of Sampson and Deliah, had bus trouble, made it back safely, had a Shabbat meal of Friday night, went to Azekah - site of the story of David and Goliath, Ashkelon - got to swim in the Mediterranean Sea, Beer Sheba - home of Abraham, Arad - an important trade city, stayed overnight in a youth hostel in Arad, hiked up to Masada - one of Herod's many desert palaces, swam in waterfall pools in En Gedi - where David spared Saul's life, floated in the Dead Sea, visited Qumron where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, made it back to JUC.
Now it is today. I'm exhausted from such a busy but amazing week. I got lots of sun, thankfully no burns. The weather has been glorious, though I think it is going to rain this week. I had a wonderfully relaxing free morning, and in a little while we will have a test on everything we learned in the past 7 days. Craziness.
Tomorrow we leave and have a 4 day/ 3 night trip up in the Galilee area. We will be staying in a hotel on the coast of the Sea of Galilee. So much more to learn and see. I'm looking forward to it.
Love you all,
~Allison
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