Well the past view days have been full of new sights. Every time I get my bearing and start to think I know my way around I find some new part of the city. Sunday was our second free day which we decided to dedicate to museums. Our group had 5 girls and 4 guys; at first we wanted to walk all the way across Jerusalem to get to the museums but resorted to taking a taxi-bus. Let me tell you...the driving here is insane! Busses move in and through traffic like little cars and people honk at everything! But we made it alive so I guess it works alright. Our first stop was at the Bible Lands Museum. This was pretty interesting...it was a private collection of some rich guy very interested in bible history. The coolest thing was the gold jewelry and crowns from the Greeks and some very ancient and ornate coffins. After a tour there our group split into two and I went with the group to tour the Israeli parliament building, the Knesset. This turned out to be my favorite part of the day. We had to go through some very intense security and hand in all of our bags. But once we were through we had to walk across the expansive courtyard to get inside. Once inside we joined an English tour of the building. It started off with a movie about the history of the Knesset. I felt like it was slight propaganda because it spoke very heavily of the Israeli state and how it will never fall. But I felt like the entire tour helped me understand overall the conflict here from one perspective. The most beautiful part of the building was the giant tapestries created by Marc Chagall that depicted the history of the Jewish people. It was very beautiful and also depicted a hope for peace in the future. Pretty amazing considering they were created in 1967 just before the 6-day way. Lets hope he had the correct image of the future. We also were able to sit in the room where all the politicians meet to make decisions. I was surprised by the democracy of the Israeli political system. They are very open to the people being involved and welcome people from all races and religions to join political parties. Obviously, some of that is more dream than reality. After our tour we went across the street to the Rose Gardens to eat lunch. Here we watched an entire school of Orthodox Jewish boys run and play and shout. All I can say is kids will be kids, despite borders or religion. Our last planned stop of the day was the Israeli museum. Although the actual museum was closed we did get to go in to the Shrine of the Book and see the Dead Sea Scrolls. I know I'm a history major and my opinion is probably slightly biased- but how amazing is it that those scrolls have survived for so long! And that they are so important to us today.
We met up with some other students at the Israeli museum and decided that we had time to walk back to the center. As we walked through West Jerusalem neighborhoods...and they were really nice! I could have sworn we were back home if it hadn't been for the european-style license plates and advertisements in another language. I couldn't get over the normalcy I felt in these neighborhoods. We also wandered into an outdoor mall on our way back. It all of the usual stores- Gap, American Apparel, an even a Mac store. The only difference was you had to go through a metal detector to get in. I probably won't buy anything there while I'm here because I can get all that stuff at home...but it was nice to feel something familiar for a moment...even if it is a mall. We finally made our way back to the center after a long day.
The next day we had a field trip to Jericho. The thing about Jericho is it is at the lowest place on earth- and supposedly one of the warmest places on earth. They receive rain once a year. So when we woke up to a storm in Jerusalem all of our teachers told us not to worry because it would still be warm in Jericho since it is in the middle of desert. False. We got to see it rain in the dessert! It was funny to watch all our teachers because they kept going on about how amazing it was to see the dry creek beds (or wadis) full of water. I probably didn't appreciate it like I should have...but since they have been having a drought here I am grateful to finally see some rain. This was my first experience going into the West Bank. Getting in was very easy. The checkpoint simply looked like one of those booths people at parking lots sit in (although there were armed soldiers present too). Our first stop was the Tel of Jericho. A Tel is basically a man-made mound that is actually a city underneath that has just been covered up over time. Jericho has been excavated in some parts. I'm not going to lie- it was a little disappointing. We got out of the bus and got to walk around a big mound of dirt. I mean- it was still pretty cool! The parts that were excavated were interesting, and Jericho is the oldest city on earth in the lowest spot on earth; so at least we got to stand on the oldest dirt on earth on the lowest dirt on earth...that's cool in itself right? Our next stop was the Monastery of Temptation. It is where they claim that Jesus came during his 40 day fast and was tempted by satan. The monastery is this building built right into the cliffs. The entire structure is about 100 feet long and 10 feet wide at any point. We had to hike up the cliff and once we were there we woman had the first experience of covering our hair with shawls. The monastery was impressive just because of the sheer difficulty of building something up there would have been, but also the beautiful paintings throughout the building. We also got to see pilgrims from Africa come to the monastery. After our stop there we made a few quick stops at Zaccheaus Tree and Herod's winter palace. The palace has been reduced to some rubble, but you could still see the general outline of the building. Our final stop of the day was at the Inn of the Good Samaritan Museum. Obviously, the story of the good samaritan is a fictional story, but the crusaders created a church in a likely place for that story to occur in honor of the story. Now it has been turned into a museum of beautiful mosaics from all over the area. The checkpoint getting back into Israel was a big structure and was more like how I initially imagined it. We completed all of these stops and were back at the center by 1:30.
The past couple days have been full of classes and preparing fore Egypt. Yesterday we had an orientation meeting for our Egypt trip and I'm so excited and super nervous! . They say about 60% of the students get sick every time from the food/water/people/air/everything haha. Basically its sheer luck if you don't get sick. So I ran out that afternoon to buy some granola bars and hopefully I'll have enough antibacterial gel to ward off everything else. Other than that I can't wait for this trip! We've watched The Prince of Egypt and The Ten Commandments to prepare haha. Who hasn't dreamed of seeing the pyramids since they were a kid? Another thing checked off the bucket list...
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