Tuesday. So I have a bit of catching up to do since last time. We have done some sweet stuff so far. I have gotten to know Old Jerusalem really well now. I can navigate my way around town really well. It has been a ton of fun. We have been to a ton of the sweet sites in town like, David’s Tower (Citadel), most of the churches, the Ramparts Wall, the Western (wailing) wall, etc.
This weekend we went to Tel Aviv and played all day at the beach. It was probably one of the prettiest beaches I have ever been to. It was seriously amazing! I have lived in Orange County and Florida and I think this was the best beach I have been to. We had so much fun. There were probably 30 of us and we all hung out at the beach together.
We started out catching a bus to Tel Aviv at 8:45am. It took about an hour to get there and then a little while for everyone to change into their bathing-suits. We hit the beach at about 10am and I was freaking out the whole time, yelling things like, “I can’t believe how beautiful this is!” and “oh my gosh just look at it!” Sure it sounds kind of dorky now, but at the time you would feel the same way. We all set up camp under a large pavilion and then we hit the water. The temperature was close to perfect. The water was warm, clear, and emerald blue. The waves were just the right size for everyone, and especially for body boarding. The sections of waves came in 4-7 wave sets and they were all good. Not only did we body board, but of course being the adrenaline junkie I am, we wanted to go bigger. This meant that we got the biggest strongest of the guys and started throwing people as high as we could into the air. Then we started flipping… back flips, front flips, flips with spins… you get the picture. There were a couple times we got out of the water to go get a drink or lunch, but pretty much most of the day was spent playing in the water, walking around Tel Aviv, or eating. There was hardly a second that we were sitting down because we were having too much fun.
After things had calmed down and everyone was “swimmed out” we put our clothes back on and walked down the beach to find a place to eat. We past a few café’s but they just weren’t what we were looking for, so we kept walking. Eventually I decided to just ask a local. We met a couple guys from the area that were surfers. They walked us to one of their favorite restaurants called “Lala Land.” They were pretty nice guys and it was a really good restaurant. When we were done eating we walked down the board walk and took pictures of the sunset (which was beautiful) and joked around. After a little while we stopped and got some Gelato which I guess is a fancy name for ice-cream. Lol. I couldn’t really tell a difference. Haha. We sat there for a while talking and playing games and then caught the bus home.
Obviously after being in the sun soooo long, we were all pretty sun-burnt. I got too much sun on my shoulders and face. Everything else was pretty ok, but the places that did get burned were pretty bad. Haha. I’m still suffering (but it was totally worth it!).
Yesterday we went on a sweet field trip. There were several sites that we were able to see, some of which I didn’t even know existed and had certainly never heard of. We started out at a place where we saw an ancient olive press. The place where the press was was carved out deep underground in the bedrock. It was pretty deep too. It was so cool to see all of the intricacies of the “digger(s)” or whatever they were. Every step was carved every spill way was carved every collection well was carved.
After the olive press we went to the valley where Samson lived. We learned about a few more historical things that happened there and why it was such an important place, but I can’t seem to remember much about it. Oops. Lol. At that same location however, was the remains of a castle. It was pretty neat to see.
When we were done there we went to a place called the “Bell Caves”. These were caves that were hewn out of the earth to harvest stone for building and for plaster. They were left in the shape of giant bells. The acoustics were really fun. We had a musical number by a girl named Kathleen. She did such a great job! After she was done singing we all opened up our hymn books and sang a bunch of songs together.
The next site on our tour was another place that was dug out of the earth. This one was shaped like a double cross. It was a place where they kept and raised pigeons. There were hundreds if not thousands of small triangle shaped holes hewn into the walls where the pigeons would stay. The ceilings of the cave were probably in the neighborhood of 40 feet high. This cave was quite remarkable.
When we were done here we went to a place where a city had once resided that was one of the strong holds in the highlands leading to Jerusalem. It was a good piece of property to have because it had a great vantage point in that it could see for miles in every direction. The city was surrounded by a great wall which was built in such a way to make attackers quite vulnerable. Well, like most ancient cities, there was a stronger mightier power that came to the city and conquered it. They seemed to figure out pretty quick that the entrance to the city was a bad place to try to enter, so they built a ramp of earth up the walls so that they could get their battering ram to start to knock the walls down. Little did they think that the people on the other side would build a similar structure (ramp of earth) to offset what the attackers were trying to do. Enough time went by and the attackers just ran over the ramps, into the city and destroyed it. As we walked through the destroyed city we saw foundation remains of homes and other such things. We also saw the remains of a temple that was there. It had the court yard, the inner area, the sacred room, the holy of holies and everything.
When we were done there we went to the place where the prophet Micah lived. There was nothing there except some sweet caves under the mountain. These caves weren’t a tourist attraction or anything like that, nor were there signs telling what was there, but they were a lot of fun. To get into the caves you had to start by getting on your hands and knees and crawling into it. After crawling about 15 yards, there was a ladder that you had to climb down, so you had to contort your body in the small hole you had been crawling through to get your legs down the ladder first. That was fun. When you got down the ladder the cave opened up into a medium sized cave divided by a ceiling hung ¾ wall that you had to crawl under. We had a little devotional there about light. Everyone turned off their flashlights and head lamps and it was completely black. There was absolutely no light in the cave. It was kind of a cool sensation not being able to see your hand directly in front of your face. The devotional ended and we sang some hymns and then most of the group started leaving. Well I wanted to do some exploring, so me and my buddy Jeremy started our adventure (a couple girls followed but opted out after a long small tight tunnel that we started crawling through. We found a couple cool rooms and one of the coolest things we saw was a room that we think was a bathroom. Against the wall was carved a bench and in the bench there were about 5 “seats” where there was a round area carved underneath where you would sit. At the ground side of the top of the seat was s small spill way which led to a larger spillway at the feet, which led to a hole in the ground which was about 2.5 feet across. Naturally my first impression was that this large hole was a urinal… that being the case and my bladder being full… I used this great area that someone thousands of years before me made for my comfort… thank you ancient cave carver/plummer. =)
When we were done spelunking we went to the Valley of Elah. This was where David slew Goliath. After a short history lesson and devotional we all got slings and our instructor set up a target about the same distance David would have killed Goliath from. We all started slinging and slinging. It was pretty fun until Megan got cracked in the face with a stone. Luckily it was minimal damage. It struck her in the left side of the face just under her bottom lip. There is a small cut/laceration/hole or whatever you want to call it. It bled for a while and she has kept it bandaged up really well.
With that last site the field trip ended and we boarded up the bus and came back to the center for dinner. We were all so incredibly hungry it tasted so good (I bet it would have tasted good anyways because the food here is great).
Today was pretty low key. We had classes and a little time to relax… thank heavens! I woke up today with a minor small throat and a runny nose… annoying. I talked to the medical guy and he got me some Sudafed and it didn’t really help. I ate a huge dinner tonight! Too much to be exact. Part of the dinner was meatballs and they were pretty good… until after my work out. It’s been about 10 months or more since I last worked out because of ski season and my shoulder injury, but I hit it extra hard tonight and it was a bad idea. I got back to my apartment and did not feel good at all. I decided that I would just shower and go to bed. while in the shower… terror struck and vomit started spewing from every opening in my head. Those meatballs sure didn’t taste good the second time. What made it worse is that it clogged the drain so I had to turn the water off and remove my vomit from the tub floor. Gross. I don’t think I will ever see meatballs the same again. I am feeling much better now and it’s getting late so I better get to bed, I have to wake up early.Ps… we leave for Egypt on Thursday so I have to get everything ready to go tomorrow. I’m so excited. They say pretty much everyone that goes gets diarrhea but I’m crossing my fingers that I will be the exception. Haha. Like that will happen. Lol.
11 years ago
