Jordan and the Jewish Quarter

So much has happened the past few weeks! Most importantly, our group went to Jordan for 4 days this past week, and it was marvelous. I had not really learned anything about Jordan before coming here, so I didn't know what to expect, but it turned out to be a really fun trip. On the first day, we saw Mt. Nebo, where Moses was taken to see the Holy Land before he was translated, and then we stayed in a city that night called Wadi Musa. That translates as "Moses's river", which people believe originated when Moses produced water from a rock in the area. Anyway, that night we had some free time, so a group of us walked around the town a little bit and did some shopping. As we were coming back, we passed a group of Jordanian boys playing soccer, and one of them kicked a ball our direction. Fortunately, there were several capable soccer players in our group (not including myself :-)), and soon, we had started a full soccer game. I sat on a bench and watched with a few other girls in the group, and some Jordanians came along and started watching too, and it just felt like being part of the community for a little bit.

The next morning, we saw Petra, which is one of the new 7 wonders of the world and is difficult to describe in words. (I took tons of pictures, though!) It is basically a city of tombs built by the Nabateans in the 5th century, and it is tucked away behind a slot canyon in a red rock area that looks a lot like southern Utah. I talked to a 9-yr.-old Bedouin girl there named Tamam--there were lots of Bedouins in the park, mostly selling souvenirs. The kids are all really sharp and have picked up on the adults' lines for selling things: "I'll give you a special price because you are student! Normally it's $20, just go ask down there in the market, but I give it to you for $5 because you're American and I like Obama..." The kids were cute anyway, though.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was the next day, when we visited the ruins of a Roman city called Jerash--it is so well preserved! We saw temples for Zeus and Athena and a "gladiator show" and chariot race in the hippodrome. It was amazing! We also saw an amphitheater with amazing acoustics (you can see it in the picture here). One boy in our group stood on the floor of the theater and sang, and we could hear it all over. There were also a group of Italians visiting there, and one of them went to the stage and started singing opera! (Is that typical, Mom?)

 

Our last day in Jordan, we saw an incredible archaeological museum. It was just this tiny old building sitting in the middle of the ruins of old Amman, but they had some extremely important artifacts inside! Statues of Daedalus, Icharus, and Nike, the hand of Hercules, parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls (!), ancient human skeletons, and every artifact you could think of from the Stone Age, Ammonites, Greek/Roman civilization, and Islamic civilization--all the different inhabitants of Amman through the ages. The picture below is, as far as we know, the first sculpture ever created in human history! I couldn't believe I was seeing all these things with no fanfare, in an old building with no air conditioning and little aesthetic presentation. Things are so different here from how they would be in the US. (Overall, though, Jordan is a fairly modern country, especially compared to Egypt.)

The week before Jordan, I went on several other fun excursions. On one of our free days, my roommates and I went to Ein Kerem, which is a little suburb of Jerusalem where they believe John the Baptist was born. We went to a beautiful church there called the Church of the Visitation, which houses a cave where they believe Elizabeth and Zecharias lived. This is the spot where traditional Christianity believes Mary met Elizabeth, and their children "leapt within the womb." Because of this, one of the chapels in the church was a shrine to the Virgin Mary. This was a painting on one of the walls:

Then there were other paintings all around the chapel depicting different scenes throughout Catholic history when the Virgin Mary has been defended and glorified. Later, our group also went to the Church of John the Baptist, which has the rock they believe John the Baptist was born on. 

For another free day recently, we toured through the Jewish Quarter in the Old City. I really loved it! I think it helped me to understand the Jewish population here in a new light, now that I know what their part of town looks like. In the morning, we went on a tour of the Kotel Tunnel. Basically, the part of the Western Wall that is now exposed aboveground is only a small portion of what the wall looked like before the city of Jerusalem was built up to a higher elevation. The Kotel Tunnel goes under the city and allows you to see parts of the Western Wall that used to be exposed, but are now hidden. Our guide for the tour seemed to be a fairly religious Jew, and I liked hearing her talk about the Temple Mount. There was a Jewish family on the tour with us, and I heard the father talking to his son about Jewish history and asking him questions along the way--I thought that was neat. Later that day, we saw an ancient Jewish house, and they showed us a video there that dramatized the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. The video was pretty cheesy, but it helped me understand the history quite a bit (even though I've been over it in classes here already.) While we were eating lunch that day, a group of school boys passed by us and I had to take a picture of them! Notice their hair, if  you can see it... 

We also went on a field trip last week to Neot Kedumim, which is a biblical landscape reserve near Tel Aviv. It is a park that a group of people planted with vegetation mentioned in the Old Testament, to try to recreate that environment. While we were there, we got to herd sheep! They really do all follow each other--which makes for easy herding, as long as you can get one sheep to follow you. They were also very soft and adorable. :-) This is a picture of me and my roommate Jessica with some of the sheep.

The next adventure is final exams! This whole week will be studying and test taking, but then after that, we'll only have 3 classes to worry about for the rest of the time we're here!

Pools of Bethesda

This is a picture of the Pools of Bethesda, from last week.

!שלמ

Shalom! I am now fluent in Hebrew transliterations. We had our Hebrew midterm this week, and a lot of us practiced for it by writing notes to each other in Hebrew characters (but still English words). It's so much fun! The title of this post is in block Hebrew, but there's also a script Hebrew alphabet that looks just like a great secret code.

This past week I got to go see the City of David Archaeological Park, which was amazing! It is an excavation for the Jerusalem of David's time (which also made up most of Jerusalem during Christ's time). I saw the place that they think was King David's palace, which means Isaiah would have been there, and we also walked through Hezekiah's tunnel under the city, which still has water running through it. It was so fun! Then we went to the pool of Siloam, which is where Christ healed the blind man. It was really an amazing site, because we were able to sit right there on the steps of the pool (even though it's dry now, of course).

On Wednesday, we went to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. It was similar to the Washington D.C. museum, except with even more specific focus on the Jews. Our teacher told us that every time an important dignitary comes to visit Israel, the very first thing they do is tour Yad Vashem (and then they're taken to plant a tree on Mt. Herzl). I just thought it was interesting that Israel places themselves within the context of the Holocaust to introduce themselves to visitors. 

I was so shocked when we got home afterward, though, and found out there had been a shooting in the Washington D.C. museum the same day! A neo-Nazi somehow got in, and one of the security guards there was actually killed. That was significant, though--a reminder that the problems we had seen in Yad Vashem are still extremely current.

Thursday night, we had a Passover Seder here at the center! This is a picture of me, two of my roommates Hannah and Bethany, and our Judaism teacher, Ophir Yarden. He is an Orthodox Jew, and he conducted the seder for us (some of it sung in Hebrew). We also got to go to his synagogue Friday night for their Shabbat prayer. The whole thing was sung in Hebrew, and I thought some of the songs were really lovely. They seemed to be kind of improvising their harmonies, but I don't know for sure.

Aside from all that, we are getting ready here at the center for a talent show this Wednesday! I'm going to play piano (Kabalevsky again :-)), but I'm also on the talent show committee, and we're doing "So Long, Farewell," from The Sound of Music for the last act. We're doing all the choreography straight from the movie, and I'm going to be Louisa, and I'm really excited! This should be a good talent show, because we're doing it in our auditorium/chapel, so we said all of the acts have to be fairly serious. (We'll do another less formal talent show later in the semester.)

Today I saw the largest rodent in the world! I went with a group to the zoo in West Jerusalem, and it was so much fun! It is nicknamed the biblical zoo, because it has one exhibit featuring animals mentioned in the Old Testament, but most of the zoo is just regular. I wish I could post some pictures here, but picture uploading hasn't been working for the past couple of days--maybe I'll try again later. Anyway, the rodents I saw today were called capybaras, from South America, and they could have come straight out of The Princess Bride. They weigh about 60 kg, and when I first saw one, I just thought it was some kind of really furry pig, but then I realized it was a giant rodent! Besides that, it was a really fun day. The weather was nice, and afterward we went and got brownie sundaes at a hotel near the center.

The past week or so has been exciting--last Friday was the Jewish holiday Shavuot, one of the three major feasts of the year (along with Passover and the Feast of the Tabernacles). The tradition around here is for Jews to stay up all night reading the Torah on Shavuot, and I thought it would be really cool to do it with them! I ended up not doing that, but Mary Kate and I got up at 2:30 that morning and read some chapters from Leviticus and Numbers. It was really fun! Than at 5:00am, a group of us went over to the Western Wall to welcome in the sunrise. There were a lot of Jewish families there, all praying and reading the Torah.

Last Sunday, I finally got to go see the Temple Mount! I've been wanting to go up there, even though non-Muslims are not allowed inside the mosques on top anymore. The Temple Mount (Mt. Mariah) is the place where Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac, and the Muslims believe that Muhammad was transported to Mt. Mariah one night to ascend into heaven and receive a vision (similar to Jacob's at Bethel). The Jews also believe that Mt. Mariah existed before anything else, and that God stood on it to create the rest of the universe. So it has an amazing history! Actually being up there didn't feel spectacular, but it is just a noteworthy place (and the Dome of the Rock on top is probably the most noteworthy landmark in Jerusalem.

On Monday, we took a field trip through the Shephelah—the foothill region of Israel. We saw the hill where Samson used to live, the valley where David defeated Goliath, and archaeological remains of cities that the Israelites conquered when they first came through. One city, Maresha, was taken over by the Idumeans after the Israelites were defeated, and they built a whole underground city there. It wasn't huge, but it had lots of interconnected caves, with some for keeping doves and some for pressing olive oil (two of the main industries at Maresha). It was so cool! The picture here is of me and Tricia standing at the site of Lachish, an old fortress city which is featured in Joshua 10.  We went in some caves afterward that were really exciting! I don't know who used to live there, but the walls were all decorated inside, and it was really hard to get in and out. The entrance was a little tunnel we had to crawl through on our hands and knees, and then the exit was too scary for me, but the people who did it had to lie down on their backs and then just wiggle their way through backwards—no room for arms (I went back out through the entrance).

On Wednesday, I went to see the Pools of Bethesda, one of the few structures in the city that was part of ancient Jerusalem (you can read about it in John 5:1-9). I wish I could show the picture here--it is a very pretty spot. I really wanted to go down to ground level, just to be there, but I didn't see any ways down. The modern area around the pools is at a higher elevation now, of course, because it is built on the ruins of the previous city.

Then Friday, I walked the Via Dolorosa with my roommates and a couple of others, and that was amazing! We went on a tour led by Franciscan monks, and I think a lot of the other people on the tour were Catholic, because they all knew a "Pater Noster" chant that they would sing every time we moved to a new station of the cross. The trail winds through the heart of Old Jerusalem, mostly through the Muslim quarter, so it's very crowded and and the streets are covered with tourist shops. But there are also churches along the way with shrines to various people (for example, Veronica, who is traditionally thought to have wiped sweat from Christ's brow at a certain point along the Via Dolorosa). It was a really neat experience, partly because of the events we were commemorating, but also because I felt so connected to international Christianity and historical Catholicism throughout the tour. The end of the tour leads to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which Catholics believe is built over both Golgotha and the Tomb. We had to go up to the 2nd floor to see the shrine for Golgotha. I'm not sure if there's any 1st floor below that part of the building, because the stone from the mountain protrudes from the floor and the walls in the shrine. And they have a statue of Christ on the cross right above there, and then candles, ornaments, paintings, and altars for Mary everywhere. I tried to take a picture, because it was amazing, but a priest told me photos weren't allowed. It is hard to capture the atmosphere of the church in pictures anyway, though. It is all very dim inside, but very ornate. 

Egypt

We got back from Egypt on Sunday night after being gone for 8 days. It was such an exciting trip! We left on busses last Sunday and started driving south through Israel, stopping at some sights along the way. We went to Beersheba, where Abraham's family lived, and then to David Ben-Gurion's grave. That overlooked the wilderness near Kadesh-Barnea, where the Israelites camped for 38 of their 40 years in the wilderness. There were wild ibexes all over the place, and you can see two of them in this picture, as well as the wilderness in the background. 

Then we drove south to the Machtesh Ramon, which claims to be the largest crater in the world. It's not a volcano crater--the geology of the area just happened to form the land into a large crater shape. It looks similar to all of southern Israel, extremely desolate and dry. 

Later that day we went to the Kibbutz Yotvata for a tour. It was so exciting! I remember learning about the kibbutz in 7th grade, and I never thought I would actually see one. This kibbutz grew date trees. It was so hot and sandy there that it was hard to imagine anything being able to grow, but then there were fields of date trees everywhere. They look just like palm trees to me, so it felt very tropical. We got to try the dates, too, which were huge and super sugary. After that, we drove to another kibbutz to stay the night. It turns out a lot of the kibbutzim run guest services--it's part of how they sustain themselves. Later this summer when we go to the Galilee, I think we're going to stay in a kibbutz the whole time.

The next day, we crossed the border into Egypt, and then we spent most of the day driving across the Sinai Peninsula. It was very desolate--a lot like driving through Nevada. And then when we got to Cairo, it was still desolate, except for the area right around the Nile River. I was so excited to see the Nile! The river itself is not that impressive compared to the Mississippi, but just knowing how long it stretches makes it exciting. 

Cairo is kind of a mess. Our guide told us the population was 14 million, though I've also heard higher numbers, and most of the people live in huge, dilapidated apartment buildings. It's dirty, and noisy, and everything throws their garbage in the minor channels connected to the Nile, so there were some spots that looked more like sewage than river. The merchants in Egypt are also super aggressive, even compared to the ones here. I don't mind Jerusalem merchants at all anymore. The Egyptian ones will grab your arm, and if you even look at what they're selling, they'll assume your interested and start following you around. I was walking with a group into town one day in Luxor, and one of the Egyptian carriage drivers rode up to us and offered to give us a ride for 5 pounds. We told him no, but then he kept following us for at least 5 minutes, saying the same thing over and over again. It's very difficult to decide to buy anything, because the merchants never leave you alone once you're inside their shop. 

Besides that, though, the sites were amazing! On our first night in Cairo, we went to a sound and light show on the Giza Plateau in front of the pyramids! It was pretty outdated, and for some reason, they got bagpipers to play the music beforehand (surely that's not Egyptian, right?), but it was fun anyway. My favorite part of the Giza Plateau was definitely the Sphinx. The pyramids were exciting too, though! We got to go inside one of them. The shaft inside is narrow, so we had to bend over and then climb up into the center of the pyramid. It was actually kind of scary, just because we had so little room and there was not a real staircase. Then the tomb inside wasn't exactly what I was expecting. I knew that tomb robbers had already cleaned out all the pyramids, but I guess I thought the walls inside would still be decorated with hieroglyphics. It actually just turned out to be a bare stone room. Still pretty cool, though!

Later that day, we went to the Cairo airport and took a domestic flight to Luxor. I was excited to see the Egyptian airport, but it actually turned out to be pretty similar to all airports. When we got to Luxor, it turned out our hotel was right on the banks of the Nile! And it was really fancy, too--a fun place to stay. Unfortunately, about 1/2 the students got sick while we were in Luxor, so they weren't able to enjoy it. I was lucky not to get sick the whole time, but I had to be so careful--no fresh fruits or vegetables, no tap water, no meat served room temperature, etc. 

While we were in Luxor, we saw the Valley of the Kings, which is where most of the Egyptian pharoahs were buried. That was impressive. All the walls were covered in hieroglyphics and artwork, and some of it even still has color. I saw King Tut's tomb! His mummy is in there, but all the other treasures are in the Cairo Museum (which I also saw).

This picture is from the Karnak Temple Complex in Luxor--acres of ancient ruins just sitting there. We also went to the Luxor Temple, which is where women would have gone to worship, and we saw the Colossus at Memnon--that's the picture here of the two huge statues.

One other cool thing we saw is the cave where they think the mummies with the Abraham scrolls were found--Pit 33, near Queen Hatshepsut's temple. The professors had to bribe the guards to let us take pictures there, but I'm glad we saw it!

We took an overnight train back to Cairo, which was amazing! We had very comfortable sleeper cars, and they knocked on our doors in the morning and brought around breakfast. I wish I could have seen what the Egyptian countryside looked like out the window, but it was too dark. Then in Cairo, we went to the Cairo Museum, which was incredible, and then shopped around a little.

The next day, we saw some old Christian sites, including a church built around a cave where they say the Holy Family stayed when they fled to Egypt. I loved that, but they didn't let us actually go inside the cave. And then the next morning at 2:00 AM, we hiked Mt. Sinai to see the sunrise! It was so cool, one of my favorite parts of the Egypt trip. It was amazing climbing up there in the dark and looking around at the horizon--just jagged, shadowy mountain peaks everywhere. There were some places where I couldn't even see level ground at the bottom, and I felt very high up. There are also Bedouins who live up there and offer you camel rides, even right at the top of Mt. Sinai. 

Then we got back to Jerusalem late that night. I am so glad to be back! Israel feels very comfortable and safe compared to Egypt.

The past few days have been amazing! On Saturday (the Sabbath here) we went to the Garden Tomb, which many people believe is where Jesus was resurrected. It is a beautiful spot, and very quiet inside the garden walls even though it's in the middle of market streets. It is a very peaceful, welcoming place. In some ways it reminds me of the Sacred Grove, because it's hard to comprehend the place exactly, but for now I just enjoy being there.

Then, yesterday, I went to Tel Aviv! Almost 30 of us from the center went over in vans, and it was so much fun. The picture I have here is of Andromeda's rock--it's the little black speck just to the left of the balcony in the foreground. This is supposedly the rock Andromeda was placed on when she was being offered as a sacrifice to a sea monster (before Perseus came and rescued her).  We walked around and saw lots of historical sites and then swam at the beach,

 which was wonderful! I got a few beautiful pictures of the Mediterranean Sea, but I can't put very many up from here.

Today was incredible because we got to go to Jericho!  This picture is of the oldest building in the whole world! Brother Huff (my Old Testament teacher) said today that when Noah's family came down from Mt. Ararat, they may have settled in Jericho. At any rate, some people think it is the oldest city in the world, and the circular building in this picture was a tower during the most ancient period of the city. 

The lower picture is a view of the Mount of Temptation--that is where tradition holds that Jesus was tempted after his 40 days of fasting in 

the wilderness. It's hard to see in this picture, but halfway up the mountain, there is a monastery (the Quruntul Greek Orthodox monastery) built into the rock--it just looks kind of like a light horizontal line on the mountain in this picture. 

Anyway, we hiked up there and went inside, and it was incredible! You have to hike a steep trail to get there, and then the monastery itself grows out of the mountain. Originally it was just some caves inhabited by hermits, but then they built around those caves, so some of the walls inside are still just the natural rock face. (And some of the floors are just natural rock, too.) There are some beautiful paintings inside on the walls and the ceilings, and in the top chapel of the monastery, they have the rock that they believe Satan asked Jesus to turn into bread. Only a couple of monks live there, so we were lucky that one of them came to the door and let us in. I just loved it because it is so remote, in the middle of a mountain, and then you get there and it is beautiful inside.

Western Wall

Tonight we went to the Western Wall at sundown, when the Jews were there praying and welcoming in the Sabbath. It was amazing. There were so many people there! The men and women were separated into different parts of the wall, and they were all wearing nice clothes. The men and the married women cover their heads, but we didn't have to. 

We actually got to go touch the wall! It is the same wall that was there 2000 years ago, I think--part of the temple built by Herod. I had to wait in the crowd for about 15-20 minutes before I got to the front. Then I touched the wall and kissed my fingers (that's what I saw everyone else doing). I also had a prayer written on a small piece of paper, and I folded it up small and put it in one of the cracks in the wall. They believe that when you do that, the prayer has extra weight. The Muslims actually say that one prayer in Jerusalem counts for 500 prayers somewhere else in the world.  (And a prayer in Medina counts for 1000, and a prayer in Mecca counts for 2000.)

Afterward, I went to the back of the crowd, and there were a group of girls there, about our age, singing and dancing. They pulled about 4 BYU girls into the circle and danced with us. It was so cool! Usually the women don't dance, but I guess this was okay because it was all younger women. We got to talk to a couple of the girls, and it was very interesting.