Back to Life as Usual :)

Today we crossed over for the first time into the West Bank to visit Jericho. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict makes me think so much of our own civil rights movement. The Israelis have built a wall around the West Bank, in some places even separating Palestinians from their own farmland. Israelis are forbidden by law to enter the West Bank, which has cut off the income from tourism in Jericho. There are checkpoints at every access point out of the West Bank and Palestinians are not allowed into Jerusalem without some kind of work permit or proof that they live there, and even then it's subject to the mood of the checkpoint officer. There's a woman in our branch who lives in Bethlehem and works for the UN and sometimes can't get to church on Saturdays, even though her pass should allow her to pass any checkpoint at any time. Our Modern Near East-Islam teacher has the same problem and sometimes has trouble getting to class. It makes me realize how much we take equality and freedom for granted at home. And it's humbling to think that even our own great nation treated its citizens this way less than 50 years ago. It certainly makes me grateful to live in a country where I've never had to face challenges like that. Although, to be perfectly honest, I was born on the *right* side of the line anyway... It also gives me a greater appreciation for what African Americans have overcome in our country, and grateful to be part of a nation that today has overcome its prejudices and elected a black president. And it even gives me hope that one day Israel can also overcome its difficulties and the Israelis and Palestinians can coexist in peace.

Jericho was pretty cool. It's the lowest and the oldest city on earth. Crazy, huh? It's right on the shores of the Dead Sea, and there's a tower they've excavated that they estimate to have been built around 8,000 BC. Well, it's not really much of a tower anymore. It's like about 5 feet tall and it's down in this archaeological pit. We went out on this overlook where you could see the remains of Herod's Winter Palace. He had swimming pools, it was pretty happening place. This is the Herod that killed all the babies when Jesus was born, by the way. Then we went to a site that's traditionally known as Zacchaeus' tree. Highly unlikely that this is the actual tree from Luke 19 where Zacchaeus climbed up to see the Savior, but I'm sure it looks a lot like it, and maybe it's the great great grandchild tree of the one from the scriptures. The sign at the tree was pretty entertaining. Whoever translated it from Arabic didn't have quite as good a handle on the English language as he thought... "Tow Thousand Years Old," "[Zacchaeus] was rich because he was short he climbed the tree," and "Jesus said to him, "this Clay Your House Has Been Salvation." Hehehe.

Then we visited old Jericho where the 10,000 year old tower was, and there was this peacock like right at the entrance that had all its feathers fanned out, it was awesome. I've never actually seen one do that before and it was so cool! Then we finished up the morning by going to the Qurantal Monastery. It commemorates Jesus being tempted by the devil, and it's literally built into the cliff face like, several hundred feet up. Tell you what, I am so done with hiking right now. I have done more hiking in the last week than I think I ever wanted to in my entire life (we had a bit of a hike on our outing yesterday, I'll get to that in a minute). They didn't really warn us ahead of time today that there would be so much hiking involved, coz I mean this thing is literally in the side of a cliff, and my leg muscles were just like, What are you doing? and I was like, I have no idea!! Seriously, my muscles can only take so much. It was a cool little place, though. One whole side of it literally like, rock caves, and the other side isn't very big. And you could see the entire Jericho valley, which was kind of neat.

So yesterday I went to Ein Kerem, as promised. :) It was cool. We went first to this place called the Chagall windows. Well, that's not what the place is called, it's actually a synagogue in a hospital on the other side of Jerusalem that has the Chagall windows in it. But there are twelve stained glass windows, each depicting the blessing of Jacob to his twelve sons, from Genesis 49. They were pretty cool. Very like, modern art-ish, but still very beautiful. Then we walked to Ein Kerem. Ya, it was definitely like a 45 minute hike, because the road was all up and down hill, even though we were just walking along the highway. That's why I was less than thrilled about climbing up the cliff today.

In Ein Kerem there are a few churches commemorating John the Baptist. The one in his birthplace is a pretty neat little church. Very different from most. It had like, tiles of what looked like porcelain with the blue designs that you see on like, nice china all over the walls. And it was a very nice little place. The churches all close from 12 to 2:30, and we got a late start because of one teacher's midterm review, so by the time we finished with that one, it was 12. So we went to a park to eat lunch and then got some gelato that was pretty yummy. I do like gelato, lol. Then we headed over to the Church of the Visitation and on our way hiked up this kinda cool lookin hill. It was reminiscent of Orson Hyde Memorial Park, actually, with the whole winding path going up a hillside with nice foliage around. It wasn't as purposely kept as Hyde Park, though. And the Church of the Visitation is where Elizabeth was living when Mary came to stay with her after the angel came to her. It was also beautiful. A teeny little chapel that echoed like nothing else, and it had this ancient looking well in it, but nothing describing what that was supposed to be. There were also real monks there in like, their brown robes and that was pretty cool. But ya, that was Ein Kerem. Honestly, I wouldn't have raved about it as much as everyone else has. But it was a fun little day trip.