"Those Mormons"

Today we went on a way sweet field trip. We went to the City of David, which is now just a small section on the south end of the city, but was the original capital of Jerusalem. The quote is from Brother Huff, who kept referring to the other group ahead of us as "those mormons." As in, "There's a group of Mormons in there [the film] that we're waiting for" and "Now that those Mormons are gone, let's go have a look." Lol.

So first we saw a 3D- no joke- movie about the City of David. Honestly, the 3D glasses kind of hurt my eyes. At first I thought that maybe one lens was scratched or smudged or something, but I think they just weren't very well made, so it made it really hard to focus. Speaking of glasses that hurt my eyes, actually, there's a girl here that has one bad eye, and I tried on her glasses and they were really trippy. Like, worse than the 3D glasses. By a lot. Because only one lens had this super strong prescription and the other has practically none at all. It hurt. Lol.

So then we went down and saw some ruins. We saw the original site of David's palace, which they've only uncovered in about the last ten years, and is still being excavated. Oh, and apparently the 3D movie is brand new, because last semester they didn't see it. Yep. And then we saw Area G, which I believe is where they found some... "booley" is how my teacher pronounced it. Some clay tablets that had some writing on them. And Area G, I also believe, is the site of the royal gardens.

Then we got to the really exciting part. So when Jerusalem was under siege by the Assyrians, during the reign of Hezekiah, their water source, the Gihon spring, was outside the city wall, and therefore vulnerable. So Hezekiah had a tunnel built that redirected the water from the Gihon spring into the pool of Siloam (John 9:7-11). We got to walk through this tunnel. And there's still water in it. Like, up to mid-thigh. It was awesome.

K, so the teachers totally made it out to be like the tunnel was going to be drafty and freezing, and the water would be ice cold, so while I was kind of excited, and certainly willing, because it's a pretty sweet thing to do, I was expecting to have to just grin and bear it and have a positive attitude. For the record, it's not cold underground. Ever. I don't know why this is, but it is always warm in caves. At least in Israel. And the water was chilly, but not like, bone-chilling. It was really like wading through a somewhat colder than usual indoor swimming pool. Like, even after the initial thigh-deep ebbed into like, mid-calf, even my exposed wet legs weren't bad. Honestly, though, Jerusalem has been so good to us. Like, we have had practically ideal weather on every field trip we've been on- it would have been pretty miserable coming out of the tunnel if it had been cold and gross out. It really only has rained on Shabbat, when it's not a big deal to be stuck inside, and, except for our recent cold spell, it's been pretty warm. The sun has been out the last two days. :) I may have mentioned that yesterday, but I have been absolutely blissful. Sunshine just makes me so much more excited to be here. I hear it's supposed to storm again this weekend though... I hope not. I want to go to Gethsemane again.

K, but this tunnel was pretty dang awesome. It was really only about as wide as a person, and in some places most of us were bent double, while in others it was like, 10 feet over my head. And the water was surprisingly clear. I tried to get some pictures of my feet sloshing through the water, and like, to show how high the water was (oh hey- speaking of pictures, my computer was sent to the Apple Store today!!!!!! Finally!! So hopefully that means it'll be back within 2 weeks... Pray for me). I was thinking, as we were walking through, it was too bad there wasn't an El Dorado or Atlantis or some other lost city at the end of the tunnel. Because that's what it felt like. As if we were making our way through a fissure in the rock that had been overlooked for thousands of years and were about to discover a lost civilization. At the end there was this pretty cool little pool, though, (not the pool of Siloam) with some stumps that could have been pillars long ago in it. It was actually kind of nice being already wet, because it made getting out to stand on the pillars for pictures a lot easier, lol. And then we saw the pool of Siloam, although there's not much to see since it's only partially excavated. There was this pretty sweet mural of what the pool would have originally looked like, though, back in the tunnel.

So then we went home. It was only about 11, but we all wanted to change and Mike had to shower because he "kind of got in a water fight, and the water won." Lol, I guess the boys in his group were all throwing water around and then he slipped and got soaked head to toe. The only part of him that was not wet was most of his back (I'm not sure how he managed that, exactly...). But after a brief respite, we went into the Old City with Ken and Eliza and Eliza's sister Jecia and a girl named Amy. And we spent the afternoon wandering around, mostly visiting various churches.

We were aiming for the pool of Bethesda, which ruins are in the St. Anne's complex, but it wasn't open til 2, so we first went to the Church of the Flagellation and the Church of the... well, there was another chapel in the same complex, but I don't remember what it was called. Condemnation, maybe? One of them (I think it was the one I can't remember the name of) had these really awesome 3D paintings. Like, they were paintings, but the people in them were statues sticking out of the wall. It was pretty awesome. And it was nice to see something kind of out of the norm, because anyone who's been to this side of the globe can tell you that most old Catholic churches look a lot alike, and really they're just not that exciting most of the time.

Then we wandered down to St. Augustine's Hospice (which is like a refuge for pilgrims) and just chilled in a courtyard that overlooked the street, after which we wandered down a couple of streets, just looking at the wares and such. And buying various things to eat. Mike got a yummy apple pastry, and Jecia and Amy got some candy.

Then we went back over to St. Anne's. St. Anne is the mother of the Virgin Mary. The cathedral reminded me a lot of like, Sacre Coeur or something. It was just a vast and impressive stone structure. It didn't have a lot of decoration, which I actually really liked. It was less gaudy. And it had a really nice statue of St. Anne with Mary as a young girl in one of the alcoves. The pool of Bethesda ruins were actually really nice ruins. There were a lot of walls still standing (although you really couldn't tell it used to be a pool...), and the bottom was covered in greenery, so it was really pretty. We got distracted for a bit, watching these three cats that were hanging out down in the bottom. Two orange-brown cats had this black one cornered in a little hole in the rock. Like, we wouldn't have known it was there except it poked its head out once when it thought the other cats had gone. We couldn't figure out why they were ganging up on him, though.

After St. Anne's we went around the corner to the birthplace of Virgin Mary. ... Does it seem a little odd to anyone else to think of Mary being born? I mean, she's like, the quintessential mother... Sorry, that just all of a sudden struck me as something I had never thought about before. But it was like, these two little stone rooms underground. Actually, it seemed kind of cozy.

Last we walked back through the Old City. Mike, Ken and I each bought some candy, then we all went and had some knaffe, which is like, really mild cheese with a sweet topping that reminds me of Thanksgiving yams with marshmallows. It sounds weird, but its yummy. And we finished it off by stopping at the 6 shekel falafel place. And these falafels are yummy. Not only cheap, but so good. They toast them. Like a panini. So good. I would have gotten one for myself, but I was actually pretty full, so I just had a few bites of Eliza's (Mike put hot sauce on his...rude).

Tonight we are watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I believe it is in preparation for Jordan next week (oh yeah, we're leaving for Jordan on Monday). :)