When It Rains, It Pours!

We had our first rain here in Israel on Tuesday, which would have been pretty fun if we hadnt of been outside on a field trip.
We left the Moshav at 6:30 pm for Jerusalem(It was pouring). And spent the night in town at the Knight's Palace Hotel and did our New Testament walk the next day.
Before going to the hotel however, we went to the Israel Musuem to see a model of what Jerusalem looked like in Christ's time. This model was amazing! Think detail of Storybook Land in Disneyland, but much much bigger.
The model, however was outside and it rained the entire time Todd taught. And it was windy. We were all freezing to say the least.
After that however, we got to go inside and see huge parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Not just the one inch squares that come to the States once every 15 years and everyone makes a big deal about it and pays 20 bucks to go see it (This is what Todd said). They had on display the entire book is Isaiah!
Finally at 9:30pm we boarded the bus and departed for our hotel. It was soooo nice to be in a warm room and take a hot bath after standing in the cold for so long.
The next day we left the hotel at 7:20am to go to the Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock. We had to leave alot of our stuff at the hotel because the Mount is a highly sensitive spot and wont let people bring in alot of stuff (including any kind of holy book, such as the bible).
The Dome of the Rock is an extremely impressive place. The Mount, where the Rock is located, is a completely open area. This is the place where the Temple use to be, before it was destroyed by the Romans, and was taken by the Muslims after the 6 day war in 1967. The Dome of the Rock is a Muslim Holy place, they claim it is where Muhammad ascended to heaven on a night journey to meet with Allah.
Another highlight of the day was Hezekiah's Tunnel, which was built as a way to bring water from one side of the city to the other. We walked through the tunnel which was filled with water to about the height of my knees. It was very tight, and dark, and long, but sooooo much fun!
But the day is over now, and I have alot of homework to catch up on. Please pray that I will be dilligent this semester and able to learn lots of things!

Jerusalem, Jet lag, food, and many other splendid things

Today we are going back into Jerusalem for another over nighter and walk in the morning. Sorry that I have not posted pictures from the last trip, I will try to do that later today.
My jet lag is no longer. I still go to bed pretty early compared to what I was doing back at Masters, but it seems normal to be in bed by 10pm here.
The food however, is not growing on me. Sometimes they will have something really good at lunch or dinner, but usually not. I stick to bread and humus alot, but I realized I'm eating way too much bread! They put out like ten differant kinds of breads, as if one is not bad enough, I guess poeple here don't care too much about carbohydrates.
I have women's bible study this morning at 8:30am in the Miklat (bomb shelter) which the prof wives lead.
There was a suicide bomb yesterday in Eliat at a bakery. That is about 5 hours from here. This was the first one in 9 months, and the first one ever there. We are suppose to go to Eliat sometime later this semester on a field trip. I dont know if that will still happen.
Thats all for now, I will try to but some pictures up later today!
Corie

Jerusalem

Today we are going back into Jerusalem for another over nighter and walk in the morning. Sorry that I have not posted pictures from the last trip, I will try to do that later today.
My jet lag is no longer. I still go to bed pretty early compared to what I was doing back at Masters, but it seems normal to be in bed by 10pm here.
The food however, is not growing on me. Sometimes they will have something really good at lunch or dinner, but usually not. I stick to bread and humus alot, but I realized I'm eating way too much bread! They put out like ten differant kinds of breads, as if one is not bad enough, I guess poeple here don't care too much about carbohydrates.
I have women's bible study this morning at 8:30am in the Miklat (bomb shelter) which the prof wives lead.
There was a suicide bomb yesterday in Eliat at a bakery. That is about 5 hours from here. This was the first one in 9 months, and the first one ever there. We are suppose to go to Eliat sometime later this semester on a field trip. I dont know if that will still happen.
Thats all for now, I will try to but some pictures up later today!
Corie

Girls Just Want to Have Fun!

I promised in my last post some pictures of my trip to Old City Jerusalem. So tonight as I sit in my room listening to Girls Just Want to Have Fun I am resizing my pictures(so it won't mess with the internet connection here) and trying to remember the names of everything I saw.



This is the Dome of the Rock, probably one of the most recoginizable sights in Jerusalem. It is a shrine to the supposed night journey of Muhammed to Allah. Built on the Temple Mount, it is not open to non-Moslims and is highly polictical sensitive spot.



The Pool of Bethseba where Jesus healed the man who was lame for 38 years (John 5).




Our group at the Church of the Holy Sheplucher listening to Todd and the noon call to prayer. Tradition says this is the crucifixon and burial sight of Christ. However, since the Bible says that He was crucified outside the city, and this Church is inside the city, it is probably not the sight.





I guess two kings have lived in Israel. One, the true king, in Jerusalem and this one at a diner outside Moshav Yad Hasmonah.

My Friend Jet Lag

It's currently 5am as I sit here on my bed wondering what the heck I am going to do for the next two hours. Oh jet lag........my good good friend

I went to bed at 9pm last night totally exhausted and slept until 4am, and then finally got up and e-mailed some people at 5am. The trick is stay up as late as you possibly can. The mornings are fine, that's when I feel the best. Totally alert and ready to go(despite the fact that I wake up wanting dinner, and go to bed wanting breakfast). It's the mid afternoon that kills you. At around 2-4pm my head is spinning and all I want to do is take a nap.

I am going to aim for 10:30pm tonight and maybe wont wake up till 5:30-6:00am.
I am going to Jerusalem today to see the Old City. I am really excited and will put pictures up as soon as time permits.

Lets hope and pray that my next blog update does not come at five in the morning!

I wish I knew some really cool Hebrew phrase to sign off with.......but I dont!


Corie

I'm Here!

I arrived in Israel yesterday, Jan. 21, 2007, at 4:15pm local time(6:30 am Cali time). After a 10 hour, but very interesting plane ride, I was glad to see the ground. Before boarding the plane for Tel Aviv we had a three hour lay over in Newark, where we saw lots of local (I assume) jewish people, who joined us on our flight. When Kelly and I sat down on the plane a jewish women came and asked if we would switched seats with her and her husband since they were at the very back of the plane next to kitchen and the smells made her sick because she was pregnant. On their way up to our seats the couple had to remind the stewardess to send their kosher meals to their seats.

We flew for about 3 and 1/2 hours in the dark and then hit daylight, at which point all the Jewish men on the plane got up, put on their prayer stuff and went to the back of the plane(where we were sitting) to pray. All these men spoke perfect Hebrew, and prayed in Hebrew, but most of them were from the New York area, judging from their accents. It was really interesting to see all these men prayer and shake back and forth and chant, but very unfortunate when they are blocking the bathroom and you have to go.

We landed and got on the bus with pretty much no problems. It was a 30min ride to the Moshav (Christian community where we are staying). On this ride I saw my first kosher McDonalds (a 20 min walk from the Moshav) and an Elvis dinner. Even though I have not been here very long I feel like Israel is very Americanized.

It is now 5:30am and I am sitting on my bed thinking about how tired I will be at about lunch time today. I got a good 6 hours of sleep but woke up at 5am and felt like having dinnner. I hope this jet lag does not linger long.

I will write more later, and put some pictures up of my room and the Moshav. I have oreintation today at 8am, where they will show up around the campus and hopefully give us a class schedule.

That's all for now!

Corie

No Wonder Our Perception of Beauty is Distorted