There is a Green Hill Near At Hand

Well people. Two weeks have come and gone. And they have been great. As much as I would love to go into great detail full of wit and humor about my adventures in the Holy land, I will have to just give you some highlights. Free time is a rare commodity around here. I honestly don’t think I've been alone since January 5^th.

We have now been out and about a lot of times. We have traveled all around the old city and also into west Jerusalem.  I will try to tell this story through photos. I wish I had more, but since my camera is not the greatest, I hardly pull it out. Whoops. I guess I will have to rely on my peers to post them via social media.

These next couple of pictures are from when we went to a market place in western Jerusalem. It has been one of my favorite places so far. What can I say? I'm a sucker for food. 

Those pastries though. 

Here is a fancy pancy mall in western Jerusalem. I can't afford anything but it's fun to look. 

A cool alleyway we found on accident in the Old city. 

Damascus Gate 

This is a well from the ancient cite, Tel Sheva. We went down here and it was pretty darn cool.

We also got to wear these awesome hard hats while we did it

Our professors at Tel Arad. They are about to perform a ritual sacrifice on the ancient temple altar. Things got pretty serious.

Brooke!

The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra

A random montesary

A pretty cool classroom if  I do say so myself. 

Shout out to Brooke for taking half of these pictures and letting me use them. 

The field trips we have taken so far have been to various look out points, ancient city ruins, Jericho, and King Herods summer palace. Some of which were pictured above.

Random Tid Bits:

There is a little shop across the street called 7 to 11.

The shawarma is delicious.

Rachel will be happy to know that I have bought a couple of kinder Beuno bars and it was the best decision of my life. They are life savers when I need a sweet snack. Plus there is no lunch served on the Sabbath here. People get desperate.

We have Friday movie nights.

As you saw, we went to the Israel Philharmonic orchestra this week. Only the people who were willing to pay went. It’s way pretty amazing. I could have done with less contemporary pieces though. Just a fact for all Philharmonic orchestras to keep in mind.

The unglamorous side of this program is the school work.  Remember the, “rigorous classes” comments? Well just to give you a little insight to that, a 93 is a b+ in the Near Eastern Studies class. What is that all about?? We also have been graced with a ton of reading. And when I say a ton, I mean like 100 pages. Seriously. All we do is read around here. It is ridiculous. To give you a little insight, if we are not sitting in class, or eating, then we are reading for class. It’s crazy.