The Underground Israel

This weeks field trip involved a lot of cool underground attractions. We went into ancient cisterns (where we sang, as sisters in zion- get it?), a family tomb, and a columbarium (a place where they once housed hundreds of doves) and of course, A tel or five. For the few of you who are not archaeologists, a tel is pretty much just an archaeological site with old ruins. I am getting really use to Tels.   

The underground dove hotel 

The cistern (I think-not 100% sure what this place was)

guys, this place was underground! I hope you appreciate how cool that is. 

We also went to the Elah valley, which is the place where David and Goliath had their infamous show down. Did you know that David actually had the upper hand with the sling? They have been teaching us wrong all along. But, in my opinion it actually enhances the story, but I won’t go into detail on that now. Ask me during a Sunday school lesson or something.

We had our own reenactment of the story 

The modern day David and Goliath 

The performers truly moved their audience

Then we all took a go at hurling rocks. I'm not too shabby, but  once after slinging a rock I had no idea where it went-so hopefully it didn't knock anyone out. 

Israel is absolutely beautiful right now. It is very green and the poppies are starting to appear. It is the only green time of the year, so us winter semester students really lucked out.

This week we had midterms. But on a break from writing a five page paper, five of us decided to go for a little walk down to the Tombs of Malachi and Haggai. It was actually kind of creepy but awesome. It was underground and there were several passages with tons of holes in the wall-aka the tombs. Our pal Pierre, the local priest, hooked us up with some candles and we were able to wander around these creepy passageways with only candlelight. One downside was that the wax would drip on our skin every once in a while. But that is the price you pay for not using modern technology I guess. 

We didn't take the tombs lightly. Pierre was pretty confused why we weren't smiling for this picture. 

We also had Arab night this week. We had some local Sheikhs come and do the call to prayer for us, and we also had these four young teenage girls teach us how to do cultural dances. We were pretty bad at it, and I think our instructor was pretty disappointed in our lack of skill. 

We are pretty into taking serious pictures. 

These photos are from a while back when we went to the Garden of Gethsemane. It was pretty small. But the church of all nations was next door so that was cool.  

The sunsets here are gorgeous. I am a sucker for sunsets, and the ones here are just wonderful. The pictures will never do them justice.

Not only do you get to see the sunset in this picture, but the street where we live. 

Obviously everyone thought it was pretty swell as well.