Day...Five: Jerusalem!

Why does Day 5 feel like Day 50? I feel like I've been here forever. It's weird to think that I still have over 2 more weeks here in this beautiful, deserty land. And just to clarify, I'm not complaining, only stating.

[This picture of the Sea of Galilee was taken from my hotel balcony at 6 AM]

Last night was our last night in Tiberius. Which I was OK with, secretly hoping that the next hotel would offer some free internet of some sort. I am seriously sad to admit how deprived I feel without the internet. My addiction is actually sad. I believe it's because when I'm away from home, the internet is where my family is. It's what I use to contact them, and to make sure that they're still alive. Therefore, when I'm gone, the internet means the world to me.
So we had to pack up all our suitcases, load them on the bus, and say goodbye to Tiberius forever.
"Bye..." I said.
Our first stop was Bet She'an National Park. This was sooo cool. I'm talkin' ancient ruins of an ancient Roman city build by Harod himself. Inside this old city was an large amphitheater. I must say that I'm pretty impressed with the architecture of it all. I mean, how smart were they to take advantage of sound and it's carrying capabilities? No need for microphones, you know? Back then in 5 B.C you could actually attend a concert without having your eardrums blasted out by those large speakers that are somehow always in your line of vision. Somehow. Always.

[Nice theatre, eh?]

[I loved the broken pillars]

[My friend Irwin on the ancient latrines!! (Toilets)]

[They're not as comfy as good ol' porcelain, but what can you do?]

Back on the bus, still on our way to Jerusalem, we drove parallel to fences of the Israel and Jordan border. The security measures here go to great lengths; there are two sets of electric fences, watch towers, soldiers, and then running next to the fence is a wide strip of white powder (looks like a dirt road), which is used to grab your permanent footprints. Clever!!

[See the white strip?]

[We saw herds and herds of sheep]

We then stopped at this touristy gas station/restaurant venue near Jericho. (by the way, Jericho was nothing special...which is why we didn't stop...ha) Here I ate a schnitzel pita, took pictures of camels, and ran into some Israeli soldiers. One of my goals on this trip was to take a photo with the soldiers, so all I need to say right now is: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

[Just chillin']

[That's one happy camel]

[My Schnitzel Pita! Mmm...good!]

[Chocolate pudding, Israeli style]

[A Bedouin Shepherd settlement]

When we arrived in Jerusalem, everyone on the bus whipped out there cameras just at the mere glimpse of the Dome of The Rock, including me. I knew absolutely nothing about this golden dome; all I knew was that it's Jerusalem's signature monument. So I figured that it's good enough to take lousy bad quality photos of. At the city viewpoint near the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a street vendor guy selling 30 postcards for $1 walked right up to me, face to face, and said in a heavy accent. "you...have beautiful eyes." Since I never ever get compliments on my eyes I try not to take these things to heart, or let my head grow too big. "How nice" I thought. A few seconds later, another street vendor selling scarves came up to Charmaine and asked if she was selling me. -cue the jaw drop- He stated proudly: "I'll buy her for 8000 shekels!" Now, if I do my math right, that's only $2,253 in Canadian currency. Really, sir? Is that all I am worth to you? Ouch.

[Jerusalem]

[This is how people park on the Sabbath. EVERY car has scratches and bumper marks on it. Gee, I wonder why.]

[Jerusalem]

We then went to the Tomb of David (not much to explain here), and then to a dungeon on Mount Zion. It's said that this was the dungeon Jesus was put inside after praying at the Garden of Gesthame and before he was thrown under Pilot's authority. I'm not gonna lie, it kind of hit me hard; this dungeon had an eerie feeling.

[Why is there a guitar at the Tomb of David?]

[Kitty!]

[Dungeon details]

[I'm sure Jesus didn't have his own pulpit in there though...]

Our last stop of the day was at an Olive Wood store. Anything olive is huge in Israel, which is something I think I once said before. So you can only imagine how crazy Canadians get when they enter such a place. To be honest, I did a walk through, noted the $16,000 massive nativity set that was almost as big as me, then walked out. I feel like I should've bought something. But sometimes I can only imagine these things collecting dust at home, being admired and oo'ed at for an unfortunate short amount of time. I've realized that when it comes to souvenirs, I'm a very practical shopper; I buy things that you can use on a day to day basis like purses, jewelry, and lotions. (sounds pretty girly actually...)

[Busy Jerusalem]

[I love seeing signs like this]

After a super long day, we arrived at our huge Grand Court hotel in Jerusalem. Stepping off the bus, Charmaine and I noticed a little outdoor shop at the hotel right next to ours. We figured that Jerusalem can't be as bad as Tiberius was for it's creepy stalkers, so we decided to take the 3 second trek. Halfway through, we realized it was the gift shop for the other hotel and were like "that's lame!" so we turned around to find this man coming perpendicular to us. He was...let's just say...not normal. I mean, how normal can you be considered when having a pink tongue laying limp down to your chin while making strange humming sounds. This guy was honesty an inch from me. No, try centimeter. He walked pretty fast for his age. Needless to say, Charmaine and I booked it to our hotel; safe and sound. I couldn't believe that spending only 3 seconds outside in Jerusalem was enough time to be creeped. Why??
Before becoming a gluttonous monster at dinner that night, a bunch of us lounged out by the pool under the afternoon sun. There's no better way to wind-down after a day like today.

Day Four.

Boca Tov! (Good morning) Remember how a few days ago I wrote how I was relishing in the fact I got to wake up with the sun streaming in through the balcony windows and bouncing off the walls and such? Let's just say that this morning, that wasn't the case...the sky was completely white. WHITE, I tell you. You definitely couldn't see very far in front of you. We couldn't even see past the shore of the Sea of Galilee. A bunch of us assumed at breakfast that the hazy skies could be blamed for some type of Israel dust/sandstorm.

(Someone, whose name will not be mentioned, complained that my pictures need more explanation... so, the picture above is the view of Tiberius/Sea of Galilee from my hotel balcony. Crazy white skies!)

After reading the news later today, we learnt that the whole of Gamla Nature Reserve had burnt down!! This is absolutely crazy...because we ventured in and around the Gamla Nature Reserve just yesterday, in its full glory. And now, it's completely destroyed. How unfortunate. It's almost bittersweet in a way; it's tragic that it's now wrecked, but it's awesome that we got to see it beforehand. It was meant to be, my friends.

Despite the opaque atmosphere, the bus ride to Nazareth was like any other bus ride. We had our morning devotions, testimonies, and sang our tour theme song (so awesome haha) "Let There Be Love".

Driving to Nazareth put a great song in my head... (I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin' just about past dead...) Haha. 

(this is what Nazareth looks like!)

(Bra shopping on the street? Yes please!)

(FIFA World Cup is a huge deal among Israeli's. Practically every house hangs a flag for the country they're cheering for.)

So here in Nazareth, we went to a location where apparently, was where Mary was told by the angel Gabriel that she was pregnant with the Messiah. I can't for the life of me remember what this place was called, but of course, like every other significant location, it was replaced by a fancy schmancy catholic church with shrines, statues, mosaics, and little tea-light candles. But what I thought was excellent about this venue was that each country had submitted a large interpretative mosaic of Gabriel speaking to Mary. I fell in love with this artwork, because it was all so multi-cultural. To explain further, Korea had a mosaic of a Korean Mary and a Korean Jesus, and the Ukraine portrayed people wearing Ukrainian apparel and such. For some odd reason, I didn't even bother to look at the Canadian mosaic. Sad. All of these mosaics made me decide that I want to create a mosaic one day. I've never done anything like it before, and I think it would be quite something. I mean, I don't have the desire to create my own interpretation of this Gabriel-Mary encounter or anything...but maybe this summer something will come to mind?

After this we headed to "Nazareth Village", which is self-explanatory...it's a small village situated within the Nazareth city limits. It's a replica of what Nazareth would've been like 2000 years ago, back when Jesus walked left his footprints in the sandy dirt roads. These replica even includes people dressed as first-century citizens! It's totally volunteer-run; the workers there don't get paid, and I'm even pretty sure that you don't even need to pay to come inside. So their only way of raising money and continuing on is through gift-shop support. As the brochure once told me, it includes cultivated terraces and vineyards, an ancient wine-press, a watch tower, a working olive-press, a threshing floor, and a village well. I, and everyone else in my group absolutely loved this place. I mean, experiencing first-hand what it must've been like to live in such a place at such a time, was eye-opening. I can't imagine threshing in plus 40 weather, with the sun beating down on you, while clothed in what seemed to practically appear as tarps. I can't imagine having a little stone well as your only source of water. And as shallow as this sounds, I can't imagine life without lightbulbs, Sobey's, and Blogspot. Sigh. (A random fact from this tour: this woman showed us how blankets and other means of cloth were made back then, and how they made the yarn into different colors by dying it with all of nature's goods like pomegranate juice and olives.)

(this is what the landscape was like 2000 years ago, minus the buildings in the background...haha)

(little threshers! Half of them are actually American haha...you didn't hear it from me!)

(Olives)

(Weaving blankets from yarn)

(Pita bread)

(Our pita bread maker)

(Jenny and Jenni! What a wonderful woman!!)

(Olive Press)

(The cool oil lamps we got to take home)

(Me and my Kippah)

We then had the privilege of experiencing a first-century meal! We had little pottery cups of water, bbq'd chicken, pita bread, olives, hummus, some sesame seed salad concoction, and watermelon for dessert. I found it funny how they referred to this as a "first-century" meal, because this is STILL what all Israeli's eat, ALL the time. Hahaha. Makes me chuckle. We also got to take home little oil lamps like they used in the olden-days! How exciting.

After making a quick stop at a diamond factory, we then headed back to Tiberius, where we watched a short movie called the "Sea of Galilee Experience". This movie was super awesome to me, but apparently not to the snoring guy a few seats down. It gave me a craving to watch random Bible movies.

Tonight at supper, we decided that with our good friends Bob and Gloria, we would swim in the Sea of Galilee. I'm sad that I don't hold the photos to this great bonding experience, but you're just gonna have to take my word for how wonderful it was. This body of water didn't contain any beaches with pretty white sand. Just rocks and docks and clear-as-mud waters.

Charmaine and I ended the day with Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. I thank God for the uneventful, yet exciting day. There was alot to take in, bringing you to the point of exhaustion, but worth every second nonetheless.