A Long, Crazy, Amazing Day

September 7, 2008

Today was a very intense day of hiking. We left campus this morning at 7:00 a.m. We, then, hiked until 12:00 p.m. After lunch, we again hiked from 1:00 p.m. until 6:00 p.m. It was very hot today, and my legs now feel like Jell-O, but it was worth it. We saw a lot of different and cool things today.

In the morning we went to see part of the “Broad Wall;” this part of the wall was dug up from the time of King Hezekiah. Then we went out of the city at the Dung gate and traveled down to David’s City. It was cool to see “where it all began” for Israel. I can’t imagine what the area would have looked like at that time. We walked from the top of David’s City to the bottom, looking at all the different archaeological digs, and what they were. Then, we got to go down into Hezekiah’s Tunnel and follow it from the Gihon Spring on the eastern side of David’s City in the Kidron Valley, to the Pool of Siloam on the western side of the old city in the Central Valley. This tunnel was over 1500m long, and took almost a half hour to walk. The spring still flowed from the source and was about knee deep the entire time. The water was ice cold and very refreshing, for we had been outside for a long time. Also, in the morning we went to the supposed place of Potter’s field and saw some 1st century tombs there. Then we came back for lunch.

After lunch, we went to go see the supposed place of the last supper. The room that is held as the actual place is not really the place, however. It is impossible for many reasons. We did see it, though, for the actual place, might have been quite close to this position. Then, we made our way down to the South-West part of the temple mount wall. We went through a museum and walked around to see the Richard’s Arch. This was a part of the arch that held up a massive staircase for people to walk up to Herod’s Temple platform. Also, we saw many blocks that had been thrown off the top of the mount when the Roman’s destroyed the temple. It was a very cool sight. After this, we went to the southern steps of the old temple. I can only imagine what the great temple would have looked like when it was still together. We then headed to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and headed back. We did, though, make many other stops throughout the day, but I tried to highlight the main places that we saw.

I’m officially through my first week, and I’m doing great. I really do like it here. The people are great, I’m learning a lot, and the sights are amazing. I have another large day tomorrow. I have 4 classes. The classes, though, aren’t like Taylor where they are all 50 minutes long. Some of the classes here are 2.5 hrs. To say the least, it will be a big day.

Yesterday for lunch, we had fish; all of the scales and fins of the fish where still on it. It was pretty disgusting. I did, though, try it and ate almost all of it. This is a huge feat for me. The food has been super good lately. And the desserts; our cook was a specialist with pastries before he came to work here. They are sooo good!