Wow, what a FASCINATING weekend it has been! Freddie was here visiting and we did just about all we could do in a day! He went on a whirlwind 3 hour tour of the Old City on Thursday morning while I was in class and then I met him downtown to go to Hezekiah's Tunnel with Devora!! Hezekiah's tunnel is possibly the COOLEST thing I've done. It's this looooooong waterway that goes underneath ancient Jerusalem and protected their water source from invading armies. It was SO much fun! Whenever people visit me? We're going there!!! SOOOOO cool! (the only POSSIBLE exception would be Justin ... there are part in the tunnel where I was bent almost 90 degrees ... and I'm a foot shorter than J ... I feel like there are parts of the tunnel that would not be so much fun for him ...
The BUMMER about the tunnel is that it dumps you out in the middle of the East Jerusalem village of Silwan ... and you have to hike BACK up the hill through the neighborhood which is not so nice. Lesson learned: bring the number of a cab company with you so that you can have a cab meet you when you get out on the other side (waiting for the cab would be fine because you can play in the water (see pictures on Facebook) or shop in the gift shop (the shop keeper has an antiquities license!!). We, however, did NOT have a cab waiting for us and decided to hike up ... TERRIBLE plan. My knee STILL hasn't recovered and we didn't get all the way up!!! MANY cab drivers LIVE in Silwan and we found one who hadn't parked and gone inside yet. He gave us a lift back to the Jaffa gate and then I went back to campus to change before meeting Freddie BACK downtown for dinner (Spaghettim, where else???)
On FRIDAY Freddie and I took a personal tour of Jericho, Qumran, and then a dip in the Dead Sea. Jericho was VERY cool (and I was crowned a Beduin queen which was fun!) but I have to say, the inherent risk in going to Jericho (it is PLO administered and Israeli citizen are NOT allowed to go there ... and if, heaven forbid anything should happen to you there, the IDF will NOT go after you nor will your health insurance cover you.
Following Jericho it was off to Qumran which is Israeli controlled. SOOOOOO FREAKING COOL! We walked through the ruins of the Essene community and saw all of the caves!! I wanted to go spelunking but we aren't allowed (and my knee still hurt!!). I took loads of pictures and moved we moved on, after lunch, to the Dead Sea. Ni'im took us to a relatively new beach which TOTALLY kicked the beach I went to in July's butt!! There were no rocks and LOTS of mud (again, see pictures on FB!!). I covered myself with mud several times and enjoyed floating around. We met an Israeli family from Haifa and I had fun talking with them in Hebrew :D Then it was back home for Friday night services and shabbat dinner at the center (Freddie got a LOAD of Jewish culture in while he was here :D)
Saturday I got to sleep in while Freddie went to Ramallah and Bethlehem and then we all met up to go to Holy Sepulchre! That was a very interested experience! Paul, a friend from class, who is also a Benedictine monk, gave us a tour of the entire church which is just MASSIVE! We were there late enough in the day that we got to see and hear all the different groups chanting and singing and stomping giant staffs on the floor. REALLY cool!! We had several really interesting conversations about differences in religions and religious beliefs and had a GREAT time (Paul and Meghan are two of my favorite people here :D) I went back to campus to work on HW ... and Boaz calls to see if we can hang out. Since he is Israeli and I'm doing Hebrew HW this seemed like a good plan.
Oh awkwardness. Men are silly silly people. Oy vey.
Then Sunday it was time for the last summer installment of learning at the Center. $100/month to listening to interesting lectures and talking with interesting people? yes please. I definitely don't agree with everything that is said or professed ... but it's still interesting to learn about a very unique perspective. It's interesting, the more of these lectures I attend, the more I realize that Orthodoxy is not for me. There are some nice things about it but it's just so narrow minded in so many ways. I just can't understand denying evolution. The spirituality and passion for joy and loving G-d is very interesting and nice ... but you can have that and still accept basic scientific principles!! The point of the "Dollars for Learning" program is to enrich student's Jewish education, and it definitely does that ... from one point of view. I enjoy learning about it ... but also talking with secular, Reform, and Conservative Jews ... not to mention several modern Orthodox Jews. There are so many different perspectives and it's fun to know about them all!
I'm really looking forward to Rosh Hashanah. I'm spending it down at the Wall! There is a program that includes hospitality and meals and the services are "user friendly" with explanations about what everything means and why we do it (PERFECT for me!!). Again, it's from the Orthodox perspective, but c'est la vie.
ANYHOO, I'm off to get some work done before HOPEFULLY meeting Freddie for a farewell drink!