Wow, it's been a while since I've written a post (I'm sorry). As we approach the last leg of the semester, it is getting pretty busy. We had a four day field study to Galilee followed by an exam this morning. Hebrew is getting pretty tough now that we're dealing with verbs and translating whole phrases, and this weekend will be focused almost completely on Archaeology. So, it the midst of all the craziness, I am still able to have some down time.
Alright, down to business, the four day field study. We started our trip off with a lengthy, but exciting, visit to Caesarea which is on the coast of the Mediterranean sea. Caesarea was a city built by Herod the great and was done extravagantly. We spend time looking at an old theater, we walked out to the port, we walked into the sea a little, and saw an amazing palace. Caesarea was a great visit...BUT, the day turned sour when I had an accident. We visited this aquaduct that Herod built which was about 20 feet tall. So we all climbed up and took pictures on it, which was fun. But, after taking pictures I decided to get a picture of me jumping off it from a lower part which was about 12-15 feet. As I jumped a rock followed me so when I landed it landed right on my head, leaving a nice gash. After loosing alot of blood and cleaning out the wound, we discovered that the injury was not as bad as it could have been, praise God. Later that day we visited Hazor which was really cool, and some of the valleys surrounding the area. The bus rides were really tiring especially since we had lectures at each site, and then had to hop on the bus for the next site. That night we stayed at a hostel at Ein Gev which is on the coast of the sea of Galilee. Let me just say, we ate like Kings that night with cooked Chicken, potatoes, carrots and lots of desert. To add to the mix, I was able to sit in a bar/lounge and watch soccer which was great. It was really warm being next to the sea, and sitting outside later that night was great. Looking across the sea at night was nice because all we could see was the city lights from Damascus, and some of the other cities.
The next morning we got to eat a great breakfast, and with real coffee (enough said, my morning was great). From there we hopped on the bus and headed to Dan. Dan was different than I expected, it was beautiful and kinda reminded me of home. There was really nice walking trails to the site, fresh water rivers, creeks, and nice big trees. Not just that, but the site itself was really cool. The best part of Dan was seeing a complete building that was still intact from the ancient times, and it was huge. Day 2 was spent visitng some more sites, but day 3 is the best of all.
The start of day 3 couldn't be any better, I mean this was the best day I have had in Israel yet. We got to sleep in, that was great, I drank real coffee with expresso, wow, and then we got a boat ride on the sea of Galilee. Could this day get any better. Well, yes it could, and it did get better. Anyways, on this boat we went out to near the middle and viewed the horizon line and pointed out some important information. The boat ride was great because it was warm, alittle windy, but bright and beautiful. After getting off the boat we went to the city of Capernaum, where Jesus lived, worked, and ministered for a period of time. Capernaum was another city on the coast, and here there was a synagogue with a base made of Basalt rock. The Basalt base was the original base exisitng in Jesus say, other features has been rebuilt. After Capernaum we went to Beniass where there was an old synagogue where Jesus would have taught. It was here that I got the chance to sit in the seat of Authority in the synagogue (the original seat), this is where Jesus would have taught from, very cool. Finally, we went to the cliffs of Arbel. There we got to climb down and see caves that we carved out in this side of the cliffs.
Day 4 was a good day too, we saw Beit Shan, Nazareth, and went swimming. Nazareth was cool, but not what I expected, it was really dense and you could not really distinguish the old city that would have exisited in Ancient times. Beit Shan was great to, it was the most complete city that I got to see, and so I really got a sense of what cities may have looked like back then.
Well, I've taken way to much of your time, hope you enjoyed reading, and enjoy some of the pictures.