Cold and chilly
Well, it snowed here today, in Jeruslaem, which means it was very very cold. Tomorrow we are outside nearly all day. Brrrrr!
The meeting is finished, and now I am being a tourist. Sunday I went on a shared taxi
(sherut) down to Tel Aviv, for 20 shekels (NIS), and then caught a taxi to the hotel for 50 (NIS). The hotel did not have booking for me, but let me in. I was feeling very tense until the tour guide turned up at 8am next morning.
Yesterday we did Masada, and the Dead Sea, I have photos to prove that I floated in it. It tastes gross, and feels really oily, but wasn't too cold, considering how cold it was out of the water. I am with a group of Amercians who are mostly nice, and are loving all this liberating Arab villages stuff. Masada is an amazing place, and an amazing story, of heroism, stupidity, and the desire not to be a slave. It is also so bleak and dry. Yet 2,000 years ago it had a beautiful palace, some crops, and was safe. Yet the Romans were able to defeat after three years. From the top you can still see where all the Roman camps were, and the wall they built around Masada. 957 men, women and children held off 14,000 Roman legionairres for three years. Amazing!
Today we did Church of the Agony at Gethsename, Room of the Last Supper, the Domition Abbey (where the sleeping Mary went to heaven) which is new and very beautiful, then the Museum of the Holocaust, the Chagal windows, and the Shrine of the Book, with the Dead Sea Scrolls and the the very first Book of Hebrew Scriptures written in about 1,000 CE in Tiberias (book rather than scroll) This was partly destroyed in 1947 in anti Jewish riots in Syria where it was.
Busy days. And tomorrow Bethlehem again, Via Delarosa, and Holy Sephulcre (again) It is really interesting hearing the other side of the story.
Shalom
The meeting is finished, and now I am being a tourist. Sunday I went on a shared taxi
(sherut) down to Tel Aviv, for 20 shekels (NIS), and then caught a taxi to the hotel for 50 (NIS). The hotel did not have booking for me, but let me in. I was feeling very tense until the tour guide turned up at 8am next morning.
Yesterday we did Masada, and the Dead Sea, I have photos to prove that I floated in it. It tastes gross, and feels really oily, but wasn't too cold, considering how cold it was out of the water. I am with a group of Amercians who are mostly nice, and are loving all this liberating Arab villages stuff. Masada is an amazing place, and an amazing story, of heroism, stupidity, and the desire not to be a slave. It is also so bleak and dry. Yet 2,000 years ago it had a beautiful palace, some crops, and was safe. Yet the Romans were able to defeat after three years. From the top you can still see where all the Roman camps were, and the wall they built around Masada. 957 men, women and children held off 14,000 Roman legionairres for three years. Amazing!
Today we did Church of the Agony at Gethsename, Room of the Last Supper, the Domition Abbey (where the sleeping Mary went to heaven) which is new and very beautiful, then the Museum of the Holocaust, the Chagal windows, and the Shrine of the Book, with the Dead Sea Scrolls and the the very first Book of Hebrew Scriptures written in about 1,000 CE in Tiberias (book rather than scroll) This was partly destroyed in 1947 in anti Jewish riots in Syria where it was.
Busy days. And tomorrow Bethlehem again, Via Delarosa, and Holy Sephulcre (again) It is really interesting hearing the other side of the story.
Shalom
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