Galilee!

I was in Galilee for 11 days and 10 nights of amazingness! I loved it! Since it was such a long trip and we did so much i will give only the highlights of the trip...you'll have to get the whole scope later with all the details and places we went :)

Day 1

This was our first stop of the trip.  Its Caesarea.  As you can see its absolutely gorgeous and i loved all the ruins right next to the beach! This city was built by Herod.

We went to 4 different churches that day but one of my favorites was the Church of the Annunciation, which is where Gabriel came to Mary and told her that she would be carrying Jesus Christ.  What i loved about the church is that it had tons of different portraits of Mary from all a bunch of different countries from all around the world! The picture doesnt even give justice to all the different pictures.

Day 2

Unfortunately i didnt take any pictures this day, but its mostly because we had class in the morning and that night so in the afternoon we all just hung out on the shores of the Sea of Galilee...ohh you know...

Day 3

We went to the Mount of Beatitudes, this site was really great because we had a little meeting up on the top and were able to talk about the Beatitudes and what they mean for all of us.  Then we were given time to just ponder also.  The church that you see in the picture is an italina church that was built in an octagon shape to symbolize the eight beatitudes.

Later that day we went on the a boat ride around the Galilee which the Sea is so beautiful! Out there we were also given time to ponder and had a little meeting and read the account from Matthew about Peter walking on the water.

(katie and i)

Day 4

We had some free time, but all of us students planned a couple of fun activities for us to do which one of them included going on a hike to a waterfall which was an amazing hike, it was soo green and it was just absolutley gorgeous!

(Anna and i)

Later that night we went out to eat as a class, so we were taken to a Kibutz where their specialty is the St. Peter's fish, which is apparently the fish that Jesus would have eaten, and since its a week full of Jesus, why not eat what he would have eaten?! haha! Anyways so at this resturant they basically give you the fish cooked but nothing taken off, so the fish still had its eyes!!! It was a good fish, but just the presentation of it wasnt soo pleasant...

This is Lindsay and i, me with my fish and her with her pizza because she doesnt like fish...

And we had a little fun and having an artist at our table we made a little creation...

We call it "Destroyed"

Day 5

This is a picture of me on top of Gamla which is in the Golan Heights.  It was one of the last cities that the Romans besieged and destroyed.  Anyways so that was another hike, and as you can see it was so gorgeous with all the rolling hills and greenery.

Later that morning we went to a mine field, so this is us chillen in a bomb shelter...

(me, Aaron, Mary, and Alex)

And then in the afternoon, we went on a big fieldtrip organized by the students and went "river rafting", but there was definitley no rapids, it was more like a boating expedition. Anyways it was on the Jordan River and we still had a great time! i got to kayak with Anna. Afterwards we only had one bus for all 80 of us students, so we got a little creative with our seating arrangements...

Day 6

Our sixth day was Saturday, which is Sabbath for us here in Israel, so we went to the River Jordan.  We went to a site on the River Jordan where a ton of people get baptized. It was really funny though because lets just say they were very organized and knew how to do the business of baptizing because as you can see in the picture you had a number for which entry you had into the River and then they also had camera men all around taking pictures of you when you got baptized.  So after you got baptized you could go up to the main building and check out your picture on the tv and buy it...haha i felt like i was at Disneyland.

Then we went to the Branch building for Galilee. Here is the building it was just built about 2 years ago. It's so nice inside too with a beautiful view of the Galilee.  Where we had our sacrament meeting they had huge windows so you can gaze out into the Sea. Best sacrament meeting ever.

Here is the view from the balcony...

(me and Ron)

Day 7

It was another chill day of classes and beach...but we got a little creative with our pictures...i got a friend, Katie, who likes my moves too :)

Day 8

We went to a ton of churches again on this day. Each commemorating the different miracles of Christ.  My favorite was the church of Nain where Jesus healed the widow's son.

Then we went to another tele, but this one was ligit. Too ligit.  It was called Beth Shean which was a big city during the Byzantine era.  It was a full city full of ruins.  This is us on the public toliets that are still in tact.  Don't mind the constipated facial expressions...

(Brian, me, Jeff, Lindsay, Emma, Mary, and Ron)

Day 9

This is the crew in Dan.  This is called the "Winnie the Pooh Tree" because it looks like the one in Winnie the Pooh! haha i didnt know that they kept up with American fictional characters in Israel?!

This is me in Caesarea Philippi (which is one of the pictures in the Bible).  This is the site of Peter's testimony of Christ.  We also had a really great lesson and quiet time here as well...

To end the long day, they hit it off with a bom, because our last stop was amazing! This is Anna, Elissa and i at Nimrod's Fortress which was another super cool site because we were able to climb all over the antiquities and everything was so cool, it had soo much history!

Day 10

This is Akko.  We spent the whole morning here, which was nice because it was a really cool city.  It was an important port during the Roman and Crusader eras.  I loved this city too because it had the whole ruins and Mediterranean Sea feel which is so cool!  This city was also great because it had a feeling kinda like Jerusalem, well the more city part reminded me of the Old City, which after being away from the Old City for 10 days, i was really starting to miss it! I dont know what im going to do when i get home?! Anyways, I tried to get the idea of the ruins and ocean feel with this picture... 

After that we went to a lookout, which has no significance other than just to see the geography of the land

(me, Mary, Corina)

Day 11

This day was a day of fieldtrip/traveling back to Jerusalem.  On the way back we stopped at a place called Sepphoris, which was where the Mishnah was completed.  It also is the home of the "Mona Lisa of the Galilee"

 

Then we went up on the balcony and it had a really cool map...and i think i was really excited about going to back to Jerusalem, also i just liked this picture

By the end of this trip i was so sick of this

Overall it was an amazing experience full of everything you could ever ask for it in a trip...Beach, Ruins, Friends, spiritual moments along with the happy and fun moments.

I will always have a special place in my heart for the Galilee

Bethlehem

For our fieldtirp this week, we went to Bethlehem! First we went to Bethlehem University, and the interesting thing about this University is that its for both Muslims and Catholics so there is a Cathedral in the middle of the campus.  One of the fun things about going there was that a lot of the students spoke English so we got to talk to them and ask them about random things, like what they think about the Palestinian/Israeli problem, their majors, and what they want to do with their lives. And came to realize that they are just like us...

Here is the view of the city of Bethlehem from the top on one of their buildings on campus

After visiting the campus we went and had lunch in a Bediwin Tent and it was soo good!

(Natalie, Diana, me, Ryan, Emma)

First they came out with pita and tons of dips

And sadly i didnt get a picture of the main course but we had this really good chicken with tomatoes and onions and french fries, and more pita!

After stuffing our faces, we went to the Church of the Nativity which is where they predict that Jesus was born.  In the scriptures it says that he was born in a stable, well the picture in my mind was literally a stable like a little wooden shelter with the little lambs and donkey just chillen watching...but no they had to shatter my whole idea of the birth of Jesus.  Apparently, a stable is where they use to keep the animals, but it was more like a cave, and a manger is where the animals get their food, so he wasnt in a little wooden crip with the hay.  It was shocking to me, haha, but thats me and my ignorance, again.

The Church of the Nativity

The original flooring that dates back to the fourth century which was done by Emperor Justinian

This is a group of us going into the stable and manger

This is me sitting next to the grotto, which the 14 point star represent the 14 generations from Adam to Jesus, and the 14 different points of memorable places of Jesus on Via Delarosa.

And here is the manger/shrine-ish thing..

And sadly, the whole time we were there we were being pushed by these dutch old ladies on a tour, so i didnt get any good pictures...

But afterwards we got to wonder around Bethlehem.  We ended up at this church called The Milk Grotto

Its interesting what they decide to make churches for nowadays.  This church was created because this is supposively where Mary spilt some of her milk...

Here is a picture of Mary that was in the church, if you cant tell, yes that is her boob just out there...

Grateful for the church and that we dont do things like this...

Tel Aviv

In celebration of Finals being done and being able to get out (because there have been some demonstrations and rallying going on so the Old City has been off limits) we got a big group together and went to Tel Aviv! It was an amazing day! i loved every minute of it! The beach was beautiful, the shopping was fun, and food was yummy!

We started off first at the souke, which was nice to switch up the shopping experience and i actually got a couple of things too that i needed/loved too much :)

Some cool kids outside of the souke

(Gage, Mary, Kelsae, Natalie, Brooke, Andrew)

Here's a picture kinda of the city to show it it was.  I seriously forgot like multiple times throughout the day that i was in Israel.  I felt like i was in San Fransico, but like an 80 degree San Fransico that got flattened...haha

After that, we couldnt handle not being away from the beach any longer, and it was soo nice! I always forget how much i miss the beach!

(me, Jess, Mary, Lindsay, Emma, Anna, Kinzie, Elissa, Natalie, Gretchin, Kelsae, Brooke)

Then while we were taking boy pictures an Israeli soilder and his friend with some hooka came up and wanted to be in the picture too, so why not? But seriously, not that there was a ton of people on the beach but probably of them had hooka, it was really funny, i got invited to have some.

(Ron, Andrew, Jordon, Israeli soilder, Alex, hooka dude, Gage, Aaron)

Elissa and i <3

Then later that night we went on a bike ride along the coastline and rode around Old Jafa City, it was so pretty and relaxing

Then, we went and had pizza which i had been craving for sooo long! Dont get me wrong i love my pitas but i miss american food..or italian food...

Overall a perfect day spent in the sunshine