First Day in Israel! Exploring Bethlehem! (Trip Journal March 6th -8th)
I'm pretty sure you guys are just waking up and starting your day! Over here in Israel I am just finishing up a super exciting day! I am sharing my current diary of my trip with all of you because our days will be packed with details I may not be able to remember when I get home. But, hopefully you'll have questions from this diary that I will be able to answer when I get back! I am also taking tons of pictures on my camera too to show!Our flight on Turkish airlines was super nice. It was not as bad as expected and the meals were even surprisingly good. The first flight was 13 hours and we each had personal TVs. I caught up on some shows and movies and tried to sleep a little (Planes are really uncomfortable). We landed in Istanbul, Turkey for a four hour layover. The airport was insane. The advertisement and shops were very elaborate. The airport was big and there were people from all over the world there. We sat in the airport for three hours and I read. It was fine. The entire group was exhausted. By the way, the group I'm here with (11 others including my professor) is really great. (Attaching a picture of some of them when we got to Israel).
They are all so excited for the trip too and are really nice kids. Anyways, we boarded our second plane to Tel Aviv and I slept the two hours flight. Overall, plane rides this long are exhausting.
After what seemed like two days of nonstop flying, we finally arrived in last night around midnight in Tel Aviv. We went through customs(which was scary) and made the hour drive to Bethlehem. The city is beautiful, even at night. All the houses are built up on hills. It's not like what you see in the movies, yet it's like the image I had in my head. It's really breathtaking. We are staying in a guesthouse here(I am attaching picture!).
It's very nice and secure. After arrival, my roommate, Deb, and I showered and headed to bed. They have an issue with water shortages here in the Old City, so the water is not very warm and you can't use a lot! Plus, I forgot shampoo! Oh well! Anyways, we fell asleep to the sound of distant dogs barking and the nearby bell tower's bells ringing.
This morning we were awoken by the sound of loud shouts(I slightly panicked and thought they were coming to deport us). The marketplace is right below our window and Saturday morning seems to be the time to shop! It was packed. People were selling all sorts of things from food, to clothes and jewelry. And the shop owners screamed all morning trying to get people to buy...Quite the wakeup call.
We finally got up and started with the day around noon(Jet lag is tough!). Our tour guide met us(his name is Tonan) and we went into the city of Bethlehem. We ate lunch at a cute little restaurant in the Old City. In the city, women cannot expose shoulders or knees. The weather was perfect though, and my outfit worked great. We had falafel for lunch. That is a custom dish here in Israel. It's ground up chick peas that are deep fried. It's then put in a pita with cut up cucumbers and tomato and served. It was really good. I haven't had a stomach ache yet, which is good. I've been sticking to bottled water. The other different thing here is during the time when the muslims are supposed to pray, the entire city echoes with a call to prayer. It's fifteen minutes of a loud voice speaking arabic, reciting muslim prayers rhythmically. It happens five times a day.
The people in the city are different. Some people like Americans(and their money) and others don't. They look at as funny or shout in arabic to our tour guide. For the most part, the city is so busy people don't pay attention. There are lots of other tourists here too. I expected it to be a lot more intense, but I do definitely still feel a little on edge walking in the city streets.
After lunch, we went to the Temple of Omar. It is a mosque in the Manger Square. When we walked in we had to remove our shoes(gross!) and women had to put scarves on their heads. There we met Mufti. Mufti is the equivalent to the priest. He spoke to us about Muslim faith. He talked about the five pillars of Muslim faith as well as the Quran. It was interesting. Muslim faith is more similar to Christianity then one would think. Mufti also talked to us about the Palestinian and Israeli conflict. He has been put in jail several times for being a Palestinian. It was very interesting. The mosque itself was also very interesting. There were many people coming there to pray.
Next, we headed to the Church of the Nativity(Yes! The church over where Jesus was born). It is a beautiful church. It is shared by the Armenians, Orthodox Greeks and Catholics. Each one has a set time that they are allowed to have services. We happened to be there while the Orthodox Greeks were having their service and it was very interesting. We had to be super respectful because their bishop was there. When entering the church, the doorway is super short so that each person that enters is literally forced to bow in respects to the holy site when entering. The church is also in the process of being renovated. Inside, there are tall ceilings and a long hall that lead to the site where the churches have service(called the High Alter). That area has large, beautiful chandeliers and other beautiful shrine-like items such as pictures of the saints and Jesus on the cross. The art everywhere is amazing. At the Church of the nativity, we did not initially see the cave where Jesus was said to be born. We first saw the tomb of the children that Kind Herod killed. It is the tomb because many years ago there was hundreds of bones of children found in that place. The tomb was cave like and had many icons(I have lots of pictures). It was really a lovely memorial.
We finally got to head down to the site where Jesus is traditionally said to be born. It is literally in a cave down stairs. They have built a huge alter around a small part of the exposed stone. Around the exposed stone is the star with 14 points that represent the 14 generations until the birth of Jesus. I was able to kneel down and pray and touch the place where our Lord and Savior was born to the Virgin Mary. It was very powerful. Nearby, another alter stands around the place where the Virgin Mary was said to lay Jesus after he was born in the manger. I found a great 3D tour online if you'd like to see for yourself an idea of what it looks like:http://jerusalem.com/tour/nativity_church_3D/web
After that, we saw many other alters throughout the church. It is a very big church. This included the cave in which St. Jerome was said to translate the bible. Many people have services and worship in these places as well. We continued to explore.
Upon leaving the Church of the Nativity, we went to another church. I can't recall it's name exactly, but it is a place where Mary frequented with Jesus when he was a baby. There was a place in that a drop of her breast milk was said to fall on the ground and turned the entire cave wall white. Many people go there to pray because it is said to have abilities to make infertile women fertile.
Around four, we finally headed off to do some tourist shopping. One of the coolest places we went was The Olive Wood Factory. Here, amazing craftsmanship takes place. These men make masterpieces out of these Olive Wood trees. We got a tour of their entire building, including a rooftop view, which gave us access to a view of much of Bethlehem(attaching a picture).
It was so pretty. They also showed us how they made such wonderful complex works out Olive trees. It was very interesting. It was by far one of the best gift shops I have ever been to!
We finally headed back to the guesthouse for a bit of a break. We had two hours until dinner and half of us decided we wanted to go back into the city to look at more shops! (The stores are very near to our guesthouse). We decided that people don't get to come to Bethlehem often and we should explore as much as possible. So, most of us did all of our souvenir shopping since we won't have much time to do so later. The prices of cheap and they take American money as well as Shekels(which is Israeli currency; $1=3.51Shekels). We shopped until exhaustion.
We just finished dinner a bit ago. It was a wonderful meal served at the guesthouse. First, we had pea soup with pita. Then the main course was a Palestinian dish that is very common here, called upside down (attaching a picture!).
It was really good. It is basically Israeli chicken and rice.
So now it is 10:51PM here. We do not change times tomorrow, so when you all spring forward tomorrow, I will be 7 hours ahead instead of 8.
I hope all is well at home. I send everyone my love. I hope this finds you all well and I love you all very much. Do not worry and know that I am enjoying myself. Can't wait to see everyone once again.
Danni
Exploring Bethlehem and Jerusalem! (Trip Journal March 9th)
I hope all is well where you are. I hope your Sunday is going wonderfully (I also hope you changed your clocks an hour forward so you didn't miss anything important; We do not have a time change here, so I am now only 7 hours behind you instead of 8)! Here in Israel, my day is coming to an end. And therefore, I am once again sharing my journal with you all(You should expect typos, by the time I finish these journals, I am so tired that I don't even reread what I wrote!).
Today started somewhat early around 9AM for breakfast. It was a rainy day all day, but still much better weather than home. The class found out that the Valparaiso's president, Mark Heckler, his wife, Veronica and the dean of Christ College, Peter Kanelos, happened to be in Israel also at the same time as us! They joined us all day in our encounters here in the Holy Land (Yes, we got to spend the day with the university president in Israel)! They joined us for breakfast. We were delighted to find a huge buffet filled with authentic palestinian foods such as real, homemade hummus, pita, and falafel. I stuffed my face. The food is so good, but after a few hours, you get very hungry again. I guess thats how everyone here is so skinny!
After breakfast, we headed off to a Lutheran church service at 10:30AM. It was a really unique thing to attend a christian service here in the Holy Land. The entire service was in arabic. The pastor welcomed us and announced our being there to the church. It was really special. Our professor, George Heider, is good friends with the Pastor, Dr. Mitri Raheb (Raheb is very successful here and making many changes here for christians. He has started a college here in the Holy Land that has a liberal arts program and he also is responsible for starting the guest house we are staying in. Furthermore, he is an author. I just finished his book, Faith in the Face of the Empire, which is a great read if you are interested in the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict). The service was held an a truly beautiful church. I took pictures, but I am going to tease you and just attach a picture of the church bulletin!
Anyways, after fellowship both Valpo's group and Wheaton College's group headed up for lunch. Pastor Raheb blessed the meal and we dug in. For lunch, they served us a variety of dips and veggies to eat with pita. Then, they served real chicken sandwiches with french fries. I asked for ketchup and it tasted completely different than American ketchup (I am bringing home some packages for everyone to try). I was so stuffed again after lunch.
After lunch, Valpo's group headed out of Bethlehem into Jerusalem. I now am going to get into some the the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict. Bethlehem is currently Palestinian occupied territory. When we left Bethlehem, we had to pass through a big gate and security guards with guns (we aren't allowed to take pictures, but I snuck one and I am attaching it even though it is blurry. The guard is carrying a huge gun scanning all cars coming in and out of the city).
The restrictions and guidelines are very scary and I feel very sad for the Palestinians. I don't feel like anyone deserves the treatment they are currently experiencing. These guards did not give us American tourists any problems.
When we passed the checkpoint, we began our travel to Jerusalem to go and see Yad Vashem, which is the Holocaust Museum. On the way there we passed a few other landmarks. One was the Jerusalem Stadium which was being built. It's the biggest in Jerusalem used for soccer games and other recreation events. We saw some beautiful Jerusalem, New City townhouses and apartments. They priced the same as townhouses and apartments in the loop downtown in Chicago ( about 1/2 million American dollars). Jerusalem is the capital of Israeli and is home to about 700,000 people(75% Israeli Jews, 16% Muslim, 5% Christian and 4% no religion). Another site we saw was Mt. Herschel. This is commonly called the hill of remembrance. It is similar to Arlington National Cemetery the in Washington D.C. It's a famous military cemetery where Israeli presidents, prime ministers and killed soldiers are buried.
We finally arrived at Yad Vashem. Just a little history, Yad Vashem means "the name and place of remembrance". It refers to the bible passage Isaiah 56:5. This place is said to fulfill the prophecy in this verse. This is the main site for the remembrance of victims of the Holocaust in WWII. It is 180 dunams( In Israel, the dunam is 1,000 square metres (10,764 sq ft), which is 1 decade). There is also a Children's memorial.
This memorial was one of the most amazing I've ever seen. I have seen both the D.C. memorial and the Illinois memorial, and neither compares. I spent two hours revisiting the sites, scenes, and peoples of the Holocaust, and I still felt rushed. It was a very emotional (and crowded). There are not words I could explain to describe the depths of pain that are in this museum. There are no pictures allowed either, so this one is really one that each of you will have to explore for yourselves. I would definitely set aside several hours to take your time and really observe this amazing archive (things like the original Schindler's list and original clothing, hair, belongings, and stories). The most memorable thing of the entire museum was the Hall of Names. This hall stands to visually represent each and every Jew(of the 6 million) that was killed in the Holocaust. Each person that has been identified as killed in the Holocaust has their name listed in a book. There are hundreds of books in this large circular bookshelf. They still continue to search for the lost names of the Holocaust.
The draining emotional experience of Yad Vashem, we drug ourselves to the Museum of the Scrolls of the Dead Sea. This is where the original Holy writings are. Some of these books are in the bible such as Isaiah. It was amazing to see the original pieces which were found in clay pots all over the Middle East. We got to this museum right before it closed, so we only had like 20 minutes to look and read. It was unfortunate, but I am attaching a picture of the scroll. We are not really allowed to take pictures, so it's not a great one.
After the scrolls, we headed back to the guest house. It was pouring outside and we all got soaked. Israel has been having a huge drought, so as much as us tourists dislike the rain, it is good for those who live here. We showered up and headed to dinner. Again, we ate another beautiful meal, which I did not get a picture of. It was another chicken, rice and vegetable dish. After dinner, the group of us all went to the lounge and played a fun game together. It was really fun and we had a great time. I am with a really great group of kids. I feel really blessed.
I am hoping you enjoy my journal. I miss everyone very much. I am excited to come home and share things in person. Hope all is well.
Danni
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