I Love to See the Temple... and Jordan!

This is the street that is right next to the temple wall, which is part of an archeological park. The stones that are fallen here are the ones that used to be part of the Second Temple (the one that Herod the Great built, that was there when Jesus was), that the Romans destroyed. Following the prophecy of Jesus, they didn't leave any stone left on top of another! They pushed them all off of the Temple Mount! Here is the dramatic proof.

This is a stone that for sure Jesus walked on. It is right outside of the double entrance to the temple, that was especially used during feast days (all males of the House of Israel had to present themselves at the temple during three annual feasts). Lance Armstrong stood here and said that it meant more to him than standing on the moon. After going to several places that are "likely sites," "competing sites," or "within a few hundred yards of the real site," it was cool to go to a place that for sure Jesus went. To stand somewhere where for sure Jesus stood. Yet, I've learned here that the Spirit is to be felt while pondering, reading scriptures, and praying, not in the sites themselves.
Here are the steps leading up to the stone where the previous picture was taken.

This is the "Souk," or market place here in West Jerusalem. It has tons of fun shops that sell nuts, dried fruits, spices, scarves, dreidels, and tons of other stuff. It's fun to be there!

And now for our 4-day field trip to JORDAN! Jordan is a kingdom, with a royal family and all. There are pictures of the king everywhere. The main industry in the country is tourism, so they love foreigners and are really kind to us. I felt a prevailing happiness there among the people. They seemed chill and content with their lives. The two biggest tourist/history spots are: Petra and Jerash.

This is Eden, me, and Josett after experiencing a Turkish bath! This is a common touristy thing to do while in Jordan, and it was amazing! You sit in a sauna, you get scrubbed (and shown the dead skin that came off), washed, and massaged. You come out feeling like a new person! It was super relaxing, once I got over the awkwardness of it. It was quite an experience!

Petra! This ancient city pre-dates the Romans, and was built by the Nabateans. They had a huge, huge settlement here. Petra is the spiritual center (full of tombs and stuff), and there were two different locations that were the residential center and marketplace. To enter Petra you walk for about 30 minutes through two towering rock faces. The geology was absolutely stunning. I loved it. The sandstone is more colors than I knew rocks could be, and they were all swirled together like the rainbowy surface of a bubble! Awesome!

Me in front of the Treasury! This is the famous tomb that was used in Indiana Jones as the location of the Holy Grail! It was stunning to emerge from the path between the cliffs and see this at the end.

After hiking all over Petra, I decided in my free time to climb up to the "High Place," where they used to sacrifice animals to their gods. It was probably a mistake, as I nearly got heat exhaustion (having drank all my water), but it was a cool view! Look at all the crazy tombs beneath me. I'm pretty high up!

And those are all the pictures I've decided to include from Jordan, but we also visited Jerash, which is the best well preserved Greek-Roman city outside of Greece/Rome. It was also cool.



This is Cave 4 of Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. We went here on the hottest day of the year. I was about to throw up from heat exhaustion on this day, too, so I got a glimpse, took a picture, and went in search of air conditioning. I got to see the Dead Sea Scrolls at two places, Jordan and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Jordan let me take pictures of 'em, which was cool!

What I don't have a picture of yet, because it wasn't taken with my camera, is me floating in the Dead Sea, which also happened on this field trip! It was pretty crazy! They told us this story of a fat man who got flipped over onto his stomach and couldn't flip back over and he died. I can totally understand why, though--you're so buoyant that it's almost hard to move! It was a struggle to stand straight in the water when I wanted. It was really fun to bounce in the water (it's crazy to bounce in water when you can't even touch the ground). It was painful, though, hot-searingly painful. You don't even know the tiny cuts you have on your body until you enter that intense concentration of salt water! We found some mud on the shore and coated our bodies in it, even though it smelled like sulfur, because it's supposed to be great for your skin. I don't know that sulfur-mud is great for skin, but I know that my skin was baby soft when I came out! Whether it was from the oily water or the mud, I don't know, but it was fun!


This is me in front of a 1:50 scale model of Jerusalem during the Second Temple period, at about 60 AD. See how tall the temple is compared to me! It was super cool! This is just outside the Israel Museum (which was fabulous and huge), right by the Shrine of the Book. My favorite part of the whole thing was this model!