Cave Day!

This was a fun adventure that our "Out-of-Center Activities Committee" put together for us on Sunday, October 25, 2009.

We went to the Sorek caves, which are famous for their Stalagmites and Stalactites.

They are active caves, so we had to walk around very carefully and not touch anything. We learned that the rock formations grow through mineral-filled drops of water staying on them for a long, long long time. It takes about 50 years for the stalagmites to grow a centimeter, I believe, on average. So that's just some of them. Many of them it takes much, much longer.

It was very cool. Here are some fun pictures from the caves :)

This is us at the orientation before going into the caves. Gotta love David, in the background, making a super awesome face :)

This was right before entering, there was, what they called, "a petting zoo." These were formations we could touch. From the back forward it's Kathryn, me, Brooke, and Marissa.

Just some cool formations. The lighting wasn't so great in there, cause they only light certain parts at a time to keep....small one-celled organisms that I can't remember the name for, from growing. Cool though. :) Here are some more randoms :


Okay. So. After the caves, we went to a town called Ein Karem where Elizabeth and Zacharia are said to have lived, and where John the Baptist grew up. There were two churches that we wanted to visit, one for John the Baptist, and one for the Visitation of Mary to see Elizabeth. Both were really cool.

We split up to go to them, and my group went to the Church of John the Baptist first, and we got there right as they were closing for sunday prayer and for the monks to eat... but, one of the people in our group made friends with Father Edward really quick, and he said that we could tour the church for a few minutes before they closed. It was really sweet. I loved it. A beautiful chapel with white tiles on the walls, which blue painting and decoration. It was really unique. There were also candels lit, and I've always wanted to light one, so I did! It cost me 1 shekel, and was so so worth it. I even lit it for a purpose, and said a prayer for it. I wanted it to be legit. I don't know if that's sacreligious as a Mormon or not... But it was nice, and I enjoyed it. Pictures!

This is the gate to the church, which was pretty cool. I think it was actually a monastary complex...but you can kind of see the words John the Baptist on the metal inside the arch.

Me right inside the gate, looking towards the church and complex...my head is kind of in the way, sorry!

You can't really see the tiles very well, but it was beautiful!

This is how some of the candles were arranged before we got there...I just really liked it....so....

I paid my shek...

And I lit my candle with another candle...

Me and my candle :)

This is my candle! I left it there, burning for everyone to see....well, mainly just God to see, I guess, right?

This is my candle...it's the one closest to the cross but not apart of it. I'm sorry if this is getting old, but I really enjoyed this experience. I've always wanted to do it! :)

This is Kathryn, me, and Father Edward. He was a short, short, man. But very kind.


After that we didn't know what to do because our meeting time was set, but the other church had been closed, like the John the Baptist one, for prayer. So we wandered around the city. I didn't take any pictures during this time, but we did a number of cool things. It was a little town, pretty quiet, and not a lot happening, so we just kind of wandered. We found a little art gallery that an artist who was born in New York and then came to the area when he was 20, and now is probably 65 or 70, has put up with all of his art work. It was really cool, actually. I would've gotten one, but I'm sure they would've been expensive, and they were too big for me to take with me. It was really nice, though.

After that we wandered around a bit more, and we passed a tree that was just huge and covered in pink, big flowers. Everyone was amazed and thought it was so cool, and I looked at it and realized that it was a big pine overgrown with a vine that had the flowers on it, and I thought..."ick." And then, "if my dad were here, that vine would be gone." Oh the joys of our backyard, which I love! I hope you all are enjoying the fall leaves!

After that we found this quaint little pizza shop with an ice cream place attached. I had cheese, pesto, and red pepper pizza (no meat on the pizzas, for the sake of being Kosher, I'm sure), and taste tested a gelatto/ice cream to see if I liked it, but decided against it. The pizza was heavenly though!

Then, finally finally the churches opened and we got to hike up the mountain to the Church of the Visitation! Here are some photos:



It was a really beautiful church. It had a gate and a nice courtyard. Actually, it was a convent, so there were lots of nuns there. It was great. Hey, maybe the nuns and the monks meet half way down the valley and have social gatherings.......wait, I guess not. Bummer for them!

Me and the gate... ;)

This was a statue just inside the Gate of Mary and Elizabeth greeting each other, and at first we thought it was pregnant nuns...kind of weird, yes, but Kyra and I thought it would be funny to reenact this statue...

This is the apse of the church. It was beautiful, and really interesting. It has Mary where usually Christ is in Churches like this. but it had really beautiful paintings.

I really loved these angels. There were some of the most beautiful angels I've seen in a church, and the window next to them was cool, too.

This is my favorite part of the church. Kind of an unexpected burst of color, from the rest of the church that is kind of light, pastel colors... But it was just an epic, dynamic painting, and I loved it. I sat in this chapel for a long time just kind of thinking and soaking in the peacful atmosphere. Also, after a while there was a little tour group that came in that was Spanish-speaking, and I struck up a conversation with one of the women there. We talked about that chapel, and asked each other where we were from. They were from San Salvador. She also asked if we were Catholics, and I told her we were Mormons and she just smiled and said, Oh yes, yes. (In spanish, of course.) I think she might have heard of us before :). Anyway, it felt good to drag out my Spanish. I don't use it that often, but it feels good when I do! It was really fun. A very memorable experience at this church, all in all.

After that our last stop of a busy day was to a hospital. Don't freak out, nobody got hurt, but there is a synagogue in the hospital that has twelve stained glass windows that were done by Chagall! You know, Notting Hill, "It's how love should be...floating through the sky with a violin-playing goat." That Chagall! He's famous primarily for his stained-glass windows, and is a Jew from Russia, and so he did these stained glass windows. Taking of pictures was strictly prohibited....but I took some anyway...does that make me a bad person? I just loved the windows so, so much! They were, each one, a representation of one of the 12 sons of Jacob, and all had symbols of their individual inheritances and life contributions. So, here they are!




I hope you like the post! I'll try to get Jordan up, and then the Halloween party, and also do school in there, sometimes ;). Love you all!