Dead Sea Field Trip! 12-7-09

Today was a great day, again!

We went on the Dead Sea field trip.

It started with Masada, which is a fortress near the south part of the Dead Sea. It is a site where the Romans conquered in 73 A.D. There were a bunch of Jewish Zealots who had holed up in the fortress that originally was built by Herod (who died in 4 AD). The Romans were coming to conquer them, and so they stocked up, and then waited out a siege. What the Romans did was to build a ramp up to the top, and then build a siege tower and shoot flaming arrows into their walls and buildings. This almost didn't work because the wind was blowing against them, but the winds changed and the whole fortress took flame. The Romans waited for the flames to die down before they entered the city, and all they found was dead bodies. The Zealots, who thought it would be better to die than to fall into Roman slavery, had cast lots for ten men to kill the other 900 people in the fortress, and then those ten men cast lots again for one man to kill them and then kill himself. (Killing yourself was a sin, so to commit suicide they voted on someone else to kill them. Democratic, right?)

Our experience was as follows: We got there, and checked out the enormous plateau the is the fortress...and then bypassed "the snake trail" (aka 45 minutes to one hour hike...) and got on a cable car that took 5 minutes instead! Yay! It was really cool

We went up to the top and saw the siege ramp, and then Herod's palace (they guy had them everywhere, I swear! This one was cool there. A real room with a view. It had three terraces, and the lower one had the best view. Dad would've appreciated it. Set up a little dining table, have your windows face the beautiful desert and the Dead Sea, and you're in like a tall bear. (love you dad!)).

We walked around and saw everything. It was very cool. Then we got to take the cable car down :)

This is me, Sarah, and Lyndsay in front of the sign. Tip: if you go to a lot of National Parks, then take a picture of the sign at each one, and it helps remind you of A) the name of the park and B) which pictures are from which park.

The Snake Trail and the cable. It was a huge plateau. It doesn't really do it justice.
This is the siege ramp. It doesn't look that awesome from this side, or in this picture, but it was quite the feat. Did I mention that the Romans used Jewish slaves to build it? And as the Zealots were shooting them at arrows for building the ramp, those who wouldn't work were getting shot with arrows from the Romans. Sad, sad history.

This is Lynsday, whose camera I was so priviledge to borrow. I took this picture, too :)

Victoria and I climbing down to the bottom level of the palace.

After that we drove over to the Dead Sea. Now, I didn't swim today. Please don't be disappointed in me. I thought long and hard about it, and decided that 1) I have a nasty cut on my foot that I got two weeks ago in Galilee that I actually haven't really mentioned (not by design, just the fact that it hasn't come up) and Dead Sea = salty = painful for cuts. 2) It really does sting....in sensitive areas. 3) It's a little oily and we had the rest of the field trip to go on, and only an hour. Plus it was windy, which pretty much guarantees that you'd get salt in your eyes/nose/mouth and basically be hating life. It's an awesome experience though, and if I hadn't done it before I would've been the first one in the water. Instead I decided I'd be a photographer for some people, and switch off with one of my friends, and take turns. So, we got some awesome shots! The camera I was using was a Nikon D50, and I have a D60, so I felt like I had my camera again. Why oh why did I not bring it to Jerusalem? My one, big "BAD ANGIE!" Should've. Didn't. Oh well. No use dwelling on painful topics.

But here are some fun pictures :) These are just some of them, but they are our favorites. We took about 200 in the space of an hour. Those Nikons..they just suck you in.

Okay so Matt took the ones of me, and I took most of the other ones.

Lyndsay and I were really proud of him for this one, it's an awesome angle.

This is one I took of Kathryn. I edited it too...there was a man in the background behind her head. He wasn't a big deal, but I haven't edited in a while, so it made me happy.

Matt took this, but it was so awesome!

This is Lexi. It helps to practice taking pictures on beautiful girls! And we are in no short supply here at the JC.

This is Megan. Every picture I took of her was beautiful. Even the awkward (normally) ones where you're caught in between expressions. It was amazing!

Lexi and Kathryn :)

This is Emily. I love this girl!

Isn't she adorable?

This is Miss Victoria. She is also gorgeous!

And the lovely Lyndsay!

The reason I didn't get in the Dead Sea today....ouch!

This is one I took of Matt that I really liked. Cool Tree :)

And the grand finale....me and Michelle eating pretzels. Mmm..

So that was my Dead Sea adventure!

After that we went to Ein Ghetti National Park, the waterfall hike place we went before when we went to the Dead Sea. We learned that it is the site of Saul chasing David, and then David having the chance to kill Saul and not taking advantage of it. Pretty sweet.

So here is one picture from there...not of me, sorry, so it might not be interesting to people. But it is a beautiful waterfall!
David's Waterfall :)

So after Ein Ghetti, we went to Qumron, which is the site that the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. It was really cool. It's a Monastic community, where they go live in a community of Hermits because they believed that the Jewish law had been corrupted, and so they went to preserve it, away from society. They didn't accept Christ as the Savior, though, because their scrolls date from 150 BC to about 50 AD. They are the oldest record of the Old Testament, and other pseudipigraphical works, though. IT's really awesome. I've had the priviledge of seeing a bunch of them while being in Israel at museums and stuff. It's amazing.

Here are some pictures from there...

This is a replica of how they found the ceramic jars that the Scrolls were preserved in.

It was beautiful there. It was raining a little (which is rare in the Great Rift Valley, I hear) and the sunlight was streaming through. Loved it.

This is Cave 4 (aka the fourth of eleven caves that archaeologists found containing caves.)

Another lighting picture... I get no credit for these, Lyndsay took them. I didn't have my camera today because I left it in my purse on accident, so I just took all of Lyndsay's pictures to show you guys where we went...oops!

This is me in front of cave four. Loved it!

Okay, so that is my day!

One other eventful thing that happened. We have a little shop to buy snacks at here at the center, and it's run by one of the committees, named "the Shekel Shack." I was asked to cover for someone for about 15 minutes while she ran and did something. I have never covered before...and while I was sitting there, the Shekel Shack got robbed. Well, two of the students came in to "rob" the store. It's film week for us, so everyone is making funny films. I had no idea what to do. They actually took some stuff, though. But don't worry, Nathan dressed up as a Sheriff and got the loot back from Aaron and Kyle. Good thing I was a temp for the only 5 minutes that the shack got robbed, ever. Whew. Bad first day on the job!

Love you guys :)