Galilee DAY ONE. 11-16-09

Okay, here we go people.
Get ready.

On our first day of our Galilee Extended Field trip, we, of course, made quite a few stops along the way. We drove up along the western side of Israel, kind of along the coast, and our first stop was to Caesarea Maritima.

I loved this site. It was a beautiful Herodian city on the coast of Israel. Herod build a huge seaport, temple, palace (of course), and city. This is also where Paul was put before Festus and Felix, and held for two years. Brother Brown actually was the one to suggest that the only possible place was this place where the councils would meet next to the palace...and then he got a very curt response from the archaeologist in charge, and then a few months later they announced that as the place where Paul spoke to them. Funny, right? I mean, not that Brother Brown cared about recognition, but he had a good chuckle when he told us. Also, it's just really cool that we had such incredible, knowledgable scholars as our leaders, teachers, and mentors.

This is a stone they found here, which has Pontius Pilate's name on it, and is archeaological proof of his existence. I think it's the only proof besides the Bible. Kind of cool.

So, we started around the palace, and the area that Paul spoke, and read the account in Acts. This is also the site where King Agrippa told Paul, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." And then we walked along the coast, next to the arena where the chariot races would have been. Jeremy, Adam, Kyra and I went and explored the temple area...I think that was the temple area, anyway. And then we ran and met our class up to leave that part of the site, and went to an ancient aqueduct area on the beach to see what the aqueducts used to look like. Amazing!


The amphitheater..

You can see the sea and the ruins behind me..

This is Herod's palace. The Sea has since risen, and so the rooms are filled with water. But it's pretty cool.

There were fishermen fishing with HUGE fishing poles, all along the shore. It was very quaint.


This is a view up the coast, where we walked. You can see the arena in the background.

This is my souvenir shell in its natural environment :)

I wanted to walk along the beach, but the waves crashed right up to the breakwall, where there was a pathway, so I ended up walking along the "wrong" side of the railing. It was a lot of fun.

The Crusaders took over this town after the expulsion of the Muslims, and so there are some great Crusader buildings, like this gatehouse.

Pointed, ribbed vaulting. Katy, mouthwatering, right?

And this is the aqueduct. It was really impressive, and it went on for quite a while.

Sarah Ingalls and me :)

A fun day at the beach :) We didn't get to stay for nearly long enough, though.

You just have to write your name in the sand at the beach....

Next we drove for a little while, and ended up to Tel Megiddo. This is where Armageddon will be. The word "Armageddon" comes from "Megiddo." This place is pretty interesting, because it has 25 layers of strata (or different civilization layers), and from the top we could see Mt. Carmel (the place of the Temple of Baal in the Old Testament), Mt Tabor, Mt Hermon (the two possible mountains for the Mount of Transfiguration), and Nazareth. Along with several other mountains, like where Ahab's headquarters were, and the Mountain where Christ raised the widow's son on one side, and where Elisha raised the widow's son on the other side. The Parallels between Christ and Elisha are pretty cool. (And Elijah..)

Us climbing the Tel. Kathleen actually made up a cute song to go along with this. It goes:

What the Tel, What the Tel,
What the Tel are we climbing up.
Rocks and boulders.
Climb another hill,
Oh what the Tel.

Kyra Waring and I at the lookout on top of Tel Meggido

Not a cistern :) But it was a grainery.

It is so green in Northern Israel! This is Anna Daines and me.

And, of course, the water system in Tel Megiddo.

After that we went to Nazareth. First to the Christian Church of the Annunciation. That was pretty sweet. They have a grotto there, where the house of Mary is supposed to be. They were having a prayer service in there when we were there, so we couldn't get a super good look, but it was kind of just another cave...so there you go. It was a beautiful church though. It had some sweet stained-glass windows. And it also had many different contributions from different countries, in the form of paintings and other artwork depictions of the Annunciation.

Oh this is a funny verse from the Qu'ran translated into English right next to the Church of the Ascension.

The Church of the Ascension..

They had these beautiful doors depicting events in Christ's life. Not like the Gates of Paradise, but still, quite nice.

Inside, you can see that they have this whole fenced off central area which is supposed to be the house of the Virgin Mary before she had Christ.

and again...

Our Next stop in Nazareth was to the Church of Joseph, which was were Joseph's tomb was, I believe. It had some beautiful stained-glass windows also:


This is Joseph's betrothal to Mary.

The Annunciation of Christ's birth to Joseph.

And Joseph's death. How hard it must have been for Christ to let a man who raised him die, when Christ could conquer death.


And Joseph's house, I believe.

Then we walked up the hill to a Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation. They believe that the Annunciation to Mary happened at a well, and therefore their church is by the well. I was sitting there with my legs crossed, and the priest got very upset at me. To the Greek-Orthodox (and others, we experienced this other places, too), crossing your legs is a profanation of the cross. Same with crossing your ankles. So he got very upset at me. So I uncrossed them, and then later another girl in our group did it and he got mad, so I started whispering to girls as they came by to not cross their legs, even before they sat down. They were a little bewildered, but I think if we hadn't told them, that the pastor guy might have kicked us out. They're serious about that stuff. I didn't take any pictures, so I think that you weren't allowed to...they were pretty intense about everything. Anyway...

This is me, in front of a carpenter's shop in Nazareth. We were just walking and we passed it. It was very cool.

Anyway, after that we walked back down to the bus and drove to our Kibbutz on the eastern shore of the Galilee. We looked right across the lake (Sea is kind of a misnomer, because it is, in fact, a freshwater lake...) towards Tiberias. It was dark by the time we got there, so we could just see the stars twinkling and the lights across the lake. B-E-A-utiful.

So, first day, check! Only ten more to go...