Hey all – man, I was pooped last night and didn't write an entry. I'm writing this is offline mode now before breakfast in hopes that I can hop online in the lobby after we eat and upload it to you.
Yesterday was another good day, and not as many individual stops as Thursday. We started off with about an hour and a half busride to Caesarea – which is a town that Herod built and where Pontius Pilate also lived. Paul was arrested & put on trial here, and Pontius Pilate documented the events that went on in Herod's life in the book of Antiquities. It was REALLY awesome to see all the old ancient ruins in this city – it was just huge! The city he built was right on the beach of the Mediterranean Sea and there were big structures like a Coliseum,a bathing pond that was literally out on the water, a port-of-call for incoming ships, a chariot race track, etc. It's one of those places that you just stand in awe at all the ruins and when you're walking there you can really picture the majesty and all the commotion that went on! As with almost all of these places, you can spend almost an entire week in just one of these locations and soak it all in.
After Caesarea we headed to Megiddo, which is a city built by the Canaanites and was already in ruins by Jesus' time. It was built and rebuilt by several other communities and was up on top of a mountain with an awesome view. So much stuff was discussed here it's hard to keep up! The top of this mountain (I think) is called "Har Meggito" which is where we get our word Armageddon from…there were tons and tons of battles fought up here (by whom I couldn't tell ya unfortunately). Really surreal to be strolling along a path where human sacrifices were made and so much blood was shed over the years. We then went underground to a 2800 year old water tunnel which was built around the time of Ahab. Back in the day, water supplies for towns used to be outside of their fortified walls – so they had to go outside for water. This was a ingenious idea to build a underground tunnel so they could retrieve their water from inside of the city. They disguised the other entryway outside of the city so visitors/other army's wouldn't know about the supply and it could only be accessed from within. Very steep steps going way down into the earth and then going horizontally outside the town to the fresh water spring. Very cool!!!
Our final stop of the day was the town of Nazareth. This is where Jesus was born & grew up! We went to the Basilica Enunciation, which is the Catholic church where the angel appeared to Mary to tell her she was going to conceive a child. The church was majestic and had some beautiful murals on the wall. The town of Nazareth itself is 80% Muslim, so there are a lot of women with their heads covered and the town speaks both Hebrew and Arabic. It's surreal to think that the town where Jesus was born is totally Christianity wise…and all the souvenirs and religious stuff we were looking at/buying was actually being sold to us by Muslims who don't believe in any of the stuff at all! Very sad, and a point of concern.
So much more to write, but we're about to load the bus and I have to upload this and get going. After dark last night was the beginning of the Sabbath, so there is no work today. All the cooking was done ahead of time, and most of the shops are closed. (Of course the Muslims are still working). According to our guide, it's the only city probably in the country where you can experience people who still hold to the traditional Sabbath.
Hey all!
