Week 6: Markets, Midterms... and Caves

        This week is mostly pictures because I don’t have that much time to write and we pretty much just did midterms ALL week! We had straight 6 hours of class for 4 days in a row and I took 4 midterms! Also, I came down with terrible chills and a fever so that threw me off a bit. But we are DONE and boy am I ready to party.

Sunday was our free day. A group of us went and visited to Armenian church and went on the Ramparts walk. The Ramparts walk is a walk along the top of the city walls. It was awesome to see the city from a different perspective and to get a larger perspective on it all. It was awesome!! (I had already ran 7.5 miles that morning though so i could say i was EXHAUSTED) 

The Armenian church was absolutely beautiful, my breath was taken away. This picture makes it look bright but the inside was pretty dark. Oh and the smell... the incense. It's very interesting. 

A cute street we saw on our Ramparts walk 

A great group of friends on our walk

Some residence areas we also saw on the Ramparts walk 

       Monday was field trip day! We went and visited all the valleys of the Shephelah. We went to a lot of really cool valleys and views. My favorite was learning about the story of David and Goliath as we looked over the city of Elah. I don’t have too much to say about it except it was really awesome. At the end we got to throw rocks about David and Goliath, probably my favorite part!!

This place is a Pigeon House. They would store hundreds of pigeons in this shelter and use the poop from the ground to fertilize their plants. Gross, scary, and i guess pretty cool 

We got to go in so many awesome underground caves! Pictures don't do justice. All these caves are made out of chalk. It's crazy how they're still so strong. 

This was my favorite cave. It's out of rocks obviously, but it was HUGE!!!! And the acoustics were insanely good. 

here's my attempt to sling a rock like David... if the movie works, you'll see that i failed miserably. The rock went behind him, luckily i didn't hurt anyone. 

Friday night a bunch of us took the tram to West Jerusalem and bought the knock off food that they were getting rid of because it was almost the start of Shabbat (Sabbath). Jenny and I bought so many pastries and a falafel so yummy J I even got to practice some of my Hebrew words with the shopkeepers which was really fun! That night we had a movie night and we watched “Life is Beautiful”.

Studying, studying, studying.... at least my apartment is very peaceful! 

The Markets! And some yummy new treats. 

Jenny and i like a good falafel and "Jew"ce... ha, get it?

Hanging out at the JC is always a party! 

Today, Saturday (Sabbath), we went to the Garden tomb. I LOVE the Garden Tomb. The feeling that I have there is the same feeling that I get when I’m at the Sacred Grove. It’s super peaceful there, it’s a great time to reflect on life.

This is written on the inside of the tomb

Golgotha 

Have a great week J