JRu 14: Gobble, Gobble

So, remember that one time when I am a blogging slacker? Oh, wait, that was now. Anyway, to continue the updates...

Sunday, September 18th

I spent all of Saturday working on my paper (besides going to church) because today we left for TURKEY!!!! I got up did some last minute packing and at about 11:00 am we left for the airport. It takes about an hour to drive to Tel Aviv and then they figured it would take a while for all 90ish of us to get through security, so....We were there SUPER early. The funny thing was that Danielle and I got through security and passport control (by the way, Israeli security is way more intense for leaving the country than any other country I have been in.) and we went and checked the flight board. Our gate had changed, so we headed to our new gate and we were literally the only ones there for an hour or more. It was kind of eerie.

Everyone got there eventually and we waited to board our flight on Turkish Air. And then we waited some more. And then we waited a little more. For some reason our flight was delayed but they never made any announcement about it. Finally we boarded and had a fantastic flight to turkey. They served us a delicious meal and their seats were covered in a nice teal fabric.

When we landed we spent some quality time in the airport waiting for luggage before heading to our hotel to drop our luggage. We walked to dinner at a restaurant. We left my sister and a bunch of other students at the hotel on accident. Luckily, we found them and all headed to bed.

JRu 13: Sometimes I really want to be Jewish.

Thursday, September 15th

As a group we went to the Garden Tomb this morning. This was the third time I have taken a tour at the Garden Tomb. In fact this was the second time I had our tour guide, Tim. I like the tour but it was just one time too many. After the tour we had a little devotional and talked about Jesus as our Savoir. And then we sang. That is my favorite part of being a pilgrim here in Jerusalem is all the singing. We sang a lot of hymns and the spirit was so strong. I love that other people in the garden enjoyed our music as well.

We walked home through the city and bought some snacks (Israeli goldfish, Pringles and candy bars) for Turkey before heading back for the best lunch of our lives. We had Bell Peppers stuffed with rice and seasonings, and latkas. It made me really want to be Jewish. It's starting to be a real issue that I want to be Jewish all the time. Then back to my study doom.

Friday, September 16th

After classes, we went into the city. We stopped at the Pool of Bethesda first. They let us in for free and we went down into the pool. After we went into the Church of St. Anne. After looking through it, we were the only ones there, so Eliza, Lottie, my sister and I sang a few hymns. The acoustics were fantastic! Then we went to the church of Flagellation which we had been to before. It is one of the stations of the cross, so while we were there, the weekly procession of the stations of the cross. So, we joined the massive crowds and followed the stations of the cross through the city.

After reaching the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, we left and headed to the Jewish quarter to find some Challah bread. Challah bread is the Jewish bread that they make and eat for Shabbat. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the Jewish quarter it was too close to sundown and all the bread was gone. We took some pictures at the western wall before heading home.

(Oh, and we saw a guy packing heat at the western wall. It reminded us of the Secret Agent Man, Sam, that we had in Egypt.)

I spent the rest of the night working on my Ephesus paper.