Mornings in Israel

This sign pointed to all of the important places in or around Israel like Jerusalem or Bagdad.

So I spent the majority of my Spring break in Israel. As in that country across the ocean fondly referred to as ‘the Holy land’ not to be confused with the violent place seen on TV. I went with The Center for Global Education on a Political Science study tour. While there my classmates (who later would become my friends) studied the conflict between Israel and Palestine and talked to some crazy influential people; but we will get to all that later. I have been trying to figure out how to break this blog up, which is why it is slightly overdue. I experienced so many things in Israel and I THINK it is all very important, although the truth is some parts could probably be left out. So I am going to inform you on MY VERSION of the Israel trip and you can fill in the gaps and conclude from it whatever you wish. Deal? Deal. I am going to break this into three separate parts. Mornings, Lunch (because let’s face it meals are basically a time of day and this one happens to be my favorite), and Nights in Israel.

MORNINGS IN ISRAEL

Our first morning in Israel was really our second day. We had landed the day before and then traveled to our hostel. When I woke up in the morning, I walked to breakfast and then to my surprise BAM there is the Mediterranean Sea. No big deal right?!? Basically this was Israel. You are going about your day as usual and BAM there is something majestic, or beautiful, or historical, or thousands of years old, or biblical, or sometimes all of that put together. And people just live their lives alongside these landmarks that others wait their entire lives and never get to see. After taking a few moments to fully comprehend the idea that I am eating breakfast on a beautiful beach in Israel, I went into the kitchen and found the normal Israeli breakfast items; Cucumbers, peppers, fresh cheeses, yogurt, salad, slices of bread, butter, and coffee. These were the items on the menu not only for this first day, but basically every day after I would see each and every one of these items. Notice I said see. I say this because in my room we almost NEVER woke up in time for breakfast. I think it’s because Joanie, Hannah and myself were just so much alike we would all get distracted just talking every morning and forget that we had things to do and this would result in our reoccurring absence from breakfast, which I hear was a really great meal.  We would always sneak a slice of bread with small butter packets into our bags though, so we didn’t go hungry don’t worry.

After breakfast we would climb aboard our bus with our wonderful Bus driver, Yuri, and our knowledgeable guide, Ronit! Sometimes I really wanted to use this time to sleep, but I knew I would miss so much that I tried as hard as I could to stay awake. Ronit would inform us on every tree and turn that is Israel. I am not sure if even I could comprehend how much information she would give us in one day, but I think I held onto the most important points. We would reach our first of many destinations for the day and all file off the bus, knowing that soon we would be filing back on, and hear about the history of Israel. The mornings were normally reserved for sightseeing. So ancient ruins like Masada, The Dead Sea, Sea of Galilee, Caserea, Dead Sea Scrolls, The many Quarters of Old Jerusalem and other sites of exploration across the wonderful country of Israel.

One of my favorite mornings was the morning of Shabbat in Old Jerusalem. Shabbat is the Jewish day of rest and in Jerusalem this means no driving. So we walked to Old Jerusalem and explored the old city. Because our tour guide had all of the ins and outs of Israel she took us to the top of one of the hotels and at first I had no idea why. Then we got up there and we could see basically the entire Old city from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, to the Temple Mount, to Mount Sinai, even the Western Wall. Ronit informed us about all of the history of the different quarters and made the city a place where people had lives, rather than a city with old buildings! Favorite Morning EVER! Then we had an awesome lunch with… well I guess that falls into afternoons in Israel right?

PHOTOS:

This was the view from the top of Masada, and if you  look way down there that spec... that definitely not me, but it could be and you would never know because we are up so high!

This is my at the Valley of Elah. For those of you not familiar with biblical history, this was the place where David fought Goliath!

Remember that view I was telling you about.... Yeah amazing!

 This is me holding the Dome of the Rock!!! 

This is the site where archaeologists believe Jesus was baptized.... kind of a big deal I think!