A Garden & A Bunch of Rocks

Part 2 of filling in the gap.

After getting back from Istanbul LATE Monday night (Tuesday morning class was productive...), we took it easy the next weekend.  Friday (November 5th) we took a little daytime outing to the Baha'i Gardens!!!!!!

Againnn, siiigh.  Actually remember this was actually the first time, my visit with Anna was the second time, so this one was much more exciting.  JK, I don't want to get in trouble...

Since I already touched on the Baha'i Gardens I'll be brief, although one thing that was cool about this was that we showed up during an actual tour, which allows you to walk down the top 9 terraces, in the actual Gardens.  You can see the top 9 terraces here...  (the somewhat hard to see, canvas covered structure in the middle of the picture is where the gold dome is supposed to be... closed for rennovation, booooooo.  The other 9 terraces continue after the dome, you can't see them in the picture).

The tour was free, as is entrance, because the Baha'i faith is run completely on donations, but only donations from Baha'i, so we aren't even ALLOWED TO PAY... awesome!!!  I love the Baha'i.

The Baha'i is a very nice faith actually... the are very peaceful and they love everybody.  Actually that's pretty much true, they believe in all the prophets from all the religions, so nobody is really "wrong", and they actively try to avoid conflict.  Baha'is from all over the world come to volunteer at the gardens, but none actually live here because they do not want to stir the pot by adding another religion to the tense mixture... I think that was pretty much the explanation.  Anyway it all sounded very nice, and I can see why they are so peaceful if they all just come to these Gardens and listen to the running water and look at the pretty plants, I know I just wanted to take a nap on the grass.

We are not allowed in the archives, but they still look cool.

Does this scene look familiar??  It's almost like deja vu... I can't put my finger on it... it's almost like... 2 posts ago... or something... ahh I can't put my finger on it.

Anyway if you want more pretty gardens, the rest of these aren't up yet but all of the pictures from when Anna and I went are in the album of her visit.

Mooooovin on.

The rest of the weekend was quiet.  If you don't really plan ahead it is easy to get stuck around campus / nearby because the busses stop from Friday mid afternoon until Saturday night / Sunday.  Shabbat.  The cruelest trick in Israel, you wait all week for the weekend, then weekend comes... and you can't get anywhere!!!  I guess we manage... but still...

So one weekend of rest was enough we decided, so next Thursday (the 11th), Dan and I hopped on a bus from Haifa to Eilat, just for kicks.

I won't include a map, but Haifa is almost as far north on the coast as you can get, and Eilat is in the southernmost tip on the gulf.  6 hours on the bus.  Good weekend plan right?

Upon arriving we took a short taxi to the Yitzhak Rabin crossing and walked into Jordan!!  The border crossing is a peculiar experience.  It seems like it should be a tense experience, and in some ways it is.  Barbed wire.  Machine guns.  A weird walk through purgatory as you cross in between the two countries on foot with nobody around and just a fenced in path.  At the same time it is strangely casual though.  One of the guys with a machine gun was wearing a striped polo shirt (was he supposed to be there??).  The Jordanians joked with us and made fun of us etc.  The checkin seemed kind of haphazard... I don't really know what to think.  All I can say is that it makes a big difference that the two countries have a formal peace between them... cause it's either that experience or the one you get on the other borders (Lebanon, Syria) where, you know, you get arrested / sent back.  I take my wins where I get them.

From the border we took a 2 hour taxi to Petra, which was our ultimate destination for the weekend.  Petra is a popular destination from Israel, even more so after it was put on the new list of the 7 wonders of the world.  Very exciting.

Basically it is the remains of an ancient city that used to be a big trade hub back in the day... but the cool part is, the city was naturally hidden by a giant, long, narrow split in a mountain, and the city consists of facades and rooms carved out of the side of the cliffs.  Soooo cool.

Dan and I went down on Thursday, but Mike and Jon had to meet us the next day because of their classes.  The benefit of going down on Thursday was that we got to catch the last showing of the weekend of Petra By Night.  Petra By Night is when they set up little bag candles all along the walk through the canyon and into the opening at the end in front of one of the main buildings, called the Treasury.

Walk in.

This was the scene when we arrived at the Treasury.

Once here everyone sits down, gets really quiet, and the Bedouins bring you tea and play some music on their traditional instruments, and sing a song or two.  Did I mention... sooo cooooll???

Plus, also included in this trip is the

You look around, see the sand, candle lit stone facade, Bedouin music, eerie silence, stone cliffs, look up to the night sky, back to the sand, Holy &$%! I'm sitting in the middle of the desert in the middle of Jordan!!!!!!

moment.

Friday, we returned.. this time, Petra By Day.  I just made that up.  It's just normal Petra.

Here is the very same Treasury, by day.  If anyone has seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, you will recognize it from about 45 seconds of footage in the ending scenes.  The people here LOVE THAT. They are obsessed.  I hadn't seen the movie but our hostel showed it at night.  They have a "vote" every evening on what to watch.  Guess what is always watched.

We found Jordanians to be very nice.  Every night our hostel made us an all you can eat buffet.... um... favorite hostel ever?  Quite possible.  They know the way to my heart.

Roman theater... but carved out of a cliff!

Urn tomb... carved out of a cliff!

These things are everywhereee.  Hundreds.  Dan and I took a little side hike, detour thing.  We asked some guide for directions, and he told us where to go, and mentioned we could take the side hike as an alternate way back.

Guide: Ya you can check it out if you want.  Just make sure you have plenty of water... tourists tend to get lost up there, but you guys look young and fit.


As Dan likes to point out, we focused more on the "young and fit" and less on the, "people get lost up there".

We also had about a liter of water between us.

Hmmm..

Of course we went.  We were having trouble finding the entrance, and I jokingly pointed out some sort of rocky ledge.  We tried it out and it actually kind of worked... which should have been a bad sign, but at the time, it seemed ok...

I wouldn't say we got lost per say... but we did scramble all over rocks without much idea of where we were going, with the constant, "well we can just check over here", mentality digging us further and further into our hole of doom.  For over an hour...

On the plus side, we saw all sorts of cool formations off the beaten path from where all the tourists go... those little carved houses in the side of the mountains are eeeeverywhere!!!

So obviously we didn't die, but we almost did.  Totally.  It was intense.  We made it out on our last sips of water and drops of hope.  Enough drama.

Besides the Treasury, the other highlight is to do the 800 (time consuming) steps up to the Monastery, which is enormous and also awesome.

And we went to the "Best View in Petra" sign to look out over Wadi Arabia.

The next day we did a little more Petra stuff, but not too much, the one full long day took care of most of it, and you can only hear / see so many rocks in one blog entry.

Another highlight was the election of a political candidate in Wadi Musa (the town you stay in when you visit Petra) while we were there.  Dan and I were very disappointed that we missed the celebration, but Jon and Mike were able to stop by while we were doing some additional sightseeing.  To celebrate, they killed 10 camels and a lot more goats and made a feast.  Yahoooo!!!  My kind of party.

We all went back together on Saturday night into Eilat, walked the boardwalk a bit, then rested up for our marvelous 6 hour bus home.  This was one of those vacations that you need a vacation from when you get back... but totally worth it, very beautiful and unique.  Everyone should go!  (Stephen's Travel Agency).

For everyone doing the math, you already know that the next weekend was November 20th... which is when Anna arrived!!!  Therefore, the gap is filled, and blogging will henceforth resume in December.  Chilling I know.  (that one is for Mom)

Not Constantinople...

After my last update, which took place at the then present time, I will now naturally jump back in time to fill in some of the material between where I had previously left off, and Anna's visit.  Bear with me.

Speaking of the visit, another day's worth of pictures are now up... our trip to the Baha'i Gardens!

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Before Anna's visit, my last update had been me just arriving and settling into school, so let us pick up from there and I will try to move pretty quickly to get back to the present.

SO, I settled in the weekend of October 8th - 10th, toured the city a bit, yada yada, and then I had my first week of classes.  The next weekend (10/15 - 10/17), many of the international kids took a trip down to the Carmel beach on Friday.  I will spare you another picture of my "bronzed Mediterranean skin" for now.  Saturday / Sunday, there was a short school trip to Jerusalem, but having just came from Jerusalem, Mike and I instead took a day trip to Caesarea.  Caesarea is a town with a harbor that was renovated by King Herod (same guy who did Masada... it's old...) to make a big trading port and impress the Romans or something.  So, there are a lot of cool Roman ruins here and it is a very pretty area.

One thing that I found pretty cool here was that the harbor was not actually originally well suited for a deep water port, so Herod had the area dug deeper, and dropped a bunch of concrete crates (or something like that) into the water to create a seawall, and voila, deep water port.

Also, I made time to lounge in a roman bathtub.

It looks like a hot tub to me... mmm...

Further activities included exploring the various ancient temples, houses, the big Roman-style theater, and racing some horses around the giant Hippodrome.

I won.

Another highlight / signature landmark of Caesarea are the extensive aqueducts there, of which we visited a portion.  I think there were more farther down, but we had to do a fair bit of walking just to get to this chunk, and it was just a day trip soo.. you know.

After another enchanting week of class, I hopped on another school organized trip, this time up north for some hiking in the Golan Heights.

This is an interesting area, not just because it is very pretty, and has notable landmarks like the Sea of Galilee, but also because in recent history it has been a point of... tension... between Israel and Syria.  Syria was kind of upset when Israel took it from them some 40 odd years ago... Israel was upset that rockets were being shot from there into Israel... something along those lines.  No matter, we avoided any military skirmishes and enjoyed ourselves, and I myself am happy that Israel has the land since that means I can hike there.  Also so rockets don't come into Haifa and hit my blast room.

On the first day of hiking, I don't think we were technically in the heights, just the general area, Mt. Meron I believe.  Some nice views were seen by all, and I learned that Lebanon also borders Israel in this region.

I can see Lebanon from my house!  (Where all those green trees end in the distance and the rocks begin, that's the border.) 

Despite our ideas of taking a nice day trip to Lebanon since the border was soooo cloooseeee, no such detour was made.  We thought it might be perceived as a border raid or something.  Again, no military engagement on this trip.

To finish off the day we visited the recently rehabilitated Hulu Valley reserve for some bird watching, seen heaaare.

The next day it was on to the Yehudia trail in the Golan Heights.  This was the harder of the two options, and it proved to be a very beautiful walk through this rift thingy.

The hike was mostly along a stream, and we got to stop at multiple waterfalls for a little swimming, but the real challenge of the hike proved to be the deep pools that we had to cross in order to continue on the trail.

I know I know I was a swimmer, no problem crossing a pool right?  Well funnily enough, when I swam in high school I didn't have a backpack with my camera inside.  I double bagged that sucker, and jumped in with it held as high above my head as possible...

mmffttplahahhhgarglegarglegargle

Ya I don't float that well in the first place so I'm pretty sure all other people saw was my wrists sticking out of the water with my bag, and the rest of me completely under.  I managed to come up for air luckily, but this was much more strenuous than I expected.  I was very relieved to make it across... not as much to find out we had to do it twice.

Break for some tanned guys.

Final destination of the hike was a scenic cove area that was known as "Heaven".  Dramatic.  Very nice though.

Moving on.

classes classes... classes...

Next weekend!  Man those classes just fly by (For those keeping track this is weekend of 10/29 - 10/31 now).

At the beginning of this week, I didn't really have much planned.  On Monday or Tuesday, some very impulsive flights were booked, and suddenly I had plans.  For anyone paying attention to the titles of these posts, you have probably deduced that I must be talking about...

Question:  Not Constantinople?

Answer:  Istanbul!!

Sorry I couldn't resist... the song was stuck in my head for a week.  Don't feel badly if you missed it.

We flew out Thursday night and got 4 full days there, which was awesome because we got to see a ton of stuff.  Let's do the play-by-play and I'll describe everything we did in detail.  Or would you prefer the quick highlights?  Maybe quick highlights for now...

First day was cloudy and a little drizzly, so we did the big museum complex...

(The Alexander Sarcophagus, now believed not to have actually contained Alexander the Great, but still awesome.)

... and then the mosque colloquially known as the Blue Mosque.  This mosque is quite impressive from the outside, and it was made to rival / outdo the Hagia Sofia, which sits right across the square, although the general consensus is it failed to do that.  The inside is very beautiful too... my first time in a mosque!

We finished the day with the Basilica Cistern, a surprisingly large underground ancient water storage area with a Lord of the Rings esque feel to it.

Day 2 was none other than Istanbul's iconic gem, the Hagia Sofia.  Although we decided it was less picturesque from the outside, as compared with the Blue Mosque, the inside, plus the history, whole package, etc, is no contest.  The East meets West, Christianity meets Islam atmosphere and artwork (yay Art History 102!!), not to mention the amazing structure (yay Art History 101!!) makes this baby stand out.  It is especially cool to see the Christian art that is being revealed and restored after it was covered up when the building was converted from a basilica to a mosque.

After some walking around the city, general sightseeing and exploring type stuff, I believe this is the day that we punctuated with a visit to a Turkish Bath.  This is the one we went to.  Basically some big Turkish guy takes you into a sauna with a giant warm marble slab and all these guys lying all over it, scrubs you, suds you, washes you up, and then you have the option to follow this up with an oil massage (I chose to do this...).  AWEsome!!

Day 3 was a cruise on the Bosphorus, the river that splits the European side of Istanbul and the Asian side.

Bridge from one side to other.  I wanted to run back and forth (I'm in Europe!  I'm in Asia!  I'm in Europe!...) alas... no time.

Second half of the day was the expansive Tokapi Palace complex.  It was here that we heard about the suicide bombing in the main square (which we had spent our last 2 nights in), which was eerie, but as our roommates later excitedly observed, we now had the full Middle Eastern experience... sweet...

We also got to compare our parents' reactions... I won!!  Decisively won, with Dad calling the Turkish foreign minister.  Yay they doo love me!

Lot of interesting stuff in the palace.  Worth mentioning is the museum here in which they have Muhammad's footprint, Moses' staff, and Abraham's cooking pan.

...

Yaa...

...

With most of our major tourist sites out of the way, the last day we tried to get off the beaten path a bit, walked the streets, saw the massive aqueducts that span one of the main highways, a beautiful church, climbed up on some of the old city walls...

... and even managed to find a synagogue!  Just in time for a service!  Such good Jews.  We sat in and were blown away by the guy leading the service, who never stopped talking or opened his book.  Freakish.

Thus concluded an awesome trip to Istanbul, we all had a great great time and I would absolutely recommend the city.  It is tres beautiful, has a great atmosphere, and a ton of history, plus it is cool to be in the juncture between Europe and Asia.  If you have more time, the countryside of Turkey is supposed to be unbelievable as well... I am thinking of opening a travel agency, how's my pitch doing?

I hope nobody got any whiplash there, we were moving pretty quickly but the holes are almost all filled in, so hang in there.

Guest of Honor

I'm going to throw a wrench in the time-space continuum here and jump up to the present for this update.  I figure people will be wondering how Anna's visit went, so rather than writing too much about things that happened a month ago that people don't really care about, Anna and I will tell you how our week went... then it will be back to things that happened a month ago that you no longer care about.  

We will still probably write too much though.

Pictures of the visit are going up as you read... full albums of the first couple days are already available, I will alert you when more pictures are added to the album.

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Anna arrived on Saturday, November 20th around late morning.  Being a good boyfriend and all I took the taxi (no buses on Shabbat) down to the airport on the early side to make sure I would meet her off the plane.  About 45 minutes after I expected her to walk off I was getting a little concerned.  Turns out we missed each other somehow as she was exiting.  No idea how.  Good start to the visit though.

After that things went much more smoothly.  We walked around Tel Aviv, which is a fairly modern, big city, with shopping and a beach.  Anna didn't really like it.  Not.

Anna: "Oh. Em. Gee.  Tel Aviv."

It agreed with her.  Our Hostel was on Ben Yehuda street which is full of shopping.  Most were closed on Shabbat but Anna did her fair share of window shopping and made us stay in Tel Aviv on Sunday to go back for the real deal.

Still on Saturday, we went down to the beach so Anna could get her first ever contact with the Mediterranean Sea!!

Adrenaline pumping through her veins due to her recent arrival in Israel, Anna managed to stay up to 11 or 12 (a rare occurrence on this trip), and we stopped at a beach side bar before getting some much needed sleep.

As I mentioned, Anna wanted to stay in Tel Aviv on Sunday for awhile because the shops had reopened.  It was a close contest, but in the competition for our favorite shop, Anna's trip to the bead store lost out to our mutual enjoyment of I Love Cupcakes.  Yes, it exists.

We did a little more exploring Tel Aviv by day, revisited the beach...

... and finally went up to Haifa.  Settling with all our stuff, Anna unpacked while I smugly sat on my Ace in the Hole.  My secret surprise.  The thing that changes the nature of entire trips.  What Anna didn't know is that I had tickets tooooooo.... Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One!!!!

(insert Anna jumping around like a little girl)

The smartest thing I did here was not tell her what we were doing until we had already left for the movie, because as she put it: "I would have dressed up!!!!!"

The next day my afternoon class was canceled so we hopped on a short train and visited the ancient city of Akko (or Acre for you Westerners).

Anna's review of Akko:  "AAAkkkoooooo mmmmm.  The history geek in me was very giddy.  Lot of cats though.  Touristy Turkish bath was my favorite part (tour, not a functional one).  I felt like I had gone back through time.  Actually my favorite part was the Citadel."

There you have it.  We both loved it, it was very scenic, and there were many layers of history including ancient Arab civilizations, Crusaders, Templars, you name it.

We had a disagreement with some employees that led to our confinement to the dungeons...

The next day Anna joined me in my afternoon class, Rabbinic Literature, and multiple times she commented / answered questions to the teacher's delight and her embarrassment.  "I was just in class mode."  This was one of those days where she fell asleep at 8.  Burned off too much energy in class we think.  More likely, the energy burned probably came from her preparing an entire makeshift Thanksgiving feast with the ingredients Mom sent over.  Armed with only a hot plate and a toaster oven, she managed to satisfy the ravenous hunger of 5 college boys yearning for an American taste of home on the holidays.  Twas yummy.

Wednesday she took an afternoon nap, and despite feeling oddly nauseous (I think she ate too much Thanksgiving Stove Top Stuffing while cooking), she managed to struggle through a bus ride so that we could visit the beautiful Baha'i Gardens before she left.  One of the landmarks of Haifa, and the major global center for the Baha'i faith, these exquisitely maintained gardens are enormous and a can't miss attraction.  We visited all 3 levels thanks to a friendly taxi driver.

The street at the bottom is the German colony, a fun place to eat, especially since when it gets dark the Gardens get beautifully lit up.  Anna brought us to a Tappas restaurant (my first), and after some yummy Chorizos I didn't question her choices on where to eat for the rest of the trip.

Back on campus we took a long walk back so I could show Anna a great scenic overlook of the area below Haifa, courtesy of a building roof that sticks out off the hill.

All too quickly we had to say goodbye to Haifa, and we packed up all our stuff and hopped on a 2 hour bus to Jerusalem.  Before we did this I had to take my Hebrew midterm.  How unfair that I had to be studying for that the one week Anna visits.  Not to worry... I didn't loose too much time prepping for it... hehe.

We got to Jerusalem mid afternoonish, and with a full agenda of things to see, we wanted to knock off one item on our todo list with the remaining daylight.  So of course the first thing Anna got to do on her first ever trip to Jerusalem was Yad Vashem (Holocaust museum and memorial).  Uplifting.  Given that she cries at credit card commercials, this was... well ya you get it.

Despite the content, we both actually really enjoyed the complex and found it to be very well done.  The layout was very intuitive, the material was informative and touching, and it was a good ratio of learning to crying. (Anna: "hey! I wasn't too bad....")

Not wanting the first day to be a to much of a downer, we were looking for something cheerful to do, and as if by divine intervention (cue light from above), my Aunt Norma called and asked if we wanted to meet her for dinner.

Free dinner?  Stephen's wallet jumped for joy.

Joking aside, we had a very nice dinner... I had never met Norma (my great aunt), and she brought her granddaughter, Netta, who is studying for her masters in archeology, so Anna didn't have much trouble making conversation...  Common interest or something.  Despite Anna's suspicions about going to an Italian restaurant in the German Colony in Israel, the meals were very good, not to mention dessert.  Chocolate souffle and tiramisu.  MMMMmmmm.  We really enjoyed talking to Aunt Norma and Netta, hearing about their lives in Israel, and eating some good food of course.

Friday was a jampacked day, which meant starting bright and early to get everything done.  After meeting my friend Mike and his sister (also named Rachel) the night before (his family was visiting Israel as well), we ran into them again this morning at the City of David, and later in the Old City.

City of David is the ancient biblical city that David built (super old, 3000 years or something I think), including possible remains of his palace, just discovered...

... and water tunnels (Hezekiah's Tunnels) that those old people used to divert water into the city.

Anna: "Hands down favorite thing on any vacation ever."

Bold statement, Anna.  It was very cool though.  They let you walk through by yourself in the pitch black (mandatory flashlight costs 4 shekels), and you are wading through water the entire way.  The water is mostly ankle to mid calf deep, but at the beginning for a couple minutes it was up to my mid-thigh.  I had to hold up my shorts and everything.  I think it went up to Anna's armpits or something.  I couldn't see.  It probably took us 30 something minutes to walk through.  SO COOL.

Please note: the writing of this post was just interrupted as we arrived at the airport.  Anna was "successfully dropped off", and despite receiving a 5 out of 6 from the initial security check (before even checking in) and earning an extra baggage check, I did manage to see her through the check in and left her in the regular post-check in security line.  The rest of the post will continue with a more somber tone.  Also no more contributions from Anna.

Now with feet all squeaky clean and the like, we crossed the street to enter the Old City.  The City of David is right across from the entrance to the Western Wall, so Anna was getting a dramatic entrance.  Yes that also means that her first time going into the Old City was through the Dung Gate.  Yes she made some sort of lame comment about this.  We are mature.

Anna loved the Old City of course.  We did some shopping in the Jewish Quarter (Happy Chanukah),

visited some of the shops in the Muslim bazaar (the farther in you go the more bizarre it gets), and we saw the Church of the Holy Sepulcher to balance out the Jewishness of the Wall.  And cool graffiti.

The Old City makes for a tiring day.  Anna fell asleep at like 9 again.  To be fair it was Shabbat and the city was more or less closed down by Friday night so we didn't miss much.  I think I fell asleep too.

Saturday we got up a couple hours later, maybe around 9 or 9:30, to head to the Israel Museum.  Our friendly hotel owner (I think we agreed he was probably the best hotel owner ever... very nice and funny... in fact, he deserves a sidebar for a second here...

Here was a critical encounter in our vacation:

Anna: "Where is the best falafel?"

Awesome Hotel Owner: "Falafel?"

Anna: "Yes."

AHO: "Go outside and go down Ben Yehuda (there is a Ben Yehuda Street in practically every city).  Go to Mr. Moshiko's.  Ask for a Lafa bread, a little spicy, not too hot!, and the salad on it.  Little tehina and *insert slurping noise*."

Anna & Stephen: "OK!"

He was correct.  It's actually just Moshiko's, no Mr., but Best Falafel Eva.  I am so hungry thinking about it right now.  Lafa bread is more tortillaish in shape, rather than a pita, except it is thicker and nummier.  Almost like Naan bread.  And the falafel and ingredients were to dieee for.  I think Anna ate here 3 different times in our time in Jerusalem.  Oh man... I'm taking the bus back next weekend... resuming...) 

warned us that the museum had been redone and you could easily spend the whole day there.  He was very right.  After spending multiple hours in just the archeology wing of the new part, we were already depleted.  There were at least a couple more full wings for things like art and such, but we simply could not do these.  Gives us a reason to go back I guess.

Part of the reason we had to stop in the new part was because if you go to the museum and miss the older exhibits then you fail.

First we saw the giant model of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period (1st couple centuries BCE - 70 CE).  Very cool.  Then we went to the Shrine of the Book, which is probably the biggest attraction here. It houses the Aleppo Codex, which was pretty much the oldest and authoritative copy of the Hebrew Bible (I think it was dated about 1000, so it is about 1000 years old).  I say it was the oldest because about 60 years ago the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered, and these predated it by 1000 years... so these babies are 2000+ years old... and they are in this exhibit as well.  The roof is made to look like the jars they were discovered in, and inside the main room you feel like you are in one of the clay jars with the scrolls... and a bunch of tourists.

After spending at least 4 hours total in this museum (and gift shop... Happy Chanukah again), Anna decided she wanted to squeeze in a visit to the Mount of Olives, the mountain adjacent to the main hills of the more central parts of Jerusalem.  It contains many ooollddd Jewish graves, as well as some Muslim and Christian ones, has the Church of the Ascension, Virgin Mary's tomb, and a killer view from the top.  We did our best to see things even though stuff was closing down.  We walked by most of the sites, even the beautiful Mary Magdelene church, we got a good view from the top, saw Virgin Mary's tomb, and to cap it all we TOTALLY rode a camel on top!!!  Hehe yay camel!

Notice the view in the background.  See the gold dome of the Dome of the Rock?  Mount of Olives has a great view of the Temple Mount.

Graves.

Dome.

Thus concluded a great visit from Anna (from my perspective), and a great trip to Israel (from Anna's perspective).  In fact, she's not here anymore...

Anna: "Israel was the best vacation of my life.  Everybody should go.  I loved every second.  I wish I could speak Hebrew fluently like Stephen.  Also Stephen knew exactly what he was doing at all times and never got lost.  These are also reasons why this trip was by far the best thing I have ever done ever.  I love cupcakes."

Aww thanks for that Anna, I liked the trip too.

Although I should mention it wasn't quite over.  We had tried to visit the Temple Mount Saturday morning only to be informed that it was strangely closed on Saturday, despite us reading it should have been open.  So we woke up at 7am to visit it Sunday morning and then rushed back to you know make the flight and everything.  No biggie.

This was awesome as well.  The Dome of the Rock is so beautiful, and it was crazy to think that 2000 years ago there was a giant Jewish temple here as well.  The mount itself is pretty much original so the ground is the same... the mosque and Dome are a little more recent... but still old.

I hesitate to include this, but I know Anna will get mad if I don't... although I like to think I know what I am doing after all this time here, I still get my pride handed to me on a silver platter once in awhile.  Today it was a lesson in "modesty".  Apparently even shorts that go to your knees are not "modest" by Islamic standards, and so upon arriving on the Temple Mount, I was informed that I was inappropriately dressed.  You know me... always dressing risque and the likes.

Solution?  I got sent over to this guy who sells these pieces of fabric to people like me.  I asked how much... 50 shekels.  50 shekels????  I got him to give it to me for 40... but needless to say, classic lesson in supply and demand here.  The econ major inside me is still reeling from the blow.

Also, it was basically a makeshift skirt.  So Anna laughed at me the whole time while I was walking around in this corny skirt, and triumphing in the fact that for once she was the more appropriately dressed / prepared.  I think it might have been a message from above that I was violating my Jewish contract or something.  Either from that or the Israeli government.  Something like that.

I Lose.

Anna Wins.  There I said it.

Worth the trouble though:

We rushed back, made a bunch of busses and connections, and long story short Anna should be on a plane right now returning to the good ol US of A.

Sooo Anna, thanks for organizing / paying / sacrificing weeks of sleep schedule to come visit!! (and Papa & Nanna Cleary of course)  I'm sad to see her go, and the trip flew by for both of us I think, but I guess on the plus side I'll be able to see all my friends again, and I should be able to slow down my money spending to about 1/3 of the rate of the last week.  Yikes.  Plus even though I have to say goodbye, I know a lot of people at home are glad to be getting her back, so it's all good.  Enjoy the month or whatever crazy long winter break she has now!  I'll just be over here slavin away at the books... don't mind me...