Whirlwind of a Weekend (and Monday)

Hello from Israel!

Before I dive into everything that has been going on since our arrival yesterday morning in Israel, I need to catch you up on Friday and Saturday. Well, Friday morning started off with a tragedy, I'm serious. I was getting ready in the morning, my netbook on my bed, and somehow I knocked it off, cool clumsy Bonnie, right? Even cooler is that my screen was completely cracked. I'm not going to lie to you. I cried, a lot. Everyone was super sweet and offered to let me use theirs, Vicky (our greek teacher and also consierge type person) even offered to install and English program on hers and let me use it for the rest of the semester. Dr James took me and Angela to Kotsovolos, kind of the Greek version of best buy to see what options were. I left feeling kind of defeated looking at the ridiculous prices. Later, with some advice from mom and dad I just decided that I was going to go for it.

So, Saturday we didn't have classes since we were leaving for Israel the next day, so Dr. James brought me and Angela to Kotsovolos where I spent an embarrassing amount of money on a new netbook, but I have since decided that it was completely worth it :). Then he took us to the Koropi metro where we went into Athens for the day! We explored the Plaka and did some shopping, I got a couple of things for some people at home and a ring for myself, we'll call it, "my greece ring" or we could not. So we just explored for a bit, met a super nice couple from Ohio, talked to several of the shopkeepers, one who remembered me from the other day, and just had a great time! At around 3 we took the metro back to Koropi where I met about 15 other people from our group to go to an AEK soccer game. It was AWESOME! The fans were just so excited, and it was in the Olympic Stadium!! Being the avid soccer fan that I am (Sarcasm intended), I had no idea what was going on, but it was just a really awesome experience :). We then got back and stayed up way too late packing and talking and just being excited!

We definitely regretted that the next day though, we left bright and early at 7:30 for the airport. We safely arrived at Tel Aviv a couple of hours later, and I was just struck with the disbelief that we are in ISRAEL! It is nothing what I expected, I don't really know what I expected, but it definitely is not how beautiful this place is! So yesterday we were supposed to just come back to the hotel and sleep and get ready for the week and sleep, but our tour guide, Yosi, had other plans in mind. We went to the city Jaffa (Jappa), and it was absolutely beautiful! It's a seaside town of the Mediterranean, and it's where Simon the Tanner's house was. There was also a replica of an Egyptian gate that once stood there. We eventually got to our hotel and I took a two hour coma like nap before dinner. After dinner I went down to the beach with a few people and then we got Ice cream and talked to the girl named Gal that worked there. She was really cool, spoke perfect English, and was our age. I meant to go to bed early, but you know, we all just get to talking and before you know it it's past midnight and we're leaving the hotel at 8.

Today was a crazy crazy day, but so incredible! I woke up early to have an excellent skype date and then had breakfast. After breakfast we set out to start our day. Before I tell you about it, let me share with you that it rained all. day. long. But that's okay! Everything was still great and Yosi kind of rearranged our schedule and showed us things where you could stay covered. We first hit up Caesarea, and it was incredible! We saw where the port was that King Herod built along with the public bathhouses and the theater. It was truly a way impressive city in it's day. It also just helps so much to picture Biblical stories and to bring them to life. After Caesarea we went to Mt. Carmel. It was pouring so we just went through the museum. I never realized before that the Phoenecians were actually the Canaanites, it put an entirely new perspective in my head.

After Mt. Carmel we went to Beth Sherma where we saw caves where the Jews would bury their dead. It was so cool, and yet incredibly eerie. We're the first group to get to do that though, so that was definitely cool. As we were in further we sang a couple of songs and the echoing was just magical. We then ate lunch and got Falafel Shawrmas which I apparently love. They were super good! After lunch we went over to Nazareth. We started with the new church that was built over the ancient village of Nazareth. It was built in the 1960's so it's still quite new. We then got to see the ancient village of Nazareth. We saw the main square of the village, even typing this now I still just cannot believe that I was there, where Jesus for sure was. It's the most humbling awe-inspiring sight. Another super cool thing we did was we saw a recreation of first century Nazareth. It was really neat to see everything how it actually would have looked.

This trip I can tell is going to change my life. It already has and is just going more and more daily.

I love you all!