The church of the nativity is built over where Christ was probably born and is the oldest standing christian church in existence. Unlike I had previously thought, the nativity doesn't necesarily mean a barn, rather a cave where animals were kept. This picture is of all the students in the cave where we got to sing a few songs, inlcluding my two favorite Christmas songs, "O Holy Night" and "Silent Night." It was a spiritual experience to imagine that we were right where Christ was born.
This past week we went to Southern Israel to the city of Eilat to go snorkeling in the Red Sea. It is world famous for it's coral reefs. I saw some pretty cool fish including a three foot long octopus. This was my first real time swimming in the ocean since I went to Hawaii in 8th grade. My roomates and I also got a little red as you can tell. The person that put the sunscreen on my back forgot a one inch section above my pants, luckily it doesn't hurt that bad. On the return trip (its four hours each way) the bus stopped so we could get gelato. I got pistachio and it was the best ice cream i've ever had! Fun Trip!
Dad, this post is mostly for you to give you some toy ideas for the yard. Tel Aviv has a bunch of adult playgrounds along the coastline that are really fun to play on. I have a lot of pictures of different things but have posted my two favorite. The first is this big spinning rope swing and the other is of a cool workout like running toy. Fun ideas!
This week we had "Arab night" which included an arab dinner with REALLY good food, the call to prayer, and Palestinian dancing....and of course some of us dressed up. In my other post I mentioned the aggressive vendors in Egypt. Well, notice that my man dress is the only one with Egyptian Hieroglyphs on it...that's because there's a small story behind it. I didn't want it...so I offered a ridiculously low price to the vendor. He started at 60 dollars, so I offered him 5 so that he would tell me to get lost. But after a minute or two of struggling he accepted my offer and I was like 'doh.' So I had to buy it. But it has turned out to be the most popular piece of attire in the Center. The other picture shows where we went to learn about the 7 species of plants mentioned in the scriptures. I also had the chance to herd sheep.
This first picture is just cool. Farm land with powerlines and pyramids in the background, plus me with my Harry Potter scar. It shows the contrast of Egypt. The next two pictures are of the Muhammed Ali Mosque in Cairo. It is one of the biggest mosques in the world and it was really cool to go inside. The hanging lights were pretty unique. In the background of the mosque you can see Cairo. Cairo has the largest number of mosques in the world, well over 1000. I was surprised how friendly most of the people were (except for the vendors). The last picture shows the Luxor temple at night. There are some things in the Egyptian temples that are very similar to our modern temples.
You'll all probably think this is cool since our coffee table is made out of one of these. Notice the wheat thrasher in the bottom of the picture. This is how they would use it in the good o' days. They would pull it around and it would seperate the grain from the rest of the wheat. When the women would make the bread each day it was a process that took between 2-3 hours.