Shephelah Field Trip

Ciao famiglia!

We've passed 1 month! I've been gone for about 5 weeks. Pretty amazing, right? Well let me show you what's been happening in this week. 

Monday we went to the Shephlah which is the low hill area between the Judaen highlands and the flat lands by the Mediterranean. It was a long, but pretty amazing field trip. We stopped by Samson's home valley, twice at the Elah valley, once to get up on the hill and look down and talk about David and Goliath and signal with some mirrors, and once to sling some stones like professional shepherds. I'm actually pretty good. :) The David and Goliath story has always been one of my favorites, and to see where it actually happened...I was able to imagine it pretty clearly. Plus military strategy i always fun to do random trivia on. Our last stop was at Laceesh, the last city to be conquered during invasions before the invaders headed up to Jerusalem. Dr. Mulestein talked very frankly about what it would have been like there. The inhabitants tore apart their houses to block a siege ramp. They held the door closed with all their might. We may or may not have trespassed on an archeological dig to get right up close to the gate where it happened--the fence was down, so we assumed we could go in. Dr. Mulestein knows these things. He's an archaeologist. It was a long, and tiring field trip, but a really fun one!!!

Emma and I by the valley of Elah

Me, Emma and Christa at the Bell Caves. We sang some songs in this wonderful, echo-y cave.

Tuesday was all about the Festival of Lights in the Old city. It's the only night this whole semester where we are allowed out at night, so we were all pretty excited. It was a night of music and lights and a lot of walking. After two long days before, I was so exhausted! But we found some delicious pastries at the Jewish Bakery and i found a bookstore that I really want to visit. I'm sure you can all guess why. :) We had a fun night!