I apologize for not having posted in a long time. There were finals and lots of homework. There were a couple weeks where we couldn't even get out of the Center for the large amounts of homework. So, again, sorry.
Also, I apologize for no pictures in this post, I don't have them available to me at this time. As for the Egypt pictures, I haven't been able to get to where I can fix them yet.
Anyway, where to start... I guess I can start just with some of the stuff that I've done that comes to mind. The other day we went to the Jewish Quarter. The main thing we did there was take a tour of the New Hurva Synagogue. That was really cool. It's this huge synagogue that was only built about five years ago. It was built on the spot where the old synagogue had been destroyed in the 40s. There was a great view from the top. Our tour guide told us a story about how, when he was a youth, some of his friends snuck into the mosque right next to it (the spot) and switched the tape so that instead of the call to prayer it played "All You Need is Love". I thought that was an amusing story.
Yesterday we went to the Burnt House and the Herodian Quarter in the Jewish Quarter. It was really cool to see those old houses. There were some very nice mosaics in some of those bathrooms. We also went to the Temple Institute. The Temple Institute has all of the things ready and waiting that they will need and use once the Third Temple is built. It was really cool seeing the High Priest's garments and all the stuff that will go in there.
Today we did a lot. First we went to the Dome of the Rock. That was cool. Saw some capitals from pillars that were on Herod's Temple. Some of them still have paint and gold on them. Sadly, for that portion of the day my camera was accidentally set to 1 megapixel. Whoops. At least those ones will be easy to post. We also saw the top of the western part of the wall of Solomon's complex.
Then we went to the Roman Plaza. You go down through the Roman period Damascus Gate and go in and look at the old Roman plaza that they have excavated down there. Then we went to the Rockefeller Museum. That was pretty cool. There was all sorts of cool old stuff there. To finish today we went to the Israel Museum. There was all sorts of super cool stuff there. Sennacherib's Prism (where he tells of his conquest of Judah), one of the Lachish Letters (Telling of the impending Assyrian invasion ["We cannot see the signal fire of Azekah!"]), and the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was pretty cool.
Next week we go to Galilee for 10 days. That should be fun. I'll see if I can write about it when I get back. We only have three days of turnaround between Galilee and Jordan.
