It’s a Small World

And so things changed. Instead of waking up to Dalen and Karen making coffee and breakfast, we woke up to James making a more complicated espresso drink for the four coffee junkies in our group. Instead of large breakfasts involving eggs, meat, hummus and pitas, we ate toast and butter. Copious amounts of butter.

We’ve been asked by so many people if we don’t get bored of going to the same places over and over, and the answer is a resounding no. For starters, we’re always with a different crowd so that gives it a different flare. Also the information overload a person gets while visiting Israel is huge, so we’re still learning new stuff and absorbing the old. And the excavations never cease, so there is always new stuff to see. What’s really neat is all the Jesus stuff they are uncovering. It wasn’t that many years ago when you really couldn’t see very many authentic spots, but now there are several places you can honestly walk where He walked. That’s a bit mind blowing.

A place we absolutely love going is City of David National Park, an archeological site where they have uncovered so much from the time of King David and later. Every year there’s a whole bunch of new stuff to see, and the crowning joy is walking through Hezekiah’s water tunnel. Once again we had a group that was ready and willing to do it, so we spent 20 minutes in the dark, slogging through calf deep, sometimes thigh deep water. We had our phones for flashlights, so it wasn’t totally spooky, and it sure enough was fun! The tunnel is 700 meters long. It’s fairly skinny, you wouldn’t be able to comfortably pass anyone, and it curves around amazingly much. The workmen dug from both ends and you can see where they met in the middle by the way the marks on the walls change. The tunnel spits you out at the Pool of Siloam, where you can sit on the edge, dry off a little and marvel at how cool that just was.

Leaving the City of David, we walked the path through the Kidron Valley to Gethsemane. It’s a long steep walk, and much farther than you imagine in your mind. The hillsides are covered with grass, flowers and thousands of graves. At the bottom of the Valley is Absalom’s pillar, a monument that Jesus would have passed on his walk. High on the hill behind you is Temple Mount in all its splendor, and ahead on the hill is the olive grove. Near the garden there is a small cave church that is dedicated to the disciples that slept. Tradition has it that this cave was often used by travelers as a resting spot, so it could well be the actual spot.

By the time we had climbed back through the valley and reentered the Old City, some of us were feeling rather winded. Jerusalem involves a lot of walking, and none of it is flat. Add crowds of people yet and you can feel exhausted rather quickly if you aren’t used to it or still have, say, strep throat.

We were a sleepy bunch that evening, but Heath and I still shocked the cousins (these couples are all my cousins) by going to bed so early. It was probably 9 or so, and we had just spent the last two weeks hitting it pretty hard and getting up at 4:45am…. Needless to say their chatter didn’t disturb us in the least. And it didn’t actually take that many days before they were just as happy for bed as we were. Nothing like fresh air, hiking, and new sights to give you a good nights sleep!