This morning I left my house to see the usual hazy morning. Every day this week has been ridiculously humid in the AM. Of course, by midday, the sun burns away all the moisture. This morning, though, I lugged my bike out my front gate to see what looked like . . . water drops on the ground. Rain? No way! I felt little drops hitting me and looked around . . .
Nope. No rain. It was SO humid that the dew on the tree in front of my house was dripping onto the ground. The whole ride to school I was getting covered in suspended water droplets. It's kind of nice, but it makes me sweat even more when I get to the hospital. The elevator is usually really toasty, so each morning I make a beeline for the bathroom to soak the sweat off my face with a paper towel. Gross, right? Life in the desert. I love it. (No, really, I do!)
It's not going to rain until December. Weather here is actually reliable. I would even bet on it. No way I would ever do that in Ohio.
A week ago (I'm sorry, I haven't gotten around to posting it - been studying, studying, studying), some classmates and I had a fantastic day! Last Thursday, we had the day off for "moving day," so of course we started scheming our adventure for the day (all of us had already moved). What started as a plan to float in the Dead Sea turned into mountain-climbing, mud-slathering, Jerusalem-bartering, midnight Medi-swimming amazingness!
First, we rented a brand new Toyota Corolla for two days. At the suggestion of my beautiful housemate Dilia, we planned to leave in the super-early morning (4am) to get to Masada (the history of Masada can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada) and hike to the top to see the sun rise over the Dead Sea. It's arguably the most beautiful sunrise in the world.
So, we did.
Despite some broken flip-flops (not mine), we still made it to the top before the sunrise. I think that can mostly be blamed on the huge cloud covering the horizon.
So we took a photograph, celebrating our successful ascent . . .
And a short while later, the sun started to peek through . . .
The body of water is the Dead Sea :D
And then I held the sun. . .
Then we ventured out to explore the ancient settlement of Masada. Diana and I climbed a wall (it's just as high on the other side).
And my friend Seungjin took a J.J. Abrams-esque shot of me in the arch :D
And we enjoyed the view together!
The drop on the other side of that wall is pretty awesomely steep. Actually, it's probably only like 300 feet down. It still freaks my mom out to look at this picture:
We went on to explore more sites on the plateau. This is a cistern that held King Herod's water for him (his winter palace was located on Masada). Yes, this is the King Herod that killed all the babies. You will hear some comments about this later. We actually met Herod while we were there, and he shared a little about his life.
We are the shadow people! (Or most of us, anyway.)
This is the bath house. Those little pillar things used to hold up the floor, and they would run hot water underneath to heat the bath house. Neat, right?
The man in the video at the tourist center said that the architect who designed the bath house was likely a very small man. I had to crouch down to walk through the archways. I agree with the man in the video.
These are ruins from King Herod's palace 2,000 years ago, complete with original artwork! Also, complete with Herod himself. I recorded our interview with him, as he shares about his life at Masada :)
The doves comment refers to another site on Masada, where they say that doves were raised for fertilization and food. It was pretty hilarious.
This is Masada from the ground.
After Masada, we went to the tourist center to have some glida for breakfast (frozen yogurt), which was our only option because nothing else was open. We hiked back down to the cars shortly after to have a smorgasbord brunch, including pitas, hommus, amazing salsa made by Esther, tortilla chips, ice-cold water (by this time it's about 10am and the sun is already blazing hot), fruit, and other various snackables.
I have to pause here and say that if our day had ended at this point and we went home, I would have been satisfied. I had so much fun that morning with some fantastic people from MSIH. (/end mushiness)
But our day continued! We loaded back into the cars and drove along the Dead Sea for quite a distance, most of which was within the West Bank. We were trying to find a specific resort, but I suppose we passed it, because the Dead Sea ended and we hadn't found it yet. Instead, we found this place:
Which is a Dead Sea mud beach! Woohoo, mud! On the far side of the sea in the picture is the country of Jordan. We were at the edge of Israel.
And then. . .we played in the mud!
Nope. No rain. It was SO humid that the dew on the tree in front of my house was dripping onto the ground. The whole ride to school I was getting covered in suspended water droplets. It's kind of nice, but it makes me sweat even more when I get to the hospital. The elevator is usually really toasty, so each morning I make a beeline for the bathroom to soak the sweat off my face with a paper towel. Gross, right? Life in the desert. I love it. (No, really, I do!)
It's not going to rain until December. Weather here is actually reliable. I would even bet on it. No way I would ever do that in Ohio.
A week ago (I'm sorry, I haven't gotten around to posting it - been studying, studying, studying), some classmates and I had a fantastic day! Last Thursday, we had the day off for "moving day," so of course we started scheming our adventure for the day (all of us had already moved). What started as a plan to float in the Dead Sea turned into mountain-climbing, mud-slathering, Jerusalem-bartering, midnight Medi-swimming amazingness!
First, we rented a brand new Toyota Corolla for two days. At the suggestion of my beautiful housemate Dilia, we planned to leave in the super-early morning (4am) to get to Masada (the history of Masada can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada) and hike to the top to see the sun rise over the Dead Sea. It's arguably the most beautiful sunrise in the world.
So, we did.
Despite some broken flip-flops (not mine), we still made it to the top before the sunrise. I think that can mostly be blamed on the huge cloud covering the horizon.
So we took a photograph, celebrating our successful ascent . . .
And a short while later, the sun started to peek through . . .
And then I held the sun. . .
Then we ventured out to explore the ancient settlement of Masada. Diana and I climbed a wall (it's just as high on the other side).
And my friend Seungjin took a J.J. Abrams-esque shot of me in the arch :D
And we enjoyed the view together!
The drop on the other side of that wall is pretty awesomely steep. Actually, it's probably only like 300 feet down. It still freaks my mom out to look at this picture:
We went on to explore more sites on the plateau. This is a cistern that held King Herod's water for him (his winter palace was located on Masada). Yes, this is the King Herod that killed all the babies. You will hear some comments about this later. We actually met Herod while we were there, and he shared a little about his life.
The doves comment refers to another site on Masada, where they say that doves were raised for fertilization and food. It was pretty hilarious.
After Masada, we went to the tourist center to have some glida for breakfast (frozen yogurt), which was our only option because nothing else was open. We hiked back down to the cars shortly after to have a smorgasbord brunch, including pitas, hommus, amazing salsa made by Esther, tortilla chips, ice-cold water (by this time it's about 10am and the sun is already blazing hot), fruit, and other various snackables.
I have to pause here and say that if our day had ended at this point and we went home, I would have been satisfied. I had so much fun that morning with some fantastic people from MSIH. (/end mushiness)
But our day continued! We loaded back into the cars and drove along the Dead Sea for quite a distance, most of which was within the West Bank. We were trying to find a specific resort, but I suppose we passed it, because the Dead Sea ended and we hadn't found it yet. Instead, we found this place:
And then. . .we played in the mud!
Look at those mud monsters! Yes, that is a chunk of mud on my head :)
So, we relaxed on the beach for a bit, read some, slept some, sunbathed some, then we decided to go to Jerusalem to the market and for dinner. We cleaned up, piled in the cars, and continued our trek through the West Bank. During that trek, we saw a couple settlements, like this one:
Settlements are explained in this article, if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement
In Jerusalem, we split up to do various things, and some of us went to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher to see the place where tradition says Jesus was buried. The line was too long during our first trip to Jerusalem, so we took advantage of the time we had. Then, we went to the Armenian Tavern, which is a restaurant highly recommended by Lonely Planet. It reminded me of a ritzy antique store:
And the waiter took our picture! We sat on art!
A pretty magical day, right? We finally decided the time had come to go back to Be'er Sheva. But wait . . . on the way, our car decides to stop in Ashkelon to swim in the Mediterranean Sea in the dark. Unfortunately, it was about midnight, and I couldn't get any pictures. We went to a beach with no breakers, so the waves were so vicious. It was so much fun! I could barely see the waves that were about to knock the wind out of me :)
So finally, we drove home, back to Be'er Sheva, after traversing all over the great State of Israel, from the far East to the North to the far West. Everyone had a blast, and that day was definitely the highlight of my time here thusfar!
Back to studying, now! Lehitra'ot!
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