Kat's Visit: Part Three

Apologies for the hiatus, readers!  I am constantly up to my ears in reading for my classes, and midterms are looming on the horizon, so I've been hard-pressed to find time for blogging.  But now, we resume the adventure!

When last we saw our lovely heroines...

...they had eaten delicious soup in downtown Jerusalem and went home to bed.  The next day a bigger adventure was in store -- we visited Bethlehem!  Katherin's friend Jess has two friends, Jeff and Julie, who recently moved to Bethlehem, and she kindly connected us so that we'd be set with tour guides and transportation advisors =) Because Bethlehem is in the West Bank, it's a bit trickier to get to than some places I've visited, but it's definitely one of the easier cities to access.  We took one of the Arab buses right into the city, and were met by Jeff.

We chatted as we strolled through the souq (Arabic : souq :: Hebrew : shuk) to Nativity Square, where we sat and enjoyed some delicious mint lemonade.  Then Julie got out of her Arabic lesson and picked us up, and we went and had a delicious lunch at a restaurant called The Grotto overlooking Shepherd's Field (believed to be where the angel came and told the shepherds of Jesus' birth).  I had shrimp (yay non-kosher food), Kat had pigeon, Jeff and Julie had some amazing chicken, and we all shared some delicious salads and kubbeh, which is basically deep-fried lamb (sooo delicious).  Then after a quick drive through Bethlehem to see some of the urban art reacting to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- very cool.  Then we hit the tourist sites with Jeff:  Church of the Nativity...

















...the Milk Grotto...

...and a museum of creches from around the world.  Finally we grabbed a bus back to Jerusalem and packed our backpacks before going to bed early in order to rest up for our next adventures.


The next day, we hopped on the light rail to the Central Bus Station and took a bus to Masada, ruins from the Great Revolt of the Jews which was 66CE-70CE.  From up there, there's some gorgeous views of our next stop, the Dead Sea!

 The interesting thing about Masada, one of the last holdouts before being conquered by the Roman army, was that when the soldiers saw that they were going to lose, they all committed suicide rather than be enslaved by the Romans.

We took the cable car up (it was very hot, too hot for a 45-minute uphill hike) and wandered the ruins for a while.  The black line on the wall shows where the ruins were when they were found; they've since been built back up.

It was really interesting, and I can't wait to go back -- I'll have a field trip there with my Second Temple Judaism class, and I'm thinking about bringing M&D on a sunrise hike there when they visit.

We grabbed a quick lunch from the Masada shop, then caught a bus to Ein Bokek to have a float in the Dead Sea.

It was actually REALLY cool!  The Dead Sea is approximately 33% solid matter with all the minerals in it, and it is reputed to have remarkable healing powers.  But the awesome thing is that you can float around wherever you want and it's nearly impossible to sink.  We both went in for two floats and to take some pictures before we rinsed off and grabbed pizza, lemonade, and ice cream for dinner.

Finally we hopped on a bus to Eilat and went to the Corinne Hostel, where we spent about eight hours before departing on a tour to Jordan.  More on that next time -- the final installment of the Kat's visit epic!

In other news, I had an interview with the summer job I'm dying to get.  It wasn't fabulous, but I think it went fine...keep your fingers crossed for me!  It's now time to wait, I won't hear back until the middle of December.  This weekend I went on a day trip to Hebron with Green Olive Tours, a really amazing tour company that helps tourists get an inside look at life in the Middle East.  It was an incredible day with three dear friends:  Charlotte, Arielle, and Steph!  It merits a blog post all its own, so I will update on that once I finish Kat's trip -- soon, I hope!  My internship is going swimmingly, and I will be sad to have to miss it next week, but with good reason -- I am going on a weekend trip sponsored by the school to Arad in the Negev desert.  Here's the description the madrichim gave us of the trip:  "Friday will be dedicated to a short beautiful hike in Abuv Stream.  We will return to the hostel in time for Kabalat Shabbat and Friday night Dinner which will be followed by our traditional Friday Night Activity!  Saturday will be a relaxing fun day - you'll get to choose between interesting indoor and outdoor Shabbat activities which will be suitable for Shomer Shabbat students."  Should be fun!  But it means I've got to get my academic butt in gear this week so that I don't have to bring too many course readers and midterm papers with me...ouch.  So far so good -- I'm done with my reading through Tuesday, so I can spend the rest of the week finishing the rest of my reading and getting ahead on the next week!  There also may be a general strike in Israel tomorrow, and the student union has pledged to stand with the strike, so if a strike is declared, classes will be canceled.  While it would be sad to miss my once-a-week seminar, but it would be nice to have the extra time to finish reading and work on my midterms -- especially because Monday is my absolute busiest day!  And now, considering that there may be a strike tomorrow, I should visit the grocery store...until next time, dear ones!