Day 41

Azekah. Thomas, Danielle, Scott, me, Lauren, Katie, Katilyn, Jessica

Awkward tourist photo with Lauren

Wendy photo. Katie, Lauren, Katilyn

Lachish ramp. Nick, Taylor, Lauren.

Crappy photo of the caves.

Awkward tourist photo. (I'm kneeling, ps)

Bell Caves

Bell Caves with Lauren

Bell Caves with Matty

Bell Caves with Nick

Suzy, Alyse, Amy, Danielle, Charlotte, Lauren, me, Rachel, Taylor

Same girls plus Adam

Singing in the cave

JC photo shoot w/ Katilyn and Lauren

Our own ancient olive tree

The artistic shot. (Dome in the background)

Although it is a Sunday, we didn't get our usual freeday. Instead our field trip was bumped up a day. My class left at seven and we headed out to Bet Shemesh. It was a little spot out in the desert pretty much. But it is significant because it is where Samson lived. After that we hit up Azekah, a fortress mentioned in 1 Sam 17. Next stop was Lachish. It was the last city to be conquered by the Assyrian's and Babylonians before Jerusalem was taken. The Assyrian's build a huge ramp up the sides of the wall in order to over take the city. Our next stop, easily the best, was at Marisha. It is a ton of hand carved underground caves. The caves were much cooler than outside, but they were so humid that we sweat more than we would have on the surface. The caves were way fun to explore, they had all of these little side caverns and were pretty intricate and huge. The caves were used to keep pigeons, storage, and there were also a bunch of olive presses in them. We went over to these bell caves after that. They were just huge caves carved out for the stone. We sang in them and it sounded really awesome. But with the hymns we switched the lyrics to the music of different songs, so it made them even more fun to sing. We also went to a little burial cave where everyone was laying down in the little tombs, they all got covered in chalk/dirt. We got back on the bus after that to head to our last stop, the one I was most excited for, but our bus would not switch gears! We ended up getting onto the other classes bus, but then ours started working again so we switched back. But then our professor's decided, for reason's which I feel are not legitimate enough, that just our bus was not going to go to the valley where David killed Golaith and play with sling shots. Lameo. So we went back to the center. When we got back there was a super tacky bride and groom taking pictures on the lawn. It was entertaining. Lauren, Katilyn, and I then went around the center and took a few pictures. After dinner I had to be a host for one of the musical concerts that the center has every week. My job pretty much consisted of socializing and collecting tickets. We had a packed house, two spanish guitarists played. I only stayed for a few minutes of the show. I tried watching Breakfast at Tiffany's with a bunch of people afterwards. But I was freezing and couldn't stay awake and just went to bed. Yep that's it.