Hezekiah’s Tunnel
Today’s field trip was to the city of David just outside the current walls of the Old City. The hill on which the city is located has been a Palestinian neighborhood for a long time now. The Israeli agency in charge deemed it a national park/archaeological site which gave the Israeli’s permission to kick all the Palestinians out and either live in or tear down the houses. It’s a little bogus but we they have been able to uncover some neat structures as a result of the shady land transfer.
David’s palace was located on the top of the hill with the Kidron and Hennon valleys on either side. From his porch, he would’ve been able to see onto the roof tops of the homes terracing down the hill. Seeing Bathsheba bathing would’ve been inevitable ;-)
King Hezekiah expanded the walls of Jerusalem to enclose all of the people in David’s city. Outside the city walls was the water/life source of the town, the Gihon Spring. When word came that the city was going to be under attack, the king ordered that a tunnel be carved underneath the city to bring the water from the spring inside the city walls. Blah blah, I know this is boring, I’m sorry!
We got to walk through the entire tunnel which still has quite a bit of water running through it. It’s dark and narrow and so refreshing! In true BYU style, people were singing hymns all along the way. Overall, Hezekiah’s tunnel was really neat! I’m glad I wore a skirt because I was hardly wet and much more comfortable than wearing baggy, wet jeans. I seem to be in a funk of sorts as far as caring about school and our field trip sites. I wish I were craving after the knowledge more but I find myself just walking through. That’s not an attitude that will contribute much to the program or to others so I’ve gotta fix that. 
On our way home from our field trip we walked through the old city and I finally stopped to take a photo of the crazy spice shop. They have a giant pyramid of different spices that they change every week. We also stopped into Omar’s Olive Wood shop. His work is beautiful and high quality. (I am happy to accept your orders/purchase requests!) 
Back to the center and back to studying. This is one of our last weeks in Jerusalem and they have us so swamped with finals that we have almost no time to be out in the city. Have I whined enough about that yet?? So ridiculous..
On Friday night after our last final we tried to go out and explore a bit. Once it’s dark we have to be in West Jerusalem only, but because it was Friday night, everything was closed to welcome in Shabbat. We ended up at the only store open on all of Ben Yehuda street, McDonalds, for an ice cream sundae. I agree with Annee & Steve, especially delicious outside the US!
P.S. Happy Bithday Danen!
3 comments:
hmmmm... singing through the tunnel? not so sure about that. love the spice store. wish i knew how to cook with them. how much does a simple wood nativity run? maybe just the holy family?
Ditto the holy family inquiry. Would they ship them directly to us even? You know how lots of tourist places in Germany will do that. Let us know.
A simple wood nativity with just the holy family would probably be about $50 (I'll check on that for sure), less for a smaller size. They can definitely mail them right to you in Korea. The packages mailed for the girls here have already arrived in Provo. I don't think you guys should miss out, I'll talk to mom.
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