Roomies and Hezekiah's tunnel

Tribute to the Roomies

All righty, let's talk about some of the fun escapades of my lovely ROOMIES!!! We spend every Sunday (our Saturday, we have church on Saturday, so our Saturday is Sunday...get it?) out in the city, exploring the nooks and crannies of this amazing place! Our explorations usually involve a lot of shopping in little random places and buying cheap scarves and earrings! We eat lunch at the Austrian Hospice, on a little table overlooking a pretty view. We stick mostly to the Christian Quarter, but lately we've been branching out to explore different places. Shopping and sightseeing and exploring with these girls (+Michelle, who isn't in this picture) is the best thing EVER. They are SO funny and lively, and the craziest things happen to us! We spend every second in our room talking and laughing and screaming, so nobody gets homework done in our room! We all have matching sandals and rings (thank you, Dan!) and two hundred inside jokes. We put our mattresses together in the middle of the room and have giant sleepovers. We talk about the love interests of people here in the JC, and discuss our own when its called for (aka, they listen to me talk about Dan)! We give backrubs, share clothes, tease each other, have a jar of Nutella to eat, play tricks on each other, have "team nap time", study together, exercise together, sit by each other at meals--about as cliquey as you can get! :) I think all of these roommates were a gift from Heavenly Father to make my Jeru trip the best it could be!

We had a little breakfast at Jimmy's. He is the owner of a woodcarving shop, and you can see some of the carvings in the background. I got my nativity set from him! He set out falafal and pitas and hummus and some fruit juice and invited some coughCOOLcough people to come and eat with him. It was so fun! All the shopkeepers are so nice :)




These are the people I hung out with that day! Preston, myself, Sara, Lindee, Paige, and Michelle. So much fun!




Lifelong goal accomplished today: A bird pooped on my head. I've been waiting for this day since elementary school. Every beach, every zoo, every nature outing, I've hoped and hoped that this would happen. There was even more poop than what is pictured, but I cleaned a little of it of, not knowing what it was. I thought some little kid had spit on me, but nope :)

Michelle's haircut

This is Michelle before her haircut. Look at those locks. She wanted short hair; maybe I was an inspiration to her, hehehe... :)

This is Alyssa, an amazing girl with a million talents. She cut Michelle's hair! I totes love her hair short, it looks so great! Nothing better than making spontaneous decisions in the middle of the night! :)

 City of David and Hezekiah's tunnel

The long walk to the City of David...you know, it's just on the other side of town :) Michelle, Erica, Sarah and I stuck together for the walk. Taylor is photobombing. You can see Brother Schade's face in the background--he's our Old Testament teacher. Best OT teacher I've ever had!! He's the greatest!!

I found a FROG TOAD on the side of the road!! I petted it :) I loved it :)

I don't know if I'm tall enough to fit into the tunnel...oh dear oh dear!!

There was a grate that made my skirt into a giant tent! I felt like the woman from the Nutcracker who had the twenty children come out from underneath her skirt!

Entering into the water system that had Warren's shaft and Hezekiah's tunnel in it! Hezekiah's tunnel was built by Hezekiah in preparation for the war with the Assyrians that he knew was coming. It brought water from the Gihon spring, outside the city walls, into the city where it was accessible, even during times of siege. Isaiah wrote about this battle and tunnel!

I was first in line, behind Mary Stratford (One of our professor's daughters)! Look at those narrow walls. Can you imagine chiseling this out by candlelight with little iron wedges? People were amazing.

Proof that I actually went in the tunnel! It was pretty claustrophobic. The tunnel reminded me of Steve, and how he loves spelunking and caving and shooting the tube! 

I made it out alive!! I wore shorts under my skirt and tucked my skirt up into a ball so that I could take off the wet shorts and be dry on the way home...brilliant, aye?

Standing in the Siloam pool, where Hezekiah's tunnel lets out. Christ mixed His spittle with dirt and put the clay on the eyes of a blind man and told him to come and wash here. The man's eyesight was restored! There are miracles to be found everywhere in Jerusalem!

Planking in Hezekiah's tunnel. I felt a lot cooler than I look. It actually took some serious skull and core strength to balance my body like that. Somebody please be impressed :)

There were plants growing all over the ruins of the City of David. The sites had been excavated, but they were all overgrown because funding ran out. Go back to mother earth, stones. :)

My tunnel partner, Mary Stratford! She is such a cute girl! She likes me, which makes me feel good, cause I miss my nieces and nephews!!

Because it was the City of David archaeological site, of course they have the symbol of David--the harp! You better believe that I played that thing!