Unfortunately not all of my pictures would load...so I am waiting for a time that they will....more to come!!

Troy and Canakkale

                                            Can you see me??

On Tuesday we got up early and took another ferry across the Dardanelles to Asia minor. Once we reached Asia we headed to Troy which is a well known site and the location of Homer's story The Iliad. Then we drove to Canakkale where we spent the night. This town is a sea-port town and is so beautiful! It may have been my favorite place on the trip. Canakkale holds the Trojan horse that is in the movie Troy and so we all wanted pictures by it.We spent the evening walking along the boardwalk and watching the sunset and the ships come in and out. Another wonderful day!

Topkapi Palace, Blue Mosque, Ferry Ride

Monday was a busy day filled with lots of places to see. We were able to see Topkapi Palace which overlooks the sea and holds some artifacts of the sultans. Then we went to the Blue Mosque which was also spectacular. We didn't get much time inside, but it was great to see and be more exposed to Muslim culture. Turkey is 99% Muslim according to our guide. We then were able to stop by the Grand Bazaar and check out the shops there. Our day ended with taking a beautiful ferry ride back across the Bosphorous strait. It was such a pleasant ride and ended the evening perfectly (before a great dinner and then exploring Istanbul at night of course :) ).

IT'S TURKEY TIME!!

After a wonderful week in Turkey there is so much to document!! It is going to be hard to narrow down the many pictures, events, and experiences that we had there. One of the unique things we experienced there was the food and we got our taste of that right from the start. We arrived in Istanbul last Sunday evening and were served an interesting dinner. There are many more exciting (hopefully much more exciting than this!) posts and pictures to come, but I had to start with something!!

Jericho

We went DOWN to Jericho on another field trip and were able to see several awesome places! Jericho is 850 ft. below sea level (the picture with the sign exaggerates) so we really did go down and our teachers made sure to emphasize that.  The change in scenery was stark as we entered the Judean wilderness. It was really HOT and we got our taste of the real summer weather here. We saw several places like St. George's Monastery, Elisha's Spring, the walls of Jericho that came tumbling down, Herod's Winter palace, etc. It was a great morning and another wonderful field trip. It is amazing to think that these are the places where so many miraculous events took place.

Excavations

On our way to Dome of the Rock we passed this cool excavation site! Here is one picture of my friends and me sitting right outside of the excavation site (from left to right Tyson, Kimberly, Me (Brittany), Elise, Jamie, Jeehee). There are so many wonderful people here...I love them!!

Dome of the Rock!!

                              This was one of the views from the Dome of the Rock plaza.

I have decided that it is probably too hard to try and catch up from the days I have missed of not blogging. So I am just going to start from today. Today we went to the Dome of the Rock which is also known as Mt. Moriah. This is the Mt. where Abraham was asked to sacrifice Isaac. It is also where the Muslims believe Muhammed ascended to heaven. We were not allowed to go inside but it is an amazing piece of architecture. I love this last shot with these wonderful girls facing the mosque!

First Field Trip!

Our first field trip included traveling to several outlooks around Jerusalem to get different views of the city and gain some history at each of those sites. Some of the places we visited were The Seven Arches Overlook, Nabi Samwil, Gibeah of Saul, Haas Promenade, Augusta Victoria and more. I have included a few photos from those sites. More to come!

Garden of Gethsemane

A few of us made the short walk to the Garden of Gethsemane the first Sabbath (which is Saturday) we were here. We made it just before closing and a kind monk was monitoring those he let into this garden of trees. He only let in several at a time and reminded us to be very reverent. It is a very special place, one that I looked forward to going back to several times while living here. There is a church right by the garden called the Church of All Nations and some of those photos are included here as well.

Arrival in Tel Aviv

                                                              Beautiful flowers by the bus

                      View from the bus on our way to the Jerusalem Center for the first time!!

First post in Jerusalem!!

After a week in Jerusalem, I finally figured out how to switch the the blogging website from Hebrew to English and now will be able to update family and friends about the amazing adventures here in Jerusalem!! It has been a great first week and my eyes have already been opened to so much! I will post pictures as I can, but we can only upload a few at a time because the internet here can only handle so much. So here we go...Enjoy!!