Day Eight: April 16, 2006: Happy Easter! Israel Trip
Megiddo
I wanted to spend the day outside of Nazareth so we drove to Tel Megiddo. A place with layers and layers of ruins which just look like a bunch of rocks miscellaneously piled up to look like walls. We started off in the two room museum which I was through in about 10-15 minutes. Dieter, of course, in all his German thoroughness had to read every word. When I urged him to go faster he looked at me with such a sad puppy dog face that I resigned to wait under the condition that I get the wallet and a cappucino in the cafeteria while I wait. So I waited and waited and waited and waited some more...all the while having to listen to three guys pounding away at three jimbees...they were good at it, but I'm sorry, I can only listen to a "jimbee only" group for so long... Finally, as I stood up to let Dieter have it I saw him coming out of the building (and just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore!). So we finally got to go up to the ruins (a.k.a.: scattered stones). The most impressice parts were the look-outs where you could see how huge and flat the Jezreel Valley is-the place where the last battle will take place (Megiddo: Armaegeddon). There was also a sacred area where temples had been built and built upon each other for thousands of years. The Jews didn't follow suit of course, showing that this place was probably some kind of center of pagan worship. We then walked down through the hidden water supply tunnel-slowly but surely because of the Arabic Women Tour group in from of us. They were having a BLAST with their digital camera! It was quite impressive though, the water system...After exiting the water system the Arab women were picked up by their bus and we went back to get some postcards for the travel scrap book. Now we're sitting in an Israeli MocDonalds, quite impressed by the quality of the food (a lot better than in Germany).
Mt Tabor
Now we're on our way to Mt. Tabor-once Dieter finishes perfectly licking his second ice cream cone we'll be on the road again! A very whindy road took us up to Mt. Tabor. Thank God no buses were allowed there. We parked and walked a ways up to the Catholic Church of the Transiguration. They think this was the mountain where Jesus was transfigured. From the church we had another fantastic view of the Jezreel Valley: Armageddon. One thing we know took place on Mt. Tabor was the battle Deborah and Barak fought with Sisera in Judges 4 and 5. Dieter and I found a dry spot (did I say it started raining? yes in Israel it does rain) and read the passage in Judges. on our way back down we snuck a peek at the closed Greek Orthodox church also on the mountain. It was amazing how many tourists were there-Jews as well as christians. We saw a monk and a lot of irrelevant tourists letting their kids run wild in the church. The monk just sat there watching it all-must me an everyday occurance-what can you do? So down we went, stoppin gfor post cards and looking for the Bedhoin resteraunt mentioned in the tour guide book). We saw two even and lots of chickesn crossing the road (roosters to be exact-and this isn't a chicken crossing the road joke).
En Dor
We realized that the village of En Dor was just right around the corner which is where Saul sought out a medium to call up Samuel from the dead for advice on his last battle with the Philistines where he ended up dying. It looked either like a kabbutz or a little retirement community-no traces of King Saul or the museum the signs said was there, just a kids fest with arts and crafts and unicycles. So we left in search of a bank to get some shekels on our way to try to find Cana again.
Cana
It turned out that Cana had been right under our noses (we actually drove through it) and we just didn't know it. We followed a sign that said "Churches St." and found the churches commemorating Jesus' first miracle at the wedding there. In typical Israeli fashion there was no "dead end" sign so we ended up having to back down a VERY tight alley. The Churches Str. alley was quite beautifully done needless to say. The city around it though is an absolute dump which is probably why we didn't realize we were there the first time. We didn't get out of the car because as is a very common occurence with us I had to go to the bathroom-which meant I was begging Dieter to rush back to our Nazareth hotel. Luckily we're leaving Nazareth tomorrow on our way to Jerusalem. I've been having trouble with the dust and dizzy spells (maybe I've been sniffing too many spices-they're making me high!). Did I mentino that our hotel used to be a monastery? The room itself is higher than it is wide-really nice besides the ages of dust in the matress-o well, for the price Dieter will pay you can expect perfection, huh? (That's just a jok-this is the most expensive one we paid for so far! :-))
I wanted to spend the day outside of Nazareth so we drove to Tel Megiddo. A place with layers and layers of ruins which just look like a bunch of rocks miscellaneously piled up to look like walls. We started off in the two room museum which I was through in about 10-15 minutes. Dieter, of course, in all his German thoroughness had to read every word. When I urged him to go faster he looked at me with such a sad puppy dog face that I resigned to wait under the condition that I get the wallet and a cappucino in the cafeteria while I wait. So I waited and waited and waited and waited some more...all the while having to listen to three guys pounding away at three jimbees...they were good at it, but I'm sorry, I can only listen to a "jimbee only" group for so long... Finally, as I stood up to let Dieter have it I saw him coming out of the building (and just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore!). So we finally got to go up to the ruins (a.k.a.: scattered stones). The most impressice parts were the look-outs where you could see how huge and flat the Jezreel Valley is-the place where the last battle will take place (Megiddo: Armaegeddon). There was also a sacred area where temples had been built and built upon each other for thousands of years. The Jews didn't follow suit of course, showing that this place was probably some kind of center of pagan worship. We then walked down through the hidden water supply tunnel-slowly but surely because of the Arabic Women Tour group in from of us. They were having a BLAST with their digital camera! It was quite impressive though, the water system...After exiting the water system the Arab women were picked up by their bus and we went back to get some postcards for the travel scrap book. Now we're sitting in an Israeli MocDonalds, quite impressed by the quality of the food (a lot better than in Germany).
Mt Tabor
Now we're on our way to Mt. Tabor-once Dieter finishes perfectly licking his second ice cream cone we'll be on the road again! A very whindy road took us up to Mt. Tabor. Thank God no buses were allowed there. We parked and walked a ways up to the Catholic Church of the Transiguration. They think this was the mountain where Jesus was transfigured. From the church we had another fantastic view of the Jezreel Valley: Armageddon. One thing we know took place on Mt. Tabor was the battle Deborah and Barak fought with Sisera in Judges 4 and 5. Dieter and I found a dry spot (did I say it started raining? yes in Israel it does rain) and read the passage in Judges. on our way back down we snuck a peek at the closed Greek Orthodox church also on the mountain. It was amazing how many tourists were there-Jews as well as christians. We saw a monk and a lot of irrelevant tourists letting their kids run wild in the church. The monk just sat there watching it all-must me an everyday occurance-what can you do? So down we went, stoppin gfor post cards and looking for the Bedhoin resteraunt mentioned in the tour guide book). We saw two even and lots of chickesn crossing the road (roosters to be exact-and this isn't a chicken crossing the road joke).
En Dor
We realized that the village of En Dor was just right around the corner which is where Saul sought out a medium to call up Samuel from the dead for advice on his last battle with the Philistines where he ended up dying. It looked either like a kabbutz or a little retirement community-no traces of King Saul or the museum the signs said was there, just a kids fest with arts and crafts and unicycles. So we left in search of a bank to get some shekels on our way to try to find Cana again.
Cana
It turned out that Cana had been right under our noses (we actually drove through it) and we just didn't know it. We followed a sign that said "Churches St." and found the churches commemorating Jesus' first miracle at the wedding there. In typical Israeli fashion there was no "dead end" sign so we ended up having to back down a VERY tight alley. The Churches Str. alley was quite beautifully done needless to say. The city around it though is an absolute dump which is probably why we didn't realize we were there the first time. We didn't get out of the car because as is a very common occurence with us I had to go to the bathroom-which meant I was begging Dieter to rush back to our Nazareth hotel. Luckily we're leaving Nazareth tomorrow on our way to Jerusalem. I've been having trouble with the dust and dizzy spells (maybe I've been sniffing too many spices-they're making me high!). Did I mentino that our hotel used to be a monastery? The room itself is higher than it is wide-really nice besides the ages of dust in the matress-o well, for the price Dieter will pay you can expect perfection, huh? (That's just a jok-this is the most expensive one we paid for so far! :-))
posted by Hannah's Music at 4:52 AM
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