May 31st (Overlook, Sifting Project, Holocaust Museum)

I feel like things have gotten way easier since we've gotten to Jerusalem. There isn't much hiking to get places. There is a lot of walking but not much uphill or downhill hiking. So basically I'm not getting as sweaty which means my clothes last longer! haha. We also seem to get done semi-earlier so the evenings are more relaxing. The bummer thing is that the hotel isn't near anything again. We took a taxi to the mall last night but I don't want to have to pay money to get places...because I don't have much money left.

Today was a pretty laid back day again. We started off the day at a place that overlooked the entire old city of Jerusalem. It was just a quick stop that was basically for pictures.

After that we went to "the sifting project". This is basically an archaelogical dig. There was some place near the temple mount where some excavators went in with bulldozers and totally destroyed the place. The piles of dirt that they moved from the location had tons of remnants from older times in them! Like pottery, marble, mosaic pieces, bones, and glass! What we got to do was sift through small piles to find pieces of those things. I must admit that at first I wasn't to excited about this. I imagined myself in the super hot desert with a pile of dusty sand and rocks and a "sift" (or whatever it would be called) in my hands. It was nothing like that at all. Hopefully the pictures can show you that.

 These were our "sifters"

 My "sifting" group. They are from another school! And the one girls skin isn't blotchy...it must be from the lighting hahaha.

 Sarah's group found a TOOTH! It's either a cow's or a horse's.

That's where the project is happening :)

After that we had lunch. Now lunch is a fun story. I can probably tell it much better in person but I will try and do it justice by typing it out. We basically stopped at this giant market and they told us we had an hour and a half to find somewhere to eat and be back on the bus. They told us there were plenty of places to eat. I went off with three of my friends to scout out some food. The four of us didn't want falafel or schwarma because we have been eating that literally every day for lunch since we have gotten here. So we were on a hunt for pizza or burgers. After an hour we walked out of the market into a more city like area. We found a sandwich shop that we weren't to impressed with but we decided to settle for it. After trying to communicate with a guy who barely spoke any english we finally got our lunch. The shop was to small for the four of us so we walked out to some tables and sat down. A lady came up and was like "YOU CANNOT SIT HERE! PLEASE LEAVE" and we were kind of like WOAH ok sorry we didn't realise we couldn't sit here. Later we realized it might've been a "kosher" thing because we had meat and her store served dairy. I dunno. But then we went outside to find some more places to sit and we found a table and sat down. Got our sandwiches out and were about to take a bite when a man came up to us and was like "you cannot sit here" and gave us a look like we were idiots.

By now we are getting frustrated and running out of time to eat so we sat on the ground near a statue...haha. We then realized that the sandwiches weren't very good and that the cafe we were sitting by actually served pizza which was what we were looking for in the first place...and so one of my friends went in and got us all little personal pizzas (it was cheap to only 17 shekels for all three) and we ate the delicious pizza. Then my friend Amanda tried to move her foot and she realized she had sat in gum...and then while we were eating we realized that something smelled nasty. At first we thought it was the pizza...but then when the pizza was gone we could still smell it. I looked over next to my friend and an Israeli guy had laid down next to him and taken of his shoes...his NASTY bare feet were like a foot from his pizza...it was the icing on the cake of an interesting lunch experience hahaha. By the end though we were just done with being there haha. Oh and to add to that...we get back to the group and people have these amazing fish and chips and McDonalds...we shoulda stuck with other people lol.

After lunch we went to the holocaust museum. I thought I knew enough about the Holocaust...but I knew nothing. It was an interesting experience for me. It was almost a little overwhelming...First off, the USA did nothing to stop the holocaust...in fact we sat by and watched it all happen. I even read that the pope just ignored it and let it happen to people in his own country as well. It was just really intriguing to read everything. To see quotes from Hitler and different other official army people. Things like "We don't know what a Jew is we only know what humans are" and stuff like that...there were points were I was close to crying realizing that this stuff had actually happened. I decided not to go into the Children's Memorial...because that might have been a little to much. The coolest thing though was at the very end. It had all the names and a bunch of pictures and it was set up in a really cool way. Sadly I couldn't take any pictures in the museum. But I tried to take some outside of it. I will definitely think differently about the holocaust tomorrow.

 I couldn't get a picture of Schindler's Tree because we didn't have much free time but they have trees here for every person that helped keep any Jews safe.

Tomorrow is our first free day. My plan is to sleep in till like 10 because we have mainly been waking up at 630am since we've gotten here. Then me and a few of my friends are planning on going to the Bible Zoo. Apparently it has every single animal mentioned in the Old Testament and it has the verse next to it. It should be interesting. I've only heard good things about this place.

I think I'm about ready to come home though. But the best is yet to come! We still have to see everything that fits in with most of the story of Jesus. The day after tomorrow (after our free day) we are driving backwards back to Qumran/Dead Sea to see the Dead Sea Scrolls. Apparently we are getting a pretty cool deal because our guides are inviting friends to come because whatever we get to do doesn't happen very often. The guy in charge of our trip, Mark, seems to have TONS of connections. Because apparently we are doing a lot of stuff that people don't always get to do.

Hope things at home are great. Maybe I can bring back some of this sun and heat to you guys :)

-Wendi