in His footsteps: Now this is what I call summer

This past week was just filled with water! A trip to Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean, a hike through Hezekiah's tunnel and a day of snorkeling in the coral reef of the Red Sea at Eilat!
Last Monday for our free day about half of us in the program rented buses and took the hour ride to Tel Aviv to visit the beach! And oh how I loved Tel Aviv!!!! It is a stark contrast to Jerusalem. I love Jerusalem but it was nice to be in a big modern city. Jerusalem is modern but it still feels old school while Tel Aviv is hip and modern. And it's located right on the Mediterranean Sea so it was gorgeous. We spent the morning at the beach for a few hours then a few of us went to find a seafood restaurant that one of our professors had suggested. The waiter immediately brought us out twenty different salads for dipping our pita bread in and we were all in heaven! The seafood was delicious and we left happy (even if the waiters did try to rip us off on the check). We walked around the city for a bit and found some cute art and jewelry shops as well as some ice cream. Then we headed back to the sea :) By the time we headed back to Jerusalem we were all fried and looking like red lobsters but it was oh so worth it! It was such a fun and relaxing day.

Tuesday night we took a little study break to head to West Jerusalem to get some YUMMY waffles :)

Wednesday morning we had a few hours in between some classes so a few of us headed out to visit some sights on the Mount of Olives. We saw the Russian Church of Ascension, Tombs of the Prophets, Mosques of Ascension and the Pater Noster, (Church memorializing where Christ gave the Lord's Prayer).

Last Thursday we toured the City of David, including Hezekiah's tunnel! This tunnel was built to hide and safeguard Jerusalem's water supply in preparation of the Assyrian siege in 701 BC. Now it's a really cool tunnel that you can walk through but you are walking through water the whole way and some times the water level is up to your thighs. It was really fun, especially when we turned out our lights for a bit a walked in the pitch black darkness!

Also on our field trip we saw the Pool of Siloam, which is the setting of John 9 and this Bible video. Watch the video here! In this story Christ puts mud on the blind man's eyes and tells him to go was in the pool of Siloam and the man is healed. When he returned to his friends he was unrecognizable because he had partaken of the living water of Christ. He had allowed Christ to change him and it is our opportunity in this life to allow Christ to change us!

After the field trip a few of us headed into the city to visit the Citadel/Jaffa Museum!

On Sunday we took a trip down to Eilat to go snorkeling and we had eilat of fun :) The bus ride was long and bumpy but well worth the view. From Eilat you can see four countries- you are sitting in Israel and surrounded by Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Now that is pretty legit! I love my life :)
I also have a super awesome friend with an underwater camera :)