City of David

I am back :)

I got the blog back up and running without even having to go to Hebrew U!

That is one of the benefits of having a really smart boyfriend

They can make your computer finally work and upload pictures from 8,000 miles away

(Thanks Paul)

Last week our fieldtrip was to the City of David, which is where Jerusalem really began.

It is over 3000 years old, and so much biblical history has taken place there!

Our day began with an outlook on the City of David to get a layout of the land

Next, we the watched the visitors center's 3D movie to introduce us to the City of David.

The only word to describe it was epic.....

Haha the 3D effects put Avatar to shame

It was hilarious

classic Craig 3D pic

The highlight of the trip was going through Hezekiah's tunnel.

This half-mile tunnel was secretly built by Hezekiah, starting from opposite ends of the city and working towards the middle, during the Assyrian's conquest of the city.

He built it so that the city could have a source of water during the attack and as a convenient means of escaping if things went wrong.

When we went through, the water in the tunnel only came up mid-thigh, which was nice because during the rainy season you almost have to swim through it.

We all brought flashlights, but at the last minute decided that it would be more of an adventure to go through the tunnel in complete darkness.

We were right.

It was pretty crazy, and so much fun, to trek through the water in the pitch black, feeling your way through the narrow rocky tunnel.

One of the students described it as

"the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland on steroids!"

So as you can imagine, it was pretty awesome!

In typical BYU J-RU style, a massive water fight occurred as soon as we made it into the sunlight and we all got completely drenched haha

Luckily I was barely tall enough to be let in

thank goodness for a flash!

After drying off slightly in the sun we visited the pool of Siloam, where Christ healed the blind man, the ruins of David's palace, another tunnel dating back to the biblical period, and the likely tombs of the Kings of Judah...pretty amazing stuff!

It was an awesome, very wet, field trip that I absolutely loved.

It was so cool to see the beginnings of my current home-

and where all its history began!