Saturday, January 14, 2012

!Jerusalem, Jericho, & Tel Aviv

Hey everyone! It’s Mallory :) I’m finally able to sit and put some pictures together for a blog entry. Stephen and I have had such an exciting adventure so far, sightseeing, meeting up with friends, making new ones… and also, experiencing different hostels and getting lost while exploring has been pretty awesome/crazy. I think I’m finally over the culture shock… well sort of. I’m not as afraid anymore to try to speak some of the language and make mistakes. I’m looking forward to the rest of our adventure and learning how to live in a new country. God has really blessed us in giving us the opportunity to live in Jordan & explore Israel. I’m so humbled to be here and have to chance to learn and experience so much. I never thought I’d be so privileged to do so :)

Anyways… here are a few pictures of our journey so far… Enjoy!

PS… A special “Thank you” to my in-laws Dan & Lorane Dreyer for giving us our awesome camera for Christmas! We wouldn’t be able to capture these memories this beautifully without it!

On our way in to the Old City of Jerusalem to find our hostel:


A street inside the old city


The entrance to “Citadel Youth Hostel”


The view from the roof of the hostel… The gold dome is where it is believe that Isaac was supposed to be sacrificed


An ancient market place from Jesus’ time


On our way to the Wailing Wall


At the Wailing Wall

The girl’s side of the wall


People put pieces of paper with prayers on them into the cracks of the wall


Looking up at the wall


The full moon at the top of the wall


The view from above the “Upper Room”  :)


Next stop… Jericho!!


Greek Orthodox Monastery


The flag flying outside of the Monastery


The rock that is believed to be where Jesus was tempted for the first time during his 40 day fast


Back to Jerusalem!...


At the tomb where it is believed Jesus was buried


He is risen!! No really, he’s not there anymore… we checked…

EMPTY!!!

Do you see the face on the rock? Weird…



We ran into some GW friends while in the old city… It’s a small world after all!


Stephen standing where Stephen was martyred


A huge cathedral


Garden of Gethsemane


?Outside of a Mosque in the old city… Jesus said what


It is believed Jesus hung on the cross here



Pool of Bethesda


So long old city…


On to visit Tel Aviv, Israel!


Yaron Peleg, Stephen's former professor, gave us a tour of the city



Tel Aviv has cool trees


Eternity pool

Random sculpture…


These signs are everywhere! Professor Peleg explained to us that these basically mean“Don’t do ‘this’ to a stop sign” baahahahaha!


Hanging out at the beach!


Surfers!


Cool buildings


Lots of graffiti


The beach at night


The view from our room right now :)



And that’s about it for now! :) Hope you enjoyed our pictures and getting a glimpse of what we’ve been able to see for the past week! More pictures and stories to come ;) Love you all!

 Sorry if my writing is kinda weird in spots... even though this is all in English, my computor is still typing from right to left instead of left to right. I'm too tired to try and figure out how to make it go the right way haha. oh well!