!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!