These past couple of days have been dedicated to doing the more touristy stuff of the area. Yesterday, we visitied the Church of the Nativity which is the place where they say Christ was born. The site is shared by three different churches, the Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, and Armenian. They are connected together and have beautiful sanctuaries over the cave where the birth took place. I always find it interesting to visit places like this because you feel that you should be silence out of reverence for the occassion but at the same time, it is a place of great joy. So, I never really know if I should talk, laugh, smile, or simply be silent. I usually go for the latter with a bit of a smile. I don't really know what I expected to feel at the place or if I really felt anything at all but I did admire the reverence that people visiting the site, especially the Greek Orthodox had for the sacredness of the occassion. I also felt that it was fitting that there was a funeral going on at the Roman Catholic church at the same time as a wedding was going on in the Greek Orthodox church above the Nativity. It was a feeling of bittersweetness tied in with the promise of a little baby boy born right under their feet 2000 years ago.

Today we had quite the day planned out. First, we went to Massada which was the place where Jewish rebels made a stand against the Roman Empire on the top of a cliff overlooking the Dead Sea. It was amazing to see the town they had built on top of this rock. And, they held out for around 3 years against the Roman Army! The place was amazing and they were so self sufficient. I think the most amazing part was learning they had stored 860 million gallons of water on the top of this site!!! We got to go into one of the cisterns which was this huge cavern and it was very cool and beautiful! Then, some of us got the chance to float in the Dead Sea. I neglected to pack my swim suit so I waded but it was fun watching my friends swim and freeze (the water was Lake Superior cold!) and collected some salt crystals from the bottom. Then, we finished up the day at Qumran which is the place where they discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls. So, full day!

Then, we finished up the day with a rousing game of Arab-Israeli War Jeopardy which was abotu one of the funniest things on the trip. And, our team won also. :) Now, off to wash off the salt from the sea and figure out where we're going out to tonite (one of the probably good things about Bethlehem is there is no real late-night night life so we can't get into too much trouble and we won't be out later than 1 generally). Peace!