so they took me to egypt and made me forget that i'm in school, so now i have two midterms and a paper due tomorrow but i'll still blog because i love

you

today was our conquest field trip

we went to ancient tel jericho, which is really a whole lot smaller than you might expect.

jericho is the oldest city in the WORLD, and there is a tower there they believe was built in 8.000 BC. That's 10.000 years ago. That's old.

There are always a few levels of cities, which you can distinguish by the differences in the walls. There is a rock wall that was probably the one Joshua and the Israelites marched around, as well as a few levels of mud brick walls on top. Jericho is a tel, which is a mound created by the accumulated remains of ancient settlements, so the 10.000 year old tower is 40 feet below ground now, although it was obviously above ground when it was made.

we also climbed up to the quruntal (sp) monastery, which is carved straight out of the mountainside on the Mt. of Temptation, where Jesus was taken by the Spirit and tempted. They even have a rock they claim is the one the devil wanted him to turn to bread. (it was a lot bigger than i had anticipated- it would have been a lot of bread!)

we stopped in modern jericho and saw a sycamore tree, supposedly the same one Zaccheus climbed to see Jesus, and then we went to a lookout point above the Judean wilderness. It is so majestic and beautiful, but it is really desert wilderness. and hot.