Independence Day in the Holy Land

Well, the past few days have been extremely busy and amazing. Every day is practically amazing here. They're all completely full of activities, I never have any time to simply sit and think. I wish I did have a little time when I could just do that, because sometimes I feel like I am so busy with other things I forget to stop and marvel at the fact that I am in the Holy Land, or take the time to sit and comprehend feelings that I have about being here. I don't even have time to do that right now because I only have a few minutes in which to write this email before I have to go to dinner... but it's all good. I wish I could describe everything, but I'm certain that I will leave out important stories or forget to tell you all something that I keep meaning to say.

Tonight we are celebrating the fourth of July by going down to the Wailing/Western Wall to welcome in Shabbat. I'm sad there will be no fireworks, (I made sure to bring some red, white and blue glow-sticks for my own personal celebration tonight, but it just won't be the same...) but at the same time I can't think of a better way to spend my favorite holiday.

I'm sure many of you heard about the tractor/bus incident down at Jaffa Gate a few days ago, fortunately we were all safe because we were far away down in the Shephelah, on an all-day field trip, slinging stones in the Elah valley where David slew Goliath, testing our bodies in the humid heat and scorching sun to see just how much we can prespire, and climbing through some incredible caves. I feel like I'm name-dropping... maybe I am "place-dropping," haha. Oh well. All of you should be jealous, so there :P. hehe. Anyways, I think i'll go into some more detail about our field trip on Wednesday.

So our field trip consisted of traveling all around the region of Israel known as "the Shephelah." In Hebrew, the word "Shephelah" means "Low lands," and it served as a buffer zone between the Israelites and the Philistines back in the day. We saw the valley of Gath, where Goliath lived, we learned about where Solomon grew up, and what I think was the coolest was that we saw the very field where the battle between David and Goliath took place. My favorite part of the field trip, however (this may sound biblically shallow of me) but it was all the caves that we got to explore. We all knew that we were in for a treat when we received an email a couple of days before telling the girls to wear pants and not skirts and to make sure that we all brought our "torches" (that's what they call flashlights here). We went in all kinds of underground establishments, such as tombs and caves and tunnels and tiny little nooks and crannies whithin which to explore and uncomfortably smoosh ourselves in order to take pictures. It was phenominally cool!

We went into at least 2 sets of caves and several other tomb-like structures, and a cave where they used to house doves... I can't quite remember why at the moment but it'll come to me as soon as this is over.

Anyways, I don't think I can write much more because it's dinner time and I have so much homework to do, but today we had a quiz and a midterm and let me tell you, school over here is HARD! but I'm loving it still. Anyways, I gotta go, but i'll write again soon. Probably not until after Egypt though! EGYPT!! Jeff, i hope you had fun at EFY, you'll have to email me about it. I love you all so much! thanks!