Jerusalem!

Greetings from Jerusalem!

After eleven hours on a plane, the fourteen of us and Rabbi Vasken (a joke: people kept asking us who our Rabbi is) arrived here at The Olive Tree Hotel last night. It's beautiful and rather funny. For example, VH1, the music video channel in the US, was playing in the hotel bar. Arpi and Liz managed to get Israel Idol on their TV though, so there's some authentic stuff around. It's funny how a country's version of American Idol is so reflective of their culture :P

The whole busride to the hotel was a bit surreal. It's really humbling to think we're seeing the same scenes (minus a cell tower or two) that Jesus would have seen. Or that we're within twenty miles of where he would have walked. The first time I saw a sign for Demascus, I was floored. I'm looking forward to being able to put places like that in the bible in context. I mean, I knew it exists, but really, it exists, if that makes any sense.

Today is day one of touring for us. I don't have the schedule in front of me right now, but it's one of our two more casual days. I do remember that we will visit the Dead Sea and Jericho. I think I'm going to try to bring some mud back from the Dead Sea. Hopefully it won't go the same route as my conditioner in my checked bag. Aka explode. We also found out yesterday that the Armenian patriarch pulled some strings, and another day we will sleep in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where the tomb of Christ is, and where he was resurrected!! At 4am, we will rise and celebrate Baradak. Right now the thought of that is pretty unreal. It's not something that is allowed a lot, so it's neat to see that we (Armenians) are as Alex would say, kind of a big deal here.

Well, internet time is almost finished! Love you all!