Our eleven hour flight landed at 3:15pm Tel Aviv time (1:30am California time). After making it through customs and baggage claim, we met up with Bill (one of the IBEX professors) and loaded up the bus to Moshav Yad HaShmonah. The moshav sits in the Judean Hills north-northeast of Jerusalem. An Arab town, Abu Ghosh, sits next to us on the neighboring hill.
I'm very excited to being my semester here in Israel. The moshav itself is beautiful, so I can't wait to see the rest of the country! Orientation started at 8:15 this morning, followed by lunch and a hike to Kiriat Je'arim and Abu Ghosh. We walked down from the moshav onto the sidewalk next to the main road. Kiriat Je'arim is where the Ark of the Covenant sat for about one hundred years, until David moved it to Jerusalem. In fact, the road that we hiked along side of was very likely the same road that David took in transporting the Ark. From the top of the hill, we could see the outskirts of Jerusalem, where we will be taking a trip tomorrow morning. We stopped by several Catholic chapels and sang a few hymns, enjoying the wonderful acoustics. We also stopped by a possible site for the spring of Emmaus. I got to drink from the spring too! The water tasted amazing.
I'm very excited to being my semester here in Israel. The moshav itself is beautiful, so I can't wait to see the rest of the country! Orientation started at 8:15 this morning, followed by lunch and a hike to Kiriat Je'arim and Abu Ghosh. We walked down from the moshav onto the sidewalk next to the main road. Kiriat Je'arim is where the Ark of the Covenant sat for about one hundred years, until David moved it to Jerusalem. In fact, the road that we hiked along side of was very likely the same road that David took in transporting the Ark. From the top of the hill, we could see the outskirts of Jerusalem, where we will be taking a trip tomorrow morning. We stopped by several Catholic chapels and sang a few hymns, enjoying the wonderful acoustics. We also stopped by a possible site for the spring of Emmaus. I got to drink from the spring too! The water tasted amazing.