Le Dix-Neuvième Jour, Samedi. (The nineteenth day, Saturday 6/4)

Saturday was only a half day of our touring with only two stops. The first was at Herodium. Herodium was built by Herod the Great because he was superrrr paranoid and felt the need to build several fortresses so that if he ever had to run from his enemies he had places to hide out. Herodium is also the place that Herod was buried and they recently found what they believe is his tomb.

 

It was really difficult to get up there even just sitting down because my knee hurts still and my jeans were so stinking tight. And then I decided to stand up on the pillar with my weight on my bad knee...poor decision. I was wobbling all over the place and though this pillar doesn't look very big, it would've been a painful fall! Luckily the photographers took the picture really quickly before I tumbled!

 The Herodium ruins were really cool, though. I watched a good documentary about the tomb of Herod during my archaeology class, so I actually knew quite a bit about what was there (just like I knew a bit about Masada when we went).

 Our main stop of the day was in Bethlehem at the Church of the Nativity. This is the speculated place where Jesus was born. Now, we're not sure exactly where the birth of Jesus took place, but traditions dating back before the Byzantine period, which this location is, have a much greater chance of being accurate. We didn't actually wait in the hour long line to see the specific cave that they claim is THE CAVE, but really there's no proof that it's that specific cave anyways. Instead, we went around the back of the cave system and saw some on the immediate back of the cave they've selected. Really, just being in that network of caves is good enough. It is highly likely that somewhere in that complex Jesus was brought into the world. WOW.

The gaudiness of the Greek Orthodox Church amazes/disturbs me...

 I lit a candle in the Roman Catholic section of the Church of the Nativity. I would just like to say that when I went to London in 2007 I lit a candle for my mother's surrogate pregnancy to be successful. When I returned from that trip I learned that not only she, but also the biological mother was pregnant. The family now has two adorable daughters. Sooo I decided to light a candle and say a prayer for my future family. A little early, perhaps, but I figured it couldn't do any harm :)

The bright one right in the middle is mine!

 There are no Starbucks in Israel because they've got the Aroma Café going on. However, in Bethlehem there is a Stars & Bucks Café. Cute.

I didn't realize it before we went there, but Bethlehem is not actually controlled by Israel. It's technically Israeli territory, but is controlled by Palestine. Or...something. Anyway, there is a big checkpoint that you have to go through and it takes forever and you have to make it past the wall surrounding Jerusalem. There was some pretty sweet anti-war propaganda graffiti on the wall though :)

And this one kid from my groups was wearing a shirt that instantly reminded me of Charlie. So this one's for you, Chaz.