Le Seizième Jour, Mercredi. (The sixteenth day, Wednesday 6/1)

Wednesday was a free day! Woooohoooo! The best part of my morning was sleeping in :) The bus ran two shuttles to the Old City at 10am and 1pm and shuttles back to the hotel at 2pm and 5pm. 

A bunch of people, myself included, decided that we really wanted to go to Hezekiah's Tunnel on our free day since we weren't doing the water section as part of our program (I'll talk about it later). So we were going to all meet at breakfast at 9 and then catch the 10:00 shuttle. But when I got up to get ready for the day, my roommates informed me that breakfast ends at 9, which posed a problem for our group. I didn't want anyone to miss breakfast, so I took it upon myself to knock on everyone's door and give them a heads up. Well, easier said than done. Of the people going with me, one room didn't answer and I didn't know the room number of another. The only room that I DID get a response from was Jonathan and Stephen's (previously mentioned) and it was rather frightening. Stephen opened the door about an inch and smashed his face into it with crazy bedhead and asked me what I wanted. Needless to say, I told them that breakfast ended at 9 and then got the heck out of there. No appreciation, I swear.

When we got to the city, we had a lovely trek through pretty much every part of it in order to get to the City of David (which, for whatever reason, isn't part of the "Old City") led by my friend Taylor's dad. Taylor is the really blonde girl in several of my pictures, by the way. During our walk, we saw part of the original wall of the Old City, which was kind of neat.

IN Hezekiah's Tunnel!

When we got to Hezekiah's Tunnel, I was super excited! See, I did a project about Hezekiah's Tunnel for my archaeology class with Pastor Paul fall semester, and I felt really intelligent because I knew all about the different things that have to do with it. The tunnel was made during the reign of Hezekiah (duh) as a secret way to get water into the city and pours out into the Pool of Siloam. The actual tunnel kind of reminded me of something out of Fort Knox because it was so dark and clammy. But it also had at least a foot of water rushing through the bottom, more than a foot in some places. Right at the beginning it was up past my knees. It was awesome though. I really enjoyed it. The water was freezing cold and really refreshing! A giant group of people was behind us and they kept getting closer and closer to us until they were only like ten feet away by the time we got to the end of the tunnel. Which isn't really a big deal, except they were suuuuuuuuper loud! :(  At the place where the tunnel part ends is what they thought was the Pool of Siloam, but actually about thirty feet further along there is another pool, more recently discovered, which they believe is the real Pool of Siloam.

Chilling in the first "Pool of Siloam"

When we finished both the trek through the tunnel and the treacherous uphill walk in the baking sun back to the beginning, we decided that we wanted to see the Garden Tomb. The Garden Tomb is one of the locations that is believed to be the tomb of Jesus, but it is pretty widely acknowledged that it is not the right place. Because of that, it isn't part of our scheduled trip. Honestly, I don't really care about a place that isn't where Jesus was crucified and buried, but the others wanted to see it so I went along too. (It was actually closed when we first went there, so we walked back to a hole in the wall place called Lina's for lunch where all they have is hummus and there are a ton of different types of it. I don't even like hummus, but this place was really good!) When we finally did get into the Garden Tomb it was really lush and tranquil, completely enjoyable whether or not it is completely the wrong location. It was also neat to walk into this place that you can think about Jesus being, even if he wasn't. Can you just imagine showing up at this place to mourn for him and finding the tomb open and empty! It would be crazy! We were also able to have communion at the Garden Tomb, which was neat. They served the grape juice in little wooden communion cups which we got to keep! YAY, free stuff!

Cue Drew Saccenti: "The empty cross, the empty tomb!...

...Oh happy day, He washed my sins away!"

After a bit of shopping (really the same spiel as the other day in the old city), we headed out to wait for the bus.  Sitting at the edges of the Old City, I could hear this sick music. Based on the fact that the music was really loud and it was Jerusalem Day, I figured it might be something live. So my friends and I went over to check it out, and I found these three gems playing awesome music. When they started playing "I could have danced all night" I almost died and decided to make a video. I am attempting to post it below, but I have no idea if it's going to play or not. I hope it does!