The long unwinding road

Well, the adventure of Galilee continues. Yesterday was wonderful. We started out the day at Bet She’an, the ruins of an ancient Roman city. It was really, really cool. It has, like every other place that had ever been occupied by the Romans, a large Roman Theater. And I had seen the Roman Theaters before, but this time we had our own time to go around the site and so I and the couple people I was with headed for the theater and thus got to be alone in one for the first time. Well, I didn’t know when my next chance to act on a Roman stage would present itself so I got on the stage and had a friend film me while I performed Lewis Carol’s The Jabberwocky. Oh my heck, it was so cool! I had no idea how cool it was to speak on a Roman stage…due to the architecture of the theater (a half-circle of stone around the stage) the acoustics were fantastic! I could whisper and it would be as if I was whispering in the ear of every person in that theater. Man, I’m so glad I got up there and did that because it gave me just a small taste into what it must have been like to perform on a Roman stage 2000 years ago. It had to have been so cool! I’m sorry, but I absolutely LOVE how into theater the Romans were. It’s rad.
After Bet She’an, we headed to this absolutely AWESOME swimming place called Gan Ha-Shelosha. When we got there, we discovered that it was turning away all the big tour buses. But our bus driver is the bomb diggity. He talked to the dudes and got just our bus in, for which we were very grateful. I led everyone in a rousing rendition of “For He’s a Jolly-good Fellow” to say thanks. Our bus driver’s name is Etah, and he’s so cool. The other day, when we got back from a long fieldtrip day, he stopped the bus at Ein Gev, picked up the microphone, and announced that he would like to sing the Muslim call to prayer for us. He sang the call for like 10 minutes while we just sat there and listened. We later found out that he’s like a famous prayer-singer guy. I guess they play his recordings from a lot of the miniarettes in Israel and he’s won tons of competitions and gone to record in Chicago and New York and such. SO STINKIN’ AWESOME! Isn’t that like the coolest thing you’ve ever heard? Who would have thought our bus driver would be a famous Muslim singer? Haha. Too cool.
Anyway, Gan Ha-Shelosha was AMAZING. It’s these natural warm springs that they’ve dammed up in a few places so there are pools and waterfalls that are so warm! We swam around there for a few hours, doing synchronized diving, relay races, belly-flop contests and whirlpools. AND there was a killer fish there! Yes! It was so hilarious! On one side of the main pool that we stayed in for almost the whole time there was a big rock coming out of the water. As soon as it came out of the water it curved out to a kind of ledge. Anyway, a guy from our group unsuspectingly swam over there and in a few minutes we heard him screaming and watched as he very quickly swam away to the other side of the pool, kind of laughing/shouting. As it turned out, there was a huge yellow fish over there with big teeth and a short temper. Anyone who got too close, he would attack! So of course all of us students piled out of the water to stand over the ledge and watch. We would send people in one by one to swim in the area so we could watch it attack them. It was hilarious! We watched it all happen. This big yellow fish would stay close to the bottom, holding pretty still and then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, and very rapidly, he’d shoot to the swimmer and bite their legs and heels! People were coming out with bite marks everywhere…they weren’t deep and apparently it didn’t hurt or anything. I wanted to go in and get attacked, but I was too chicken. It was so funny though! We were dying. This mean, killer fish attacking unsuspecting swimmers. Who could have imagined? Haha.
I did stand in the water and let the little fishes come nibble on my toes and heels though. It tickled so much! It was awesome.
We ate our lunches on the way to Bet Alpha. Bet Alpha is an old Jewish synagogue with a famous mosaic floor. It has a zodiac in the middle, which shows the Greek Christian influence on Judaism back in the day. It was brief and cool.
After that we went to Nain. Nain is where, in the New Testament, Christ raised a widow’s dead son. We sat in the small church there and sang and Brother Draper gave a small devotional. It was nice.
Then we headed to Mt. Tabor. Mt. Tabor is the believed mount of Christ’s transfiguration. Yeah, seriously. It was wonderful. And guess who just happened to be there that we got to meet? Truman G. Madsen. Yeah, I guess they’re filming a documentary on the Holy Land over here right now. Anyway, Mt. Tabor was beautiful. Brother Draper gave a wonderful lecture there on the transfiguration and the keys given to Peter, James and John and talked a lot about calling and election. It was beautiful. I felt such peace there on the mount. The Spirit was very strong during Brother Draper’s lecture. After the lecture we went into the church up there. It’s neat, they have Ionian designs on the tops of the arch columns, but the Ionian designs are such that they make the face of Christ over and over again. I couldn’t see it at first, but if you look at it long enough, you see His face carved in every design. It was really cool.
You take taxis up and down to and from the top of Mt. Tabor and on the way down, a bunch of us squeezed into this taxi with the Arab version of Gerry, the little old man on the short film in front of Toy Story who plays chess with himself. He was hilarious! He would just shout random English words at passersby and get us all to make loud noises out the windows and stuff and then he’d laugh this high-pitched, loud, crazy laugh, just like the laugh of Gerry. He was even wearing the sweater Gerry wears. We were dying. It was so funny.
From Mt. Tabor we headed home. After dinner we had our Ancient Near East course for 2 hours from 7-9. It’s hard to have class that late. But I think I wrote about our opening song the other day with the date palms blooming on the Sea of Galilee? Anyway, I got to class a little early and Brother Seeley was like, “We need a really good opening song today.” So I sat down and popped out these lyrics to the tune of “I looked out the window.”
“I looked out my window and what did I see?
Couples kissing by the Sea of Galilee.
Spring has come and it’s no big surprise.
Couples kissing right before my eyes.
I can get an eyeful in just one night,
A new couple daily comes to light.
Some say it isn’t so,
But I tend to disagree.
Couples kissing on the Sea of Galilee.”
I guess I should explain. Galilee is known for being the place where JC couples kind of “come out of the closet,” if you will. I guess in previous years, it’s always been where the most couples come to fruition. So our first Ancient Near East class period here in Galilee, a guy named Jordan in our group got up before class started during announcement session and said, “Some of you have been hearing rumors and what not, so I just wanted to set the record straight. Annie and I kissed last night and it was amazing.” And then he sat down. Well, you can imagine we all doubled over laughing. And since then, people have been getting up before class and making mock announcements similar to the one Jordan made. My personal favorite came last night before class when Joe stood up and said, “I just wanted to let you all know, Madison and I will be kissing on the last night here and you’re all invited.” Haha. People are so funny. So as you can see, the song was very fitting.
To be continued…