It's Friday and I'm back at the JUC. Yesterday was our final day in the Negev (the desert region in Southern Jerusalem). In the morning we went to Masada, which was amazing and really hot. There are some places in Israel that have been much smaller, and closer together than I expected. Masada is not one of those places. It's huge and very high up. So naturally we hiked all the way up the remains of the Roman siege ramp, and all the way down the "snake path". I slipped on the way down and bruised my hand, but it's a good story worthy wound I think. I was glad I got up there. There is basically a whole city on top of that hill, and there were some first century frescoes and mosaics still intact. The story of the place is very powerful to say the least as well.
After Masada we went to the Dead Sea! I had been anticipating that a lot, but in the moment it didn't feel like a momentus occasion. You just walk into the water pretty normally and when you go to swim your knees kind of shoot up to be parallel with your shoulders. I was able to tread water and then stop treading, basically just standing in the water, with nothing but salty ocean under me, and have my head and shoulders completely above the water. While we were swimming around we happened to notice a sign giving the temperature. It said that it was between 43 and 45 degrees. Celcius. so yeah, When the picture below was taken, it was about 110 F. I guess we worked up to that.
Afterwards we got to swim in the mercifully cool pools of En-Gedi and we got to spend about 10 minutes at Qumran before the park closed. I got some good pictures though.
Today we have a day off to do laundry and study.
I hope you are all doing well, thanks for the comments.
Love,
Lauren
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