Hezekiah's Tunnel

 The City of David and Hezekiah's Tunnel is always a favorite field trip.  Besides the obvious awesomeness of walking through 12 inches of water for 30-45 minutes wearing a headlamp, hanging out with students while singing "As I Went Down to the River to Pray," besides all that, we also go back in time to structures built in the time of Jeremian, Lehi, King David, the previous Jebusite inhabitants, Abraham, and Melchizedek.      But here's what you want to see, pictures of cute kids doing fun things.

 Here is Carrie with her buddies, Rachel and Rachel.

 Lisa was tunnel buddies with Kaylen

Emily gets a lift from Will.  Notice the water came up to the lower edge of her shorts.

 Carrie made it out of the tunnel!

Seder

Although Passover (Pesach) is a spring holiday, we hold a simulated Seder each semester, hosted by Ophir Yarden.  We follow the Hagaddah, the book compiled in the Talmudic time period which describes the order of the ceremony.  "Seder" means order, and it includes all the steps from the first blessing on the day to the conclusion where we say, "Next Year in Jerusalem."  

The students worked together to arrange the room for a great feast, to make it different from an everyday meal.  Below you can see the Haggadah book, the two thin candles on the silver candlesticks which were lit before the ceremony (thanks to one of the cafeteria workers who lent me his lighter), and a goblet for Elijah. Ophir said they don't actually set a place for Elijah. They have a cup for Elijah, and they open the door and see if he is there, but setting an extra place represents welcoming the stranger or unexpected guest.

Some students even helped make the Charoset (that's "ch" like in Bach), which represents the mortar with which the enslaved Children of Israel were forced to build.  Ashkenazi Jews (of European descent) typically make charoset with apples, cinnamon, walnuts, and wine/grape juice).  But Sephardi Jews (of middle eastern and North African descent) make Charoset with dates, walnuts, and wine. 

 
Our Seder host Ophir recommended the Ashkenazi recipe, but our Palestinian chef Achmed, well seasoned at catering Seder events in Egypt and Jordan, he recommended using rich, chocolate-brown date paste. So we compromised. The students cut apples, chopped walnuts, added cinnamon and grape juice, then kneaded in the date paste by hand. It was delicious! 

The charoset is placed on a Seder plate, along with parsley, a roasted hardboiled egg, a piece of roasted chicken, bitter herbs (we used commercially prepared red horseradish tempered with beets-not bad!), and romain lettuce.  Each table has a dish of salt water for dipping the parsley.  These symbols remind the participants of the bitterness of the slavery and the lambs that were sacrificed for the Paschal meal to save the firstborn of the children of Israel.

 

 

 

The delicious meal has to wait until the prescribed part of the evening, about an hour into the three-hour service.  First come prayers of thankfulness, cups of wine (we used grape juice), and reading the story of the Exodus.  Everything is participatory, as we take turns reading, dipping the parsley, making a sandwich with charoset, bitter herbs, and matzah. The students prepared songs in Hebrew and sang throughout the service.

Before eating, everyone washes their hands with a two-handled cup like those found in the washing stations of the Western Wall. They can also be found in restrooms and restaurants. This is a ritual cleansing of the hands. 

 


The leader gets his own hand washing bowl and a special packet containing three matzah.  The middle matzah is broken, and a piece of it gets hidden away.  That piece is called the afikomen, and it somehow gets lost and must be found, then redeemed at the end of the evening.  The children and students go look for the afikomen, and whoever finds it trades it for a treat, and the afikomen is eaten as the last bite of the supper.  It would have been this piece of bread which the Savior blessed and broke at the Last Supper. 

Our host sat at a head table with his daughter Yemima, and the students who helped read passages from the Haggadah. 

Ashkenazi Haroset Recipe (Yield: 3 cups)
6 peeled apples, coarsely chopped
2/3 c chopped almonds or walnuts
3 tbsp sugar, or to taste
½ tsp cinnamon
grated rind of 1 lemon
4 tbsp grape juice
Combine all, mixing thoroughly. Add juice if needed. Blend to desired texture-some like it coarse and crunchy, others prefer it ground to a paste. Chill. (Optional: Add ground dates!)

Excursions: Walls, Museums, Domes

The Anglican School community includes Jewish, Muslim, and Christian teachers, and mostly Christian students with a few Muslim families.  Therefore, school began after Ramadan, is closed for Christmas and Easter, as well as all the Jewish holidays, and on the Muslim holidays, there is teacher inservice with the understanding that the Muslim teachers will be excused. October began with the week-long Jewish holiday of Sukkot, so accompanied by the Schades, we did the Ramparts Walk.  This takes us from Jaffa Gate, past Damascus Gate, then all the way to Lion's or St. Stephen's Gate.  If you've never been, imagine the city is a clock, and we walked clockwise from a position of 10:00 to 3:00.  (But it only took 2 hours).  Another tour goes from Jaffa Gate to Zion's Gate, counter clockwise from 10 to 7.

Carrie and Emily overlooking the housetops of the Christian Quarter and the distinctive triangle decor made of pottery cylinders.    

Behind Damascus Gate.

We left the wall briefly for lunch and a tour of Zedekiah's cave, an ancient quarry, said to be the source of First Temple stones in Solomon's day.  An 11th century legend says Zedekiah tried to flee from the city through this cave and emerged near Jericho.  There is no exit today, but the cavern extends 650 feet toward  the Garden Tomb.  One of the large caverns has held masonic meetings since its rediscovery in the 1860s.

 From high up on the wall again, we could see Golgotha, the small caves to the right of the big cave.  The top of the hill is a Muslim cemetery, and just behind the building with arched windows is a bus station.  It's easy to forget while standing near the peaceful Garden Tomb that the site is surrounded by  a busy metropolis.

The Ramparts Walk features uneven stones and endless steps.  Definitely not ADA approved.  I mean in terms of accessibility, not fluoride content.

Nearing the end of our tour, we could see our home, the BYU Jerusalem Center, in the distance.  Funny how we go out on excursions looking for new sites, but we're always eager to see what we're already familiar with from our new vantage point.

Speaking of vantage points,  we went to the Bloomfield Science Museum that same week.  Here are Emily and Linda and all their multiples.

If I try to rotate this photo now, I'm afraid blogger will freeze on my again, so my apologies.  This is an exercise in pulleys and patience.  A small wooden ball sits in the circular hole in the square block, and you raise it to the oval on tope while trying to avoid all the polka dots.  Dad, I can go back with my measuring tape if you want dimensions.  We got a year's membership.

This photo's for my dad, also.  He's a big fan David Macauley's The Way Things Work, which inspired a room in the museum.

I call this the Wacky Wednesday room.  The kids loved watching themselves in the monitor where they could see themselves climbing the walls.

This optical illusion is in the courtyard where we ate lunch.  Watch Emily go from Goliath-sized...

...to David sized.

This isn't an excursion, but here you see our first pita-making experiment.  Click here for the recipe.

The dough puffs up in the oven, then collapses to form a pocket.  If we didn't have such wonderful fresh pita available, my kids would have thought the homemade was pretty good.  I'll try the recipe again next year.

Another day took us to the Temple Mount or Haram Es-Sharif.  From the walkway we had a good view of the plaza.

Here you see a young man's Bar Mitzvah on one side of the wall, while moms and aunties hold up cameras from across the partition.

This is the back side of the eastern Golden Gate, built in the 6th or 7th century on the remains of a lower, older gate, and sealed by the Ottomans in the 16th century.

This view of the Dome framed by a washing station is captured in one of my favorite George Kosinsky paintings.  Muslims wash before prayer, with the intent to be clean but also to be obedient and in the right frame of mind.  An ornate well on the way to the Dome of the Rock provides for foot washing as well as hands, and face.  I hope to write soon about the Seder and include photos of the two-handled cups used by Jews for ritual cleaning before ceremonies and meals.

The size of this shrine is hard to capture.  This is a photo of Karla Schade and Candice Stratford, with Joe as the happy camper in the backpack.  We felt grateful to be up on the Temple Mount/Haram Es-Sharif because as we exited the city an hour later, the entrance was closed.

Walking through the Muslim Quarter, we saw several homes whose bright decorations proclaimed their owner's completion of the Hajj to Mecca.  Our friend and custodian Mr. Zehikka took off work for a month to go to Saudi Arabia, and we expect him back soon. In addition to circling the Qa'aba, many Muslims purchase a lamb whose meat is given to the poor.  A fast day proceeds the feast of Eid el-Adha (October 26th this year), and gifts or cash are given to children.

This mural in the Jewish Quarter depicts the colonnaded Cardo which ran through the city in Roman times.  This was part of Emperor Hadrian's plan to Romanize Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina in the 2nd century A.D. and erase the city as a Jewish icon and center of rebellion.

When the Jewish Quarter was being rebuilt in the 20th century, residences and stores were built in such a way that archaeologists could work below, and so the old is preserved beneath the new.  The Madaba map in Jordan helped with the effort of locating the remains of the cardo.  If you know where to look, you can see a second, smaller colonnaded cardo, which intersects the other on the left (north) side of the picture.  Both paths are still extant in the city today.  

 Some columns remain or have been reconstructed.  This quiet street is 30 feet below a modern thoroughfare where shoppers peruse arched shops for silver jewelry and high-end artwork.

So that's October in a nutshell, new places and old places.

Sukkot

Sukkot was September 30-October 7.  As we drove around that week, we saw these square structures replacing or next to the usual cafe tables and sun umbrellas next to restaurants and apartment buildings. 

Ophir Yarden says you can divide the Jewish holidays into roughly two camps. Many holidays can be simplified thus: "God is Great! Let's eat."  Others can be summarized by, "They tried to destroy us, they didn't succeed, God is great!  Let's eat."   Passover, Sukkot, Purim, and Hanukah fall into this category, commemmorating respectively the Exodus, forty-year trek in the wilderness, survival during Persian oppression, and Maccabean revolt. 

Sukkot means tabernacles or booths.  The sukkah has to be outdoors, because it commemorates the children of Israel living in temporary structures in the wilderness, vulnerable to the elements and therefore relying on the protection of the Lord. The idea is humility through relinquishing material comforts (think YW Camp), and also confidence in the providence of the Lord as demonstrated by his watchcare over the wandering Israelites. 

 The sukkah roof has to be made of plant material, and we saw palm branches or reed mats. It has to be permeable to rain and give the occupant the ability to see a few bright stars through the cracks of the roof. The roof goes on last and comes off first. The supports are supposed to be strong enough to keep the sukkah standing in a light wind, but not permanent enough to withstand a huge gale.

 There must be 2 1/2 sides, but it doesn't matter what the sides are made of. We saw fabric, tent material, and even plastic printed with the name of the nearby restaurant.

 Large apartment buildings usually have communal sukkot near the entrances, as do synagogues, but people put them on balconies as well. We saw garlands of flowers or strings of lights decorating the fanciest sukkot.

The idea is to live in them for a week, which for most people means eating and socializing, so most people eat at least some meals in the sukkah. Many people host family and friends in their sukkah on the eve, first day, or last day of Sukkot. 

 
The sukkot near restaurants allow the more observant Jews to eat all their meals in a sukkah for the week if they wish.

 

 In addition to building and dwelling in sukkot, the children of Israel were also commanded to wave four species of plants to the four corners of the world and beat then beat them on the ground.  This lively commemoration occurs in synagogues or by the Western Wall.  If you're curious to learn more about Sukkot, click here. 

Turkey

Here it is! The Turkey Post you have all been waiting for!! I've done my best to put these pictures in chronological order but with pictures from both our camera and my ipod camera, and also a couple donated pictures taken by students and Bro Jackson, I may have made a few mistakes.
Anyway, I put a lot of time into this and I hope you enjoy!

Lovely map of Turkey

Day I
The plane ride
After eating breakfast in the Oasis, Dad, Megan, and I all said goodbye to Mom and the kids and departed at 11 AM bound for the Ben Gurion International Airport. After waiting in one line for HOURS it seemed, we all realized why we had arrived at the airport so early (our flight was booked for 3:00).
Finally we got on the plane that would take us over the Mediterranean to the country that would be our home for the next 8 days :)

Last view of Israel for a week !

The plane's menu: "Mutfakta Kim var?"

Menu: Shepherd  salad with feta cheese
Chicken schnitzel with potato salad
Walnut pear tart
Choice of bread

Vishna, aka "the nectar of the gods" (dubbed by my dad) was all out. I got to try it later, and thought it tasted like melted cherry jolly rancher.

Vishna is in the center under Meyve Sulan [Juices] 

Dad was out

I tried to get Megan to take a picture with me but she used her pillow defense 

Yay :) <3

I was finished with my chicken schnitzel and potato salad before I remembered to take a picture-- it was good! 

You'd expect a tart to be tart... it wasn't.
It was actually pretty good :) like a brownie

Yuck hazelnuts

The clouds: the clouds were beautiful the whole trip

The Landing: Turkish coastline

Since we left our old Judd Bus in Israel (I don't think it was in our budget to bring it on the plane with us), we got a new one when we arrived in Turkey.

This is the Lucky Judd bus, front view. The lovely smiling woman in the front left hand seat is our wonderful tour guide, Yasmine. And yes, that's me making the face in the fourth row.. haha

Thank you Brother Jackson for the picture :)

The Judd Bus stayed in The Kent Hotel (kent means city in Turkish). Too bad Brother Kent Jackson never got to stay in his own hotel.
We're here! :D *falls into bed*

Day II

Our first day was basically a tour of Istanbul- on foot.

Hippodrome

Megan and Leisl 

Our very first landmark: Wilhelm Fountain

Pretty much my second favorite picture of all time. (My first favorite is yet to come)

Megan, Rachel, Me, Kenzy

Will was taking the picture... haha

My dad

Look at the clouds! They're beautiful.

Diagram of Hippodrome in the students' field trip manual

Theodosius' Obelisk

The Obelisk of Theodosius was brought to the hippodrome from the Temple of Karnak in Luxor, Egypt (I've been there!!! :D)The base to the obelisk of Theodosius is the same base that was used when the obelisk was first erected here in 390 ad. It has never fallen even after great earthquakes in Istanbul.

The base depicts the emperor watching the horse races from the "imperial box".

Kenzy, Rachel, and Me

Serpent's column

Constantine's obelisk

Beautiful: two minarets from the Blue Mosque are visible from the Hippodrome (we're going there next)

Blue Mosque

Sun behind the gate to the Blue Mosque

Judd Fam pic!

Beautiful gold arabic letters

There it is.

We sit to the side as Yasmine, our guide, tells us about the place

The Blue mosque has six minarets in total. This caused a great dispute because normally mosques only have four, and the Grand Mosque in Mecca, which had 6 minarets, was suppose to be the greatest. Ahmet I, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, (the builder of the blue mosque) solved the problem by sending his architect to Mecca to add the seventh minaret to the Grand Mosque.

Inside the Courtyard; in order to enter the mosque we went through the side entrance, which was on the outside right of the building

Minaret from inside the courtyard

Minaret from outside the courtyard

The Blue Mosque actually doesn't require head scarves, but we had brought ours so we might as well :)

I probably shouldn't pick favorites, but out of the mosques we went to, this has to be the most beautiful (in my opinion).
The first thing your eye is drawn to is the ceiling; the incredibly delicate inscriptions laden in gold and decorative and colorful carvings and paintings practically take your breath away.

no words

Once you've gotten over your awe at the ceiling, that's when you see the stained glass windows.

Soft carpet (oh yeah, we had to take off our shoes and carry them)

Judd Fam pic in the Blue Mosque!

Beautiful

After our last views of the mosque, we step back outside to continue with our tour.

Two green parrots in the tree

The flower, "Mr. Sparkle", is held up and marched in the front of the group.
My dad often told the students "Don't lose sight of Mr. Sparkle!"

The Hagia Sofia is practically across the street from the blue mosque;
we will visit there at the end of our trip.

The cats and dogs here lay around and don't care if you pet them

Judd Fam Pic with Hagia Sophia in the background! 

Judd Fam Pic with Blue Mosque in the background!

Gust of wind.. blew Megan's hat off

Some pretty pictures

If you look closely.. you can see the city in the background..

Beautiful clouds! :D

Topkapi Palace

On the way in..

Judd Fam Pic at the Disney Land gate! (okay not really)

Our guide told us "Disney Land copied us, I think" haha

Seal of one of the sultans

Ceiling O.o wow

After we get through security we start the tour

Model of Topkapi palace

Window: gorgeous !!

Beautiful dome

Ceiling design

Silver dome

After talking for a little bit, Yasmine gave us free time for an hour. There were all sorts of exhibits, most of which didn't allow photography. Sorry...

Gold Ceiling

Half way in between two exhibitions was an overlook of the Sea of Marmara. Very beautiful.

Megan, Rachel, and Rachel with the Sea of Marmara in the background

The beautiful Sea of Marmara

Me in an arch indentation

Star on the railing of the balcony

Holy relics included in some of the exhibits were: Mohammed's sword, one of his teeth, a hair from his beard,  Joseph's (of Egypt) turban, and Moses's staff. I can't say how much of those are actually legitimate.
There were also beautiful golden and gem-adorned displays, and an armory (I didn't have time to go, and now I regret it)
It also happened to have one of the biggest diamonds in the world. :) Awesome. The Spoonmaker's diamond was originally sold for three spoons.

Spoonmaker's diamond
(I got this picture off of the internet.)

Megan and I by a gold fountain (Rachel top left)

The way out..

Um... a fig tree growing out a of sycamore? I forgot.

Basilica Cistern 

Otherwise known as the Sunken Palace (cool!)

Our camera's flash wasn't working..

Thanks Jaquel for helping us out!

Judd Fam Pic in the Basilica Cistern!

We walked on a board walk around the cistern. It was used to supply water for the Imperial palace (built in the same place as the Blue Mosque is now). It's held up by tons of big columns (336, actually) made out of marble and granite. There's actually still water in the cistern, though not very much. There were catfish swimming in it, too. Yum.

Columns.

Many of the Columns were made with recycled material from other structures. Two Medusa heads are used as the bottoms of columns that were too short. The story is that the act of putting Medusa upside down underneath a column was to discourage and mock the worship of greek gods.

Medusaa!

Medusaaa!

At this point we [finally!!!] got on a bus and drove to lunch. If I remember correctly it was a two course meal consisting of lentil soup, and then some kind of meat. Not that I have to think about it... that's pretty much what we ate for lunch for the whole week. The bread was good, I loved the bread; but I am never going to eat lentil soup again. :P

Boat ride on Bosphorus

I was really looking forward to the ferry ride: I wasn't disappointed! It was nice after such a hot day and very beautiful :). Unlike Jerusalem, Turks like to paint their houses extravagant colors. Pinks, greens, blues, purples, yellows, all in their brightest shades. I love it!

I didn't take my camera on the boat; I'm pretty sure it was dead by then. Special thanks to Kent Jackson for the next two pictures.

Megan and me

My awkward pose
I didn't know he was taking this when he took it...

Day III

We boarded the buses and are now bound for our hotel in Çanakkale, which is on the Asian side of Turkey. Turkey is located on both the European and the Asian continents, and Istanbul is on the European side. (See map at the top of the page) I can now honestly say I've been to Europe!

Sea of Marmara on the left hand side of the bus

Submarine pointed out by our guide and professors

Our first stop is Gallipoli, and we were watching the movie Gallipoli on the way there; how appropriate. I had already seen it when they had shown it the Friday before for movie night, but most of the students either didn't come or left half way through because they thought it was boring. I thought it was a really good movie. Unfortunately, there is some nudity, to which Brother Stratford held a cloth over the TV screen.

.

Brother Stratford covering up the screen
In a moving bus

We arrived at Gallipoli, ironically, right at the most important scene/ climax and had to pause it. When we arrived back afterward, the DVD wouldn't fast forward. So my dad ended up having to tell all of the students the tragic ending of everyone ending up dead.

Gallipoli Battle Field Memorial

Agean Sea

Me and Megan

In the movie, the Australian soldiers train in Cairo before they arrive in Turkey; so when they see the mountain jutting out when they first arrived (it was at night) it looked just like the sphinx.

The Sphinx!!

Peace of land jutting out

Anza

After we had sat down and talked about Galipoli, and taken a class picture, we walked a little ways to the memorial. 

The Turks commemorate this grave spot

We were silent as the Schade bus had their devotional. Many of the graves had very touching inscriptions on them.

Even though you had to be 21 to join the war, many 18, 19, and 20 year old boys served their country. The next grave was a 17 year old boy.

He died a man & closed his life's brief day, ere it had scarce begun

Judd Fam pic at Gallipoli with the Agean Sea in the background!

We then had lunch at a restaurant near Gallipoli, right on the Dardanelles. It was my tradition to sit next to Hannah at lunch times. 

Jacky, Annie, Hannah, and me :)
Thanks Annie for the picture! 

Ferry across Dardanelles

Very unlike our two hour boat ride yesterday, this Ferry only took half an hour or so; because instead of touring, we were actually going someplace. We drove our bus onto the ferry and then got out onto the higher decks.

The Turks are very patriotic. The flag is EVERYWHERE

Seagull

There were a bunch seagulls flying along side the boat. Some people on the lower deck were throwing crackers and the seagulls would sometimes catch them before they hit the waves. I think someone even got pooped on, too.

Unfortunately my camera died before I could get any more pictures

Troy 

The pictures I took at troy were actually taken with my ipod, sorry for the poor quality.

Ruins

Troy was originally situated in a natural harbor, and was an important port city for trade; but most of the bay is now filled in with silt deposited by rivers. Troy is now about 3 miles from the Agean Sea.

Me with what used to be the bay in the background

Fig leaves

Dad

Rachel, Rachel, and Megan

Pretty tree

More ruins

Me next to a column

Columns

I don't think I need to go over the story much, so there it is.

The Trojan Horse!

Okay, so it's not the original one. But still, it was cool :)

Epic tree with awesome clouds in the background

Schade Fam pic! Sister Schade, Brother Schade, and Adam.

Dallen and Cassie
Day before they got engaged

 Day IV

Assos

Assos was very cool and windy. We climbed up a long, steep, winding cobblestone road with cute little houses and shops on the sides. (The field trip manual calls it the "modern village of Behramkale")

The way up:

Megan

Sun behind clouds

Me, Rachel, and Megan

Centipedes were everywhere

Jordanian flag pokes up on the top of the hill

The Schade class, one step ahead of us.
The beautiful sky never ceases to amaze me.

What a view!

Columns

Once at the top, we sat down to listen to my Dad's lecture. It was cold and I had lent my sweater to Megan, so my nose was running like crazy until Will rescued me with a jacket and a tissue :)

Thanks Rosie for the next three pics!

I didn't even know she was taking this one..

After a lecture we usually sing a hymn..

I'll go where you want me to go, hymn 270

Gorgeouuus view of the Agean sea!

Next we go take our column pics.. :)

Sister power !
Eek! Windswept hair..

Megan touching the columns behind her

Me touching the columns behind me

Judd fam pic at Assos!

More columns

Please check back as I add more to this post

Pergamon acropolis:

Remember way back at the beginning when I showed you my second favorite picture of all time? My first one's coming up.

Special thanks to Rosie for the next pic

There it is. Best. Picture. Ever.
And I took it! :)

Random gas station stops and hotel/bus shots along the way

The following pictures were taken by my ipod sorry for the poor quality

Day V

Day VI

Grand Mosque in Bursa

Day VII

Iznik





Ancient Nicea

Hagia Sophia

Mosques

Dinner at Kumkapi Neyzen Restaurant

Souvenir time!!