2018 Holy Land Updates

There's Humus Among Us

Posted by Sarah Morris on

Holy Land Blog Day 8

BBB time again and I hope you're ready for some amazing stuff. It is 9pm here in Jericho, which is 1p in San Antonio. Today was a full day with us hitting the road at 6:30am. We have our full team again today and everyone seems to be healthy, praise God! We are staying at the Oasis Hotel in Jericho tonight, but will be leaving first thing in the morning. How cool is it to be staying in THE oldest city in the world? So exciting! Today's Fitbit reading: 38 flights of stairs (remember I didn't climb Ein Gedi so those folks had MUCH MORE), 6.2 miles, and 15,000 steps. Pinky and Pincher, my 2 blisters, are still here visiting and are wearing out their welcome. #BlistersDontMakeFriends

Fun facts for today…
I haven't mentioned much about the food over the last week because that's not really my thing, but I figured you would want to know a little about it. Humus. We have humus for breakfast, humus for lunch and humus for dinner. I am a huge humus fan, but I gotta tell you, I'm probably not going to be eating humus for months once I get home. I'm pretty sure Queen Mary will take a vow of abstinence from humus upon arrival back home…its not really her thing. We saw a restaurant yesterday as we were driving and we all just lost it. The name of the restaurant…Meat Me! AHHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I think most of us would really enjoy a steak or cheeseburger right about now.

Ms. Kris. Do yall know the lovely and brilliant Kris Spratley? Well she is one of my new BFFs and she is smart and caring and funny and I adore her. Ms. Kris today went up to our guide, Becca, and told her that her transmitter wasn't working and she couldn't hear the lessons. Becca told her to try turning it on and off and Kris said she already tried that. She thought maybe it was the battery then looked down at the transmitter box to see the battery level when all of the sudden we see something….something out of place…something in a place it shouldn't be…it was her earpiece!!! NOT in her ear. LOLOLOLOL. She put the earpiece in and "magically" she could hear Becca again. We laughed and laughed and laughed.

I mentioned previously about Ruth and I possibly doing a travel show. Well, today when we got to the Oasis Hotel we decided to go look around the place and see what they had going on. We wanted to see the pool and the dining room and just get an overall feel for where we are. Our room is on the 5th floor so we take the elevator down to the 1st floor. You would think the 1st floor would be the floor with the main lobby, but Noooooooo. The first floor is the first floor of rooms so back in the elevator we go. Our options now are for TF and GF. We see a sign in the elevator that says the restaurant is on TF so we go with that. The doors open and we see the restaurant to our right then look to our left to see if that is the way outside to the pool. It was not the main floor so we did not see any exits to outside or any signs showing where to go. As we made it back to the elevator the guys in the restaurant motion us to come in. We go in and tell them that we will be back in an hour for dinner with our group. We got a look around and felt comfortable we could get ourselves back there for dinner once it was our "time". We wak out of the restaurant find the first set of elevator buttons and press the down. We still need to get to the main floor to find the pool. The elevator opens and it looks TOTALLY different than the elevator that brought us down. I chalked it up to being an elevator that was shared with the kitchen/catering staff and that's why it was all metal and black and said "service elevator". When the doors open on the "GF" it is nothing like anything in the hotel we have seen before. We are in some back hallway and when we try to find a door out, it was a no go. Back we go to the elevator and we deiced to just go to a floor with rooms then find our way back to normal elevators so we push floor 1. We get to floor 1 and again, we are in some secret passage way and nowhere near the public rooms. WE were laughing so hard that we could barely breath and our stomachs hurt. The last ditch plan was to go back to the floor where we caught this Willy Wonka elevator and get in a different one. So we get back down to "TF" and wait for the doors to close then hit the button again. This time the elevator door right next to it opens and looks exactly the same….metal and black. Still the wrong elevator. We are dying at this point as I think the heat has gotten to our brains and we can't get back to the "front of the house". We decide to walk past these elevators towards the hall and voila…the actual elevators for hotel guests. We are trying to hurry and get in the real elevator before the guys in the restaurant hear us and come out to check on us. Right when the guys peak around the corner, the elevator opens, we run in, and we are back in business. This gives a little insight as to how funny Ruth Goes Rogue would actually be. I'm sure we will have more for you before we return. #RuthGoesRogue

Now for the awesome stuff…
Today we started at Masada, a fortress built by "Herod T Great". Lol. This was fascinating to see the location he chose and hear Becca explain why. It was built in 42 BCE and although it had multiple palaces, its thought that Herod actually spent very little time there. There are several pictures that will help you understand the beauty of God's creation, but the remote location chosen for this fortress. Crazy!

After Masada we headed toward Ein Gedi springs. Here we had lunch then learned more about the land. There were a few springs that you could climb to see and some people were rockstars and went and saw them all, while others stayed back in the pavilion to enjoy the shade and others went and saw 1 or 2 of the springs. Ellen Bryant (new BFF) and I decided to kick back at the first spring and put our feet in the water and watch the kids come through with their swimsuits and get under the waterfall. It was just what we needed in that moment. Papa T (David Trammell) and Sarah Holden were amongst some of the rockstars that climbed to the top and saw all 3 springs! CRAZY!!! #WhenIgrowUp#Goals

After we left Masada we headed for Qumran to see where they found the Dead Sea Scrolls. WOW!! We were there yall! It just blows my mind. Becca gave us several lessons/teachings to help us understand fully what the Dead Sea Scrolls are, where they were found, and what that meant for the Jewish people then and now. She used an analogy about the Mormon scrolls that is too long to explain here, but please make sure to ask one of us when we get back to share that with you. Really put another perspective on it. Again, amazing pictures of this site that will hopefully help you get a sense for where we were. It was hot and dry and CRAZY to see how God's creation can look so different but still so beautiful.

We wrapped up our day at the Dead Sea!! Several of us put our swimsuits on and headed into the Dead Sea to float. It was the craziest sensation to just float without having to do anything. The mud was the slimiest thing and had, what felt to us like, sink holes that we fell in as we were walking out into the water. We had to take all jewelry off and you could not get your eyes wet because of the salt levels. We were at the Earth's lowest elevation on land…1412ft below sea level. It was awesome!! And CRAZY!!

Rest of the pictures will be posted on FB by 7:30am our time tomorrow. 

Sarah Morris
Blister Blogger

Comments

to leave comment

© 2024 University Methodist Church | San Antonio   |   5084 De Zavala, San Antonio, TX US 78249