I played the Carillon Bells at the YMCA today!

Well I'm getting into the flow of living in Jerusalem. It's been nice to have some time to get into the swing of things before the students arrive on Wednesday. This week has been very busy. We took a quick 3 day trip up to the Galilee to see some of the places that we will be taking the students in November.

Day 1 we went to 

Caesarea Maritima (Herod the Great's capital city that he built as a roman luxurious city, with its massive aqueducts, theater, man made harbor, palace and hippodrome), 

Acco (the last holdout of the crusaders with its underground city and Turkish baths), and Nazareth (which was totally empty. There was no one in the Church of the Annunciation with us, which I have never experienced before). 

We stayed at the kibbutz Ein GeV where the students will stay for 10 days.

Day 2 we went to the upper Jordan region to  

Banias and Caesarea Philippi (where Jesus asked, whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?), 

Tel Dan (the northern most city of Israel, "from Dan to Beersheba"; this is one of the springs that is the source for the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee; it was a monumental gate that dates to the time of Abraham and May have been where he chased the kings who had kidnapped Lot to get him back. While we were there we could hear the mortar fire of the Syrian rebels overtaking Assad's army and capturing the border town

Hazor, a major archaeological site with palace, synagogue and watchtower 

Berthsaida the home of Peter, Andrew and Philip

Hippos, on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Sea of Galilee. We watched the sunset from them—absolutely gorgeous

Day 3

Magdala the home of Mary Magdalene and the major fish processing place in Jesus's time. I had never been there before and they have some interesting new excavations. I've decided that this is where I'm going to teach about Jesus and the women

Arbel a mountain cliff overlooking the Sea of Galilee. This will be the place from which the students first see the Sea of Gailiee.

Sepphoris another major Roman city. It was the capital of the Galilee and is just across the valley from Nazareth. In all probability Joseph and the young Jesus would have come here to find work. It is a city full of luxury. There is no record of Jesus ever coming here during his ministry. This is also the place where Judah ha-nisei wrote down the Mishnah

Bethshean another massive Israelite city. One of the cities of the Decapolis in Jesus' day. Lots of gorgeous ruins, theater, amphitheater, market place with beautiful mosaics.

It was a very long trip that wore me out!!!!! I slept very well when we got back to Jerusalem.

Today (Sunday) I went with one of the service couples to play the carillon bells at the YMCA in Jerusalem. I thought that I was just going to watch, but they got me to play!!!!!  I played Lightly Row and Ode to Joy. It was a lot of fun!