Galilee- Day 9

Tuesday, November 22
To me, today was a lot of nature walks and reserves, but that’s nice. I was just pretty tired today for some reason, so the “walk” part wasn’t as enjoyable as the “reserve” part. We started off in Hazor, which had some ruins. Then we went to Tel Dan, which marked the northern-most part of Israel in Old Testament times. There was a nice mix of archaeology and beautiful nature here. The two most interesting archaeological sites were the red dirt gate dating from the time of Abraham and the HUGE sacrificial altar. The altar was so so big, it was ridiculous. It definitely wasn’t difficult to imagine a fully cow barbecuing up there. As for the nature part, there were a lot of springs that fed into the Jordan River, a few waterfalls, and even a Winnie the Pooh tree! I don’t really know why this tree is considered the Winnie the Pooh tree, but there was a sign next to it, and I took a picture with it. After Dan we went to Caesarea Philippi, which is where the events in Matthew 16 took place. This is when bears testimony that Jesus is the Christ, and Jesus says “upon this rock I will build my church” etc. There wasn’t a church or anything to mark it; it’s actually just a nature reserve with all the springs that are there. There are also a few ancient pagan worship areas for the god Pan. The next nature reserve was Bannias, which had beautiful waterfalls. It was also right next to a cow pasture. I was a little disappointed that there were no Texas longhorns. Last stop of the day was Nimrod Castle, which was fun because I like castles. Unfortunately it was more ruins than castles, but it was still a nice idea. Actually I lied- the last stop was Har Bental, which is an overlook bunker that was used by the military. From the top you can see into both Syria and Lebanon (I think... definitely Syria). There were some cool bunkers and tunnels that we went through, though it was a little creepy!

Tonight we had another bonfire! We were invited to create some skits and such for the bonfire, and Harper’s class stepped up to the plate! I’m so proud of all those who did the skit. They did a little skit about some of the faculty and how they would act if they were all stuck on a deserted island. It was really funny because the students perfectly personified each of the faculty with their funny phrases and mannerisms. Accents, vocabulary, singing, and all. We also had a lot of guitar playing and singing around the fire, which I loved.