Thursday by Sophie M.

Today we stopped at several places including the temple mount, western wall, and dome of the rock. The temple mount was where Abraham was about ready to sacrifice his son. We walked around the site and saw the dome of the rock and other mosques which were beautiful. The dome of the rock that was golden on top and had lovely geometric shapes and designs in green, blue, and white with arabic writing. I took LOTS of pictures. We also had a discussion about what makes a place holy and got lot

of different opinions on the subject. Afterwards, we made our way over to the western wall.

The western wall is about 34 meters high and each block is roughly 3 tons. The women had to go on one side while the men got to witness a bar mitzah on the otherside. I also had the oppurtunity to put my prayer in the wall and take pictures of the women watching their son's bar mitzah from the ladies side.We also walked along the temple ruins of the first and second temple.

One of the most fun experiences today was walking through the city of david underground. It was long, dark rock tunnel filled with water top about our knees. It was dark and we had to purchase flash lights in order to see. the journey through the dark tunnel took us about 45 minutes and I was glad to see the light when I emerged. The tunnel was used to transport water to king david's city. After that I treated myself to two ice creams, and some peanuts. Tonight we are playing cards and were able to have a formal discussion with the Arab teenagers who live in Israel. We asked several questions about identity, priviledges, discrimination, and the conflict in general.

I'm having a oober awesome in Israel with my buddies!

-Sophie M.