The Middle East Part III: The Old City of Jerusalem

This is the last post of our trip... I promise. There was so much do in and around the Old City but one of our favorite things to do was eat off the street vendors. The food was so good! Everything comes in a pita... what's not to love about that?

This is "meat on a stick". Basically a shish-ka-bob put into a pita with salad (tomatoes and cucumbers) and some sauce... delish!

These are spinach, onions and cheese in a pastry crust... double delish!

And this is a falofel... ground chick peas and spices fried into balls and put in a pita with sauce, pickles and french fries!

We probably could have eaten a bit healthier but hey, we were on vacation. These veggies looked really good...

The marketplace shops


A pyramid made entirely out of spices. The smell of curry was strong in this city.

The Church of the Holy Seplechure. This is where the Catholics and other religions believe the Savior was tried, executed and buried. This was an interesting building.

Doesn't he look like Friar Tuck?

The lobby of our hostel

Our room. The ceiling would literally rain rocks and morter on us each night... what else do you expect from an 800 year old building?

We walked along the top of the outside wall of the city.

I just love this picture for some reason.

The Mount of Olives and BYU Jerusalem Center in the middle of the photo.

View of the City

A giant cemetary

The architecture in this city is beautiful! We ran into this on our way to the Holocaust museum.

The Damascus Gate. This is one of the main gates into the city and where basically all of the best food was that we found.

We were pretty lucky to be there over Hanukhah. This is the Western Wall on the last night of Hannukah. They were all celebrating and praying... it was really awesome to see.

This is right next to the Western Wall... I thought it looked like a movie set.

The men and women are separated when they go up to the wall. All the men have to have their heads covered. If they don't have anything there are little cardboard hats for them to use.

The highlight of our trip for me was seeing all the historical stuff we have all learned about since Primary. Being in Jerusalem, especially so close to Christmas and visiting these sites was such a spiritual experience. This is the Garden of Gethsemane. It is just a little gated grove of about 8 olive trees but 2000 years ago it must have taken up much of the hillside.

This hill is Galgotha. You will notice the skull in the mountain. This hill is right next to the Garden Tomb.

There is a bus station right below it now.

This was the most reverent part of the whole trip. I read an article in a 1972 Ensign where President Lee talks about a trip he took to the Holy Land. Read about it here. He describes this place much better than I ever could.

This is the inside of the tomb.

This really was an amazing and very humbling trip and I feel very blessed to have been able to go. It was a great experience to walk where our Savior has walked and we definitely want to go back again one day!

The Middle East Part II: Masada and the Dead Sea

Dave had been to Israel before so he made an excellent tour guide. Some of our highlights:

We noticed that everyone in Israel smokes and we figured out why... they start them young.

Yep, those are packs of cigaretts in the claw machine!

Sunrise from the balcony of our hostel in Eilat (that body of water is the Red Sea, it's crazy to believe that this is the sea that Moses parted)


We had to stop at a gas station on our way to Masada and we came across this camel all saddled up. I wanted to take him for a ride. People just ride their camels into town and tie them up while they shop.

This is a portion of Masada. This is a plateau where the Jewish people came to escape the Romans and built a little city. They were completely surrounded on each side and eventually committed a mass suicide rather than being taken prisoner or worse by the Romans... sad story but very interesting.


The ramp the Romans built to reach the top.

The rectangle is one of the many Roman camps. I swear this country is all the same color!

We spent the rest of the day at the Dead Sea and played in the mud. Don't mind my yellow shoes... oh yeah, and that's just mud on my swim suit...

The Middle East Part I: Jordan

Dave and I had a unique oppotunity to visit Israel and Jordan with Dave's sister Bethany and her husband Austin a couple of weeks ago. It was fun to see the different cultures. Here are a few pictures our adventures in Jordan:

When I think of the Middle East I always imagine camels everywhere so it was great when our cab driver pulled over and let us see some random camels hanging out on the side of the road.

This was the one and only Diet Pepsi in the Middle East... I swear. It didn't taste anything like it but the can was cute. You could find all the Diet Coke you ever wanted though.

Our awesome cab driver (can't pronounce his name though).

Our purpose of going into Jordan was to go into Petra and see the Treasury. The walk down to see it was much like the Narrows in Southern Utah only there was no water to wade through and the ground was even.


There were lots of cool little spots that had random caves built into the rock. We later found out that some people still live in caves. Dave wanted to ask them if they knew how to buy Geiko Insurance... I thought that was kind of funny.

There was a giant rock so of course we had to climb it!

Once you get through the canyon it opens up into this huge area with the Treasury straight ahead. You may recognize this place from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

This just shows how huge this place is.


We of course had to ride a camel.

I may or may not have ripped my jeans getting onto this beast... he was huge!

These are the guards who stand up in the doorway of the Treasury so no one enters.


Around the back of the Treasury there were a lot more of the caves.

When were were exploring these stairs we heard a bunch of racket and a little boy came barrelling down riding his baby donkey. So cute! I wish we had gotten a picture of him.

A giant ampitheater

We had a great time in Jordan!