Yellow Pudding: This Doesn't Seem Real- But it Israel.

(Do you love how I'm finally posting this over a year later?)

Hello friends, as a world traveler these days I am here to tell you (or rather show you) how my Israel trip went. First off, shout out to my Grandma who made things possible for 17 of us from our family to go. It was a giant party, it was all of our family plus five more from Elder Neilson's family (he was just put into the Quorum of the 70 last April General Conference), our bus driver- who I can't remember the name of but he was famous for saying GOOD MORMON every morning before we embarked on our journey for that day. Last of all, our tour guide Daniel Rona. The Rona was really something, he would just talk and talk and talk. He would talk for hours at every location we went to. He would talk while we were on the bus. Man, he would even talk when we were taking a break. Does he talk this much in his personal life? What sorts of things does he say to his wife and kids at the dinner table? Do you think he talks in his sleep? He'd probably be the worst person to go to a movie with. Anyway, I'll head away from this and start toward the actual trip. We did a lot of things every day, so this is going to be more of a dumping ground with some sort of commentary here and there. And here we go.

DAY ONE

Our first day started out with visiting Bethlehem.

This is the Church of the Nativity from the outside.

Where we went in, it is really cool because you can see the original archway. Now the door is oompa-loompa sized.

This is a fancy window.

And this is your close-up of said window

We went down some steps and were in some basement thing. There was some stuff written in Latin and I felt super legit because I once suffered through a Latin class.. too bad I can't remember anything about anything.

This is a little view of Bethlehem

This is how we were the first day, as shown by my brother.

We next visited this museum where there was a model of the Old City. Craig and I just wanted to play in it and pretend that we were giants.

But that didn't happen. Our app of the trip was Whale Trail. It has the best sound effects. I highly recommend it.

Next we went in where they displayed the Dead Sea Scrolls. (well.......... a copy of it anyway). It was freezing inside that dome.

We took a break and had lunch at some random park where I tried my first legit falafel. Once you eat some of those you'll be burping up falafel ball for the rest of the day. Tasty tasty.

This is Bet Shemesh I believe, where Sampson was. You know of the one, he had that super incredible hair that could kick butt and then someone chopped it off and he became weak sauce after that.

We then went to the valley where David faced Goliath and we even got to try our hand at old school slingshots.

I almost hit my cousin with a rock once, it was a very dangerous time.

The last thing we did was visit some hilltop where we overlooked Bethlehem. We spent probably two hours too long at this one spot but Rona insisted that we listen to about 10 billion Christmas songs. The Rona wasn't too happy with our lot because we were all really ansty and were wandering around and Craig found this little owl sitting in a window and it was the best thing I'd ever seen and after a million years on the mountain top we finally left and went back to the hotel and all our faces were like this:

DAY TWO

The second day we were there was Saturday, which is considered the Sabbath over in Israel.

psssst- and because we didn't have any tour planned it was secretly one of the best days. We began our morning by going to the BYU Jerusalem Center for church and it is the most incredible building. The way the chapel is set up is so that the audience is facing the Old City and the whole wall is a window pretty much. It was so distracting. I don't remember much of what was said because I was gazing out the window the entire time. We were not allowed to take pictures inside the chapel but once the service was over we were free to roam around the grounds a bit.

This is the legit Old City. Not just some bogus model of it.

We are models, you know what I mean?

After church we decided to visit the Old City so we took some cabs and went to Damascus Gate. This is the majority of the crew and we were waiting for the stragglers.

Our lunch that day. So. Good. It was put in a little pita and we got to put in our own filling.

Craig looking all hip and mysterious..

Once we were in the Old City I guess my dad decided it was time for some photobombs and thus this picture was born:

Photobomb all around!

Mummy and Me!

My adorable grandma!

This is what basically all the shops were like. Pretty much the entirety of the Old City is a maze of flee market.

We managed to find our way through the labyrinth to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This is a pretty intense place because it has like five or six different churches trying to claim part of it. So instead of peace and quiet and light, it was all dark and crammed and everybody was trying to talk over everyone else.

This slab of rock is right as you come into the church, I guess people believed that this is the exact spot where Christ's body was crucified or something? I don't know but it was all pretty bogus.

Little did we know, we'd be visiting this spot again with the Rona. More pictures to follow!

Back out into the shops! Twinners! ..Legit twinners.

And also some super hot pink cauliflower. I don't know what the deal is with this.

And so concludes the second day!

DAY THREE

We went back to the Old City and went to Temple Square where the Dome of the Rock is located.

We walked by the Western Wall on our way into the square.

We were told that the women had to cover up there legs but our guide told us that the men would be okay.... ooops, he messed up. They weren't allowed to show their legs so they all had to buy these janky scarves and tie them around their waist. So fashion.

I think we got in trouble for taking these kinds of photos in this area because "no touching" was a legit thing around this place.

A wild Rona appears!

Tour group uses Ask Question.

It doesn't affect Rona!

Rona uses You Weren't Listening.

Critical Hit!

Craig and Britney use Listen to iPod!

It was super effective!

These are some kids in class.

I think this is the road Christ took on his way over to Gethsemane, which is just straight on 'till morning.

Believe it or not, this is a cemetery.

Damascus Gate.

Yeah, shoot some arrows through that.

Just through the gate and into the Old City again!

Bread is everywhere! Bread for everyone!

We went back to Holy Sepulchre Church

A mural of Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac

I don't remember what this is, but a huge line was going to it and people had to kneel down and they would prey or kiss it or something.

Another something where there was BILLIONS of people crammed in line to get into this little place.

Olive press. There is supposed to be a stick/log thing in the center and you would push that around and it would press all the olives.

This guy gave us the 'opportunity' to give to charity. You get a red string, and you put in a shekel.

Fish braid all around!

The wall of the Temple. I stood there for a solid 10 minutes getting tripped out by it because it looked like it was coming at you.

The original steps to the temple. They were all different sizes so you had to think about going up them instead of just casually strolling along. Trippage number: 12

DAY FOUR

Today we visited the Western Wall. You might know if it as the Wailing Wall, it is only called that because when the people pray at this wall, the specific prayer sounds like a wail. This was also the day that I saw some girl there for a Bar Mitzvah wearing the exact same shirt I was wearing. It was a weird time. Anyway, the reason people come to this wall to pray here is because it is the closest they can get to the temple. The men are separated from the women and you have to stand on chairs and look over a wall to see the other side.

Elder Neilson's head sticking above the crowd. This guy is incredible and I am so glad I got the opportunity to go on this trip with one of the Seventy. He was so down to earth and so easy to get along with. What a cool cat.

WESTERN WALL

REPRESENT

Next we went to the place where the Last Supper took place.

We learned all about Passover (for probably about three hours)

This room is where The Last Supper happened. It was pretty small. I guess we don't really have a picture of the entire room. Another couple of tour groups came through at the same time we did and we were crammed into a corner. But it's still kind of cool to see.....

Later we went to the Mount of Olives and spent a million super serious hours here.

This is the original Gate Beautiful. It is all sealed up now, but it was the gate that Christ used to go out to the Mount of Olives.

I just really liked the following picture..

Lastly, we went to visit the Garden Tomb. This is supposed to be Golgotha... or what remains of it. Can you see the skull?? Because I can't.

Here is the original picture of the skull. ... A little easier to recognize.

When the Romans crucified somebody they would actually put them along the street as kind of a warning to passersby. So with that knowledge, contrary to popular belief, Christ was not crucified on top of a hill. Also, the distance between Golgotha and the Garden Tomb was probably like... half a football field.

Christ's body is believed to have lied in #4 on this diagram. The chamber wasn't long enough for him to fit so they had to dig out some extra space for his feet, and from that we know about how tall he was.

And like that, it was the end of the day.

I just threw in this picture because my mom was super proud of it.

.... and I threw in this one because I liked it a lot.

DAY FIVE

ALRIGHT. LISTEN UP. Day five is where it was at! We traveled to Masada and also the Dead Sea. Amazing things happened.

But first we had to stop in a little place where these kiddos found the Dead Sea Scrolls. That's right.

A little promo shot.

So listen up! These little hoodlums were taking their sheep out or something and got bored. So these kids decided to thrown rocks and junk in a hole in the cliff just like the one featured below. Even though this wasn't the actual spot in the actual mountain that the actual sea scrolls were discovered, it still gives you a little visual. The scrolls were found near this place, just higher.. or deeper in the cliffs behind this little guy.

The Dead Sea. BOM BOM BOM. Looking real good.

We then all headed up to Masada.

Our relationship explained in one picture.

So Herod just decides he needs to build a vacation home for himself on top of this giant plateau overlooking the Dead Sea. Because who wouldn't. But then these rebellious Jews, mostly called Zealots, decided to come live up here. They build more of a town for themselves.

Of course they can't have nice things and this Roman army comes over and surrounds the place and decides to build up this HUGE ramp to get up to Masada. Pictured below is the Roman camp grounds. It took them like a million years to build up a ramp that high. Okay more like..... three? three and a half? Well, spoiler alert, the Zealots living up there just decide that it would be better to take their own lives before the Romans can get to them. Long story short. The Romans were all hot and bothered but that's nothing new.

Craig and I decided to play a little game of "who can throw a rock in his hat first". That kept us entertained all of 12 minutes.

Now for the party times! We went down to the Dead Sea!

Being in there was such a trip. I cannot even.

Ta-da! Look at all us beauties.

YEAH. Best day.

DAY SIX

Have some pictures of Craig and I being weird (per usual) and a few more from the day we traveled to Nazareth and took a little boat ride on the Sea of Galilee. Whoop.

DAY SEVEN

Still in Nazareth, this is what the hillside looks like.

We were on top of a thing looking at things.

Mediterranean Sea!

That's my dad!

We got to play around in the sea for approximately 12 minutes because Rona wanted to talk some more and was starting to get fed up that we weren't listening.