On our way, we stopped at the Herodium - one of Herod's palace-fortress complexes. Herod was buried here. The main palace served as Herod's "summer palace", complete with a large pool with an island in the middle. You can see in the first photo the outline of the pool and the circular island in the middle. On the cone-shaped hill in the back is the upper Herodion to house the troops. There is a huge eastern watch tower. From there, they had a 360 degree view of the surrounding area, including Jerusalem if you look close enough.
We went up to see the views, and then we went into some tunnels through the mound. We saw some workers cleaning off some frescoes. We saw the area where Herod's tomb would be.
We rolled into Bethlehem around 11, and met up with our guide. She took us into the Church of the Nativity. It is the oldest continuously-operating church in the world, being in use since it was originally built in the 4th century. The whole interior is being restored and cleaned, so it was covered in scaffolding. We waited in line for 40 minutes or so to get down into the grotto where most people believe Christ was born. The last photo in this bunch is of the manger (yes, made of stone - more on that later) down in that grotto. It has become a shrine covered in artwork and candles and fabric. It is super hot and crowded and not the most pleasant or spiritual of experiences. I tried hard to think about Christ as I pushed my way past the Asians, though.
Next we went into this church of Saint Catherine, where Jerome (the statue) might have written parts of the Bible. We sang some hymns down there. For some reason we always get stuck singing at a suuuuper slow tempo and it drives me crazy and I just can't even sing with everybody that slow. Sometimes people just try to be super dramatic....no no.
We went into another grotto (cave) known as the "Milk Grotto". There is some story somewhere that says that Mary and Joseph stopped in this grotto as they were leaving to Egypt to feed the baby Jesus. While she was breastfeeding, a drop of her milk dropped on the ground and turned the inside of the cave a chalky white. People came from all over to scrape the white chalk off the walls, and they said that it brought miracles to their lives, most involving fertility for women. Although that is a strange story, the inside of this cave was much more pleasant. We had more time to sit and talk about the Savior and to think about the setting of his birth. We sang a few Christmas hymns and listened to some testimonies of our professors. It was very moving.
We had almost an hour to walk up and down the shops around Manger Square to shop!! Everybody looked at olive wood nativities and baby blankets. I didn't think the blankets were very cute...so I got stuck on the olive wood. I got a handful of ornaments, and I ended up getting four pieces of this simple nativity set!! I am very happy with it. I got Mary holding Jesus, Joseph, the donkey, and one sheep. They go together nicely.
We had a yummy lunch in "the tent". More pita (whole wheat this time!! YUM) with dippings and salads! SO GOOD. They also served this fresh limeade with mint and Sprite. It was a really amazing lunch.
We left the city of Bethlehem and went to some fields across the hills. They showed us where shepherds may have gathered their sheep in a sheep cote. We sat on the rocks and looked across at the little town of Bethlehem. We watched the sun go down and saw the stars come out. We talked about the birth of our Savior and what happened that night. We shared individual testimonies and sang tons of Christmas hymns. It was pretty cold. I loved laying on my back looking up at the star-filled sky, thinking about how the shepherds would have felt in a field west of the city on that cold night.
It started raining just as we left - blessed.
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