Walking the Ramparts - 26 Jan 2012

 Thursday we had the opportunity to walk the ramparts around the Old City.  We actually walked just over half the way.  It is about 2.7 miles around the entire perimeter.  The walls have been built and torn down numerous times.  The present walls were built by Suliman the Magnificent starting in 1537 and completed in 1541.

 This is the view looking south toward Bethlehem along the wall on the west side of the city.  The rampart walk starts near the Jaffa Gate (where we saw the African tourists above).  There has been a lot of rain in Jerusalem and things are beautiful and green.

 Here we are at the other end looking North along the west wall toward Jaffa Gate.  It's a long walk.  There are lots of stairs up and down.  It took me 2 days to recover!... and I have been running 5 flights of stairs up and down for 2 weeks now.

The stairs are about twice the height of normal stairs.

Fun Tour Groups - This one from Africa 25 Jan 2012

 One of my favorite sights in Jerusalem are all the tourists, especially the groups!  This little group is very obviously from Africa, somewhere.  The were so excited.  They must have purchased a bolt or two of cloth and made themselves matching outfits, so they wouldn't get lost.  They are just inside Jaffa gate getting ready to go into the Muslim quarter.  By the look of the bags they have with them it looks as though they have just arrived.

They were SOooo excited, that I wonder if they made it past the first vendor! They were jumping up and down and taking very animated, just beside themselves with excitement.  We had a fun few moments watching them.

Go-Karts! 25 Jan 2012

 Hey, Justin.... do you recognize the guy in the red shirt?  He is a Call.  His name is Joseph Call and his sister Rebecca Call is also here.  They are attending Hebrew university in a one year program.  Joseph is young enough that he didn't remember your parents, but Rebecca does.

There is a mall not too far from our house and they use the bottom floor as an indoor race track

 Here they are all getting lined up.  Jared insists that he was the fastest!  Jeremy contends that he had the best overall time... and it was based on time.

                                             One thing for sure, they would like to go again!

24 Jan 2012 Mount Zion

 The second highest hill in Jerusalem is called Mt. Zion.  This is where the crusaders say the last supper occurred, where King David is buried (although Jewish sources are sure that he is buried in David's city... a few blocks away).  The tower is called the Dormition Tower.... where supposedly Mary fell into a deep sleep.  This complex was supposed to have been included within the city walls when Suliman had them rebuilt in the 1500's but somehow Mt. Zion complex was missed. It is just outside the walls

 This is another view form the rampart walls that surround the Old City.  We are looking across the Armenian Quarter... the only place in the Old City that still has some vacant lots.

This was our favorite mosaic inside the cathedral on Mt. Zion.  It was less medieval  than most.

 We thought the face was quite realistic

Sabbath day at the BYU Jerusalem Center

 This is where we attend church on the Saturday Sabbath.  The Church does a wonderful thing to observe whatever the Sabbath is the various countries we meet in around the world.  When we were in Amman, the Sabbath was on Friday the Sabbath in a Muslim country.  Here it is on Saturday.  This is the main hall on the 8th floor.  It is about a football field and a half long, with a rotunda, seminar rooms, a gallery and the auditorium where we hold our meetings. 

 This view is looking to the north from the front of the Jerusalem Center.  At the far south end we can see our apartment building complex out near the  Talapia suburb of Jerusalem.  I think the tower you can see in the background marks the place of Jesus' ascension into heaven from the Mount of Olives.

 Here are Lane and the boys near the front gate were we enter.  It has a "magic" gate that is controlled by security from within the Jerusalem Center.

 ...waiting for the gate to open so that we can get out. 

Looking out at the Old city and the Kidron Valley

Banana Land, Jericho, Israel

 Our first outing was to Jericho rendition of 6 Flags, but it was a fun ice breaker for the Jerusalem Branch's 4 young men.  Here you see Jared with John Harper (Steven C Haper is his father... of Joseph Smith Papers fame). The Joseph and Josh Ludlow (Jared Ludlow son of Victor Ludlow is their father).  The fathers of the boys are BYU professors at the JC for a one year assignment.  They live in the Jerusalem Center with the students.

 Here are the boys on a race car track.  This one was fun but not nearly as fun as the bumper cars. 

I think they rode the bumper cars at least a dozen times.  The boys had a great time.  The only bummer was Jared lost his wallet and military ID for the second time in a year!  Cheesh!

Spring in Amman!

All the vacant lots have become beautiful green fields of mustard, weeds and grass.
Everywhere we go,we are surprised by shepherds crossing streets, even the freeway, in search of pasture for their flocks of sheep and goats.   I caught this little flock a few hours ago.

Here are some of the floral displays to be seen around our house.  I always think of Mary walking to the sepulcher, probably oblivious of all this beauty, as she went with heavy heart to the tomb of her beloved Savior.  All the flowers seem to be shouting in brilliant color..."He Lives! Rejoice! New life is coming!"

 This is the mosque across the street that sings to us at least 5 times each day.  The field is brown, barren dirt for much of the year.  It's nice to see green.

People's gardens are running over the walls in gorgeous displays

 One of the gorgeous garden displays lining Airport Road!  Sorry, I don't see the function to turn it upright.

Pansies...with the "Modern American School in the background

Welcome Spring!

a few more Karak Photo's and the surrounding country

Here is a photo of the dry moat

This is looking north towards Madaba and Amman.  There is a fairly sizable Christian population in this area.  They raise hogs for slaughter.

another view... I can't remember if this is looking east or west.  Very hilly country, isn't it?

an underground chamber with a skylight.  Each of the archways lead to a room

This is a chapel... also underground.  It was amazing to see that they basically had a whole city under the ground!  

This a a pretty good long shot of  about a quarter of the above ground land area of the castle.  You can not tell how much of a system is hidden under the ground.  The structure you see is one of only a few that are left above the ground.  The darkened area in the foreground of the photo is the top of one of the entrances leading to the underground maze.  From the top it looks like just a bunch of rubble, but the bottom structures are actually quite sound.  Perhaps there were originally many more above ground structures.  

Another close up shot of the imposing Glace`

Karak

This is Karak.  Anciently it was the capitol of Moab and was called Kir in the Old Testament.  The first reference to Kir is in Numbers 22 when King Balak of Kir calls for Balaam, a Midianite prophet (the one whose donkey talked to him) to come curse Israel.  The site of this city is near the southern end of the Dead Sea.  Balaam stood here, and saw Israelites camped in the valleys.  He went about 30 miles north to Madaba and saw more Israelites and then another 30 miles north about to Amman, where he exclaimed "What hath God wrought?"  What you see in the following photos is the crusader installment built starting in about 1140 a.d.   The castle complex covers an area of 9 million square feet with another 23 million square feet of underground halls, rooms, chapels, storage rooms and granaries.

 The castle is surrounded on three sides by what the French call a "Glace`" (pronounced Gla-say).  That is the smooth brick covering the hill going up to the castle.  It made it impossible for man or beast to scale when attacking the castle.  The only side the castle could be attacked from was the town side.  A huge dry moat separates the the castle from the town, but even so the crusaders were only able to hold on to the castle for about 46 years when the castle was overthrown by the Muslims under Saledin in about 1200 a.d.  Examples of both crusader and Muslim architecture are evident throughout the castle.

I am actually standing on the roof of the longest hall...undoubtably the judgement hall of the local ruler.  On the right side of the photo you can see the castle ramparts.  The arches were where the archers stood to shoot arrows

This is the LONG hall.  I am not a very good judge of distance, but a modest estimate would be at least 2 hundred feet long and about 30 feet wide.  The room is lit by a system of skylights.  It stays quite cool in the summer and is probably ridiculously cold in the winter.

Jeremy is showing us how the archers might have stood to protect the castle from attack.  Frankly it seems a redundant system as any attacker would have had to scale literally hundreds, perhaps nearly a thousand feet in order to attack this north side of the castle.  

Here is Jared looking over the Glace` on the South side of the castle.  It is a LONG way down to the road below!  

Here is a small example leading into the maze of rooms below the ground level of the castle.  It was absolutely mind boggling how much room they utilized below the ground.  You can also see one of the few remaining remnants of a building  that was above the ground.  My guess is that much of the above ground level of the castle may have been used for gardens.

Wanna See the DATT House??

t

 This is where we live in Amman, Jordan.  This house is for the Defense Attache.  The owner/builder lives upstairs and we have the ground floor. Most all the houses in Amman are built of white limestone.  It is the same in Jerusalem.  It is plentiful in this area.  It makes it a little difficult to find people's houses sometimes because everything looks the same.  Notice the front sidewalk.  The Jordanians go to extravagant lengths to put sidewalks in front of their houses.... and then plant BIG trees, right smack dab in the middle, so they are unusable.

This is the formal living room or representational room as it is called in the attache world.  It is about 30ft x 30 ft... almost a perfect square, with an 8 ft bump out on one side and a 4 ft bump out on the other side.  I can seat 20-35 comfortably.  There are actually 3 complete living room sets.  It's quite an elegant room, as you can see.  I bought Lane the room divider for Christmas.  He has been wanting one for quite a while.  This is one view of our large Kitchen.  There are times when I use every square inch of the abundant counter space.  This room is about 17 x 20.  I'm glad we have a maid who daily washes all the white tile floors!   There is a guest bathroom and powder room through the door to the left.  The back door is in the recessed area in the shadows.  The sliding door goes to the pool area where much of the entertaining is done, especially in nice weather.

 This is the room we actually live in... the office.  It LOOKS lived in, huh!  School, computers, sewing machine, books are all in this room.  It's the heart of the house.

 This is dad's closet.  The section on the right holds his attache clothes, the section next to it is his military wardrobe and to the far left are his civilian clothes.

 This is the LONNGG hall going from the Master BR to the office.  It is 60 feet to get out of bed and dash to the phone. Sometimes I don't make it.  All the closets on the left are my closets.  The top portions hold extra food and flower arrangements. Lane is standing at the door of the master bedroom looking down towards the office.  There are 2 more bedrooms on the right side for Jeremy and Jared.   I guess there is a limit as to how many photo's you can do at once.  I'll have to complete the tour next time.