So, everybody went to Elat for the weekend, except for I and Heather. So this afternoon we wanted to do something cool, so we walked down to the Church of the Holy Sepluchere, just to poke around. So anyways, the church looks small and junky on the outside, but on the inside it is so huge. And to think that the church Constantine built was even bigger, unbelievable. So yeah, there are so many nooks, crannies, and weird stuff there, you can get so lost. Though we did find the Ethiopian chapel downstairs, which was was cool, both in spiritual and tempature sense. And we also found the Latin chapel, which is extremely pretty in a very classy sort of way.
So then we were going to go down to the Western Wall and see if they were going to blow the shofar there. But we were early so we went up to the Wall itself and prayed. I tried to pray in Hebrew. I think God is Omnipotent enough to understand what I was saying. While we were down there the evening Muslim call to prayer was sounded. It was such a weird feeling to be a Christian at a Jewish holy site while hearing the Muslim worship call.
We then decided to run up to St. Anne's real quick and see if we could get a Mass schedule. So we get there and the Arab doorkeeper was like, daily Mass is everyday at 6:30 in the morning, and it's in French. So we weren't to sure about that. So he calls the priest there and so Father Lavoie, from Canada, comes down and meets with us. He's like, 6:30 in the morning is too early for students to go to church, especially church in French. So he goes and gets us a schedule of all the churches in Jerusalem and what language they're all in. So he accidentally mentions that they have a 40,000 volume library there. So I get excited and I tell him about my interest in Early Christianity and Patristics. So he takes us down there and shows us this huge library of like all the best books in the world. Then he tells me that the librarians name is Daniel and that he is there on Mon-Thurs, and I am welcome to come anytime then. I think I am in heaven, it's so exciting. So then, I also happen to mention that I'm learning Arabic, and he gets all excited and tells me about his Arabic language courses, so he goes to get his books from his room. But then he comes back and tells us that he can't carry everything out to us, so as long as we're not scandalized, we can come and hang out in his room. As we walked in he said "Thank God I never married, she would have to clean up after me." Which was rather sexist, but funny. So he showed us his Arabic books, CD-Roms, and CD's; which were so amazing. Then he also showed us the cool books he had in his own library and we talked about our favorite Bible versions. He also takes us up onto the roof, which has an amazing view of the Dome of the Rock.
After that we walked past the Western Wall again, but not that many people were there. I think they were all at the Synagogue.
Shova Tova.