The City of David and the other city of David.

     The other week we went to a nearby Arab neighborhood called the City of David. And it is " Where it All Began."  That phrase is also the name of the movie we watched when we first got there. It was in 3D. It is the place where David chose to make his capital city. It is where Jerusalem began and where the nation of Israel began.
      We walked over a small area that is thought to have been part of Davids palace. Then we went through Hezzikiahs tunnel and we saw Warrens Shaft. Warrens shaft ( named after the archeologist who found it) is a water system tunnel that was used by David's men to break through the fortifications of the city and eventually defeat the Canaanites that lived there. Then we went through Hezekiah tunnel. This is a tunnel that king Hezekiah later had built to re-route the cities water supply. He then built up another wall to fortify the cities week spots and to enclose the cities water source so the invading Assyrians couldn't poison the water. The tunnel was pretty cool. The water wasn't very high. After we finished some people played in the Gihon spring which is where the tunnel ends. It was fun. I think later that day I also went to the Tower of David which is where the cities Citadel is. It was neat.
       Last week we went to the other city of David- or Bethlehem. It was a neat experience. There aren't many times that we really get to go into the west bank but this was one of them. We did lots of cool things. One thing that I thought was cool was when we went to Bethlehem University. We got to walk around the campus a little and our we talked with some students about life in Palestine. It was interesting. I guess in Israel there are different types of Palestinians. Some our Israeli citizens and some are not. Then there are Also the Jerusalem Arabs as well as the ones who live in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. One of the girls we spoke to, who lives in Jerusalem and goes to school at Bethlehem University, said that the spot on her I.D card (a card gives her permission to travel to Bethlehem) is blank next to the area that would classify your nationality. So as she says, she does not have a nationality. The kids who live in Bethlehem have " Palestinian" written next to their nationality, even though they don't have a nation- but that is their ethnicity.
     I really don't understand it completely but there seems to be many official and or unofficial travel restrictions for the people around here. For instance, most Israeli's cant or are discouraged from going into the West Bank ( although there are also bypass roads that they sometimes use).  Some Palestinians can go into Israel, but they have to have the right documentation. The relief society president is only able to come to church because she got a job in Jerusalem at the United Nations. Then there are some Palestinians who live in Jerusalem or Israel who don't never or rarely go into the West Bank. My Arabic teacher was saying how it has been several years since the last time he had been in Ramallah, a big city in the West Bank. I think he said it is only about 20 kilometer away.  That seems so strange to me.
     After Bethlehem University we went and had lunch. It was at a tent restuarant. It was like this giant Bedouin looking tent with a bunch of tables in it. We had a "salad" which was really these baskets of Pita and a whole bunch of different things that we could dip the pita in. After the Salad they brought out some meat also. It was pretty good.
     After lunch we went to the the Church of the Nativity and saw the place where tradition puts the birth of Jesus- Its in a cave. We also went to an adjacent church where the Latin Vulgate was translated. The Vulgate is the Bible that was the source of translation for the other European languages.     
     After that we had some free time to walk around and to buy things if we wanted. I went to the milk grotto, also known as the Church of the Mother of God. It's called the milk grotto because there is a tradition that Mary spilled some milk when she was feeding baby Jesus and it turned the walls of the cave white- Our teacher even encouraged us to check the church out. I liked the stained glass windows on the upper part of the church. I liked how the ight reflected through the class. It was cool.