Floatin' The Dead Sea

Today was one of our last field trips (sad!) and the last one on a bus. But we went out with bang. We went to the Masada fortess first. All 80+ of us crammed onto a VERY small cable car (don't worry, there was a 3 foot ladder in the cable car in case something happened and we had to get down the 50 foot drop safetly) and were lifted up to Herod the Great's hanging palace. It was one of the biggest ruins we've seen. Built right on the edge of a huge cliff - pretty impressive. Hollywood made a movie about it in the 80's about when Rome attacted it after Jerusalem was destroyed. I haven't seen it yet, but remind me that I want to when I get home. I'm not going to lie though, I've seen more than enough ruins this semester to last me a lifetime.

From Masada we headed toward...the Dead Sea!!! I've offically been swimming in the three most amazing places on earth! This was one of the coolest things I've done. The sea is 35% salt - compare that to the 8% salt in the Great Salt Lake. We floated for about 2 hours in the sea and it was so fun!!! It is impossible to sink in that water and you literally just bob around. Walking in the water was pretty sweet, not quite as cool as walking on the water, but I'll take what I can get. :)

We ended the day going to a nature reserve where David hid out in the wilderness while Saul was trying to kill him. Then we went to Qumran, the place where the Dead Sea Scrolls (which I have seen) were found! Our teacher, Brother Skinner, is the smartest man I've ever met and he knows everything about Qumran. He was one that helped translate the Dead Sea Scrolls. He's great all the time but today he was especially good to learn from him. They gave us about an hour to roam around and explore the caves. I didn't find any scrolls, but I did find a cool looking sea shell. Today was so much fun! I love field trip days!!! :)

*I have to add in this funny story about the Dead Sea. So because it's so salty and toxic they told us that we can't swallow ANY of it and if you have any cuts it burns SO bad. So as I was swimming back toward the shore, a little splash came up and got in my eye. It was only one little drop but it hurt more than anything else! I couldn't even open my eyes. But I couldn't touch it because my hands had the salt water on them. They warned us that if we got water in our eyes, the best thing to do was to spit in it. So my friend Amber was next to me and she spit in my eye! Twice! It was so gross, but suprisingly it felt so much better! Thanks Amber!