After a relaxing first day hanging out on Ben Yehuda
street (where we bought really cool commando hiking boots!), Wednesday kicked off our trip with a journey through ancient Jerusalem. We started our day at the Kotel, the holiest place on earth. Then we had a tour through the Archeological Park, which is right next to the Temple Mount and is an archeological digging site where we went inside an 1,800 year old Byzantine house. I climbed the same steps that the Jewish pilgrims used to climb when going to the Beit Ha-Mikdash. We saw a virtual tour of ancient Jerusalem, which gave me a better understanding of what Jerusalem once looked like. After that we had lunch -- yummy salami sandwiches and pickles. After that we went to the City of David (Ir David), where we learned and walked through King Hezekiah's tunnel, a tunnel of water that was used about 4,000 years ago by the Cananites as a fortress and about 3,000 years ago it was used by King David and the Jews as a water supply. Daddy and I were the only two brave ones from our tour who went through the water tunnel. We needed flashlights, and it was fun getting wet! We learned that what we think of as the old city of Jerusalem today is really only a small part of what it used to be! Ancient Jerusalem was so cool! I had tons of fun today and will have more tomorrow!
