Friday: Bethany, Pater Noster, Eye Drop Church, Gethsemane, Church of All Nations, Herodian, Church of Nativity...really a lot

I have the wrong card for my camera with me so i am skipping a few days, but i will come back and update them.
Our day started a bit earlier than i am accustomed, 6am breakfast and 7am bus ride. I got out early trying to get you some updates but i couldn't find an internet cafe open that early. Then i couldn't find coffee (which i have yet to have a good cup). Then i scrambled over to the school's computer lab to find their internet was down- oh well.
So i boarded the bus and was in Bethany by 8:30. Bethany, of course, is the home town of Lazarus, Mary and Martha. It is the site of many events in the Gospels including the ressurection of Lazarus which is now commemorated by a church. It was a beautiful and simple church. The town itself is fairly run down, and even more so as the country doesn't seem to come to life until 9am at best, but the little church stood in stark contrast. There are a few parking spaces outside and you enter a small iron gate into a garden. Past the garden is a chapel, kept by a priest, that was whelming. Breathtaking mosaics of Jesus' happenings in Bethany and simple Catholic decor. I'll update a picture tomorrow of this. The geography is impressive, Bethany lies just on the east side of Jerusalem two miles across the Mt of Olives. The east side of the hill begins the desert region and the contrast from a largely green Jerusalem is distinct.
Next on the trip was the Pater Noster found atop the Mt of Olives. There is a tradition holding that Jesus taught atop the Mt quite often and this particular church displays the Lord's Prayer in over a hundred languages.
Following down the Mt is a church supposedly modeled after a teardrop and commemorating Jesus weeping over Jerusalem just before his final entry to the city. Though i cannot see the semblence of a tear, the church is captivating and the surroundings beautiful.
At the bottom of the Mt are several places of note. First is the Garden of Gesthemane. The exact placement of the garden is difficult. Gesthemane really only means olive press, so it refers to an olive grove containing a press. There are several possible sites but the most likely is commemorated and contains a cavern (now a Catholic space) which contains some remains of a press and fits other more complicated necesities. This might be a good time to not the tradition that follows many of these places. As Israel has undergone many changes of power in the last three millenia, many sites have been refurbished, destroy, covered, razed ad naseum. Sites like the last few mentioned are 'traditional sites' and these usually flow from some eveidence somewhere along the line but we can never be sure.
Alongside this garden is a possible burial place for Mary, Jesus' mother. It is distgusting how quickly i am breezing through all this.... After following a long set of stairs into bedrock, you find a tomb, hewn in the rock and with monumental decoration.
Next we move to the Church of All Nations, sitting alongside the previous two at the bottom of the Mt of Olives. This structure is overwhelming. Inside it is enormous but dark. The use of light, especially in the entrance/exit creates a surreal and mystic space. Really beautiful, i will do my best to come back here.
We then took our bus outside what has become normal and into the West Bank. This trip i have felt quite safe, though constantly out of my element. Many teenagers with many guns (Israelis are required to join the army, both male and female at 18, and must carry their weapons in and out of uniform) but checkpoints, security and metal detectors abound. The passage to the West Bank is different. The standard of living drops (especially due to current politics) and the demeanor is different. It is here we enter into Herodian, on of Herod's great buildings set atop a mountain and the cite of much turbulence. From the picture above, i can turn around and see the northern end of the Dead Sea. Recal Herod died in 4bc and this construction is from that time. History you can touch and walk around...
Our final stop this afternoon was in Bethlehem and the Church of the Nativity. Again the exact spot cannot be proven but as a fellow traveler quibbed, "we're at least within a few hundred meters, Bethlehem is not that big." This church is one of the oldest, build under Justinian in the 6th century and never razed. It went through some mild changes with the Crusaders and under Turk rule, but the church largely remains 14 centuries later. In the first picture you can see a large Justinian column opening, inside a later Crusader from door and what the Turks finally caused the door to be which is only about 4ft tall. Underneath the church's alter is both a cave where Jerome translated the Vulgate in the late fourth century and the basement of the house of Jesus' birth. This second picture is the door that leads down into the bedrock. The columns are supposedly the original from the original church built under contstantine's rule in the early 4th century: beautiful marble columns of various length with paints to top them. Want more pictures, i'm sure you can find them online. My hours is up. peace- k