My club shipped me to Israel to get a Russian visa and when I got there, I had no plans, no friends, and no expectations. Tyler's friends that were going to hang out with me fell through and my coach told me that I had to rest while I was here crushing any wishful thinking I'd be doing about maybe seeing some of Israel's history. So after finally surviving the airport security scene (where they intimidatingly interrogated me about my itenerary for what seemed to be an eternity at one point casually asking me if anyone had given me a bomb) I caught a cab to my hotel and met the boss man who was helping me with my visa. He confiscated my passport and said my russian visa would be ready in 24 hours. I supposed this was the moment I'd be sentenced to my hotel room to rest--my coach's orders crossing borders to ruin my life. That's when boss man became boss angel man and asked me if I wanted to take a tour of Jerusalem and the Dead Sea the following day. Shocked and ecstatic I replied YES!!!! (restrained myself from bear-hugging boss angel man) and he bought me my ticket. That's when I told boss angel man I loved him.

Photo: Courtesy of Kristin Richards Kristin Richards takes a dip in the Dead Sea After I told boss angel man I loved him I unpacked my stuff at my hotel, immediately threw on a bathing suit and flip flops and headed to the beach (Mediterranean sea!) that was approximately 30 steps from my hotel lobby. Not many people were out because it's "winter" in Israel. However there were a few courageous souls braving the hypothermic 75 degree weather fully equipped with sweatshirts and beanies....most of which were probably talking smack on me-the lunatic running around in shorts and a tank top. But once I told them I was from Russia, they understood. After I did some more wandering, I eventually decided to call it a night so I could rest up for the tour the next day but not before I swung the window wide open so I could sleep to the sound of the waves crashing across the street.

After the brutal 6 AM wake-up call came I packed a backpack, ate some mediocre coco puffs courtesy of the hotel's continental breakfast and waited for the tour pick-up. Looking back to what I was thinking that morning, I definitely knew that the day was going to be full of really neat experiences but I'm not sure I was expecting it to end up being one of the most inspirational and memorable days of my life. Here's how it went. My tour guide's name was Aussie and he was a friendly Jewish man that spoke 8 different languages and wore this funny cowboy hat around the entire day. He was old and wrinkly and extremely witty and extremely smart. In my small tour group there were italians, spaniards, germans, swiss, one other american named Jonathan and me. I felt a little nervous at first about braving Israel's terrain alone without buddies but shook it off once I reminded myself that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and made friends. I got to speak my very rusty (sadly almost non-existent) italian with these 2 business men from Rome, spanish with some newly wed's from Madrid and even russian because once Aussie found out my story, he made me. Jonathan the other american guy was originally from Louisiana but now lives and teaches theology and old testament classes at a private university in Germany. He was very nice, we became good buds. He was in Israel gathering research for a dissertation that's he is doing on the old testament and the life of Jesus Christ... so as you can imagine this guy knew it all, literally. I kept firing nonstop questions at him throughout the 9 hours we were touring Jerusalem expecting him to at some point not be able to answer one but that just never happened. It was as if he had somehow copied and pasted all of Google results on "religious history" searches into the confining space between his right and left ear....it was simply outstanding.

First we drove from Tel Aviv east across the country to Jerusalem. On our way out of Tel Aviv Aussie told us a lot of really neat stuff about the city.

Photo: Courtesy of Kristin Richards Kristin Richards while visiting Israel I learned:

-Tel Aviv is "ruled by the young generation" and nicknamed "the city that never sleeps"...because the young generation is working and partying around the clock and the old people can't hang. Aussie said that no one over the age of 40 lives there

-Tel Aviv is overloaded with modern bars, lounges, restaurants, and nightclubs to cater to aforementioned booming sleepless generation......apparently you can go to the nightclub at 10 PM or 10 AM and they'll process your requests identically.

-to buy an apartment in downtown Tel Aviv, it's 3 million bucks

-Tel Aviv is populated with a mere 500,000 people but 1.5 million commute in and out of the city every day for work. Can you imagine their rush hourrrrrr?

-Tel Aviv has the tallest building in the middle east, a center dedicated to diamonds

-Along with diamonds, advanced tech and tourism, agriculture plays an important part in Israel's economy but in the past few years the economy has taken a big hit because there has been a massive rain drought. Aussie told us that there is an Israeli prayer that goes something like this: "Dear God please give us some rain.....don't listen to the tourists."

When we got out of Tel Aviv we took Highway 445 which is a highway that divides Israel and Palestine. This highway runs east and west with Israel territory on the north side and Palestine territory on the south essentially dividing two worlds at war....on both sides of 445 there were guarded watchtowers sprinkled with guards and machine guns and huge electric fences to keep each other's people from trying to cross the border. There's no stopping, and there is no exiting. As you probably already know, because of holy war and in order to stop all the bloodshed, Israeli's can't go in or out of Palestine and Palistinian's can't go in or out of Israel.... Aussie said that the only reason that Palestinian's can enter Israel is for work, but due to the recent wave of suicide bombings, it's extremely difficult and almost impossible for a Palestinian to get a work visa. He said that in the past 500,000 Palestinian's worked in Israel and now only 30,000 do. Those 30,000 have to go through thorough military checks every morning on their way to work and get this... they have to ditch their cars at the border because in the past they used them to smuggle car bombs inside. Can you imagine not only having to deal with rush hour but having to ditch your car and have scary dudes with machine guns pat you down every morning on your way to work??

Once we got closer to Jerusalem we exited 445 and headed to Old City Jerusalem. Before we entered the gates, we drove to one of the highest points in Jerusalem where a breathtaking panoramic view of the entire city was waiting for us. Right in front of my eyes there it all was. Mount Moriah where King Soloman's temple was built, and the place where it is believed that Adam and Eve were born and where Abraham was asked to crucify his son. The Garden of Gethsemene, where Jesus went after being judged for the first time to atone for the sins of all mankind. Via Dolorosa, the street within the Old City to be believed as the pathway Jesus took carrying the cross on the way to His crucifixion. The Holy Sepulcre and Calvary....the place where Jesus was crucified and then buried. And Mount Olive, where after Jesus was resurrected, he spent 40 days before he was lifted up to the heavens. Standing there seeing all of this, as you can imagine, was a moment I will never forget. I was completely saturated in emotion.... and this was just the start.

In order to get down to the gates of the Old City, we drove down Mount Olive....where we saw dozens and dozens of olive trees that Aussie said were more than 2,000 years old! Just before we got to the gates towards the bottom of Mount Olive, we stopped at the Garden of Gethsemene--but only for a moment because there were too many tourists there so we weren't allowed in (that's at the top of my list for when I go back). Something I thought was kinda cool: right above Gethsemene to the right there is a beautiful Russian church that was built specifically in that place because Russians believe that is the last place Jesus Christ was before he was lifted up to the heavens. I didn't get the chance to see it but Aussie said inside the church there is a gold footprint that is believed by Russians to be Jesus' last. Finally we arrived at 1 (of the 8) gates surrounding the Old City...security to enter was predictably heavy. 5 feet from the entrance there was this giant steel (?) machine that served the purpose of disposing things that are thought to be explosives. Aussie said that if anything looks even mildly suspicious security confiscates it and carefully transports it to the machine to blow it up underground. Nuts right? That's serious stuff.

For those of you who haven't been, the Old City is split up into 4 different quarters; the christian quarter, jewish quarter, Muslim quarter, and armenian quarter. Inside the city is the famous wailing wall ("wall of tears") and all the things I mentioned already (Via Dolorosa, King Soloman's temple, Calvary and The Holy Seplechure). The first thing we saw after walking for only a few minutes was the wall of tears. There were people scattered all across the wall in their own unique way praising their own unique God. Muslims, Christians, Mormons, Jews, blacks, Italians, atheists, whites, Catholics, Americans, Russians. Some were singing, some were dancing, some were crying, others reading. Lots were on their knees. A longstanding tradition at the wall of tears is for people to write down their wishes on a piece of paper and then stuff them in the cracks of the wall.....and twice a year all the crumpled up prayers of the world are collected from the wall and taken to be buried on Mount Olive. They are buried there because many believe that Mount Olive is the place where Jesus is going to return to earth for the second coming, and they want their prayers to be waiting for Him at His feet. Such a beautiful concept. I spent a good amount of time at the wall trying to take it all in... I really loved it there because I felt such a strong and connective spirit of love... so many different types colors cultures and groups of people all passionately praising the same guy. So cool.

After the wall of tears we walked through the Muslim quarter that was packed full of people eating drinking and celebrating something, I never found out what. But lots of happy people dancing and lots of wonderful spices permeating the air. On our way out of the Muslim quarter, Aussie took us to this juice stand where 2 humble Muslim guys were making fresh squeezed pomegranate juice and explained that Muslims believe the pomegranate to be the "holy fruit" because it has 613 seeds and the Torah has 613 commandments. (613 commandments is a lot of commandments). Anyway I of course tried the holy fruit juice and it was so good! A little later, we stopped and ate lunch in the jewish quarter where I had some authentic "sharma," some (more) pomegranate juice, and got talked into trying Arabian coffee. I don't even like coffee, but after my know-it-all buddy Jonathan told me the history of the Arabs and their coffee, I had to try it. The day continued to get more and more exceptional but really peaked when Aussie took us to the beginning of Via Doloroso and we got to follow the pathway visiting every one of the 14 stations that Christ stopped at along the way to His crucifixion.... Aussie told us that every Friday (Friday was the day that Jesus was crucified) here in the Old City, there is a jewish tradition where people get together and take a cross and carry it from station to station along the Via Dolorosa retracing Christ's steps his last day in Jerusalem. What a beautiful way to remember Him. I remember once we got inside the christian quarter, I could see the top of the dome of the Holy Sepulchre.... I could feel my already stirring emotions start to shift even more. How is one even expected to manage seeing and experiencing the place where Jesus was once crucified and buried? It's hard for me to articulate my experience once I was inside....but it was extraordinary and wondrous and spiritual and amazing and emotional and humbling. It truly may have been the most impactful 30 minutes of my life.... I will never forget my experience in Old City Jerusalem. It has so much history and in general exudes so much spirit and splendor and strength. I learned so much about Jesus and His life and am especially thankful that my faith in and relationship with Him both had the opportunity to be strengthened. I don't care who you are or what you believe in, I advise EVERYONE at some point to GO TO JERUSALEM and see this stuff. It will change your life.

When our tour of Jerusalem was over, our tour group sadly had to split up.... half of us went to Bethlehem (where I really wanted to go but couldn't because it's Palestinian territory so you need your passport and boss angel man had mine doing russian visa stuff) and a few of us went to the Dead Sea. And by a few I mean just me and the human Google Jonathan. So me and Jonathan hopped in a banging mercedes provided by the tour company and headed to the Dead Sea. On our way as we were driving through the Judean desert our driver asked us if we wanted to take a 5 minute detour to see what he said was his favorite view.... of course we said yes so he proceeded to take us off-road for a few minutes until we arrived at a terrifying cliff overlooking millions of miles of desert. It really was a spectacular sight... one of those things you try to photograph in order to capture but it just doesn't work. For unknown reasons there were these two fierce (and in retrospect a bit terrifying?) Arabian men hanging out on this cliff with a camel (that was literally in the middle of nowhere?)...and as we were approaching them in the car, the driver told me and Jonathan to whatever we do, NOT ride the camel--it wasn't registered, unauthorized, we'll find another camel that's registered, blah blah OKKK we won't ride it we both said--and at the time I meant it. But when I got out of the car and was immediately overtaken by the ridiculous landscape and then turned around to this Arabian man batting his eyes and holding his camel on a leash asking me if I wanted to ride, how could I have said no? After I said yes, the batty-eyed Arabian man smiled so big--revealing the mere 5 teeth that occupy his entire oral cavity--I thought he was going to burst. And as my driver and Jonathan stood shaking their heads in the distance, up and on the unauthorized camel I went. The ride was terrifying. I almost summersaulted off when the camel stood up and then once we were up, he almost ran us off the cliff. In retrospect I may think it was one of the dumber things I've ever done but absolutely don't regret it because after all, who in the world gets to ride an unauthorized camel in the Judean desert?

We continued on our journey to the Dead Sea and as predicted, a lecture from our driver ensued about how dangerous that was....how I could have been hurt etc etc etc. I guess just concerned for my safety and worried about ohhh preserving my life. We drove another 20 minutes to the Dead Sea passing the oldest city in the history of the world, Jericho, and after passing numerous signs announcing that the we were 300 meters below sea level, finally arrived. Fun fact: did you guys know that the Dead Sea is the lowest inhabited place on earth at almost 450 meters below sea level?? Fun fact #2: did you know that people come from all over the world to get their hands on some of the minerals the Dead Sea has to offer? Jonathan told me his friend from Germany has a rare skin disorder that doctors haven't been able to cure but one of his doctors prescribed him to go to the Dead Sea once a year and bathe for 2 weeks and amazingly enough, it's the only thing that contains the disease. SO unbelievable. Anyway once we arrived, me and Jonathan got in our bathing suits and headed into the water. I'd heard lots of debatable things about the Dead Sea prior to this.... and secretly believed people didn't actually float. I was quickly proven wrong as I walked into the water and practically face planted, the salt water forcing my feet, legs, and entire lower half (all things that were once perpendicular to the ground) parallel. I seriously JUST FLOATED. I couldn't believe it. After I JUST FLOATED some more, I unfortunately did the cliche thing that every tourist does and took a picture of me floating reading a magazine......and it was after that I discovered the mineral mud. Like I said I was JUST FLOATING the entire time so my feet never touched the bottom so it wasn't until I floated my way to the shore and made contact with the ground that I noticed the bizarre color and texture of the mud that constitutes the entire bottom layer of the sea. It's slimy and dark black and I don't think anyone in their right mind that didn't know it's full of top-of-the-line minerals would ever consider rubbing it all over themselves..... after I smeared this extremely strange gooey mineral goodness all over my body, I JUST FLOATED some more trying to take in all in. An hour ago I had ridden a camel in the Judean desert and now I was covered in mud magically floating on water. And get this. While I had been in the sea it had started to rain a little bit and you're not going to believe me when I tell you what appeared on my way out but I promise I'm not making it up. A rainbow. I mean can you guys believe that? I stopped then and there in my tracks and said my 74th prayer of the day thanking God for an unnecessary but greatly appreciated perfect end to the perfect day...... a day that I will never ever (ever ever) forget.