St. Anne's Church / Church of the Resurrection or Church of the Holy Sepulchre

No pictures tonight, since I don't have time to go search for the wireless connection. It has been a busy day. We were up early, had breakfast, then attended a lecture before setting out to walk to the old city. We went through the Muslim Quarter, I caught a pickpocket trying to get into my fanny pack while ostensibly trying to sell me postcards, and we finally arrived at St. Anne's Church. We viewed the excavations, walked around the grounds, and then went into the church. We sang a hymn to experience the wonderful acoustics. After we exited, as we waited for the group to gather, we watched a couple of cats in the garden, one of which was delicately balancing on the top of a garbage can while checking it for interesting contents. We had a fairly long walk to go to lunch, but it was worth it. By the way, how can it be that we walked up hills or up steps all day - and never down, even getting back to the college? Anyway, we had lunch at a wonderful Lutheran hospice/hostel, and then moved to a very comfortable lounge for a briefing on the Church of the Resurrection/Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We took a few pictures from the roof before taking the relatively short walk to the church. We started on the roof, where we saw the Ethiopian Monastery. They lost their space inside the church but now are allowed to live and work on the roof. We entered their very dark chapel and had a prayer with one of their brothers (???). We then entered the church itself, and that description will have to wait for another time. I'll just say now that it was both overwhelming and disturbing in some ways, and as we discussed tonight, many of us had mixed feelings. By the time we left the church, most of us were very hot, very tired, and very much in need of a shower and a cold drink. So we all eventually made our way back to the college and a little later to dinner. They are feeding us very well, and although we eat often, it's pretty healthy - lots of vegetables and salads. And it's quite good. The desserts, when we have them, aren't very sweet. The hummus is fantastic!

Just realized I didn't post yesterday about our trip to the City of David. I will try to do that soon, but I would like for some of the other group members to contribute to the blog too. I've been encouraging them to write something, but so far we haven't found a time to get everyone together so they'll know what to do. At the first opportunity, we'll do that.

Tomorrow we go to Bethlehem.