Roma, Athina and off to Jerusalem

I am in the airport in Athens waiting for our red-eye to Tel-Aviv... Three weeks in Israel is next!

Rome was really hard and good at the same time. We had finals for the three classes with Westmont professors (we taking a JUC class in Jerusalem) and I tried to squeeze in seeing all the main sights. The Colosseum was really cool. It's right in front of you when you get out of the metro and you can tour all around it. I think that was my favorite sight in the city. Yesterday, we took a day trip to Pompei near Naples.

Pompay was a flourishing Roman city in the 1st century but it was covered in 36 feet of ash when a volcano erupted in 79 AD. In the 18th century, some people found the city by chance. Over the next couple centuries, there were a lot of excavations of Pompay. They found an almost perfectly preserved Roman city. It was so cool to see. We walked down the same streets Romans did 2000 years ago, at the time of Jesus. Some of the frescoes were even intact. The funniest part was the brothel with scandalous frescoes inside. We also saw plaster casts of people that were killed instantly by the ash. Creepy. We took a tour of the nearly the whole city and went into one of those famous Roman baths and saw homes, bars, and the temple. That was a definite highlight!

This morning, we left Roma bright and early for the airport. We flew to Athens for a long layover so we could see the city. We barely made it to the Parthenon in time. It was closing as we reached the entrance so we hustled to the top to snap tons of pictures. The lighting was absolutely perfect! The sun was setting over the Greek beach and the buildings were glowing. The Acropolis was built in the 9th or 10th centuries BC! That is amazing to me. Then, we enjoyed a Greek dinner with live music. Opa! Now we are back at the airport and I feel delirious because it is late here and I'm coming down with something. It's the worst time to get sick because we aren't really sleeping tonight. We will arrive to Tel-Aviv at 3:30 AM and then take a coach to Jerusalem where we will wait for our hotel rooms to be ready at 10 AM... maybe I can sleep then ;)

Please pray for our journeys and time in Jerusalem! It is very exciting to be going to the Holy Land... I can't believe it!