Old City of Nazareth

I finally got some sleep! Although not enough I could always use more, but I am now on Israli time...sort of. When I woke up, I had a headach, possibly dehydration, even bottled water has a strange aftertaste to it. When I came down to breakfast, the aroma made me sick to my stomach. I took some medicine and felt a little better. For breakfast they serve this strange cheese/milk/yogurt. It tasts close to sour milk although they eat it every morning. It's served with pita bread, cheese, tomato, a type of meat and hard boiled egg. It's not my favorite so I take a piece of Pita and put peach jam on it.

After breakfast, Larah (pronounced Lawh-rah) came to the hostel, she is an Israeli youth who is going to be with our group throughout the trip she is taking the Youth Corse at St. Georges too along with two other girls from Holy Family Church in Raineh (a few miles away). She is very useful to have around because she knows where she is going and she speaks Hebrew, Arabic and English.


Our first trip was to Bassilica the Annunciation, the site where the catholic church claims Mary was told by Gabriel that she would have the son of God. To get there, we had to take a cab. There are very few, if any, rules to the road and lanes are more suggestions than rules. Speed is not an issue, everything is fast! Often times I am scared for my life. There were several murals around the church where artists from countries around the world would symbolize the annunciation. We didn't see much because we will be returning during the youth coarse.


Up a ways from this church was another church called Saint Josephs where we see other parts of the house of Jesus and his family. There was a site of Josephs workshop. These sites visited are just where the church believe events happened, they may or may not have actually happened there. After quickly touring sveral other religous sites (we will understand more a little bit later) we walked through the Nazareth Bazzar, a market similar to Pike Place, although less crowded and a lot more sketchy. Before we entered, we were told to place our wallets and valuables in our front pockets because of pick pocketing. At the end of this we passed the first Hospital in Nazareth built in the 1800's.

Just before lunch we visited an Othodox church in town where the Orthodox Chrstians believe Mary was told by gabriel. They called this site Mary's Well because it is at a well rather than Mary's home as the Catholic church believes.

The city is extremely interesting because of the different religions. There are three main religions within the city; Chrsitian, Musilem and Jewish. About 5 times a day, starting in the early morning hours, all of the Moquses in the city have a call to worship on a loudspeaker. I think it's interesting althoug I don't know if I could live with it.

Tomorrow we go to Haifa, Acre and the Crusader Ruines.