Another Christ-themed Entry!

If only my last entry had anything to do with Christ and less to do with Christmas....

At any rate, we've been out playing for the past few days, we even rented a car. Ooooh. The first day we had the car, which was Friday, we went out to Druze village. Druze seems to be quite an interesting religion (Mark has informed me that the religion has a tendency towards the dominant religion of a settlement/area, and that it's also a very secretive religion in that only an elite few know what the religion is about and the rest get to wear hats). At any rate, Druze village is known for the sturdy glass and ceramics that they create. So, we shopped. And it felt just like India in the way that people try to lure one into a shop and they way they mostly have low-quality products. But, we found some fabulous fancy-glasses and a fancy scarf for me, too.

So, that night, we ate at Zozobra, the asian noodle bar, where I was inspired by this cucumber mint spicy noodle dish. Not sure what exactly I was inspired to do... After that, we moved on to the chocolate bar where we stuffed ourselves with hot cocoa and cake? and mousse. It was ridiculous. Needless to say, with such heavy bellies, we slept well. Until that awful, awful cat started to screech outside. at 5:30 am. That was wretched; it actually sounded like a child. But, that's all OK because 5:30 was our wake-up time.

We headed out just after that to dawn prayers at Bahji. Ah, we were so, so tired. But, we headed out for another day of Christianity at the Gallilee. We went to the Church of the Beatitudes and Capernaum. Capernaum was awesome. It is the town where Jesus did a lot of his teaching. We saw Peter's house, a 4th century synagogue, which, go figure, is right over the synagogue from Jesus's time. It was really amazing to have so much of the original town excavated and lying there for us to see. And, to be honest, I was fascinated by how small everything seemed. The alleys, the houses, the rooms... I think we were at the Church of the Beatitudes before Capernaum. The church was lovely. It was much calmer than Capernaum and quieter, too. It was a simple church. It had a green copper dome from the outside, octagonal in shape, windows all around, facing the Gallilee. I love church domes, for whatever reason. This one, on the walls leading up to the dome itself, had stained glass windows which had the beatitudes in Latin. At the top, there was a lovely mosaic dome that was gold, with a hint of blue. It was just beautiful. We also made a pit-stop at the Gallilee itself and we walked down to its rocky shores. I had always thought that Jesus was teaching on the equivalent of an island resort; sandy beaches, hot weather, nice tans, and our experience felt so different. It was moderate, and rocky, and here were a bunch of white kids roaming around. : ) We made our way back to Haifa and ate at Isabella's. I'm under the impression that it was important to Maman that we eat at an Arab restaurant? So that was much of our experience out at the Gallilee.

Sunday morning, Mendon and I were in the food center again, and the rest of the time after that, we've been cleaning Mara and Mark's flat and practicing because I gave a concert here last night. It was quite nice as a social event. My playing wasn't remarkable, but.. seriously... I'm on my HONEYMOON!! : ) So I'm not disappointed that I didn't perform like a virtuoso. Today, it looks like Mendon and I might manage to get to Bahji again, and tomorrow should be a day of Baha'i stops in Haifa (the cemetary, Monument Gardens, etc, etc). So, more on those later. For now, I have to find my husband first, and I'll be sure to blog about all of today and tomorrow's events later. Pictures if you continue reading.