Tour: Back to Jerusalem and home!

As I write this, we are sitting/sleeping/eating/emailing in the Philadelphia airport, having finished the first leg of our trip home and awaiting the second. The last couple of days of our tour were a nice relaxing ending to a wonderful trip.

On Friday morning, we left Jericho, where we had spent the night, and headed back to Jerusalem. We spent some time at the Garden Tomb:


And at Gethsemane, where we sang together for the last time as the 2009-2010 University of Utah Singers.


I think I can safely speak for everyone in the choir when I say that we could not have possibly asked for a better ending.

After that, we went to Hezekiah's Tunnel. The tunnel was created long, long ago, around 700 BC, as a way to divert water to Jerusalem during a siege. Two teams of diggers started at opposite ends to make the tunnel, and met in the middle, which is quite a feat! Today, you can take a tour of the tunnel. You wade through cold, fresh water that, depending on your height, can rise to your mid-thigh, and walk through narrow tunnels with low ceilings, that, also depending on your height, can sometimes cause you to have to stoop quite low. It's pitch black, so you need some kind of light (our group used a variety of lighting instruments, including iphone apps, cameras, head lamps, and actual flashlights), and if you are claustrophobic at all, it is certainly not for you.

We loved it!


On Saturday, we had a free day (I know many people went back to the Old City of Jerusalem) until our final choir dinner, and then we headed to Ben Gurion airport for our 11:55 PM flight.

It was the trip of a lifetime and one I'm sure none of us will ever forget! Thanks again to everyone who made it possible or had a hand in it in any way. We are very much indebted to you! Thank you!