The Gurney Clan is packing and preparing for the Holy Land!

[gurneyhalleck1]

 

[Anhelyna]

I can't say anything which actually expresses what I feel.

How wonderful to be there , seeing these things about which the rest of us can only read and dream.

Oh I am so envious



and envy is a great sin

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

It is a mind-blowing experience. It feels like a dream, something in a movie or picture, fake.....a storybook.

Wadi Rum was the same way! Meteora in Greece also did this for me...

I can't say anything which actually expresses what I feel.

How wonderful to be there , seeing these things about which the rest of us can only read and dream.

Oh I am so envious



and envy is a great sin

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Please don’t apologize, feel bad, or regret your question at all!!!!

Sorry for any confusion and distraction. I had no idea who did or didn't have beards in any of those places, so I was curious if having one made any impression on the locals. That's all.

(A good friend of mine visited an Asian country with her sister in law who was ethnically from there - a rather anti-American area - and had radically different experiences in the shops. My friend was often refused to purchase items, so she sent her sister in law in afterwards to buy anything she really wanted. Knowing that just made me curious if something like a beard might matter one way or another. Maybe I shouldn't have asked, but that one photo made you look like you might really fit in somewhere lol. But as I said, I know nothing of those cultures. I was only curious.)


Ha!

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Yes, they did.

Did the Bedouins or anyone happen to tell you who is represented in those rock carvings, or have you mastered the Arabic script by now, يا استاذ؟

You can probably guess just by the historical context, but it's still pretty neat. What cool pictures! I can't wait to see Petra!

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Spent too much dough today, too!

 

[ArmyMatt]

Oh I am so envious



and envy is a great sin

you and me both, sister.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Hey, you didn’t have to cross an invisible bridge and try to figure out which cup was the real grail. I’m beat!!

you and me both, sister.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Hey, you didn’t have to cross an invisible bridge and try to figure out which cup was the real grail. I’m beat!!

oh, I woulda been fine....I own the movie.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Dude, it took 8 hours to visit this place. Exhausted.....but dang was it amazing!!

oh, I woulda been fine....I own the movie.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Dude, it took 8 hours to visit this place. Exhausted.....but dang was it amazing!!

I bet it, hope it was worth every minute.

 

[dzheremi]

All these pictures are so amazing. I'm torn between the jealousy of wishing I could go there and see it myself and the relief of not having to walk around for eight hours to see it all.

This thread is a good way to deal with both.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

It is a 7 mile walk, minimum....but I totally enjoyed the heck out of it. I’m a history buff. What can I say? The Nabateans are an under-studied civilization if you ask me.

The beauty of this trip is that I’ve seen Greek, Roman, Nabatean, Hebrew/Jewish, Orthodox, Catholic, Druze, and B’hai things. It’s been a wonderful fruit salad of history and religion.

Tomorrow we go to Kerak to see a massive crusader castle and the Dead Sea/Bethany plus an Orthodox Church.

All these pictures are so amazing. I'm torn between the jealousy of wishing I could go there and see it myself and the relief of not having to walk around for eight hours to see it all.

This thread is a good way to deal with both.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Today we visited Moses’s Spring, the rock he called forth water from. IT STILL jets water!!! The water flows like crazy! I gathered a ton of it in a bottle!

We visited Madaba also....one very ancient church called the Church of the Virgin Mary, another was a 19th century Orthodox Church built over the most ancient floor map of the Middle East in existence...

We saw Kerak, an ancient crusader castle...
We also visited the “Grand Canyon of Jordan.”

Spring of Moses, the pool coming from it and the actual stone...

Kerak Crusader Castle

View from the castle...the Valley of Moab!! Yep, from Ruth, etc.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

You just can’t make this stuff up...

Ancient 5th century church

St. George Church
Funny how I can fly thousands of miles, can be in an Arab country, walk into this Orthodox temple, and I feel SOOOOOO at home!

 

[dzheremi]

I can't make sense of that Saddam Hussein sign...did you ask anyone to explain it to you? Something about "Wafa' Festival (then it cuts off) for the martyr Saddam Hussein", but the only festival I know by that name is Wafa' El Nil (Filling of the Nile) in Egypt, to mark the raising of the Nile to a certain measurement in the Coptic month of Misra. Hmm.

The church is amazing, of course! Wow!

 

[LizaMarie]

Beautiful photos! Must be so cool to see all those Biblical places come alive in person!
When I lived out in SoCalif and attended a Lutheran Church, one of our Bible study friends went to the Holy Land and brought back photos(pre-internet days) and described his trip. He said the climate and terrain were so similar to what we had in Southern California, and from the photos I've seen that looks to be true.

 

[ItIsFinished!]

Very, very super awesome pictures!!!
I've had many friends visit there and they were blown away from the experience.
The stories they told with such passion and excitement.
A transforming experience in a positive manner .
It seems like it has the potential of being "almost" overwhelming.
Thank you my fine feathered friend for the pictures and updates.
You should write a book about your experience.

 

[Mary of Bethany]

This is so amazing, Gurney! Thank you so much for sharing this with us!