Day Five: 5 Sept 2010, 20:04

We visited the city today!  It was the first time we were all able to go out on our own to explore and all that good stuff.  We had breakfast and left at about 8:30, there were ~45 of us so we split into four groups and went on our way.  It was extremely hot (of course) and we all got sunburned and tired, but it was worth the trip for sure.  We went through the Old City and did the rampart tour (walking on top of the walls around the Old City), got some good pictures there. Then we went and visited Zedekiah's Cave (i.e. Solomon's Quarry) where we had lunch.  Get me to show you the pictures because they're much cooler than just writing about the experience (it doesn't sound all that cool reading about it but it was neat).  We could see the areas that the workers for Solomon's temple had chiseled out the stone, saw a graffiti image of Jesus, and met a really neat Muslim guy named Ali.  He introduced us to his family and proceeded to tell us that he didn't like the terrorist activities of Muslim extremist groups, and apologized for September 11th.  He said that 'from the bottom of [his] heart [he loves] Americans' and was overall very pleasant.  I was touched by his sincerity, i'm glad we had the opportunity to meet him.  After that we headed back, I took a shower, and tried to take a nap (I was soo tired but I couldn't fall asleep)...the rest of the day has pretty much just been goofing around, watching First Knight and That Thing You Do.  Overall a good day, except for not feeling too well :S but that's ok.  Ciao!