"Live from" Queen Elizabeth to the Mediterannean! My First Cunard Experience

[lovely_serenity]

(I don’t remember why, but he said this window was important. o_o)

 

 

We then take a look at the 11th station. This is where Jesus was nailed to the cross.

 

 

(P.S. Sorry for the mass of blurry photos. It was so very dark in there, my camera was having a lot of trouble focusing and well … not being blurry LOL)

 

After that came the 12th station. This is where Jesus dies on the cross. Countless feet below us (before this building was put here and before thousands of years of land work) was the Rock of Golgotha is where He died. To the left and right side of Jesus are the silver icons of Virgin Mary and St. John.

 

 

 

After visiting the 2 stations, I take some more random photos until the rest of the group is ready to move on to the next station.

 

 

[Zqueeze1]

Hey, Sara:

 

Your Jerusalem pics are amazing and truly worth the wait! Makes us want to add it to our bucket list. Thanks again for sharing your trip with us.

 

Z and TB

[vino100]

Sarah, thank you so much for sharing your wonderful pictures. Keep them comig..........at your own pace !!!! :D

[az4ship]

You have the best blog ever. Keep on writing I look forward to them

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[lovely_serenity]

 

 

Once everyone is ready, we head back downstairs to the main entrance area.

 

 

 

There we are met with an enormous mosaic that depicts the process in which Jesus was crucified.

 

 

[lovely_serenity]

Here, Micki gestures to a skull section of the mosaic. He explains that this represents the tomb of Jesus (I believe?)

 

 

 

We then get to station 13 where Jesus was taken down from the cross. Below those hanging jars is a rock where it is believed that Jesus was laid down after having been taken down from the cross.

 

 

 

I forget what Micki said, but he said something about the jars and how they used to be filled with oil that was used to oil people up.

 

After that, we followed Micki as we ventured further into the church until we arrived at the final station.

 

 

The 14th station: Jesus Christ’s tomb.

 

[lovely_serenity]

 

 

 

 

 

[lovely_serenity]

They had these candles that people burned:

 

 

The atmosphere was so solemn, really intense.

 

 

 

Here’s the entrance to it. If you wanted to, you could go in, but it was just a super tiny room that you had to crouch to move in. My dad said that in actuality, the real tomb was probably hundreds of feet below this one, as over time, stuff was built on top of it.

 

 

After a little while, we all regrouped and followed Micki to tour the rest of the church:

 

 

[lovely_serenity]

 

 

I don’t remember why, but this rock was important or something. It was a piece of the original something o_o I’ll ask my parents later to see if they remember what was so special about this rock that was encased in glass LOL.

 

 

 

 

[lovely_serenity]

After that we headed back outside and slowly made our way through the city to where our bus was going to meet us.

 

 

 

We took a route that was extremely unpopulated.

 

 

 

 

[lovely_serenity]

 

While walking, I spotted this map of the Old City of Jerusalem:

 

 

After about 5-10 minutes of walking, we finally left the city

 

 

As we exited, we passed by another Mezuzah:

 

 

Apparently it’s good luck to touch it when you leave/enter places.

 

We finally exited the city walls after such a long walk without much sun.

 

 

[lovely_serenity]

 

We then followed Micki to where our bus was waiting for us:

 

 

 

 

 

Look! There’s our bus! (Did you know it had Wifi on it too? :D)

 

[alibabacruisers]

Beautiful pictures and interesting explanations for them. Thank you for posting.

[lovely_serenity]

 

 

It wasn’t until we were all waiting gathering together beside the bus that Micki announced that we were missing 2 people. Since we had all spent the day together, we basically recognized most of our group. We quickly identified that it was the lovey-dovey smoking French couple that had gone missing. (Since I can indeed speak French, I can confirm that they do not speak English o_o That’s why I can understand why they were never listening to Micki when he was talking. At one point I saw the ear bud hanging off of their ears when they got tired of listening to a language they didn’t understand. This is also probably why they missed directional instructions when they were given.)

 

 

We hung around for a while as Micki talked seriously on the phone with some people. After a little while of random mingling, he announced that we were to leave without them and leave it up to some other people to deal with it. We all piled on the bus and we were off to have lunch.

 

 

According to Micki, this rocky clump represented our officially leaving Jerusalem:

 

 

 

A while into our bus ride, Micki announced that the French couple had been found and we all cheered. They would meet us at the lunch place.

[lovely_serenity]

After some driving, we arrived at the Kibbutz Ramat Rachel Hotel where we would eat our lunch (that was included in the excursion). The food wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t much either.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see by the incredible amounts of tables, ALL of the “Jerusalem & Bethlehem” excursion groups were going to be eating here. It was 8 people per table. (Just sit with your excursion buddies).

 

Each person got 2 cups, one for water and one for wine:

 

[lovely_serenity]

I’m going to assume that tap water isn’t safe to drink here?

 

 

Every table also had a bottle of red and white wine that was free. Mom and Dad drank white.

 

 

 

While everyone was eating normal food, I took this opportunity to take pictures of the desserts before they got destroyed:

 

 

I then moved on to the normal food:

 

 

[lovely_serenity]

Here was the salad/cold pasta bar:

 

 

And the hot food which basically consisted of fish, beef, chicken legs and rice:

 

 

Here was Dad’s plate:

 

 

Mom’s plate:

 

 

Rachel’s plate:

 

 

And mine :

 

 

(As you can probably tell, there wasn’t much of anything that appealed to me LOL)

[lovely_serenity]

After that, we moved on to dessert:

 

Most of these were okay. (Sis’s desserts)

 

 

Most of these were weird. (Dad’s desserts)

 

 

This was my second run of desserts (my desserts):

 

 

 

The yellow ones didn’t taste good.

 

After we had eaten our fill, we all loaded back onto the bus. (Everyone went to the washroom first) We had been given about an hour to eat and go to the bathroom before we were told to get back on the bus for the last half of our tour.

 

We all got back on the bus and started making our way to Bethlelhem.

 

 

Before we got there, a new Palestinian guy boarded the bus with us. He would be doing a lot of explaining this time. After driving for a while, we arrived near our next destination. We apparently got special permission to park our bus closer to the Church of Nativity so that we wouldn’t have to walk so far. (You can see the new guide guy to the left in the blue shirt. Micki was still with us, it’s just that this guy would be doing more of the explaining this time around.)

 

[lovely_serenity]

Hey, Sara:

 

Your Jerusalem pics are amazing and truly worth the wait! Makes us want to add it to our bucket list. Thanks again for sharing your trip with us.

 

Z and TB

 

Hi Z and TB!

 

Thank you very much! You should definitely give it a try! It's really rich in history, was actually the port that made Mom and Dad decide to book it! & It is my pleasure! (:

[lovely_serenity]

Sarah, thank you so much for sharing your wonderful pictures. Keep them comig..........at your own pace !!!! :D

 

You're very welcome!! :D I literally spent my entire day today posting these LOL

[lovely_serenity]

You have the best blog ever. Keep on writing I look forward to them

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

 

Aww haha thank you very much (: I will most definitely do my best. Thank you for reading and I'm very happy you're enjoying it!

[lovely_serenity]

Beautiful pictures and interesting explanations for them. Thank you for posting.

 

Thank you very much! :) I actually had to research a little because I was worried the information I had noted in my log was incorrect LOL, but I'm glad you liked them! && No problem ^^!

[retiring soon]

HI all!

 

Sarah ~ I've followed a few of your cruises & look forward to your next one.

This last group of pictures are really amazing & so informative to those of us who will never get to see the Holy Land in person.

 

Thanks so much for your time & effort, you're doing a great job!

 

~ Jo ~ :)

[lovely_serenity]

HI all!

 

Sarah ~ I've followed a few of your cruises & look forward to your next one.

This last group of pictures are really amazing & so informative to those of us who will never get to see the Holy Land in person.

 

Thanks so much for your time & effort, you're doing a great job!

 

~ Jo ~ :)

 

Hi Jo! :)

 

Thank you very much for reading my stuff! I'm glad you are enjoying it! I'm very happy that I get to share these images with everyone who might not get to go visit the place themselves. I hope my writing can make them feel like they're actually there with me! :D

 

It is absolute pleasure, & thank you (:

[capnpugwash]

Sarah, I thought your pictures of Jerusalem were very good. Thanks.