March 11

Dear people,

Lately, I have spent all day, ever day, doing Things. Last week we had finals, and now we only have two classes. Every afternoon is free, and so we head out into the city looking at sites. There are so many old or beautiful or cool churches here. My favorite is Dormition Abbey--it was built in 1910 to honor Mary. It's light and airy, with lots of white and grey stone, and the chapel has beautiful acoustics that make two girls singing sound like a choir. In the crypt below there's a statue of Mary and mosaics of Old Testament women.

The older churches are cool because they're old, but they tend to be somewhat crowded and gawdy. For example, on Monday we went to Bethlehem and toured the Church of the Nativity. It stands above the cave where, traditionally, Jesus was born. The church was huge and smelled strongly of incense. Mosaics on the wall crumbled away to show bare stone, and painting of saints on the columns have worn down so that you can barely see their faces. A lot of walls have been bare and grey since the Ottomans took their white marble coverings to put in a mosque.

We went down into the cave in a stream. It was covered in brocade hangings, with paintings all around. The manger cut into the rock was covered in marble, and in the spot where the birth supposedly took place they drove a fourteen-pointed iron star into the ground. All very ornate. My favorite part of the trip was when we left the church and gathered in the courtyard of the newer church next door to sing hymns. We sang "Once in Royal David's City," and "Little Town of Bethlehem" and "Silent Night." Some German tourists passing by joined in for "Silent Night" and filmed us with their cameras.

On Monday we leave for Galilee to live in bungalows on the beach for two weeks. I'm so excited!

-Stella