Warm Weather & the Dead Sea =)

It has been so nice here! At night, the temp drops, but it has still been amazing. Most days, the highs are in the upper 70s, the sun is shining and there is a soft breeze that weaves through the whole city. I'm pumped that I've already started to get tan from all this sun... I can't wait to come home and be so much darker than everyone else for once!!!

Yesterday was another laid back day (Friday) and I went to the Dead Sea on Thursday. The sea was so beautiful - even more so than I remember. Pictures don't do justice to the awe inspiring landscape of the Dead Sea. Everything is covered in layer upon layer of brilliant, white salt. I think the water is 7-8x saltier than a regular ocean, so one has to be extremely careful not to get the water in their eyes. Unfortunately, I did happen to get some in this time and it burned like crazy and I couldn't open my eye for a good 10 minutes because of the sting. Geoffry dove into the water and had the same experience... I can't imagine how much more that had to hurt though; completely submersing your entire face into the salt. OUCH. He was ok in the end though! I was able to swim way beyond the rope and out to a tiny island of salt. Before I reached the island, I got out and walked for a bit. There were so many different types of salt: rock salt, sand-like salt, crystallized hunks and chunks, mud mixed with salt... It was crazy! I realized that there are also tons of different colors of mud too, with different textures even! Black, dark grey, grey, light and dark brown, tan! Also, some was more like clay and thick while other mud was smooth and soft. We caught the bus from Jerusalem to Mineral Beach at 9AM and it took about an hour to get from A to B. We soaked up the sun and stayed almost all day... We didn't get home until nearly 7PM! The weather was awesome, as usual. Instead of the water temp being like a hot tube like the last time I was there, the water was a perfect temp this time... We were all having so much fun and went out so far that the guard actually CAME out us on his paddle board and said we needed to come in closer to the shore... Haha whoops! In the Dead Sea, unless you're totally inept, it seems almost impossible to drown. The water is so dense with salt that your body literally becomes a buoy in the water!!

On the way home, there were no seats on the tour bus so I sat on the ground. I was fine, but felt really carsick after an hour or so of the rhythmic back and forth of the bus going up and down mountain after mountain.

I'll add more to this tomorrow! I'm soo happy I found the drafts. Hahahah!!