A Trip to the Israel Museum

So much to see and so little time. I think it would take my whole life here and I'd still run out of time to see everything.
Papa decided that he'd rather go to the Israel Museum instead of the Dead Sea and Masada. It would be so hot there, he told Nayna.
And so, after another big breakfast - burp! scuse me! - we walked up Nordau street and caught the #5 bus for the Tel Aviv train station so we could catch the #480 bus to the Jerusalem central bus station. We're getting pretty good at this public transportation thing.
I love watching the countryside change from city to fields, to mountains to city all within an hour.
This time, instead of taking the lightrail, or another bus, we decided to use a taxi.
Now that's an experience!
They weave in and out of traffic, almost drive up on the sidewalk and narrowly miss other cars and buses. I peeked out of Nayna's purse and snickered as Papa and Nayna gave each other funny looks.

The Israel Museum is big! We'd never be able to see everything.
On our way to the Shrine of the Book, Nayna reached up and set me on a very old carved stone from a synagogue.

We stopped to look at a scale model of second Temple Jerusalem.

 And then I saw what looked like a white Hersey Kiss with water sprayed over the sides. "Do we get to see all kinds of kisses?" I asked.
Nayna snickered. "No, silly bear. That's the Shrine of the Book. Its where the Isaiah scrolls found in Qumran in 1947 are housed.
We walked through a door and into a dimly lit hall where glass cases held all kinds of things they found along with the scrolls. There were cloth and coins, arrows and jars and plates. In some ways the people who lived back in Qumran more than 2000 years ago were so different, and yet, maybe they weren't. I've seen bowls and plates and even combs that look a lot like the ones I see now. I wonder what they ate and what they used their coins to buy. Did their moms sew them new clothes when they were children? Did they play with balls and have puppies and kitties as pets?
At the end of the hall was a door that led into a big room with the Isaiah scroll in the center. Because its so old and they want to protect it, they frown from anyone taking pictures of it, but I wanted you to see what it looked like, so Nayna found a picture on the internet.

It was cool! The Hebrew words look much the same as now so people who know Hebrew can read the scroll just like those who read it for the first time.
Now it was time to go into the big building and look at lots of really old things. We walked outside into the sunlight. We were surrounded by concrete and it was hot. Nayna found some handy hands to sit on for a moment.The ones in the shade where nice.

There is so much more I want you to see, so I'm going to save it for the next blog. I want to take you into the building where we saw things from the beginning of time when things were made. I'll tell you all about it and show more pictures from Nayna's camera.
See you in the 1st century BCE!