Hieroglyphics. Is it a picture of worship as the tour guide explained or some sort of sexual costume party? You be the judge. . . Wacky carving though :- )

Trivia question: what 70s horror film has a pivotal scene that resembles this in it?

The Western Wall in Jerusalem is full of holiness and emotion, mostly grief. I was there in 1993, when tensions were high (as they always seem to be). These two may have lost friends in a bombing that occurred while we were there.

TThe Mount of Olives, as seen from the walled Old City of Jerusalem. An amazing place of life, death, and God. (though not necessarily in that order)

Even in its amazingness, though, the Mount was starting to get commercialized. . .There were 3 points of ascension and 2 Gardens...hmmm.

The lost city of Petra, in Jordan. The entire city is carved into the red and gold rock, in intricate patterns. This is the treasury (also the resting place of the grail, if you saw the last Indiana Jones movie).

The Aya Sophia in Istanbul. The size and grandeur of the mosques are amazing to anyone of any faith. The outside even understates the size of the place. One afternoon when there weren’t any services we went inside and lay down on the carpet, staring at the ceiling. The differences in our faith aside, it was an amazing place to commune with God.

The mushroom houses of the Cappadoccia region of Turkey defy explanation. The rock has naturally eroded in this weird mushroom shapes (keep it PG on this site, please) which people have dug into to form houses (mostly for birds actually).

The temple of Ramses in Southern Egypt. To help judge scale, the stone hawk is about twice the size of a man - these are gigantic formations, tribute to a gigantic ego.