Tel Aviv!

Hola! Today I spent the day trying to convince all of my friends that you pronounce it "comma esstis." Haha it didn't really work.

Since our Saturday and Sundays are switched here, on Sunday we went to Tel Aviv for the day! It was beautiful! And now I can officially say that I have swam in the Mediterranean!!! So far it is the saltiest ocean I have ever been in! My nose and throat were literally burning every time I went under the water! Ha but that didn't stop us from having fun! See for yourself!

Devin and I enjoying some sun and soft sand. :) Maybe we want to visit Tel Aviv every week, so what?

Katie and I eating some gelato! Yummy!!

Well, I have to run.  I am going to Turkey land tomorrow for a week! So it will be a while before my next entry. 

Shabbat Shalom!

I really like my life. So what? Today is the Sabbath.  And no, I am not confused..our Sabbath is on Saturday here in the Holy Land, not Sunday!  So naturally, Shabbat Shalom! Or for you who need a translation: Happy Sabbath! (I think.) I'm actually in the Arabic class, not Hebrew but I know the Shabbat Shalom song by heart because the stupid children sing it all the time.  And by stupid I mean smarter than me and by children I mean my roommates.  Okay so I join in and sing it too. What? It's really catchy.

This week we started our classes. Yay!!?!?!?@39e302203##$$*j!!?!?? Precisely.  But actually I was excited to start all my classes here because I feel so culturally naive about the world I now live in.  I am taking Arabic, a field trip class, Old Testament/New Testament, a class about the Ancient Near East, a class about Judaism, and a class about Palestinian history.  All in all it is 15 credits. I don't know if you're new to college, but that's kind of a lot.  Especially when you are trying to find time to go see sites too!  We have gigantic readings for each class so that keeps me busy.  But I find time to go out into the city as well, don't worry! I did lots of fun things this week! :) Mom don't read the following: I sometimes a lot go out into the city instead of doing my homework.  I like to have fun.

This week I went to a number of sites! Here you go:
1)I went to Mary's tomb and the place of the betrayal of the disciples (when they fell asleep as Christ was in the Garden) which are both at the bottom of the Mount of Olives.  They were really neat!
2) One of my favorite places we've visited is the Church of the Holy Sepluchre which is inside the Old City in the Christian quarter.  It is a beautiful church where many people believe Christ was tried there, hung on the cross there, and buried there.  As Mormons, we don't necessarily believe that, but it is still a wonderful and spiritual place.  I have learned to appreciate so much the devotion many give to God.  They inspire me.
3) We have gone to many different gates of the city which is fun to see the Old City from a new angle.  I have been through so far Damascus Gate (beware of pick-pocketers), Lion's Gate (less busy) , and Dung Gate (beautiful name, I know), Jaffa gate (which leads to the West), and gone right up to the Golden Gate/East Gate which is actually sealed.  But if any of you know your facts, Christ is supposed to come down the Mount of Olives and go through the East Gate.  In an effort to stop Him, the Muslim's built a huge cemetery outside the Old City Walls and sealed up the East Gate.  Apparently Christ cannot go through cemeteries or walls, but I have a feeling that He can do whatever He needs to.  We'll see though.
4) I went to the pool of Bethesda. Twice! They are another one of my favorite spots.  The first time, our little group of seven was sitting in the church built there to honor Mary and someone said, "You can sing!" and so we did! The echo in that church is unbelievable! I have never heard a prettier sound in my life.  So we sang some hymns and afterwards some South African women talked with us and looked at our hymn book.  They knew a lot of the songs in there but laughed when they saw the Christmas ones.  I'm still not really sure why.  The pools are all dried up without water, but still so amazing because you can just envision Christ there with the sick man!  Wow, I couldn't get enough of it!  It was such a beautiful, peaceful place in the midst of a busy, dirty city.  Did you like my comparing words?  People tell me I'm smart all the time in my head.
5) One place that I love is Shaaban's shop in the Old City. He loves Mormons!!! Ha in his shop he has BYU flags, Relief Society magnets, leather scripture cases, and a whole bunch of other stuff.  Every time we walk past his shop he flags us down, gives us a chair to rest on, pours us a glass of juice, and let's us talk to him! He is the best! And he gives us awesome deals and exchanges our money.  What would we do without Shaaban?  He told us the other day that he knows when tourists are Mormon or not Mormon because the girls are covered all over their backs and arms and legs.  I thought that was a real compliment. There is another funny man named Nasir and he also loves Mormons (everyone knows the Mormons).
6)We took a field trip on Monday to go to 5 different overlooks of the Jerusalem, some close and some far.  It was really neat! We even saw Bethlehem.
7) We went into the Room of the Last Supper at Dormition Abbey!  Sometimes a lot I write about things and then think, "I can't believe I actually did that!"  This would be one of those times.  It was neat to think that that is where the Holy Ghost was first given to Jesus's disciples.  Also there was Kind David's tomb.  History literally presents itself to me daily! I love it!
8) We went to West Jerusalem a couple of times which was a wonderful time.  It is very American-like with lots of shops (Nike, Nine West, etc.) but the best place to go is Ben Yehuda street.  We went there one night and some friends played guitars/sang and tried to make money!  They did at one point, but by the end of the night they found that they had actually lost money.  We're still not sure if I stole their money or the angry grandpa that kept cursing at us in Hebrew and flipping us off did.  It was probably the former, let's be honest.
9) We also had a girls night or two which were incredibly great fun! We painted our nails and did mud masks (the woman at the store was an expert saleswoman and when she told us she was 50 and looked to be literally 35 we thought we must try her secret!).
10) My week was amazing, as you can tell.  I guess you can probably see why I haven't been blogging a whole lot.  But of all the magnificent things that I did, my favorite place to date that I've gone is the Western Wall/Wailing Wall.  Maybe you've heard of it.  It is literally the most fought over piece of land in the entire world.  And it's probably smaller than a football field in length.  Sabbath for the Jewish begins at sundown Friday evening and ends at sundown Saturday evening, Saturday being their Sabbath.  To welcome in the Sabbath, they celebrate of course!  So tomorrow we went to the Western Wall just before sundown in order to view this celebration.  When we got there, we were able to worship at the wall.  What an amazing experience.  I have learned things there that I have never learned before.  The Herodian Ashlars (fancy name for the type of stone at the wall at our level) were the same exact stones that were there when Christ walked the Earth.
*side note: the call to prayer is sounding throughout the city right now.  Everyone complains of waking up to it  at 4:30 every morning (they pray 5 times a day), but I have never woken up to it.  Some of you may know why.  It is a man's singing voice projected over the city.  Sometimes when I sing, Sam thinks I am imitating the   Arabic man singing the call to prayer, but in reality I'm singing english songs like "Party Rock." In other words, I have a dang good voice.
Back to the good stuff.  Christ may have indeed touched the stone I did when I prayed at the wall! Who knows! Then we sang and danced for almost an hour with the Jewish women there at the wall!  There is a wall separating the men from women at the wall, so each celebrate separately.  But I LOVED IT SO MUCH!! I cannot say that enough.  The women were so beautiful and nice and welcoming and they would hold out their hands for us to dance with them in a circle and we would clap along with their songs and they were so happy! I loved their idea that Shabbat is something that needs to be celebrated every week!  We talked with some Jewish girls our age after and they were some of the most beautiful and nicest girls I have ever met!  The gave us kisses on the cheek and hugs when saying goodbye.  I love the people here.

Anyways, I'm sorry that is so long.  I cannot write enough about my experiences! Our group is bonding so fast and well.  I love my roommates!  Their names are Aubrey, Marianne, and Shannon.  I will get a picture with them soon!  Until we talk again...Shabbat Shalom! :)

Sam and I at the pools of Bethesda. Maybe I love her a lot? Good friend, good friend.

This is just a view of the city from one of our look-out spots. You can almost see where I live. Isn't it neat though?!

Oh, little town of Bethlehem? You betcha. Back there behind me and to the right.

Dormition Abbey: Nick, Michael-Sean, and Sam.  See mom, I've made friends!

Russell brosef, I don't think you read my blog, but this is for you! I'm hanging out with your friend in Jerusalem.  What now, beef ball?!  Josh and I in the place of Mary's birth. It was three stories into the ground and smelled like mold so I hope she was okay.

Also at the place of Mary's birth: Jared, Leslie, and Whitney.  The girls+Devin and I bonded on our first wait in the airport. :)

This is from the Muslim cemetery right next to the wall of the Old City.  Hence the gravestone.  But do you see that many arched building in the background? That's where I live. Call it beautiful if you would like.  I am incredibly close to the city with a spectacular view!

West side of Jerusalem at night! Natalie, Nick, Rachel, me, Justin, Lizzie

I am having fun. I have to run. I go to beach tomorrow to get some sun. Bye Bye now.

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I am in heaven.  Can I just tell you that?! Today was my third day in Jerusalem and I can honestly say that I have loved every second of my being in this land! It is as different as it gets, but that's just what I love. Here is how the past few days have gone down...

Tues. Aug. 30th/ Wed. Aug 31st. : Travel days.  There were 6 different groups of traveling students (81 kids total) and we definitely got the best end of the deal!  Our first flight left at 11 a.m. and we had one hour-long layover at JFK and then it was back on the plane to Tel Aviv!  We made it safe and sound without any complications! Things went so smoothly for me for a while...the biggest relief was probably that even though my bag was 6 lbs over the weight limit, the nice lady let it slide! ;)  God bless nice people. :) I felt really lucky because on our 11 hour flight to Tel Aviv I got a window seat and hence slept a lot of the flight.  My traveling friends were not so lucky.  The trouble started when we were going through customs.  They warned us in our orientation meeting before we left that a couple of us would be questioned a lot about our stay here and they told us the exact answers that we should say! And of course...I happened to be one of the lucky few who got this grand treatment!  Ha let's just say that my customs lady was a sour lady who had me thinking I would have to hop on a plane back home! Ha but another girl Rachel had troubles also, so at least I wasn't alone!  They ended up taking us into a back room to the head hauncho where we had to answer to him....and then he signed our papers.  Haha it was a little bit scary!  The trouble didn't stop there though! Once we got through customs, we found out that 51 of our fellow students were still stuck in Phoenix from the day before.  They had all gotten from SLC to Phoenix, but not past it.  We felt so bad!!!! Only 30 of us had made our trip! I didn't have a roommate for the first few nights but I do now so my dreams of getting murdered in the night by a guy with a machine gun can stop. Haha (don't worry mom, it was only a dream. I am VERY safe here!)  They didn't think that they would be able to get them out here until next Tuesday at the earliest, but already 17 flew in today (on a horrendous flight of  2 days and 4 connections) and we have more arriving tomorrow on 4 separate flights and the rest on Sunday.  So that is going to be nice!  We have honestly gotten really comfortable and close with the group of 30 of us, but it will be fun to add some new dimensions!  When we did get to the center though, we all were on the verge of tears because we were so excited!  The view is breath-taking.  I have never seen anything so remarkable.  I haven't gotten a picture of it yet, but I will soon! And the center is the most beautiful building on earth!  Devin and I already talk about how our houses will have the same construction as the ones here. Haha

Thurs. Sept. 1st: JERUSALEM!!!! Oh my gosh.  I don't even know what to say about the city!  We had a couple of orientations this day (they never end) but then we got to go out on a walking tour of the city!  It was amazing!!!!! I have never been in a culture that is so different!  It kind of makes you nervous at times, but you just have to remind yourself that different is not bad!  We live in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian side, and so we walked all around the East side for a while.  Most of the shops were still closed because it was the last day of Ramadan (a Muslim holiday where you fast every day for a month and only eat dinner and then the last three days you party all day), but we still were able to see a lot.  We went all around the Old City as well, which was really eye-opening and fun! I will have to take pictures because I don't know if I can describe it.  But think of small, cobblestone streets lined on each side with vendor after vendor and usually covered overhead too.  It's awesome :) So colorful and full of smells of spices and the alleys turn every which way so it is very easy to get lost! Ha next came West Jerusalem and that is a completely different world.  It is clean, orderly, expensive....a lot like America. Our tour was amazing and really helped orient us in the city.  I taught lots of people how to play wackee and they loved it of course! And we played lots of games together that night.  I love everyone!!! I am already feeling like we are all best friends. :)

Fri. Sept. 2nd: Israeli Museum, Garden Tomb, and Jerusalem.  Our morning was spent at the Israeli Museum.  It is huge and so packed with everything you could think of so I will definitely have to go back! Ha but it was really neat!  Some highlights that I saw there were the Dead Sea Scrolls, artifacts that were waaaay old, and beautiful jewelry up the wazoo! I seriously considered breaking the glass for some of the Egyptian jewelry that they had there! Ha after lunch we got to go to the Garden Tomb. Wow.  Since only 1/3 of our group is here, they have rescheduled the last couple of days so that we don't start classes, but that we go on field trips that the other groups can catch up on later.  You could say we've been having a little bit of fun :)  As Mormons, we do not know if the Garden Tomb was the exact tomb where Jesus was, but it is a very good possibility. The thing I realized today was that it doesn't matter if it's the exact tomb or not!  All that matters is what happened--Jesus Christ died for us and was resurrected for us and He lives again today! It was incredible! We got to sing some hymns and take pictures.  See!

Ummm....this is Devin Neff. She is my new bff. And I love her a lot! We have been having sleep overs because we both don't have roommates. But now I do! :) And yes, I do look this frumpy every day.  Attractive right?  After the tomb, we got to go exploring around the Old City for a few hours BY OURSELVES!!!!!  It was exhilarating to say the least! Dev, Leslie, Whitney, and I just walked around for a couple of hours.  We had a couple of attempts at pick pocketing, but we prevailed! We also navigated ourselves without any maps and didn't get wrestled into buying anything.  It was great fun! Sorry this is forever long, I just have so much to say! And this isn't even a dent in it.  Plus, I am also kind of using this as a journal, so I can remember everything I can! I wish everyone could come here and experience this!  It truly is amazing and already so life-changing.  I am so blessed!  That is my constant thought lately.  I love Jerusalem!