Seder

Last night we had a genuine Passover Seder. The word Seder means order, and it's the name of the dinner ceremony on Passover. Granted, our Passover was definitely a month or so out of season, but our Judaism teacher said he wouldn't have been able to dedicate the time to it during actual Passover season. So we had ours in February.

It was pretty dang sweet. They set up our cafeteria like, super fancy. We had candles on every table, assigned seating, fancy napkins, and a bottle of grape juice that looked like a wine bottle. Lol, Matt, my dance partner/Bro Huff's son, was at my table, and we were joking around about the fact that the label was in Hebrew, so it could totally be anything and we would never know. We decided it would be a fantastic joke on the Center if someone had bought actual wine instead of grape juice. Although, it wasn't even real grape juice, either. But it was good. And non-alcoholic, I'm pretty sure. ;)

So we each had a Haggadah ("the story" or something like that) book, which has all the ceremony for the Passover written out with directions and readings and pictures. And it totally reads from right to left. Dude, it is so trippy opening books that way. I've only used a couple like that, but it's nuts. Our teacher walked us through most of it. We actually didn't even really do the whole thing. We were there for 3 hours as it was. But they assigned out songs for people to learn beforehand and perform throughout the telling of the Exodus story. I sang one called "Avadim Hayinu" with two other girls. Mike and a guy named Jeff did a rap. No joke. Their rapper names were He-Be-Brewin' (Jeff) and not yo' momma, but My-momma-des (as in Maimonides, a famous Jewish philosopher- that was Mike). It was seriously amazing. Mike put together this backup track on Garageband and they dressed up like *gangstas*- except still in Sabbath dress, coz that's what we were all wearing. Funniest thing ever. Loved it.

The dinner was really something. We had 4 courses, and everybody was assigned a serving group, so that one group brought out the appetizers, the next cleared that away and brought the soup (that was my group), then the main course, and dessert, and the last group cleared away dessert. I have to say, I really am a big fan of fancy banquets. For many reasons, but certainly because the food is always a cut above the norm. The Oasis did not disappoint. Our mashed potatoes had almonds in them. Ya. It was a big deal.

It was kind of interesting to go through all the ceremonial stuff and everything, like eating the bitter herbs and the matzah (which was like saltine crackers except the size of half a sheet of paper and minus the salt) and reading the story and hearing the songs. We even had a hunt for the missing piece of matzah, which I guess is a tradition to help the children keep awake and interested. ... Not sure what that says about the JC demographic. Lol, jk. One thing that was interesting is that our teacher told us that the whole Elijah thing is actually pretty much outdated. Like, in the 70's most people would set a place and a chair for him, but now they just fill a goblet with the wine and don't drink it- and even that, he said, had more to do with an old Rabbinical debate about whether 4 cups of wine should be drunk or 5. The filled glass is a compromise. Also, another tradition that I thought had to do with Elijah- opening the door- Ophir said developped in the 18th century in Europe in order to show the Christians that they weren't practicing witchcraft or anything. It's like in Fiddler on the Roof, where everything is more about tradition than faith or religion.

Well, the sunny weather has officially departed. It was still gorgeous yesterday. We went out and had a picnic on the lawn, since the Oasis wasn't serving lunch so that they could set up for Seder and gave us sack lunches instead. We fell asleep on the grass and when we woke up I went back to my room and slept some more instead of going to the review session for the quiz we had today.... It's all good tho. Mike filled me in this morning and I totally aced it. :) Today I just worked on getting my pictures all labeled (I decided I had to do it before I forgot what they all were- it's hard not having my laptop!) and then watched like, 3 hours worth of movies with a bunch of people, and we had a fireside with Elder Neuenschwander tonight, and now I'm kinda bored, because I don't really want to watch more movie- which is what everyone is doing, but the alternative is "body ball" which definitely did not look like something I would have survived. But it's all good, because it means I actually get to my blog before a week has gone by. :D Well, I'm going to go try again to find something to do. Lates.

"Those Mormons"

Today we went on a way sweet field trip. We went to the City of David, which is now just a small section on the south end of the city, but was the original capital of Jerusalem. The quote is from Brother Huff, who kept referring to the other group ahead of us as "those mormons." As in, "There's a group of Mormons in there [the film] that we're waiting for" and "Now that those Mormons are gone, let's go have a look." Lol.

So first we saw a 3D- no joke- movie about the City of David. Honestly, the 3D glasses kind of hurt my eyes. At first I thought that maybe one lens was scratched or smudged or something, but I think they just weren't very well made, so it made it really hard to focus. Speaking of glasses that hurt my eyes, actually, there's a girl here that has one bad eye, and I tried on her glasses and they were really trippy. Like, worse than the 3D glasses. By a lot. Because only one lens had this super strong prescription and the other has practically none at all. It hurt. Lol.

So then we went down and saw some ruins. We saw the original site of David's palace, which they've only uncovered in about the last ten years, and is still being excavated. Oh, and apparently the 3D movie is brand new, because last semester they didn't see it. Yep. And then we saw Area G, which I believe is where they found some... "booley" is how my teacher pronounced it. Some clay tablets that had some writing on them. And Area G, I also believe, is the site of the royal gardens.

Then we got to the really exciting part. So when Jerusalem was under siege by the Assyrians, during the reign of Hezekiah, their water source, the Gihon spring, was outside the city wall, and therefore vulnerable. So Hezekiah had a tunnel built that redirected the water from the Gihon spring into the pool of Siloam (John 9:7-11). We got to walk through this tunnel. And there's still water in it. Like, up to mid-thigh. It was awesome.

K, so the teachers totally made it out to be like the tunnel was going to be drafty and freezing, and the water would be ice cold, so while I was kind of excited, and certainly willing, because it's a pretty sweet thing to do, I was expecting to have to just grin and bear it and have a positive attitude. For the record, it's not cold underground. Ever. I don't know why this is, but it is always warm in caves. At least in Israel. And the water was chilly, but not like, bone-chilling. It was really like wading through a somewhat colder than usual indoor swimming pool. Like, even after the initial thigh-deep ebbed into like, mid-calf, even my exposed wet legs weren't bad. Honestly, though, Jerusalem has been so good to us. Like, we have had practically ideal weather on every field trip we've been on- it would have been pretty miserable coming out of the tunnel if it had been cold and gross out. It really only has rained on Shabbat, when it's not a big deal to be stuck inside, and, except for our recent cold spell, it's been pretty warm. The sun has been out the last two days. :) I may have mentioned that yesterday, but I have been absolutely blissful. Sunshine just makes me so much more excited to be here. I hear it's supposed to storm again this weekend though... I hope not. I want to go to Gethsemane again.

K, but this tunnel was pretty dang awesome. It was really only about as wide as a person, and in some places most of us were bent double, while in others it was like, 10 feet over my head. And the water was surprisingly clear. I tried to get some pictures of my feet sloshing through the water, and like, to show how high the water was (oh hey- speaking of pictures, my computer was sent to the Apple Store today!!!!!! Finally!! So hopefully that means it'll be back within 2 weeks... Pray for me). I was thinking, as we were walking through, it was too bad there wasn't an El Dorado or Atlantis or some other lost city at the end of the tunnel. Because that's what it felt like. As if we were making our way through a fissure in the rock that had been overlooked for thousands of years and were about to discover a lost civilization. At the end there was this pretty cool little pool, though, (not the pool of Siloam) with some stumps that could have been pillars long ago in it. It was actually kind of nice being already wet, because it made getting out to stand on the pillars for pictures a lot easier, lol. And then we saw the pool of Siloam, although there's not much to see since it's only partially excavated. There was this pretty sweet mural of what the pool would have originally looked like, though, back in the tunnel.

So then we went home. It was only about 11, but we all wanted to change and Mike had to shower because he "kind of got in a water fight, and the water won." Lol, I guess the boys in his group were all throwing water around and then he slipped and got soaked head to toe. The only part of him that was not wet was most of his back (I'm not sure how he managed that, exactly...). But after a brief respite, we went into the Old City with Ken and Eliza and Eliza's sister Jecia and a girl named Amy. And we spent the afternoon wandering around, mostly visiting various churches.

We were aiming for the pool of Bethesda, which ruins are in the St. Anne's complex, but it wasn't open til 2, so we first went to the Church of the Flagellation and the Church of the... well, there was another chapel in the same complex, but I don't remember what it was called. Condemnation, maybe? One of them (I think it was the one I can't remember the name of) had these really awesome 3D paintings. Like, they were paintings, but the people in them were statues sticking out of the wall. It was pretty awesome. And it was nice to see something kind of out of the norm, because anyone who's been to this side of the globe can tell you that most old Catholic churches look a lot alike, and really they're just not that exciting most of the time.

Then we wandered down to St. Augustine's Hospice (which is like a refuge for pilgrims) and just chilled in a courtyard that overlooked the street, after which we wandered down a couple of streets, just looking at the wares and such. And buying various things to eat. Mike got a yummy apple pastry, and Jecia and Amy got some candy.

Then we went back over to St. Anne's. St. Anne is the mother of the Virgin Mary. The cathedral reminded me a lot of like, Sacre Coeur or something. It was just a vast and impressive stone structure. It didn't have a lot of decoration, which I actually really liked. It was less gaudy. And it had a really nice statue of St. Anne with Mary as a young girl in one of the alcoves. The pool of Bethesda ruins were actually really nice ruins. There were a lot of walls still standing (although you really couldn't tell it used to be a pool...), and the bottom was covered in greenery, so it was really pretty. We got distracted for a bit, watching these three cats that were hanging out down in the bottom. Two orange-brown cats had this black one cornered in a little hole in the rock. Like, we wouldn't have known it was there except it poked its head out once when it thought the other cats had gone. We couldn't figure out why they were ganging up on him, though.

After St. Anne's we went around the corner to the birthplace of Virgin Mary. ... Does it seem a little odd to anyone else to think of Mary being born? I mean, she's like, the quintessential mother... Sorry, that just all of a sudden struck me as something I had never thought about before. But it was like, these two little stone rooms underground. Actually, it seemed kind of cozy.

Last we walked back through the Old City. Mike, Ken and I each bought some candy, then we all went and had some knaffe, which is like, really mild cheese with a sweet topping that reminds me of Thanksgiving yams with marshmallows. It sounds weird, but its yummy. And we finished it off by stopping at the 6 shekel falafel place. And these falafels are yummy. Not only cheap, but so good. They toast them. Like a panini. So good. I would have gotten one for myself, but I was actually pretty full, so I just had a few bites of Eliza's (Mike put hot sauce on his...rude).

Tonight we are watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I believe it is in preparation for Jordan next week (oh yeah, we're leaving for Jordan on Monday). :)

"2 tons of angry pot roast"

That was Brother Skinner's assessment of bullfights in ancient Mesopotamia. Hehe.

Today it was finally sunny and beautiful out!!! It made me so happy, it felt so good to be out on such a gorgeous day. It's been gross and freezing for about the last week and a half, so sunshine was a refreshing change. :)

Today we went and poked around in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I think some people were hoping to find like a secret passageway or catacombs or something. We didn't find anything secretive or hidden, though. But that church is huge and a lot of the places we went into I hadn't been before. And I had my camera this time, so I was able to take some sweet pictures.

Then we went up to another little annex that was the Coptic Monastery. Coptic = Egyptian. It was kinda cool, they had a painting with the pyramids and sphinx just chilling out in their courtyard (which was on a section of the roof of the Holy Sepulchre). But the really cool thing was this cistern that's down under the monastery. It actually has quite a bit of water in it. I couldn't tell you exactly how much, because I don't know how deep it is, but it looked like at least a good 8 or 10 feet. But the acoustics were incredible. Like, we've been singing hymns on field trips in a lot of different cisterns and caves and various acoustical wonders, but this was really something else. Maybe it had more to do with the fact that we had less people, but it was awesome. It was mostly me and the boys singing... But when we sang in parts, the deep harmonies filled out the cavern underneath my melody and it was so cool.

Then we walked out through Lion's Gate into the Kidron Valley, which is between Jerusalem proper and the Mount of Olives. We actually walked past Gethsemane. And we kinda just wandered around in the valley. It was so great, being out there in the sunshine, and this valley is practically untouched. We were looking for some caves to spelunk in, but we ran out of time, since three of us had to be back for Arabic at 4:00 and we left the Old City at 3. We found a couple of holes that we poked around in, and a couple of the guys climbed through a short tunnel. Mike decided that he wanted to climb through a huge piece of piping that was lying around over on the Mount Scopus side of the valley. Haha. We didn't realize there were people like, just on the other side of an outcropping of rock and right as Mike climbed in, this guy comes over and is like, "What is he doing?" And we were like, "Uh, ya, you know, he's just... playing." It was great. And we made it back in time for Arabic.

Ballroom night was fun. :) I had to coerce a couple of guys into coming, and even then only about 10 of them did, but it was actually really low key and the girls all just kind of danced with each other. I was kind of expecting to have more of a class, but it was more like a workshop, I guess. Everyone said they loved it and had a lot of fun, though.

On Friday I went to the Jewish market, called the Sukh, with my friend Eliza. It was really fun, we decided we needed a girls' day, so we went around trying on silly things (like rabbi hats with fake curly sideburns attached, lol) and just wandering around. We bought a shabbat bread and ate the entire thing between us. And I mean, it was big. It also had this kind of sweet glaze on it, though and it was sooooooo yummy. That's why we got one, because we could smell it. And then we got 4 strawberries for 1 shekel. And they were big strawberries. And delicious. And we saw some guys rapping, and it was like, inspirational Jewish rap. Lol. It was fabulous. Ooh! And then we got our religion teachers to put on the hats with fake curly sideburns, once we all met up as we were leaving, and it was kind of priceless. Then we stopped by the pita factory on the way home and had fresh, hot pita. I was uncomfortably full of bread by the end of this outing. But it was mostly worth it. :)

On Saturday it stormed again. It was actually really cool being in the Auditorium for sacrament meeting with all the big windows and the thunder and lightning and rain pelting the glass. But I don't think the heat was working properly that day, because it was frigid in every public space here in the Center. Not cool.

On Sunday we went over to the olive wood shops. I can't decide which nativity set to get! I took pictures of the ones I'm deciding between, though, so now I just need to prop them up side by side and make a serious comparison.

Tomorrow we get to go wade through Hezekiah's tunnel. It's going to be freezing. :D

Yad Vashem

Today we went to the Holocaust museum. It's called Yad Vashem, which comes from a verse in Isaiah that talks about God giving a memorial to those whose posterity have been cut off.

It was super crowded. Our tourguide kept getting muscled out of the way by other tourguides. It made it kind of hard to absorb everything, I'm not gonna lie. Our teacher had given us an article to read, though, that talked about a lot of the history of the Holocaust in kinda the same way that the museum presented it, so it was really helpful to have that background, at least. One thing that really affected me was a display where they just had a pile of shoes in a pit on the floor. They looked like they'd been just left there to rot- like, they were really old and musty looking- and it was just really striking to see that and be reminded of the scale of this. I mean, it wasn't like their names and crimes were read out and then they were shot or hanged or whatever. It was tens of thousands at a time. They just cranked the bodies through as fast as they could process them. Sorry, that's kind of graphic.

It was interesting, because I almost felt like I wasn't in Israel anymore. Like, it's such a different aspect than the ones we've been studying, where our focus has been on the Old Testament and Christ. Today we saw the full force of Satan as we wind up to the last days. And it's only going to get worse.

On that happy note... My favorite part of the museum was the memorial to children that died. It was so beautiful and peaceful. It's a dark room filled with mirrors and a few candles, and the light from the candles reflects all around, so that it looks like millions of candles floating in the darkness. We talked in Old Testament recently about the seeming unfairness of Heavenly Father commanding the Israelites to kill the women and children in their conquest of the Promised Land. And my teacher reminded us that children who die are brought into the Celestial Kingdom. We say that our suffering is but a small moment in the scope of eternity, and while the suffering of the children in tragedies like the Holocaust is more than we ever had to even think of at that age, it's really an even smaller moment, and they receive their reward immediately, and are welcomed back into the Savior's embrace after passing through their brief test of mortality. And I felt that peace inside this room. I wanted to stay in there all day.

We also saw the commemorative grave with the eternal flame and names of the conentration camps set into the stone around it. Honestly, I felt like these memorials were more meaningful to me than the depictions of history in the museum. Oh, the other thing that did stick with me about the museum, though, were the videos of interviews with survivors, telling about some of the stories. One woman was telling of how the Nazis came for her family. The children hid in the closet, and as they were about to be taken away she asked if she could get her coat. When she opened the closet door, she said, "Goodbye children. Run to the [neighbors']. I love you." And she was very emotional as she said that they never saw her parents again.

After Yad Vashem, we took a tour of Mt. Herzl, which is right above it. Mt. Herzl is known as the "Holy of Holies" of secular Judaism and the state of Israel. Herzl was a prominent Jewish leader of the Zionist movement- which is the movement that led to the creation of the state of Israel. Before he died he expressed a desire to be buried in Israel. So, when the state was first created, David ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister, brought his bones to be buried here on Mt. Herzl, in order to bring a "centralized spirituality to the new capital," since most of the traditional Jewish holy sites were still part of Jordan at that time. Mt. Herzl is where they hold ceremonies for Independence Day and things like that. And a lot of secular Jews really do treat it like a holy site.

It's a beautiful park. Really well-landscaped, gorgeous. They bury all their prime ministers there, and I think my teacher said about half of Israeli soldiers who are killed in combat (the others are buried in similar cemeteries around the country). It's above Yad Vashem to symbolize the rising from the depths of tragedy in Jewish history to the height of its triumph in the creation of the state of Israel. It was freezing today, by the way, so although we spent like 3 hours there, that's about all the history I absorbed. But it was very, very beautiful.

Well, tomorrow night I'm teaching everyone how to dance. I'm going to teach a little bit of cha cha. I'm kind of excited and kind of really nervous... Hopefully it'll be good... :) Wish me luck!

Knesset

Yesterday we had a free day (yay!) so one of the guys organized a trip to the Israeli parliament, which is called the Knesset. It was actually really kind of wonderful, because the tour wasn't until 12 and I got to sleep in for like, the first time since I've been here.

So before I tell you about the tour, I want to give a little background on the system of government here in Israel. It's pretty trippy. Fortunately, our Judaism teacher decided that, in light of the recent elections, we should have our lecture on Israeli government last week instead of at the end of the course. It was really helpful to know something about it before going on the Knesset tour.

So, last Tuesday, Israel held an election. I actually realized, in class on Wednesday, that I have now been present for national elections in 3 different countries: America (obviously), England, and Israel. Which is really kind of amazing, if you know anything about parliamentary government (which I'm about to explain to you). And it makes me feel pretty cool about myself, not gonna lie.

So, in a parliamentary system, you don't actually vote for Prime Minister. You vote for parties. Each party runs a campaign, and usually the bigger ones will be represented by their party leader who would become prime minister if they controlled the Knesset. When all the votes are counted up after election day, each party gets a certain number of seats according to the percentage of votes that they won in the election. There are 120 seats in the Knesset, so 1% of the vote equals about 1.2 seats (ya), and I guess, looking at it the other way, one seat requires .8% of the vote. But they also have a rule that says you have to get at least 2% of the vote to get any seats at all, so that they won't have a million tiny parties with one seat each. However, 2% is still a pretty low threshhold, and I'll come back to that later. So the party who gets to appoint the Prime Minister is the one with a simple majority- that is, 51% of the seats in the Knesset. (The US presidential elections don't work that way, btw, you only have to have more votes than anyone else- it's called a plurality... ya, I totally learned that in American Heritage.) Unfortunately for the Knesset, there are significantly more parties than they can really handle (this is where that low threshhold comes into play). So in a normal parliamentary system, you might have 3 or 4 parties, and maybe 2 of them would form a coalition to gain the simple majority and appoint the PM. Israel has like, 13 parties that just got voted into the Knesset. So in order to gain a simple majority, you have to have a coalition involving 5 or 6 or more parties. My teacher said that although a Knesset is supposed to run a 4 year term, it has only actually lasted that long once in the history of Israel, because one party will do something that ticks another party off, and then that party leaves the coalition and they no longer have a majority so they either have to scramble to convince another party to join or just call new elections. So you can see how the odds of parliamentary elections happening in both of the foreign countries I've lived in while I was there. Especially since England's elections are at least as sporadic, but far less often.

Well, I hope that hasn't confused you all too much. Like my teacher said, "If you don't understand it, you're in good company with most of Israelis." But ya, so the Knesset was pretty cool. Their big assembly hall (called the Plenum Hall) looks a lot like the Senate, but probably smaller. And, here's a fun little tidbit, they arrange their desks in the shape of a menorah. Except they have too many MKs (=Members of Knesset) for a traditional seven-branched menorah, so it has ten branches. Also, the party that formed the coalition and gained control of the Knesset sits on one side with all their coalition buddies, and the "opposition" sits on the other side. They also have a bullet-proof visitors' section. So that civilians can't come in and shoot up the Knesset while their in session.

The coolest part of the tour was the Chagall Hall. Chagall is the same guy that did the stained glass windows in Ein Kerem. When they built this new building in 1966, the Israeli government commissioned Chagall to create three tapestries and 12 mosaics. K, these tapestries are kind of incredible. We all couldn't figure out why the guide was calling them tapestries at first, because they were obviously just giant canvas paintings. Ya, not really. They looked like paint on canvas, but she lifted up the back of them and showed us all the threads that were woven into it. It was amazing. She said that Chagall made a sketch that was the size of the tapestries and then it took a factory in France 4 years to hand-weave it. Like, seriously. Wow. And he sketched out the mosaics the same way and an Italian couple laid the stones and it took a year. Pretty amazing.

That was pretty much the whole tour. There was a really cool statue of a menorah that was made of olive wood and each of the *candlesticks* was a branch of one of the seven species- the seven species are the seven main crops of Israel. It's like, wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives... I don't remember the other one. Flax, maybe. I could be just completely making that up, tho. Oh hey, I totally know what the letter L looks like in Hebrew. It makes me feel pretty cool whenever I see it.

After the tour we went into West Jerusalem and got some falafels. ... I don't even know how to describe what a falafel is. It's like, fried... stuff. But it's yummy and they put it in a pita with some salad and french fries and hummus. And we got some gelato. And some brownie pastries. The brownie pastries are really good. It's actually like a croissant kinda thing with brownie batter inside. But it's like, half-baked brownie batter, so it's gooey instead of like, liquid. And after West, we wandered back through the Old City and back to the Center.

Today I wrote my Egypt paper. It is definitely one of the worst papers I have ever written, but it's for our pass/fail field trip class, so I think I can still feel good about myself. We also had our Judaism midterm this morning, which was totally not on the stuff from the study guide, but I still did good on it, so it worked out. Aaaand I'm about to go do some more Humanitarian Project. :D

Life in the JC

K, so my goal with this entry is to give you a taste of what living here is like.

Thursday night was our talent show. I'm on the talent show committee, and this was our "formal" talent show- the informal one will be later in the semester. We had it in the auditorium, which is where we have sacrament meeting, so it was more geared toward at least low-key if not spiritual talents. My fellow committee members asked me to do a waltz. It was actually really fun. I didn't want to at first because the stage in the auditorium is really not big enough, but with some clever choreography (yes, I am really proud of myself, actually) we made it work. Matt is such a stud. We totally put this together in like, 4 days and he was awesome. I seriously am so impressed with him, he picks stuff up so fast and he's totally a natural. It was fun to work towards getting a routine together again. And it was actually kind of creepy how well it all turned out. For my choreography, I basically choreographed down the stage (it's wide but not deep, if that makes sense) and when I ran out of room, turned it around the other way. I did that about four times, and that was going to be our routine. I taught it to Matt, and then we put it to the music we were using, not really knowing how it was going to fit. The routine was exactly the length of the first verse. We had to cut out most of the intro, but I was seriously like, holy crap. It was amazing. And everyone loved it. They all love the whole ballroom dance thing. I think I'm going to be teaching a class soon as like an evening activity. A lot of people have been asking about it. And there were a lot of great acts. One girl apparently tours singing with the folk dance team at BYU. She was kind of amazing. And there was a strings quartet (except they had a flute instead of a viola but it totally worked) and they played something by Mozart that I know you all have heard but I don't know what it is, and Music of the Night. It was pretty sweet.

Yesterday was our Near Eastern Studies midterm, as well as the due date for one of our papers (we have several more of those coming up, as well). It's kind of fun having the same class schedule as everyone else around you. Some people commandeered a couple of the classrooms and had a study sesh, and they left all their notes up on the board so they were still there when we came to class Friday morning, so we were definitely all still studying during Old Testament. The midterm was not bad. I think people were way more freaked out about it than anyone needed to be. And actually I have rarely felt so well prepared for a test. But I totally, despite all my picture associations and everything, got the question about Lower Egypt (which is in the North, and symbolized by the red crown , bee, and papyrus flower- I know that now, dang it...) wrong. On a side note, since the purpose of this is to give an overall taste of life here in the JC, a series of emails concerning our NES teacher (Brother Skinner) recently... It all started with the Jerusalem Center Post, which was a flyer that some people put together containing a whole bunch of spoof stories, one of them about Skinner being caught skinning a cat. A couple days later, this email was sent by Kitty Catz to all the students:

"CAIRO (AP Wire Service) 1300 GMT
In a surprise announcement on Tuesday, 10 February, Egyptian President Muhammad Hosni Murbarak named Andrew Skinner, Brigham Young University Professor of Near Eastern Studies, to a newly created cabinet post-- Minister of Cat Terminations. It was further revealed that Skinner will serve simultaneously as Curator of Crappy Little Kitty Mummies in the Feline Wing of the Egyptian Museum.
News of Skinner's appointment came as a shock to Jerusalem Center Officials who felt that such a move could not have come at a worse time. An unnamed source in the administrative of offices of the Center has been quoted as saying, "This is so catty." Another official revealed that the appointment will undoubtedly have a cataclysmic affect on the Jerusalem Center cat population. Security officials at the Center said, "This simply bespeaks Skinner's lack of regard for a highly respected, albeit mangy, member of the animal kingdom." However, Egyptian Antiquities Director, Zahi Hawass has defended Skinner saying that he was catagorically in favor of the appointment.
Reactions from the BYU Jerusalem Center student population were mixed, though some political science majors felt that it would definitely have a cat-astrophic affect on the emerging relationship between the Jerusalem Center and the country of Katmandu.
At press-time Skinner could not be reached for comment. However, sources close to him believe the controversy caused him to slip into a catatonic state, but not before overindulging in unhealthy portions of Kitty-cutlets."

Someone proposed the theory that Brother Skinner himself wrote this email, having heard about the article. I agree, it's too well-written and it's got traces of his kind of humor. It was followed by an email stating that the position had been rescinded due to Skinner invoking the gods of ancient Egypt and engaging in cult slaughter of kittens. So that's Ancient Near Eastern Studies.

Our paper due yesterday was for Modern Near East- Islam, taught by Dr. Adnan Musallam. This is really not anyone's favorite class. His lectures are kind of all over the place and just not that engaging. So Mike and I have been playing various games on paper recently during that class. I beat him at the dot game, he slaughtered me at tic tac toe, and yesterday we played probably the most entertaining game of hangman I have ever played. We started drawing more and more elaborate gallows, and since we had to keep topping each other it became guillotine-man, and then firing squad-man, and I think we ended with burned-at-the-stake-man. And Musallam totally caught us, too. Mike had just drawn the guy being shot with a blindfold and a joint, and I was totally busting up. Musallam saw me grinning and called on me to repeat what he'd just said, and I actually managed to pull it off ok. He was pretty chill, too, though, he took what I said (the only thing I'd heard in his last statement was "Gaza") and basically fed me the rest.

This next week we have a paper due from the Egypt field trip (for our "Field Trip" class....) on Tuesday, our midterm for Judaism on Monday, and then I think a paper due for OT some time next week... Like, next Thursday. I am definitely way behind on my reading, but so is everyone else.

Last night I went to the Humanitarian Project. They can only accommodate so many people at one time, so it was my first experience with this. It was kind of amazing. It was like, hygiene kits on steroids. We're trying to get out 10,000 kits by the end of the semester, and people make it into like a race to see how fast we can go. It was nuts. I was down at the sealing/packing end. So basically people put all the toothbrushes, combs, towels, all that stuff, into these official Jerusalem Center Humanitarian Aid plastic bags, and then we have this awesome machine that seals them. Basically the two open edges of the plastic go into this thing that looks like a paper cutter, and the "sealer" (ya, we had fun with that one) presses down the lever for like, a second and a half and it gives it some heat to kind of melt the bag to itself. But if you hold it too long, it'll break off. It's intense. So we had two assembly lines sending down these packages, two guys receiving them and holding them for Mike, who was doing the sealing (tehe) and then my job was- well I kind of had several jobs. I had to pack the kits into the boxes, make sure each box had 5 kits, provide an empty box when the first one was full, and then hold the full box while the other packing guy taped it shut- pretty much all at the same time. And all of this at like, 80 mph. I'm not kidding. If I slowed down for like, one second, I would start getting pelted with hygiene kits, coz the guys helping with the sealing weren't even looking, they were just cranking it out as fast as they could. And if I didn't get a new box out fast enough, they would pack them too full so I had to watch and make sure there were five going into each box while also doing everything else at top speed. And sometimes they would even keep packing a full box when I had already moved it into the next space and had an empty one waiting! I had to keep telling Shelby he was putting them in the wrong box! Punk. Lol. Oh, I also kind of unofficially was in charge of making sure the kits had been sealed correctly in all the confusion. It was so much fun.

After the Humanitarian Project (and Heroes- Mike, his roommate Ken, and I have been watching one episode of the first season every night. We're almost to the finale and it's getting way intense!!!) we had a party in honor of Friday the 13th. Everyone got all dressed up in *scary* costumes (well, as much costume as you can really put together without DI... mostly just black make-up and ratty hair) and we had a dance party in the student lounge. If you haven't noticed, we kind of really like to have dance parties here. In fact, we've had a few "flash-dance" parties as well- it lasts 15 minutes, and you put together a playlist and play about 30 seconds from each song. It's pretty cool. And it's something fun to do that gives you kind of a break without taking up the whole evening. My favorite part of last night, though, was when they put on Thriller, and everyone totally did the dance to it in their scary outfits. I got it on video, it was fabulous.

And today, as I'm sure you're all aware, was Valentine's Day. It was kind of one of the best Valentine's Days I've ever had. Even though, I completely didn't even think about Valentine's Day when I was packing my suitcase and I totally have nothing that could even begin to resemble red or pink in my wardrobe!!! But I borrowed my roommate's red and gold pashmina scarf (from here, obviously) and knotted it around my waist with a white shirt and my white skirt. It worked. But because noone is really dating, everyone just kind of did stuff for each other. The boys all got together and made a card for each room with a rose for each girl. It was so sweet, and they were so beautiful. My room got a white, yellow, and barely light pink rose. They were such a good color combo, and the card said, "We're so grateful you're all here with us and the experiences we're sharing in Jerusalem together." It was so nice. The In-Center Activities committee put together a singing valentine service, which were mostly purchased by the service couple/teachers' wives for their husbands. It was kind of amazing to hear four of the guys sing "S-K-I-N-N-E-R" ("S is for the way you speak to me...") to Brother Skinner, and "(You've Been Married) For the Longest Time" to our Branch President- who, by the way, decided he needed to outdo the Skinners and so dipped his wife back into a silent movie style kiss. It was awesome. And then apparently Sister Huff's order slipped through the cracks, so she sent Matt out to find a bunch of us (we were playing Signs in the student lounge) to come and deliver it. We sang "You have shown her the world, Shining, shimmering, splendid; Tell me Prince Huff, now when did you last let your heart decide? You have opened her eyes, Shown her wonder by wonder, Over Sinai and under, on a magic airplane ride..." :D It was great, there were like, 25 of us outside their door and they were in their pajamas. I seriously hope that we have a vote for "Cutest Couple" at the end of this semester, just so I can vote for them. They are seriously so fun. She sits in on our religion class and she totally laughs at all his jokes (she totally thinks he's hilarious) and he always waits to help her off the bus on field trips. They're great. :)

Last but not least, tonight we played Signs. I'm sure most of you have played this game, but if you've never played it using the rule that the person in the middle has to touch the person with the sign before they pass it, you really should. This game is amazing. It gets so intense, because you totally know who has the sign, and you know who they've passed it to, but as soon as you go for the person who has it the next person will accept it and pass it again, so you're like, diving head-first into people and the people in the circle can totally keep it going by sheer reflexes. The best, too, is when someone who has the sign tries to like, run away from the person in the middle as they're about to get caught and can't think of anyone to send it to. Ya, I definitely was full-on jumped on by one of the guys when we played it at the beginning of the semester. And it's so fun when someone makes like a really spectacular pass. This is kind of our big group game that we play from time to time and it is way fun. Just to give you an idea of some of the signs: mine is bunny ears on the person next to you, we have superman, monkey, imitations of teachers (Musallam always knocks on the lecturn to get our attention, so someone's was knocking), shimmy, ...I don't even know how to describe some of these. We have all names for them, I guess I'll just tell you those, and you can use your imagination: there's "get some," "Kobe," "soulja boy," "money," "genie," ya, it's really fun.

Well, my computer hasn't even been sent to the Apple store yet. I think they're still waiting to check on the warranty... And I think they're pretty tired of me asking about it, so I'm just going to have to be patient. Two other girls' computers have had the same problem in the last week, too.... Well, happy Valentine's Day!

Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day

It is hecka windy today. And yes, I did just say hecka, because that is about the only way to describe the weather outside. It's like, hard to close the doors in and out of the hallways that lead to our rooms, that's how crazy the wind is blowing.

Yesterday, however, it was absolutely gorgeous. We went on a fieldtrip to the Shephelah (pronounced Shep-hay-lah), which is basically I guess kind of the outlying reaches of Jerusalem. It was mostly cloudy, which meant that we weren't dying of heat hiking around out there, but the sun came up for a bit in the middle of the day about the time we were having lunch. And it wasn't the least bit cold. I actually remember sitting out in the field at the first place we went to and thinking how odd it was that I was actually quite comfortable is just my sweatshirt.

Right, so first we went to (and I actually have to get out my field trip manual to remember the name of it...) Beth Shemesh. There wasn't much to see there, but we reenacted the story of Samson and Delilah, because the Sorek Valley, which is where Beth Shemesh is, is where all that happened. All we really did was have one person read the narration, one read Samson, a girl read Delilah, we even had a lord of the Philistines, and the rest of us were the "people", coz they had a few lines, as well. It was a little confusing, since the scriptures don't actually punctuate speech the way we're used to, but it was definitely sufficiently entertaining.

Next we headed up to the David and Goliath overlook at Azekah. There were these really sweet trees that like, all the bark was white on them (I think that might mean they were dead, but they sure looked cool) and they stretched out over this row of benches that we all sat on on the edge of the hilltop. And we could see the whole valley from up there where the things of David in the Old Testament had mostly taken place in like, his early life and when he slew Goliath.

Then we went down into the valley, to a field approximately where this whole confrontation took place (at least, it's fun to think that) and our teacher had given some people the assignment of creating *Goliath* (I think it was like, two mops stuck together with a box on each end that had a face drawn on the top box) and brought some slings and we all slung rocks at it. I definitely stayed safely out of the way. I just saw myself with a far greater likelihood of getting hit and/or hitting someone else in the head, so I stayed off with Sister Huff (the teachers wife) and watched. In the end Chris (incidentally the guy who made Goliath and tallest kid here...) knocked it down with his sling/rock. And then went and tore off the head and held it up for us all to take pictures of his triumph, lol. Speaking of pictures, I definitely will not be able to post anymore (I'm pretty sure) until I get my computer back. Mainly because I have no where to upload them to from off my memory card. You'll just have to use your imaginations and my incredible power of description. :)

Then we went to Maresha to see some caves and eat lunch. The highlight of this section of the trip was definitely the chameleon we found. It was a real live color-changing chameleon and it was suh-weet! It could go like, bright yellow-green to black, and sometimes only its spots would change (either way, black with green/yellow spots or green with black spots) and it did kind of this brown in between kinda color. And it was only about two inches long, not including the tail. It was seriously so awesome. And it was pretty happy to just hang out with us. He would just kinda crawl around our arms and backs and whatever. I let him kinda hang out on me while I ate. And like, when he crawled off of one kid onto the picnic bench we just kinda let him go, but then he climbed up onto Sister Huff's shoe, so we were like, ok. Some of the guys wanted to bring him back to the Center, but I convinced them that that was not a good idea and he would be happier staying at Mereshah. The caves at Mereshah were pretty cool, too. There was this one that had a whole bunch of like, bell-shaped cuts in the wall that was I guess used to house pigeons. It was wild. And one had like, these old olive presses and was like, an underground city. I don't know how many of you have read Stephenie Meyer's The Host, but that's what it made me think of. And last there was an old tomb that we fit like, 25 people into. It was pretty awesome, somebody took a video of people coming out after we'd crammed them all in and it just looks like this little whole in the wall but the students keep coming and coming and coming. Lol. I didn't squish in because I was babysitting the chameleon, but I took pictures for people. :)

Next we went to these other caves that are carved out and shaped like bells. And they were huge, by the way. I think it was a quarry or something a long time ago. But we sang some hymns in there, like "O My Father" and "If You Could Hie to Kolob" and we also sang "A Child's Prayer." It was pretty sweet. I think my favorite thing about this group is that no one complains when I pitch songs. I'm usually pretty close to right, but no one ever realizes that the hymns are all pretty high and people are usually either pitching it super low or whining at me for pitching it "too high." And I really love the keys that the hymns are written in because my voice is prettier up there than down super low. So that made me happy. :D

After that we stopped at Lachish (pronounced Lah-KEESH), which was once upon a time the second largest city in the area, after Jerusalem. There we talked a little about Lehi, and how about 100 years before the Book of Mormon, prophets had warned all the righteous to go to Jerusalem. Lehi's grandfather had done that, and in 701 BC all the cities around fell to the Assyrians except for Jerusalem. It talks about all this in 2 Chronicles 30-32 for those of you interested in the scriptural context. But that's why Lehi and his family were living in Jerusalem, even though they're of the tribe of Manasseh, which had a different territory and was lost with the 10 tribes anyway. So Lachish was the last city to fall, and Jerusalem was preserved by the Lord. There's again not much to see anymore, it's basically just a big hill with some old remains of walls exposed, but we hiked around that a little bit and it was pretty neat. Another really good view, for sure.

So now we come to the number one coolest part of the trip. Like seriously, it was awesome. If I felt like Lara Croft in the tombs of Egypt, that was nothing compared to this. We went to these caves that, as far as I'm aware, had no historical or scriptural significance whatsoever. But they were so awesome. The first one we went in (the "advanced" version- Brother Huff warned those who might be claustrophobic that they may just want to do the "intermediate" cave) was basically crawling into this hole in the ground, and we crawled for about 5 minutes- honestly it kinda felt like being in the playplace at McDonalds, except stone intstead of plastic and the only people who could see anything were the ones that didn't forget their flashlights (the teachers told us to bring them and I completely spaced it, but I think it was cooler going in the dark- it's not like it was possible to get lost, it was kind of a one way deal...). Then it opened up into this space that looked like the pigeon cave we'd been in earlier- it had the same holes cut out of the walls- and I got in (I was in like, the first 5 or so people- I was feeling adventurous) and they looked like they were waiting for everyone, but then Brother Huff started climbing up the pigeon holes, and it took me a minute to realize that that was the way we go: up. He and one of the guys climbed up first, and then one kid started boosting the girls up (starting with me). I think the idea was that they would kind of help us actually climb up, but the guy boosting me was like, "Hey you're pretty light" and then Brother Huff and the other guy at the top grabbed my arms, and apparently they agreed because I found myself being just dead-lifted the entire way up. I really wanted to do my fair share, but before I could get my feet into a foothold I was pretty much being hauled over the edge. Lol. Then I helped hold a flashlight while they boosted up another girl and then a guy so that he could go ahead and help us girls through the next part (Brother Huff said he knew we were just as capable of doing it ourselves as the guys, but we should let them feel good about themselves and help us out). K, so the next part (and pretty much the exit) is called the birth canal. It was about, well, less than a foot tall and less than two feet wide, I would say. You had to kind of slither out on your back, and then almost like, right at the mouth of this little hole there was an incline (which is why you had to be on your back, although I think I could have done it on my stomach) so then you had to kind of lift yourself up on your arms to get your legs out. It was so funny watching people come through, though. It really did look like they were being birthed out of the rock. Like some ancient mythical creation story.

So after about 10 more people came out, a few of us decided to try the "intermediate" cave, just because we weren't done being adventurous yet. This one was not quite as intense, but pretty cool, actually. It was like, a series of rooms connected by narrow tunnels, and it again had that kind of feeling of living in a cave system like in The Host. These caves actually had more of a Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites kinda feel to them. Dude, it was awesome. And this one, too, had like a crawlspace, but then the entrance to the first chamber had a ladder, because ground was about 10 feet down from the *entrance*. And then there were about 3 other rooms connecting through. I followed it all the way to the end and reported back to the group (I was the first one in) coz we kinda wanted to see if there was another awesome way out that nobody knew about. Seriously guys, you should have seen me. I was definitely dirtier than I have ever been in my entire life. Covered in dust from head to foot, and I felt like Lara Croft. Especially since she has the same name as me. :D

So as we were going back out of that cave the way we came, we heard some other people in the first cavern. It was a group of guys, and one of our guys had the great idea to jump out and scare these people that we didn't know... Lol, we kinda joked about finding Osama Bin Laden hiding out in there when we first heard the voices, coz they were speaking some kinda Hebrew or Arabic or something. Probably Hebrew. But anyway, they were cool about it, they laughed and then we asked if there was another way out than the entrance and they were like, "Ya, we'll show you." But we decided that was kinda sketch, so we just went back to where Brother Huff was still getting people out (though he had emerged by this time) and told him about it. So he came back with us to this other cave, and the guys were still in there, so we totally followed them out through a passage that kind of put the birth canal to shame. It was the same kind of crawl-space to a teeny little opening in the rock. This one was wider but not as tall- so about 3 feet by 8 or 10 inches maybe, and it was just a straightforward hole in the ground with nothing tricky on the other side, but it was longer, so that you kind of had to army crawl/elbow shimmy your way through. I'm proud to say that I was the first person from the JC to emerge that way. Brother Huff was behind me and kept asking if I saw light yet (I think he still thought the whole thing was a little sketch, and I think he was worried that these guys were a little more ambitious than we wanted to be...). Brother Huff thought he was stuck about halfway through, but he made it. But ya, it was pretty awesome.

I did, however, hurt my hand pretty bad. I mean, I'm pretty certain there's nothing seriously wrong with it, it's just bruised and it hurts a lot. But I was feeling a little too adventurous as we were leading Brother Huff back to the second cave, and I kind of bounded down this slope that turned out to be like, straight gravel and ended up sliding and landing on my left hip and banged my hand that I had flung out to brace myself pretty good. I wish I had more of a bruise to show for it, though. It's barely a little black and blue. But it definitely still hurts...

Wow, I just looked outside and got a glimpse of the "torrential rains" that are supposed to be typical of this season. Lol. The weather has been so nice. It was so funny to come back from Egypt and there was like, a noticeable change in the overall temperature. Which of course was really nice, since coming from warm desert Cairo back to not quite so warm Jerusalem was a little sad. But ya, I've just been hanging out for about the last week. They informed us when we got back that the security restrictions have been lifted, so we can now go out in only groups of 3 (we had to be in groups of 5 back when there was all the unrest because of Gaza). So I went out shopping with a couple of girls on Sunday and I got a leather scripture case that has like, a stamped design of the Old City on it, and there's some camels and it says JERUSALEM. It's pretty cool. I'm so excited to finally have a scripture case again, because I haven't been able to find one I liked since my original one wore out about 6 or 8 years ago. On Saturday I went to the Garden Tomb again. I just love it there. I really need to go like, not on a Saturday, though. It's really too bad that it's closed on Sunday, because on Saturday they have all these Nigerian tours come through. It's pretty wild, I mean they come in droves. So I want to try and find some time during the week at some point.

Classes are going. We have a whole bunch coming up- 3 papers and a midterm. And like, at least 100 pages of reading for my 3 classes tomorrow. Lol. I think that the most interesting thing for me is being in my Judaism class (and, to some degree, Old Testament) and realizing how little I know the Old Testament. And I actually read it- twice, the whole way through- when I was younger. But like, our Judaism teacher is always bringing stuff up from it that I'm like, "Wow, I am such a good student of scripture...." And I feel like we're speeding through it in Old Testament. I definitely want to take more OT classes when I get back to BYU. It's really a fascinating book.

Well I'm off to practice with Matt. We're doing a waltz for the talent show. Enjoy the snow in Provo!

Back to Life as Usual :)

Today we crossed over for the first time into the West Bank to visit Jericho. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict makes me think so much of our own civil rights movement. The Israelis have built a wall around the West Bank, in some places even separating Palestinians from their own farmland. Israelis are forbidden by law to enter the West Bank, which has cut off the income from tourism in Jericho. There are checkpoints at every access point out of the West Bank and Palestinians are not allowed into Jerusalem without some kind of work permit or proof that they live there, and even then it's subject to the mood of the checkpoint officer. There's a woman in our branch who lives in Bethlehem and works for the UN and sometimes can't get to church on Saturdays, even though her pass should allow her to pass any checkpoint at any time. Our Modern Near East-Islam teacher has the same problem and sometimes has trouble getting to class. It makes me realize how much we take equality and freedom for granted at home. And it's humbling to think that even our own great nation treated its citizens this way less than 50 years ago. It certainly makes me grateful to live in a country where I've never had to face challenges like that. Although, to be perfectly honest, I was born on the *right* side of the line anyway... It also gives me a greater appreciation for what African Americans have overcome in our country, and grateful to be part of a nation that today has overcome its prejudices and elected a black president. And it even gives me hope that one day Israel can also overcome its difficulties and the Israelis and Palestinians can coexist in peace.

Jericho was pretty cool. It's the lowest and the oldest city on earth. Crazy, huh? It's right on the shores of the Dead Sea, and there's a tower they've excavated that they estimate to have been built around 8,000 BC. Well, it's not really much of a tower anymore. It's like about 5 feet tall and it's down in this archaeological pit. We went out on this overlook where you could see the remains of Herod's Winter Palace. He had swimming pools, it was pretty happening place. This is the Herod that killed all the babies when Jesus was born, by the way. Then we went to a site that's traditionally known as Zacchaeus' tree. Highly unlikely that this is the actual tree from Luke 19 where Zacchaeus climbed up to see the Savior, but I'm sure it looks a lot like it, and maybe it's the great great grandchild tree of the one from the scriptures. The sign at the tree was pretty entertaining. Whoever translated it from Arabic didn't have quite as good a handle on the English language as he thought... "Tow Thousand Years Old," "[Zacchaeus] was rich because he was short he climbed the tree," and "Jesus said to him, "this Clay Your House Has Been Salvation." Hehehe.

Then we visited old Jericho where the 10,000 year old tower was, and there was this peacock like right at the entrance that had all its feathers fanned out, it was awesome. I've never actually seen one do that before and it was so cool! Then we finished up the morning by going to the Qurantal Monastery. It commemorates Jesus being tempted by the devil, and it's literally built into the cliff face like, several hundred feet up. Tell you what, I am so done with hiking right now. I have done more hiking in the last week than I think I ever wanted to in my entire life (we had a bit of a hike on our outing yesterday, I'll get to that in a minute). They didn't really warn us ahead of time today that there would be so much hiking involved, coz I mean this thing is literally in the side of a cliff, and my leg muscles were just like, What are you doing? and I was like, I have no idea!! Seriously, my muscles can only take so much. It was a cool little place, though. One whole side of it literally like, rock caves, and the other side isn't very big. And you could see the entire Jericho valley, which was kind of neat.

So yesterday I went to Ein Kerem, as promised. :) It was cool. We went first to this place called the Chagall windows. Well, that's not what the place is called, it's actually a synagogue in a hospital on the other side of Jerusalem that has the Chagall windows in it. But there are twelve stained glass windows, each depicting the blessing of Jacob to his twelve sons, from Genesis 49. They were pretty cool. Very like, modern art-ish, but still very beautiful. Then we walked to Ein Kerem. Ya, it was definitely like a 45 minute hike, because the road was all up and down hill, even though we were just walking along the highway. That's why I was less than thrilled about climbing up the cliff today.

In Ein Kerem there are a few churches commemorating John the Baptist. The one in his birthplace is a pretty neat little church. Very different from most. It had like, tiles of what looked like porcelain with the blue designs that you see on like, nice china all over the walls. And it was a very nice little place. The churches all close from 12 to 2:30, and we got a late start because of one teacher's midterm review, so by the time we finished with that one, it was 12. So we went to a park to eat lunch and then got some gelato that was pretty yummy. I do like gelato, lol. Then we headed over to the Church of the Visitation and on our way hiked up this kinda cool lookin hill. It was reminiscent of Orson Hyde Memorial Park, actually, with the whole winding path going up a hillside with nice foliage around. It wasn't as purposely kept as Hyde Park, though. And the Church of the Visitation is where Elizabeth was living when Mary came to stay with her after the angel came to her. It was also beautiful. A teeny little chapel that echoed like nothing else, and it had this ancient looking well in it, but nothing describing what that was supposed to be. There were also real monks there in like, their brown robes and that was pretty cool. But ya, that was Ein Kerem. Honestly, I wouldn't have raved about it as much as everyone else has. But it was a fun little day trip.

Sinai

Sunday morning we had a wake-up call at 2 am to set out for Mt. Sinai. It was the most incredible experience of my entire time in Egypt. It was perfect.

The wake-up call consisted of a brief knock on our doors at about 2:05. I actually only barely heard it, and I was glad I did because I hadn’t set my own alarm or anything. I thought they would keep knocking til we answered, but by the time I had made a conscious decision to get up and do so they were gone. I was awake and ready to go almost instantly. It’s been so odd, this entire trip my tolerance level for lack of sleep has been steadily increasing, and after 4 hours I was totally good. I think I was also really excited about this hike. :)

Breakfast consisted of some pretty gross hot chocolate and a sack-lunch style assortment. The only thing I ate were the 3 rolls but they were kind of amazing. They tasted like my mom’s homemade stuff, no joke, I was exceedingly pleased. We ended up not leaving until a little after 3, because 2 apartments (both containing the teachers’ daughters… lol) didn’t wake up. But it turned out better that way, because the sunrise was I think a lot later than they were expecting.
When we got to the base of the trail it was, of course, freezing. I already had a sweatshirt and my big winter coat but since no one else had taken the extra jackets and sweatshirts our teacher was offering I yoinked one of those too, so I was pretty adequately prepared. And like, they told us we would be sweating on the way up and I totally didn’t believe them, but by the time I got to the top I definitely had got down to one sweatshirt and I was carrying my gloves and scarf. But then I was shivering again once I had already put everything back on up at the top.

The hike was incredible. I will never forget hiking under the stars like that. It was high enough and far enough from any city that you could see like, all of them. I love seeing stars like that. You can sometimes get them like that in Utah up in the mountains in summertime. I kept tripping over my feet because I was looking up at the stars instead of down at the trail, lol. But it was just so incredible. The guy I hiked up with (his name is Mike) commented that this was probably the kind of view that Abraham had when he was told his posterity would be as numerous as the stars in heaven. I’ll tell you, it’s truly an awe-inspiring thought. And then there was the mountain looming up over us. I felt like I had stepped into The Ten Commandments. It was just this impressive mass over our heads and you could really only barely see the outline in the dark and it just felt almost like being in the presence of God, in that I was looking up into the magnificent manifestation of his power and felt like Moses when he said, “For this I know that man is nothing.” In the dark everything was just so much more mystical and monumental, and I’m not even doing a very good job of describing it, once again. It was so neat to look back the way we’d come and see the mountains closing in on the distant lights of the little Bedouin village at the bottom and the lights of everyone winding up the path behind us.

But it was a hard hike. I kept telling myself that if 100 year old Moses could do it alone, I certainly could that morning. The most hiking I’ve ever done is Y mountain (about halfway up I was thinking longingly of those mornings when my roommates went hiking over the summer and wishing I’d gone with them to kind of prepare myself…) and Sinai is about as high as Timp. Which still probably isn’t that bad, I’m just a wuss. Mike had no problem whatsoever, he even carried my backpack the second half of the way up (about the time I started stopping every 2-3 minutes I think we both realized it would go faster that way, lol). And we actually made pretty good time. We were within about the first 30 people to the top. A few people had gone up a little further but the place where we stopped is where everybody ended up and there were only about 10 people there when we got our seats. Which, by the way, were the best seats in the house. Since we were some of the first people there, we sat on a shelf that was about 5 feet from the cliff but it was like a real seat, so I had someone leaning up against my legs, keeping them warm, Mike on one side of me, and girls in back and on the other side. Plus a completely unimpeded view of the sunrise. What was great, too, was that as everybody started filtering in, they kind of crowded in around us so that we had enough body heat that, although I was still shivering, it wasn’t completely miserable, but we were close enough to the edge of the *pile* :) that we weren’t squished.

So the hike took us a little over two hours. We got to the top with like, an hour and a half to spare. Like I said, the teachers kind of overestimated the sunrise (I guess this is the first time they’ve done it in winter, and sometimes the days are shorter in January than they are in September… weird) so we all sat and kind of shivered in the dark for like a long time. I think it was pretty miserable for some people, but like I said, my spot was perfect, and I was glad I had some time to look up at the stars without worrying about hurting myself (which I definitely did, and I have the bruises to prove it- I really should have paid more attention to my feet). And then when the sun came up, oh my gosh, it was amazing. First we started to see kind of a haze of light above the clouds, and it got brighter and higher, and then we saw the very top edge of the sun globe and it was just this tiny pinpoint of light, but once it started coming it came up quickly, so in a matter of a few short minutes it was dawn, and you could see all of the mountainous terrain around us. It was breathtaking. You couldn’t even see civilization from where we were. It was just us and God’s creations, in all the splendor and glory He intended. It was the most glorious thing I’ve ever seen. I thought the pyramids were cool. And they are. But nothing of my experiences in Egypt can even compare to my experience on the top of Mt. Sinai.

The way back down was a completely different view, because it was daylight, obviously. Not nearly as awe-inspiring, but it was certainly a lot easier. We realized on the way down how far away from the base of the mountain the trail actually starts. I swear there was as much level trail as upward. St. Catherine’s monastery- the fortress/church that kind of manages Sinai and apparently is pretty neat itself- was closed, as it was Sunday, so we didn’t get to go in there. That would have been kind of cool, but we were all pretty exhausted by then. I definitely failed at not getting sick. I had a scratchy throat on Saturday and I’m pretty sure I would have been fine if I had been able to sleep it off properly. Unfortunately, getting up at 2 am to climb a mountain in 30 degree weather does not qualify as “sleeping it off”… It was so worth it, though. And it’s actually been the least sick I’ve ever been that still qualifies as sick, so I’ve not been too miserable.

Speaking of Saturday, I guess I should recap that quickly. In the morning we went to the Mohammed Ali mosque, which is a pretty sweet building, actually. It almost reminds me of Dormition Abbey, in a way. I’ll post some pictures eventually. But Mama Pharaoh took us up there and gave us kind of a crash course in Islam and then we took some pictures of Cairo from the overlook up there. And then we went to the place where Mary and Joseph are thought to have “taken refuge” when they fled to Egypt with the baby Jesus. There’s a nice church there and you can kind of peek down into the cave where they stayed (which is really more of a nice cellar than a cave), and it’s also right next door to the oldest synagogue in Egypt. And let me tell you, this synagogue was pretty sweet. Maybe I just haven’t been in very many synagogues, but it was really beautiful and ornate, even though it was small. Actually, it was kind of interesting to me to note how similar mosques, synagogues and cathedrals are in style and like, architecture and stuff, after having been in one of each that morning. Just a little food for thought.

Then we got on the bus and began our trek *home* by way of Sinai. I basically just sat up at the front of the bus and tried to think healthy thoughts the whole way there. I slept a little, too, but I mostly just literally sat there and concentrated on not being sick. Which, like I said, I kind of failed at. At one of the rest stops they were playing some Egyptian pop music, which is amazingly similar to the kind of Latin music we use for ballroom, and some people started talking about ballroom (some of them have taken like, 180) and then they asked me and Matt to dance for them, so we did. Lol. We just did a little bit of a Samba routine that I taught him. I dunno if I mentioned Matt by name before, but he’s the teacher’s son that I’ve been dancing with. So that was pretty fun.

There were all kinds of creepy guys at the Morgenland hotel where we stayed at Sinai. I got hit on by a waiter again. I actually finally realized what it is on Sunday when we were crossing the border that bugs me so much about it, and it’s that when they smile at you, it’s not friendly, it’s like, dirty. And then one of the hotel personnel asked what room I was in, and like, in Cairo they had been asking so they could show us where it was, so I totally told this guy and then when he didn’t point anywhere I was like, “I definitely should not have told him that, should I?” But I didn’t get any unwanted visitors during the night, so it all turned out ok.… Sketch.

Well, that about sums it up for my trip to Egypt. I love Egypt. Really. Even despite the creepy men. Lol. Although, the story I just told is about the extent of sexual harassment I encountered, so I guess all the precautions they made us take did their job. :) Now we’re all just back at the JC recuperating. We have a free day tomorrow. I think I’m going to go out to Ein Kerem, which is where John the Baptist is supposed to have lived, and it’s supposed to be really pretty.