"Man cannot live by bread alone... but it's a good place to start."

So I almost fainted this morning. I know better than to skip more than one meal in a week, it was stupid. But on Friday (when we went to Eilat) I accidentally left my lunch at the Center and then we were eating dinner super early, and yesterday was fast Sunday (or Saturday...) and I just figured if I got too hungry I would eat and... ya, stupid.

So today was Palm Sunday. It is seriously so cool to be here for this and Easter. Plus I'm so excited to finally have a holiday of ours to celebrate! You know, we've been kinda piggy backing onto the festivities for all these Jewish and Muslim holidays, but today it was like, Hey this is our thing! It was really fun.

This morning I got up early to go to 8:00 mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I wish I hasn't been feeling so sick, because I don't think I got as much out of it as I otherwise would have. We got there in pretty good time, and pretty much had a front row view (there weren't any seats where you could see anything from). They started with a procession of the priests all dressed up with palm fronds and stuff, and marched around the Sepulchre (aka the eticule- the part where the tomb is supposed to have been) to chanting in Latin. And then I missed most of the rest, because I was just so sick. I tried to tough it out for a while, and then I sat on the edge of this like, music stand thing, and then I put my head down, and finally I was just like, I have got to get out of here. So I pushed out through the crowd and as soon as I got into the open I could just feel the blood drain from my face and I was like, Oh crap. So I just curled up into a ball right where I was and waited to feel a little more normal again. Some people from my group helped me over to a chair and fed me an apple and some fruit snacks. And then after sitting for a while, I felt pretty normal again. No big deal, just stupidity. Like I said, I know better, lol.

What I do remember about the mass is the organ coming in as they were marching around, and I looked up at the procession and the eticule and I just thought, But Jesus is alive... Because it felt like a celebration in honor of someone who had died. But then they started up a song of Hosannas, and I felt the spirit of celebration for the living Christ, and I was like, Oh good. Of course, remember- I was still a little out of it at this point. Also, everyone was shaking their palm fronds if they had them. I heard from someone else that this was initiated by the head priest guy.

So ya, the mass was cool. And I was glad later that I got my fainting spell out of the way, because I would have hated to feel sick for the procession. But first, after the mass, we went out to Me'a She'arim, the Jewish Ultra-Orthodox neighborhood that we went to on Purim. It was cool to see it in the daytime, there was more going on. I couldn't figure out why I felt like my head was so conspicuous- only married Jewish women cover their heads- and then I realized that they all put it up, even though it's not covered, and mine was down. The kids' clothes all matched, but it wasn't like a school uniform, because it was really only the kids that seemed to be family. It was more like their parents just bought them all the same sweater... Not that there was really much variety in general.

Then we went back to the Old City and bought palm fronds so we'd have them for the procession. Right after we bought them, a troop of scouts came down the street (we guessed they were headed to Bethphage) and they were all playing instruments and stuff, and it was cool to follow behind them and wave our palm fronds for a bit. Then we stopped and talked to a monk named Father Angelo. He's Phillipino and speaks ten languages and loves Mormons. We're going to his monastery on a field trip tomorrow and he's pretty excited about it. He kept reminding us, lol.

So then we went back to the Center to meet up with everybody to head over to Bethphage for the procession. :D They have this huge procession from Bethphage (which is where the Savior picked up his donkey) all the way into the Old City at Lion's gate, and end up at St. Anne's (which is where the pools of Bethesda are). It. Was. Awesome. Seriously, one of the coolest things we've done in Jerusalem. Like I said, I was so excited to be celebrating a Christian holiday! So we all stayed at Bethphage while all the other groups went past so we could watch them all. There were all kinds of groups- scouts, Phillipinos, monks, nuns, random evangelicals, it was so cool. Then we tacked ourselves on at the end and sang some hymns (all the groups were singing). And when we ran out of hymns to sing, we started bobbing and weaving our way back up to the front of the procession (the monks kept stopping), so we made pretty good time to St. Anne's. And then we just chilled there for a while. There was a band playing, and we met some other Christian students who are here on kind of similar Study Abroad programs. And then one of the head priests (I assume) got up and made a statement, about 5 minutes long, about the holiday and religion and such. When he started repeating it in Arabic, we decided to head home. My feet are way sore. I definitely wore my sandals all day, and may or may not have a few blisters. But I'll tell you, I was unspeakably happy to be in a skirt, because it was sweltering. So it was worth the blisters, for sure.

Tonight we did some more Humanitarian project. :) My palm frond is in my room. I don't really know what to do with it, so I think I'm just gonna leave it there til it dies. Lol. Why not? But ya, it is so cool to be here for this stuff. Be jealous. :P