"You Have No Money"

That was my roommate Stephanie's job today. Every time I would be looking at something that I kinda wanted but didn't really need, I would say, "Tell me." And she would dutifully respond, "You have no money." Lol. I'm just getting a little shop-happy now that it's the end. But I was good, and with the help of my trusty roommate I kept from spending extra. Actually, tho, it was really nice, I was looking at a magnet (I collect magnets from places I've been, but I already have 2 from Israel...) in a shop that a lot of students go to, and I kept saying, "Stephanie, tell me I don't have any money. Tell me again." And I thought that if I really wanted it I could go back on Wednesday. But the shopkeeper asked, "Which one you like?" And I told him, and he said, "Take it." And he just gave it to me. It was really great. They're pretty good to us BYU students. It says "Peace" on it in English, Hebrew, and Arabic, which I think is quite appropriate. So now I have 2 magnets each from Jordan and Egypt, and 3 from Israel. ... :)

Today we basically just wandered around the Old City. Like, we all did a little shopping (I did have some things I needed to get that were already in the budget- it was the superfluous things that I employed Stephanie for, lol), but mostly we just wandered. We hit up all the places we usually go- Old City: Shaban's, Jewish Quarter, Joseph Smith's, Imad's; West Jerusalem: Ben Yehuda, the Sukh. It was a good day. Pretty low-key, like we weren't trying to do or see anything, we were just being here, you know. And we did it for like, 7 hours. Our legs hurt now, as I'm sure you can imagine. Ooh, and I went street surfing. In the Old City they have wheel ramps on all the steps so that carts and tractors and stuff can get around, and they're pretty slick, and so are the bottoms of my sandals, so I was sliding down every single one that we passed on this one road- and they were about every 5 feet. It was really fun. Most of them are only about a foot of ramp, but some of them are like, two or three steps in a row. :D I had Stephanie take a video of it. And then we all took videos just walking through the Old City, waving to all the merchants and just kind of preserving the experience. It was neat, I'm glad Stephanie had the idea.

Last night we had a fireside about the Last Supper. They call it the "Triclinium Experience" because they set up a table like they would have used at the Last Supper- called a Triclinium, because it has three sides. It's set up on the floor, and all the people eating recline on one elbow around this table. They had all the guys sit around it to demonstrate and I took a picture- I'll post the remainder of my pix when I get home. But like, so much more of that whole scene suddenly makes sense. It was amazing how much it cleared it up. For instance, where it says that John was "leaning on Jesus' breast"- well, the way they're sitting, the person to your right can literally lean back onto you- so it's really not as weird as it sounds, it's like totally normal. Just different things like that. It was really neat. I went to the Garden of Gethsemane for the last time yesterday. Well, the last time on a Shabbat, neway. I'm pretty sure we'll be there tomorrow on our Last Week of Jesus' Life field trip. Things are winding up fast!