Grateful

Well I'm back from Egypt! The past 8 days have been FULL, of great things and exhausting things and learning things. I had amazing experiences living in Africa for a week and will never forget it. We got home (the JC seriously feels like home now!) last night. This week and this morning as I've been back I've just been thinking about the things that I missed and how grateful I am for the conveniences I have in my life.
No particular order:
1. Brushing my teeth with water from the faucet.
2. Drinking COLD water.
3. Drinking cold water from something other than a water bottle I carry around as my literal constant companion.
4. Free public bathrooms. Yes, you have to pay to use most bathrooms in Egypt.
5. Free public bathrooms that have toilet paper provided.
6. Free public bathrooms that have toilet paper that look semi-sanitary.
7. Not hovering over the toilet seat.
8. Eating whatever I want, without the fear that I will get sick with diarrhea or throw up 5 hours later as a result of something I ate.
9. PERSONAL SPACE. I LOVE MY SPACE AND BEING BY MYSELF SOMETIMES. I NEED IT.
10. Going into a store and being politely asked if I need any help finding anything. The market vendors here are so aggressive and get in your face if you ever LOOK at their store merchandise.
11. Fruits and vegetables
12. Juice.
13. Milk and milk products
14. Not SWEATING every second of every day because it's so hot.
15. AIR CONDITIONING
16. Having the luxury of driving a car in a place where people are not insane drivers (most of the time)
17. Having a car so the bus is not my main mode of transportation besides walking.
18. Internet and communication with my family
19. My health
20. The fact that I live in America
21. Laundry and clean clothes, so I don't have to put dirty stinky clothes back on after a shower.

Ok, so looking back on that list I feel like it represents a negative experience in a  lot of ways. Quite the contrary, these things made Egypt one of the greatest learning experiences I will probably ever have. Here are some of my top things I loved on the trip, and some of my greatest learning chances:
1. Egyptian history is VAST and COMPLICATED and so interesting.
2. Our tour guide, Islam, who knew everything it seemed.
3. Group Toot. :) :) :)
4. Building closer friendships with some of the people here.
5. Seeing all these historical places that I've seen in pictures in history textbooks since elementary school.
6. Getting stamps in my passport from border crossings.
7. Waka Waka dance
8. Eating lots of dessert when I got the chance
9. Father Judd caring individually about everyone and making sure we all stayed hydrated and safe. A very difficult task.
10. Bus rides with ipod/music parties
11. No homework all week
12. Feeling the Spirit at unexpected places, and then expected locations as well.
13. Hiking Mt. Sinai at 3am. I loved it.
14. The fact that I didn't get sick really at all, except minor not feeling well a little bit the last couple days. But nothing serious that prevented me from doing anything or being happy.
15. Riding a camel and riding a boat on the Nile River!
16. Buying things.
17. Seeing beautiful churches and temples and are ancient.
18. Staying at a Cheraton hotel for my 1st time.
19. Getting back to Israel and eating ice cream and chocolate milk immediately.
20. The fact that my last name is awesome and now everyone in my group knows it. Oh, and taking a picture by a bus with my name on it. And seeing statues of the god. And just loving my last name.
21. Walking around a lot and getting good exercise.

I feel like the positive definitely outweighs the negative. I love Egypt! I doubt I will ever go back, but I'm so grateful that I was able to go now and see the things that I did. Now we are all back home and have a million things to do for school. And I'm pretty sure we're all still exhausted from these 8 days with little sleep and lots of hours in the sun. Free day today, hopefully I will get lots done.

Shout out to my Mom, who has mailed me a new power cord for my laptop which is currently out of commission due to a dead battery and broken cord. Hopefully it'll get here the end of the week and I'll post pictures of Egypt probably when it arrives. :) Thank you Mom!

Africa here I come!

Literally. Early Sunday morning we will all make our way to EGYPT!! It's going to be a HOT experience but I think we're all excited despite the fact that we think we might all die haha. I'm glad I'm not here summer term...

This week has been good with lots of things as always.

First I got to see a couple pictures of my nieces. They are such cute babies!!

Sabrina on the left, Whitney on the right :) :) :) PRECIOUS

Tuesday I had my 1st schwarma and it was so yummy! I personally think I like it better than falafel, but I'll have to have lots more of each to really determine my opinion. Went into the city to start looking for some more stuff for Egypt but didn't really get anything. Well, I did get some pretzels :) I'm quite excited for those I love pretzels!

Wednesday we had class and then I went into the city and bought stuff! I spent more than I was planning but I hadn't bought anything yet so I felt justified haha. I love everything I bought too so it's all good! There is this one shop owner who all the JC students love and I met him for the first time that day. His name is Shaban and he loves the Mormon kids because we buy lots of stuff from him. And he gives great prices so that's why we do!! I think almost every single girl in our group has Jeanie pants now, and I got a pair as well they are so comfy!

Yesterday we went on another field trip, for 8 hours, and we went to a National Park called Neot Kudumin. It's a nature reserve pretty much where they've restored plant life and such from Biblical times. It was very pretty there and much bigger than I expected it to be! We got to do lots of fun things:

Pulling water from the cistern. Apparently this was the way to get the men back in the day! I should do more things like this so I can get one! :)

We got to be shepherds. It was an experience haha.

This is a different group after their success!

We got some hyssop and ground it into spice. Using very legit equipment as you can see.

This is a 200 year old Torah scroll. We saw a scribe do some writing and they explained the kosher process of how they make the leather, the ink, and then how they do the actual writing. It takes about a year to write the whole Torah.

An Egyptian water wheel!! In Israel...hahaha

A sukkot. They are the little homes that people would build when they would go listen to the prophets speak. Like with King Benjamin! This sukkot is HUGE

It was an eventful few days but pretty good.

Today, we had more class and then some free time. We aren't allowed to go to East Jerusalem until after 3 on Fridays, and West Jerusalem today was pretty much shut down because of Yom Kippur tomorrow. I'll write more about what I did later. Have a great day!

I'm an AUNT again!!! :) :) :)

My nephews and nieces <3

Whitney and Sabrina :) I don't know which one is which though haha.

I got to talk to my sister for a couple minutes yesterday and apparently they are pretty cute. And I can tell from the pictures :) I can't wait to meet them in December!

Over here in Jerusalem things have been busy busy busy.

Friday:
At sundown was the beginning of Jewish sabbath, and we also celebrate Sabbath on Saturday here so that is what today is. So Friday night we went to the Western Wall, something I"ve wanted to do since we got here. It was AMAZING. There were lots of people. It was also the 2nd and last day of Rosh Hashana, or Jewish New Year, so I think there were more people than normal possibly. But I got to touch the wall and then there were some women who started singing and dancing in a circle that some of us joined. They were so inclusive of us in their circle! Obviously we didn't sing because we didn't know the words but it was so happy. They really celebrate the sabbath here, not just live it. The men and women worship separately at the wall. Actually, the wall is an outdoor Jewish synagogue which is interesting. The men on the other side had big groups dancing and singing as well, it was so cool. Just watching them all felt special and happy. I'm glad I got to see it and be part of it. We weren't allowed to take pictures that night but I'm planning on going back and I'll take some.

Saturday: After church we all went to the Garden Tomb. We hadn't been yet and it was wonderful. I was having a lot of pressure in my head all day from being sick and didn't want to walk there just because I didn't feel so great, but I'm so glad I went. We had a Baptist preacher (who is living here as a tour guide at the moment) as our tour guide at the beginning and I loved the way he talked about everything. He really believes that area is where the Crucifixion and the Resurrection happened. Our church believes it too in general, but not everyone does. Just being there though and seeing the possible site of Golgotha and the tomb where Christ was buried was so special. It's a very special place. We sang some hymns as a group after we went inside the tomb and that is where I felt the Spirit the most. It was kind of perfect. Golgotha. The site where Christ was very likely crucified. The Garden Tomb. Where Christ was very likely buried and where He  was Resurrected also. It is very special at this place. Yesterday (Sunday): I went to Tel Aviv!!! I swam in the Mediterranean Sea and it was FABULOUS! I've never been to a warm-water beach before and I fell in love with it. We were all swimming in the water for hours and having a great time just hanging out in there and on the beach. I also got some gelato, my first official experience and it was quite delicious. I love this sea!! Me and the Mediterranean Sea! Lovely picture hahaha The sand was so fine. There were cabanas! And I loved the water. It was a wonderful day yesterday to just chill out in the sun. Tel Aviv has some really cool looking buildings right on the beach. Tel Aviv also has some very interesting statues... TODAY: We had another field trip and this time we went to Jericho. Land of HOTTTTTTTTTTTT. Jeez we went from elevation about 2700ft to -850ft. Yes Jericho is one of the lowest cities in the world!! And it is also the OLDEST city in the world!!! COOL BEANS! It also has the oldest found man-made structure in the world! Haha we saw lots of cool things today while sweating like nobody's business. The only thing that is ok about sweating so much here, is that you know everybody else is too. =D So while Jericho was super super hot, we saw lots of cool places from the Bible. Pretty flowers This place had tons of mosaics. And there was a Byzantine church to commemorate the story of the Good Samaritan in the Bible. This is at Tel-Jericho!!! Behind me is the oldest man-made structure that has been found in the world to date!!! This is from Neolithic time period I think...seriously, thats like 8000BC Behind us is remnants of the wall. THE wall. The wall that surrounded Jericho that Joshua and his army marched around everyday for a week and then it fell down. SOOOO COOL. This is the ugliest camel EVER. But it was hilarious! It was growling at us hahaha Me and Smiley Kylie in front of the Oldest City of the World! Judean Wilderness. Behind us is the road that the Savior and other people would take to go from Jerusalem to Jericho. You literally go DOWN to Jericho. And also in this wilderness is the road where the parable of the Good Samaritan happened. It was really cool to sit there and think about the story. Overload of pictures. I'm at Hebrew University right now and the internet connection is sooo fast. I also just went on Facebook, even though I said I wasn't going to while I was here. I don't think anyone has gotten engaged since I've been gone for 2 weeks hahaha. Life is good here! I've got homework to do now! I love my new nieces!

Shana Tova!

That was yesterday, but it was Jewish New Year yesterday and that is how you saw Happy New Year in Hebrew. Just don't say it to an Arab! Tonight we are going to the Western Wall, and the Jews start their Sabbath on Friday at sundown. So tonight and tomorrow we get to say Shabbot Shalom! (Have a good Sabbath). It's fun to learn the different phrases.

Here's some pictures of things I've talked about:

It's a Yellow Box! In West Jerusalem

We found this lovely creature in the back of a store. SICK.

Twilight, Captain Underpants, and a Coco-Cola bottle in Hebrew. I love how the books here are "backwards". My Hebrew teacher told us to never call them backwards though because these countries are so much older here haha. Anyone who is a lefty should live here though, makes life easier I'm sure. You read right to left as well.

I don't think I can describe in words how much I love the architecture of these buildings. I think I could just stare inside at all the different styles in the buildings all day and be happy. This is inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Again, this is the site where many Christians believe Christ was crucified (Golgotha). It will be interesting to sort out my feelings on where I believe it actually took place, among the various opinions out there. I'll let you know when I find out.

Some paintings on the inside. There were tons of lanterns everywhere which I thought looked really cool.

I've come to discover how much people in the Holy Land must have loved mosaics! They are EVERYWHERE and I can't comprehend how much time they would take. Inside the church here the entire ceiling of the top room was tiny parts put together, and there was also a whole big mural. 

One of the mosaics on some arches.

This place is just great. Today Dr. Chadwick gave us a writing assignment due at the beginning of December. He gave us a long list of things to go and see in the city, and our task is to go see them all. That is our assignment. And then to write about some of them, but seriously? BEST ASSIGNMENT EVER! Now we all have a better idea of places to go instead of just wandering around.

Last night the movie on Egypt was classic. Old school VHS from the 80s probably, with filming way back when. It had some moments that should not have been funny that I may have laughed a bit over...but alas, now I feel more informed about parts of Egypt and feel I will appreciate some of the sights for what they are. 

After that movie, I went outside on the balcony to wait for the end of Ramadan officially, or the 3 cannon shots in succession signaling EAT!! Sadly, we stopped waiting and heard that apparently the new moon was not sighted until 2am hahaha so it's a good thing we didn't wait around. Ramadan is not "officially" over until these certain guys "see" the new moon. Interesting. After waiting aimlessly, a group of us decided to watch Charley. Oh my heck, we were all joking the 1st 3/4 of the movie but then when it gets super sad we all started tearing up. Lovely...bonding experience haha. I seem to be having a harder time connecting with some of the people than I thought I would. But I suppose my shy side has come out initially and a lot of people have already become pals. Well, I have pals too, just not as many as I would like at the moment. So I'm workin on it. :) No worries, I'll get there!

Lovin' the city

I want to write about every day, so I guess I'll just have to play catch-up all the time. It's like the freestyle drill from swimming...random memory.


Oh, by the way, reading in Genesis about Joseph has made Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat stuck in my head all week. Good thing its a great musical.


Tuesday:
We started all of the rest of our classes, and we had 6 hours of it. It's funny because here we have breakfast 7-8 almost every morning. The first couple days we all got there at 7 because we were all awake at 4am cuz of jet lag. Now some people don't get there til almost 7:45 even hahaha. It's been a lot more difficult for me to wake up in the mornings now, but I still wake up at around 6:30ish. That's early...since seminary. So we had Old Testament for an hour, then started our Jewish class with teacher Ophir who is great, he was born in the US and is a native English speaker which is nice. That class is going to be very interesting, but we already have lots of reading to do. Another funny thing to me is that we have lots of required reading, then a bunch of recommended reading that I know none of us will do because we'd all rather be out in the city instead of reading. It's already becoming a problem that people play too much and not work. We'll get the pattern going though. But Ophir's class will be great. Lunch at 12, then we all had our 1st language class. Here presents a problem. Because there are 2 languages (Hebrew and Arabic) going at 3 times (1, 2, and 3:00), with another class starting at 4. So when I have my Hebrew class at 2:00, then there is not enough time to go outside at all :( It is very sad when you see the other half of the students go to the city but you literally can't. Besides that, HEBREW IS AWESOME!!! We read our first word: Bob. Hahaha yes, the name. We were all super confused at first. Our last class was our Muslim civ. class, taught by a Palestinian Arab man who is Christian. What the random? It is really hard to understand him speak though, so luckily he read a lot of what he spoke from our books. The rest of the time people would be taking notes on something, and the rest of us are like "What should I be writing???" That will definitely be a group study class. It's all SO interesting though! And being here when you learn it makes it that much more so. 


Tuesday night I went into West Jerusalem with some people. I found an ATM!! I do not have my checkbook here and only  brought a little in cash, so this was a huge blessing. I also got shampoo and conditioner, which was wonderful since I left my big ones in Utah and was using travel size ones. YAY! We also walked around looking for snacks...in the back of one store we saw some baskets of bread. On a roll we found a HUGE COCKROACH!! What the heck??? Nasty. Then we proceeded to be very cool and look at the Hebrew books and try to find alef and bet, the 1st 2 letters we learned haha. I found Captain Underpants and Twilight series in Hebrew. We also found a Yellow Box! It's like Red Box but yellow! It was a successful and interesting evening. On the way back we also saw an accident: a motorcycle ran into a car at an intersection. Because the drivers here are SO IMPATIENT AND CRAZY! I would die if I drove here, so I never will. Everyone in the accident was ok I think. 


Wednesday:
Class. Dr. Chadwick is sooooo cool. He knows everything and is hilarious to me. He also loves my last name and said when we go to Egypt he'd help me find a little Egyptian god statue of their god Sobek. For a souvenir. Yes I did know my name was an Egyptian god haha. We had an tour of under the center and all got to graffiti our names down there amongst the pipes and concrete. Went into the city for a couple hours just looking around the shops, not buying anything. Last night we had our 1st forum, an LDS lady from the US working with the Consulate here in Jerusalem. I learned apparently Jerusalem is NOT a part of Israel. So none of us know what country we are in at the moment hahaha. 


Today:
Old Testament. City. I went to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Christian Quarter of the city. That building is very beautiful inside. It's weird though, about 20 different Christian faiths will meet in different parts of it though. They built the church where some Christians believe that Christ was crucified (Golgotha), and also where His body was laid when the women cleaned Him up for burial, and possibly the site of the Resurrection though I don't remember that part for sure. This is not generally where Mormons believe it all to have happened. We are going to the Garden Tomb on Sabbath actually and I'm looking forward to that. 


Tonight we start our Egypt orientation by watching a  movie about it! Pretty sure it's a National Geographic movie, but hopefully it'll be interesting. And random comment, I LOVE The Prince of Egypt movie, but reading Exodus for class has made me realize how really inaccurate it is hahaha. I still love it though!

It's Only Just Begun (That's a great Carpenter's song!)

It's really funny when you try to update your blog, but all the directions are in Hebrew so you don't know what button to push. These dilemmas can be quite funny sometimes.

The past few days have been great and full of fun things. Sabbath is Saturday here, which is different but fun to get used to. For now it just has my whole week schedule confused but by the time I get home I'll have to get used to Sunday again. It was actually fast Sabbath this week. I joined choir (weird for me, but figured I'd regret if I didn't) and all 3 meetings were great. After church a bunch of us decided to venture out into the city in our dehydrated state. Our first stop was the Tower of Ascension. There are 3 towers on the Mt. of Olives (where the JC is located): Hebrew University, Augusta Victoria, and Tower of Ascension. We walked to the last only to find out that is costs 5 shekels, so another day.

Next we tried to find our way to the Garden of Gethsemane. Ok, so honestly I was not prepared to see this place yet, but I decided to go along anyways. We ended up taking forever to get there b/c we weren't quite sure how to get there, went down this super super steep hill down into Kidron Valley, saw some cool churches along the way (the Garden is surrounded by 3 churches), and then we found it. 

It was beautiful there, different than what I thought. It's incredible to think about what happened at that spot. I was not able to stay for awhile and think though, there were a lot of people and we had to get back to the JC. I will be coming here many more times though.

I wish I had more time to sit there and contemplate what happened there.  I will get other chances, which is the great thing about the study program. And during this experience of being outside walking only for 1 1/2 hours in the afternoon sun, fasting, I have so much admiration for those Muslims who are doing Ramadan, the practice of fasting for a month everyday from sunup to sundown. They don't drink or eat anything all day but are still outside working! IT IS HOT HERE! We sweat so much in that time we were outside, and the people here (especially the women) are in many layers, usually dark, with their heads covered and such. I have so much respect for them and their diligence and faith in practicing their religion. I got a TINY taste of what they go through, and it was hard.

Yesterday we had our 1st free day to do whatever we wanted! One of the committees told everyone of a plan to go to a couple places in the city, of which I joined. So yesterday morning I first went to the city wall and got to walk along the ramparts!! HOW COOL IS THAT!! I tried to picture soldiers up there actually in a war. It was difficult, that would've been so hard. It was really cool up on the top of the wall to see different parts of the city. We had fun taking lots of pictures.

Some of us on the ramparts.

Me and my roommate Ann with the Dome of the Rock in the background!

Next we did some walking around in the markets of the Old City. There are SOO many people and this day was crazy. It was the 3rd to last day of Ramadan, which is when Mohammed received his first revelation for the Qur'an. This is a huge celebration to many in the city, so lots of shops were closed and there were tons of people walking around. There are so many colors around the markets!

They sell the weirdest things here. All very colorful though.

Then we made our way to Zedekiah's Tunnel. It is said that this might possibly be the way that King Zedekiah of Jerusalem escaped the city when it was under siege in around 600 BC or so. There is some other cool history with it, including it being the quarry that provided the stones to build many buildings in Jerusalem.

It's true!  It was pretty intense behind me with long drops.

After the caves I ate my 1st falafel!!! It was really good, except the end when all it was was packed cabbage in it haha.

Yummmm

Today (Monday) was our 1st field trip. We split the group up and go with our religion professors on the buses. Today we stayed in and around Jerusalem looking at the city from different vantage points. It's crazy how many hills and valleys there are. That's ALL there is...hills and valleys. We saw some incredible views and we learned a lot about the geography of Jerusalem and how the Bible fits in to every single hill pretty much. Every spot has significance here. I can't wait until I understand more and more. This is only the beginning!!!

Inside the Augusta Victoria, a church and a hospital. I LOVED the inside of this building. It was sooo beautiful and had a wonderful feeling inside.

We went to the top of the tower and got some wonderful views of the surrounding areas.

Megan, Kylie, and me (BYU 138th ward pals!). That is BETHLEHEM behind us!!

Fantastic view of the city. We learned where the original city of Jerusalem was (a lot smaller), the city of David, among lots and lots of other interesting things.

This is where the city of Gibeon in the Old Testament was. We read some chapters from the Bible, including 1 Kings 3 (I think) and Joshua 10 that had significant stories from this exact spot thousands of years ago.

My favorite thing about this field trip was being able to connect stories to places in real life. That is what I get to do for the next 3 months. I don't know much at all about the Old Testament so this is going to be the greatest learning experience for me. Next to what we read today in my scriptures I wrote that I read it at those spots, and whenever we sing a hymn at a site I record that in my hymnbook as well. This experience is turning out to be so much more than I hoped and I've only been here less than a week! 

PS - I took lots more pictures and saw lots more stuff today, but pictures take awhile to load here. The ones I post are just some of my favorites.

jet lag is worse than i thought

I made it to Jerusalem and it is wonderful so far! All of us have been very jet lagged the past few days and have therefore all been falling asleep during the afternoons, but the professors and staff are pretty understanding at least. The flights were all long and long and long, but I saw some great sights from the air!

View of Vienna from the air! It looks so cool I wish I could've gone outside the airport.

Over the Aegean Sea! I loved this part, seeing all the islands. It made me want to visit Greece someday even more.

My first picture of Jerusalem :) This is a view from the Center.

There are some beautiful flowers on the grounds of the JC (Jerusalem Center).

I love the grounds.

This place really is amazing. We went on a 4 hour tour of the city yesterday, walking about 4 miles up and down the hills from East Jerusalem where we are, into the Old City, and then out into West Jerusalem which looks very modern. The drivers here are CRAZY...even worse than Utah drivers! The Old City was interesting, with lots of interesting smells and sights, but it was so amazing. The people here seem lovely, and it will take some getting used to as I begin bartering with the locals  when I shop. The buildings are beautiful and I can't wait until I can actually make my way around the city and know where I am. The inside is great as well, the food is delicious (most of the time...sometimes interesting) and theres lots of it, and the people are friendly. We've all been tired, and this morning we had our first 2 classes: Old Testament for 2 hours and ANE (Ancient Near Easter studies) for an hour...that was an intro basically. We already have lots of homework :/ So I better get on that. I am so grateful to be here though and I love it so far! Saturday Sabbath is tomorrow, Monday is our 1st field trip. :) :) :) :) Classes will begin in full scale next week.