BEACH DAY = BEST DAY EVER

March Madness! This month has been a blast so far. First we celebrated the Jewish Halloween kind of holiday called Purim. It's the celebration of Queen Esther. So we all dressed up and went to this dance studio for a partaaay. The instructor there had come to teach us Jewish folk dancing like a week before and we thought it was just a dance party... it was a Jewish folk dance party haha. So, we did Jewish folk dancing for like 2 hours! It was actually way fun!

Me and the "Just Struck By Lightning" girls... and Alex as a Zombie.

Swing yer pardner round n round!... I mean, Mazel Tov! Most of the dances were done in big circles. Others like the macarena, were in lines. That's basically it though.

This past Sunday (our Sabbath is Saturday) a group of us went to Tel Aviv just to get out of Jerusalem. We'd been cooped up in the Center for so long, a trip out was just what everybody needed! We went shopping at the Sukk, went swimming in the Mediterranean, rode bikes on the boardwalk, and went to dinner. Oh man, it was the best day ever!

The Bike Gang.

Notice the beginnings of the huge wave that is about to come over the jetti...

Aaaaand, the aftermath. We all got owned by this wave! It slowly but very surely took all of us out. Our bikes started just kind of going out from under us and we were all running into each other. Then it went fast once we were down. Hahaha! There were some battle wounds and an almost-lost sandal, but it was all good! Except for the wet jeans...

On the Beach! There's nothing like a good beach day. It made me miss home a lot... and strengthened my resolve to figure out a way to be home for this summer term.

The group at a fountain right on the boardwalk.

Mary and Jess shopping in the Sukk.

Sunset on the Mediterranean Sea in Tel Aviv :)

Boardwalk at night!

The MONTH of February... it's been a while

Ok, so I haven't posted since Egypt. I just haven't had time to walk over to Hebrew University to upload my pictures! We had a few crazy weeks near the end of the month - tons of assignments, midterms, and finals, all back-to-back. It was nuts. I literally did not leave the BYU Center for at least 2 1/2 weeks. AND we were on lockdown for a good part of a week.

So, here I am, writing about 3 blog posts in one. Hopefully I'll have enough time to write it all!

So just a few things - first, our field trip through Hezekiah's Tunnel! King Hezekiah built a tunnel from the Gihon Spring through the city in preparation for battle. It brought the water supply into the city. This tunnel is looong and runs along underneath the City of David and eventually lets out at the pool of Siloam, where Christ healed the blind man. Our whole class went and walked through it, sang hymns (and lots of other songs at the top of our lungs) inside, and eventually had a huge water fight at the end haha. The water was really gross, but we were already thigh-deep... what's a few more feet, right?

Going down into the tunnel - along the way we passed Warren's shaft, which King David used to conquer the Jebusites and give Jerusalem back to the children of Israel

Water fight at the outlet of the tunnel before the Pool of Siloam. It was intense. I think every single person got dunked at some point.

Ok, next: More underground adventures! For part of our next field trip, we went along the entire Western Wall. The part that the Jews worship at which has the plaza in front of it is not the holiest spot for them. It's actually underground, a little ways north of that spot. This spot is the holiest place because it would be the part of the original temple mount that was closest to the Holy of Holies in the temple. So, technically nothing is special about it, but it was close to something special. It was a really cool field trip and we learned a lot though!


The biggest solid pieces of stone ever used to make anything are part of this wall right here. One is estimated to have weighed something like 600 tons?!?! It was nuts. And really cool to see how much of the actual wall is underground still.



Tunnel - it looked like a mineshaft and then would randomly open up a little bit into random arches and pillars and ancient street things... a little hard to picture as real and functional when they're underground though.

The Western Wall tunnel dumped us out in the city. This is my friend Steven and a cool street!

So after the northern part of the Western Wall, we walked around the entire temple mount, back through Dung Gate, and into an archaeological park. There used to be a huge staircase going up to the temple mount here, but it was destroyed and the pieces are just piled up around the place. You can see where the arch attached to the now closed up gate also, high up on the wall.

If you look closely you can see the BYU Jerusalem Center on the top left (all those little arches), and then the park in the middle of the Mount of Olives is called Orson Hyde Memorial Park, which ends at the edge of the Garden of Gethsemane, which is on the middle right - a bunch of olive trees on different levels. And this is from right next to the temple mount! Everything is so close here.

A view of the some cemeteries along the eastern edge of the temple mount. The gates leading up to it were blocked off a long time ago, like this one.

Rubble from a big arched stairway that used to lead up to the temple mount. People just leave stuff where they fall around here. Too many people want to clean house, so nobody does! Literally, you try to sweep a step at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and you'll witness a priestly battle. That actually happened.

Some ruins just outside the temple mount.

Sunrise at Sinai on my birthday! Best birthday EVERRR

Beautiful scarfed (scarved?) ladies at the Muhammad Ali mosque.

Inside the Muhammad Ali mosque. You would NOT believe the ceiling. Maybe I'll put a pic up soon. Probs on fbook.

Gretchen, me, Kinzie, and Jessica in front of the Muhammad Ali mosque. It was the most beautiful building I've ever been in!

Luxor temple

Horse and Buggy! Andrew, Me, Emma, and Gretch leading the way :)

Emma at the hypostyle hall at Karnak. Just to give you an idea of how huge these pillars really were... there were like 105 of them. It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

Camel shadow. Neato!

Riding camels on the bank of the nile

Pyramids and Sphinx at Gizaaa. Life dream? Check.

The Pharaoh did NOT get his Revenge!

Whoa it's been way too long! I'm a horrible blogger. Sorry Mom, I'll try, but we might just have to accept that I'm not good at this. I'm too busy enjoying myself :)

Well the past few weeks have been crazy. We went to Egypt! The night before the trip, we had a sort of orientation, where the resident doctor basically told us that we were all going to get traveler's diarrhea (aka Pharaoh's Revenge, aka Cairo Quick-step haha). They were all like, don't go swimming, don't drink the juice, don't use the tap water to brush your teeth, don't eat any fruit or veggies, don't open your mouth in the shower, etc... So we're all freaking out the night before aaand like 4 days into the trip. We must have done something right, or all been too paranoid though, because only 20% of the students got sick, rather than the usual 80%! I was one of the lucky, careful ones.

Egypt was absolutely amazing. From Jerusalem, we drove to Cairo for two days, flew to Luxor for two days, took a night train back to Cairo (so Anastasia), then drove back to Jerusalem circa Mt. Sinai.

Favorite things:

- Pyramids - we got to go inside! We walked through this short and very small tunnel down and then up into this chamber. There was basically nothing on the walls because it had been kind of destroyed and plundered, but it was still cool. In the burial chamber there was a hole in the ground where the pharaoh was buried (obviously...) and we tried to see how many people we could fit in it... as the rest of the group was singing hymns haha. We got 22, if you were wondering.

- Valley of the Kings - Tombs of the pharaohs! Some of them were just COVERED in paintings on all of the walls, still rich with original color. That was cool.

- Hatshepsut's Temple - built into the side of a mountain, this temple was cool. It was also the temple of one of the few women who ruled Egypt. This one was kind of shady though, after her husband died she locked her son up for years and pretended to be a man kind of. Jerk. Later, when she died and her son, Thutmoses III took over, he destroyed everything that had her name or face on it. That's what she gets. I'd be mad too.

- Feluccas down the nile - way fun, we took these little sailboats down the nile in Luxor to a place where we got out and rode camels by the shore.

- Karnak Temple Complex - FAVORITE! It was sooo cool. There are like 4 or 5 temples in this big plaza. There was this big hypostyle hall with these HUGE pillars. Like over 100 of them. It took us 9 students hand in hand to get around the base of one of them. They were all decorated with hieroglyphs and original paint... nuts. It was super cool.

- Cairo Museum - We went into the hall of the mummies! I saw Ramses II; I saw the face that saw the face that saw the face of God. Haha. True though.

- Mt. Sinai - Wow. First off, this was my birthday, the 28th. So I decided I'd treat myself and pay for a camel up 2/3 of it. haha! Don't worry, like half of my friends did, too. The last third was tough though. Given we had to wake up at 2:30am to leave, we were a little tired. But, it was well worth it, because we got to watch the sunrise. It was an incredible experience. Then we had an amazing testimony meeting up there with our religion classes. Best birthday EVER. Later that day we stopped and had lunch (and bday cake) at a nice restaurant on the Red Sea and I got to dip my feet in. It was amazing. It made me miss home a lot though :(

Since we got back like a week ago, I seriously haven't left the center except for our fieldtrip on Monday. Egypt took a lot out of all of us! Everyone's been super exhausted and few people have left. Plus, it's been raining a lot and it's a little miserable outside to walk around the Old City. AND I accidentally threw out all of my hoodies from my suitcase before I came. Biggest mistake of my life.

Our field trip on Monday was one of my favorites so far though. We went to Yad Vashem, a holocaust museum on the Mount of Remembrance(?). It was an amazing experience to go through this museum, with a Jewish guide, in Israel - the Jewish state. The museum was laid out perfectly... it felt a little like going through it symbolically. It was rough though. There was so much information and so much of the artifacts there were shocking. Real pictures from the pockets of victims, shoes, clothes, beds, etc. One of the most shocking things was this plaster model of the crematorium from Auschwitz. It was really graphic and I lost it. There were also some pretty crazy pictures that got us all going.
The worst and most revealing part though, was the children's memorial. wow. There was a big dark room with 5 candles and a mirror system. They multiplied the flames to represent the 1.5 million children that were murdered during the holocaust. While in there, names were read off of children who died and their age and homeland. I had to spend a while in that room, it was terrible and one of the most emotional experiences of my life.
It was definitely an enlightening experience. One I will never forget.

Pictures asap, as soon as I can get over to the Hebrew University!

First Pictures!

Yes, I've only been here a week. Yes, we have all been acting like culture-shocked tourists. Yes, I took over 200 pictures on Sunday. But I got some cool shots! All of these pictures are from one day spend exploring the Old City, and a lot of them are taken from the top of various parts of the wall surrounding the city (on the Raparts Walk). It was really neat to see the real bustling city of Jerusalem.. not the shops and the markets on the street level, but to be up on the wall and see the circumstances that people live in, see the schools and the children, and to really realize that Jerusalem is a city today, not just a city of the past.

We saw Senator McCain and Senator Lieberman at the Western Wall. It was nuts! Some idiots started chanting "USA, USA!", but we shut them up real quick...

Jews praying at the Western Wall, just outside of the Temple Mount. Their dedication to God is truly remarkable. We could all learn a little bit from people in this part of the world, don't you think?

Walking around the city, you can look up, down, or around and just be amazed at what you see! It's totally a different world here.
Some of the group on the ramparts walk! This is Andrew, Mary, Jessica, and Kinzie. The walk was super long but we got some amazing views!
Dome of the Rockkkk. It was amazing! This building is seriously so beautiful and is sacred to many different people. We were only allowed in before 11 and got kicked out so the Muslims could come in and worship.

New and Exciting!

So I've just spend my first few days here in Jerusalem. It is nuts! I will be keeping a handwritten journal while I'm here, but I'll be using this blog as a journal as well.
After over 24 hours of traveling (everything in between the flights was sprinting to catch the next one), 81 other kids and I finally arrived here at the BYU Jerusalem Center. We were exhausted, we had dinner, and we had to (unsuccessfully) try to stay awake for orientation meetings. The kids in my group are all super cool. I love them! It's been really fun so far; everyone is super nice and we are all just so excited to be here.
Thursday was our first real day here and we all split into groups with our professors and the service couples on a walking tour of the Old City. It was nothing like I had pictured it to be! Ok, maybe a little bit, but I was definitely surprised. The city is alive! There are kids running around everywhere, shops just piled into every nook and cranny, and crazy corridors and alleys just waiting to be explored. I know I'll be lost for a few weeks, but I think those will be the most adventurous days.
Friday we had our first classes. It is going to be really difficult to balance the crazy school schedule here and having fun roaming the city. The curriculum is nuts. We've only been to 3 of our 6 classes and I already feel like we have a full schedule! Luckily some of the classes require the students to go explore the City and visit sites, so hopefully it won't be too hard.
Saturday was the Sabbath here. It was a little strange to have church on Sunday, but I think I'll come to like it better than church on Sunday. Sacrament meeting was in the upper auditorium of the building (on the 8th floor) and the back of the auditorium is a wall of glass with a panoramic view of the Old City. It was amazing! It will be difficult to pay attention in meetings probably haha.
Sundays are our free days! Right after breakfast we all grabbed our sack lunches and took off for a day in the city. My group of 5 went to the Dome of the Rock in the morning, which was amazing, and then spent the rest of the day shopping and doing the ramparts walk up on top of the city wall. The views were amazing from up there! I took a TON of pictures, but I'll have to wait till either late tonight (when no one else is using internet) or for a time when I can run over to the Hebrew University next door and get better internet to upload them. It was also cool to see the real living part of the city... the places that you don't see from the market streets. We saw some very dire things and some very cool things! We saw an elementary school out at recess and this big circle of kids were dancing to the beat of their teacher's drum. It was so cute! We stopped and watched and clapped for like 10 minutes. Between the Southern and Northern parts of the walk, we got dumped out next to the Western Wall, and in that 5 minutes we passed, we saw Senator McCain and Senator Lieberman! It was so crazy!! A couple of idiots decided to chant "USA", but they got shut up pretty quickly - by us and others around them. Also, while we were almost to the end of the Northern walk by the end of the day, we stopped on a corner and sat on top of the wall and hung out, and about 10 more people from the center showed up and we all just hung out - with a 360 degree view of the Old City, the Mount of Olives, and the Kidron Valley. It was amazing!
Today, Monday, was our first fieldtrip. We went on a "geographical field trip" to various high points around Jerusalem. We saw EVERYTHING around Jerusalem and visited some pretty cool and very Biblically important sites. It was so interesting.
It's hard to describe the experience here. The culture is so different - more different than I ever imagined - and every sense is stimulated as you walk through the City. It's the sights, the smells, the looks on the peoples' faces... It's everything, and it's all completely different. I am loving it here and I am learning so much! I can't wait to really get to know the people and be able to call this city home. :)