Mmmmm... Camel!!

          This week our field trip was on Sunday and we went to Yad Vashem, which is a holocaust museum here in Jerusalem.  It was actually a very hard and sobering experience for me.  Much harder than when I went to the museum in DC.  I think that is partly because I am older now and I understand more because I have been able to get to learn more about the Jewish people and get to know them on a more personal level. I think the hardest things for me were the things that dealt with tearing apart families or harming children. One of the worst things was a picture of a mother turning her back and clutching her child in her arms to try ot shield it from a soldier who had a gun pointed at them.  I guess the museum just made me so grateful for my family.  Also, it made me grateful that I know the sanctity of life and the value of every human being, and that they are all sons and daughter of God.  After that we went to Mt. Herzl which is a national cemetary in Jerusalem. 

Yad Vashem

Mt Herzl (tomb of Herzl)

          On Monday, a group of us went to Zedekiah's cave, which is probably a quarry used to get stone for Solomon's temple.  Also, people say that King Zedekiah hid here when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem.  Then we did some shopping too.  We were having a soccer tournament this week too, and that was pretty fun, but my team wasn't very good, haha.

King Solomon's Quarries (Zedekiah's Cave)

When we were out shopping, the little boy on the left came up and spanked me...

          On Tuesday, a holocaust survivor came and spoke to us.  He had been to 8 or 9 different concentration camps, including Auschwitz, so he had a number tattooed into his arm and everything.  It was really interesting to listen to him, and the only time he really got choked up was when he was talking about his family and how they had to dig their own graves and then were murdered.  He said that sometimes even he doesnt believe that it happened and he made it through.
          On Wednesday, a group of us went out to eat camel.  It was reeeaally good.  THey cooked it for us three different ways: a pot roast type thing, meatball kabob things, and then a normal grilled shish-kabob.  The last one was the best and tasted like something from Tucanos or something!  

Eating Camel

          On Thursday, I went out with a group of friends and had shawarma, which is just a meat wrap thing.  It is really popular here and really good.  That night, we had a traditional seder (passover) meal, and it was really neat. I sang a song with a group of people called Dayenu.  

          Anyway, things are great here as usual.  We had our Galilee orientation this week, and I am so excited to go!!

Biblical Zoo and Bethlehem

          These past couple of weeks have been pretty fun, but not as fun as others because most people have just been studying for midterms during the week, so there is really no one to go out and do things with. I try to study sometimes, but mostly it just ends up being me going around and talking to people for a few hours until most people have gone to bed and then trying to cram in a few things for the test. So far it's worked okay, so I'm cool with that. The people here are really great though and it has been super fun. On our free day last Friday, and our free day this Friday, me and my friends just went out into the Old city and did some shopping. It is fun just being around the people here and interacting with them. When we went yesterday, we ran into a couple of people that were obviously LDS (one of their daughters was wearing a BYU shirt). I talked to them for a while and asked them where they were from and stuff, and it was fun, but then today when I got to church I saw them up on the stand and realized that it was an area seventy, Elder Kacher, and his family that were here to speak and give a fireside!! I know that most people probably wouldn't just recognize an area seventy like that, but i still felt kinda lame not recognizing them or anything. But today was pretty fun having them there because they had a son (just got off the mish) and a daughter (about to start her freshman year at BYU) that came with them. It was fun being able to talk to them and stuff, and watching all of the girls flock to the son!! I mean, he was pretty cute, but it was still just funny.

          That Saturday we went to the Garden of Gethsemane after church, so that was really a great experience.  You can just feel the spirit so strong there, especially in the private section.  Anyway, so last Sunday was another free day, so a lot of us went to the Biblical Lands Zoo here in Jerusalem. It was pretty much just like a normal zoo, but they had some other neat animals there too that I had never seen, like a Red Panda, and I got to see them try to catch a vulture for weighing, it was pretty funny. After that we just went back out into the Old City and did some more shopping. I got a sweet Israel soccer jersey and a cute bag too, but I think I got that on Friday.

Biblical zoo

          On Monday we had our weekly field trip. This time it was to Bethlehem, so that was pretty sweet. It was crazy at first because we had to cross over into the West Bank. I mean, technically the Jerusalem Center is just barely in the West Bank, but not really. But we had to cross over the wall that separates over to the West Bank, and it is just crazy how much security and stuff there is. We didn't have to do it cuz we were just a tour bus, but I guess usually it takes people quite a while to get through whether it's just for work, or school, or whatever. You usually have to start preparing to get the paper to go like a full month in advance too. Anyway, so when we got to Bethlehem we went to a think tank building where Palestinians are studying and working on ideas to try to sort out the conflict here. One guy gave us a presentation (mostly about the conflict with the borders) that was... interesting (kind of boring, but I think that is just because I was tired, haha). After that, we went to Bethlehem University and got to talk to some of the students about their life at school and in the Holy Land. It was interesting to get their opinion on the conflict here. Then we went to a Bedouin tent place to eat lunch. That was pretty neat too. Finally we went to the Old Bethlehem main city square. In the square there is a Church of the Nativity that we went to. It is built to commemorate the cave where they believe Christ was born. There are a lot of sites here that people say are the "real deal" but in reality they might not be, but this is one of the sites that most likely is legitimate. There is a beautiful church, and then in the basement they have some stairs going down to the cave, which would have been used as a storage room or stable type room, and that is where they believe Christ was born. It was neat to be in there, and we were able to sing Christmas songs in a cave there. Then we just walked around Bethlehem for a bit and looked at olive wood and other things. I got a baby blessing blanket from Bethlehem just for a souvenir. It's kind of neat to have a baby blanket from where Christ was born.

Church at Bethlehem University

Israeli missile hole at Bethlehem University

Bedouin Tent Restaraunt

Church of the Nativity

Possible place where they laid baby Jesus

Possible place of Christ's birth

          On Tuesday, a group of us went to a museum here by a place called Jaffa gate and sang for/with a group of Palestinians, so that was pretty neat. One guy there had a Lute and was playing native Palestinian songs, so the ladies there started dancing and it just turned into a huge dance party where we were doing really goofy Palestinian dancing. Yesterday we had an Israeli folk dancing night here at the center too, so that was fun. They had some guy come into the gym to teach us how to do it, and it was fun, but got sooooo hot in the gym!!

          Anyway, things here are good here. Church is awesome, my classes are pretty good (but sometimes kind of boring and there are way too many tests and ginormous papers). Oh, and I just found out that I got into ASU, so I got into all three schools that I applied to, so that's happy. And I also found out that I am going to be teaching Math 111 at BYU this upcoming fall, so that's cool.

David & Goliath :)

I'll try to get around to writing on this blog more, but sometimes there isn't much to say, and other times there is just too much going on that I don't really have the time to blog, but here ya go. Every week we go on some sort of field trip. Right after we got back from Egypt, we went to Neot Kedumim, which is a biblical lands reserve thinger. It had plants from biblical times such as pomegranate trees, olive trees, hyssop, and other random things. It also had a cistern, water wheel, an olive press, threshing floor for wheat, and other neat things. I got to play with the olive press thing and push it with some people, but other people took the pictures of it, so I don't have those to put up right now. I also got to grind hyssop to make a spice that they call za'atar and they put it on bread or whatever else. We also made wheat popcorn stuff and pita cake things that we got to eat with date honey. It was really delicious. Later that week a group of us went to the Tower of David Museum of Jerusalem in the citadel. We had to go for a class. It was kind of interesting, but pretty boring too. That week we also went to the temple museum and got to see the clothing that the priests and high priest wore, along with the table for the shew bread, altar of incense, menorah, and other things. They have them all built because they say they will put it all in the 3rd temple when it is built someday. It was pretty neat, but unfortunately we couldn't take pictures in there.

Hyssop plant

Grinding Hyssop

Za'atar I ground

Herding Sheep, haha

Making pitas

Fig-leaf Adam & Eve skirt

Olive Press

The next week for our field trip we went to the Shephelah plains and got to see a bunch of different things. We went to Beth Shemesh and the Sorek Valley where the Ark of the Covenant was for a while and there were Samson was raised and other interesting biblical events happened. We also went to the ruins of Azekah, Gath, and Mareshah which are other Old Testament sites, mostly dealing with the wars and a little bit of the David and Goliath stuff in Azekah. Mostly that happened in the Elah Valley though, which we also went to. We went there and talked about the David and Goliath story and then we each got slings and got to throw stones with them. It was pretty fun and neat to see and do there. We also went to Lachish, which was pretty neat to see. Of course most of it was destroyed, but it was neat to see how the Assyrians conquered it by using a siege ramp and stuff. We also went to these things called the Bell caves which had some amazing acoustics and were super pretty and to Micah's cave as well which was a super tight squeeze to get into and then just had a bunch of places that we could crawl around in. It was really fun, but unfortunately my camera battery died this day, so I'll have to post pictures from this some other time from other people's cameras. We also had a Arab culture night that week where some people came and taught us how to dance, we had authentic Arab food, and got to listen to these really great professional Call to Prayer people. I don't remember if I already talked about that or not, but pretty much 5 times a day the Muslims have a Call to Prayer played over the loud speakers. The one in the morning says something about how prayer is better than sleep, so pretty much they should wake up and pray.

On Sunday we got to go to Eilat and go snorkeling in the Red Sea. It was sooooo much fun!! Again, forgot my camera... so friend's pictures will have to come up later. The snorkeling was great, but not the best just because there weren't a lot of super cool vibrant fish like were in Hawaii, but it was still neat. It was just nice to be at the beach and not have to be in clothing from your collarbone to your toes for once!! I got pretty fried, but it was a great time. Yesterday for our field trip we went to the City of David which is just right south of the temple mount in Jerusalem. It is really sloped, so you can definitely see how the story of David and Bathsheba and him seeing her bathing on her rooftop would be logical. We got to see an excavation site called Area G, and Hezekiah's tunnel that leads to the Pool of Siloam (where Christ healed a blind man). Hezekiah's tunnel is a tunnel that was made when Assyria was trying to attack Jerusalem in 701 BC. They made it so that they could still get water in the city from the Gihon Spring which was located outside of the city. So the tunnel went from the Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam. That was a really fun day because we got to hike in the water (about mid-calf to mid-thigh depth) in this really long tunnel, and we shut off our flashlights so it would be a little more fun. When we got to the Pool of Siloam, we all had a water fight in it, so it was super fun. We also saw ruins from King David's fortress, so that was pretty neat, and a couple of tombs that were likely the tombs of David and Solomon. I actually have pictures of this one, but not many of myself. Like I said, I still have to get those off of other people's cameras.

City of David

Pool of Siloam

Possible tombs of David and Solomon

Anyway, that's a little bit of what I've been up to. I'll try to post some pictures and put some more on later too. I'll also try to post more often and write more e-mails mom :)

Oh, and the homework load here?? Talk about CRAZY!!! So annoying how much homework there is... and also the professors just add extra classes wherever they want because they know that we don't have work or other classes or anything that we have to go to.

And yes, one kid did already get sent home. He had done a few things previous to this, but the straw that finally broke the camel's back is that when we were coming home from Egypt a few weeks ago, and were waiting at the border, the kid stripped down to his G's and hopped in the Red Sea... Yeah, not only is that stripping down to his underwear, but it is disrespectful of his garments and also THEY ARE SEE THROUGH!!! Especially when they get wet... yeah, he got dared to do it, but no one actually thought he would... Anyway, he was on a flight home within 24 hours. I feel bad for him, but it wasn't the first thing he did either, and people warned him that he would get in trouble if he did it.

Oh yeah, and did you all hear about that flotilla thing in the Gaza strip?? If not, you should look it up on the internet. As a result of it, there were a lot of riots and stuff, so we were put on lock down in the center for about three days. Luckily we had a bunch of classes and homework those days anyways, so you didn't really notice. But it was kinda crazy...