The long unwinding road

Well, the adventure of Galilee continues. Yesterday was wonderful. We started out the day at Bet She’an, the ruins of an ancient Roman city. It was really, really cool. It has, like every other place that had ever been occupied by the Romans, a large Roman Theater. And I had seen the Roman Theaters before, but this time we had our own time to go around the site and so I and the couple people I was with headed for the theater and thus got to be alone in one for the first time. Well, I didn’t know when my next chance to act on a Roman stage would present itself so I got on the stage and had a friend film me while I performed Lewis Carol’s The Jabberwocky. Oh my heck, it was so cool! I had no idea how cool it was to speak on a Roman stage…due to the architecture of the theater (a half-circle of stone around the stage) the acoustics were fantastic! I could whisper and it would be as if I was whispering in the ear of every person in that theater. Man, I’m so glad I got up there and did that because it gave me just a small taste into what it must have been like to perform on a Roman stage 2000 years ago. It had to have been so cool! I’m sorry, but I absolutely LOVE how into theater the Romans were. It’s rad.
After Bet She’an, we headed to this absolutely AWESOME swimming place called Gan Ha-Shelosha. When we got there, we discovered that it was turning away all the big tour buses. But our bus driver is the bomb diggity. He talked to the dudes and got just our bus in, for which we were very grateful. I led everyone in a rousing rendition of “For He’s a Jolly-good Fellow” to say thanks. Our bus driver’s name is Etah, and he’s so cool. The other day, when we got back from a long fieldtrip day, he stopped the bus at Ein Gev, picked up the microphone, and announced that he would like to sing the Muslim call to prayer for us. He sang the call for like 10 minutes while we just sat there and listened. We later found out that he’s like a famous prayer-singer guy. I guess they play his recordings from a lot of the miniarettes in Israel and he’s won tons of competitions and gone to record in Chicago and New York and such. SO STINKIN’ AWESOME! Isn’t that like the coolest thing you’ve ever heard? Who would have thought our bus driver would be a famous Muslim singer? Haha. Too cool.
Anyway, Gan Ha-Shelosha was AMAZING. It’s these natural warm springs that they’ve dammed up in a few places so there are pools and waterfalls that are so warm! We swam around there for a few hours, doing synchronized diving, relay races, belly-flop contests and whirlpools. AND there was a killer fish there! Yes! It was so hilarious! On one side of the main pool that we stayed in for almost the whole time there was a big rock coming out of the water. As soon as it came out of the water it curved out to a kind of ledge. Anyway, a guy from our group unsuspectingly swam over there and in a few minutes we heard him screaming and watched as he very quickly swam away to the other side of the pool, kind of laughing/shouting. As it turned out, there was a huge yellow fish over there with big teeth and a short temper. Anyone who got too close, he would attack! So of course all of us students piled out of the water to stand over the ledge and watch. We would send people in one by one to swim in the area so we could watch it attack them. It was hilarious! We watched it all happen. This big yellow fish would stay close to the bottom, holding pretty still and then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, and very rapidly, he’d shoot to the swimmer and bite their legs and heels! People were coming out with bite marks everywhere…they weren’t deep and apparently it didn’t hurt or anything. I wanted to go in and get attacked, but I was too chicken. It was so funny though! We were dying. This mean, killer fish attacking unsuspecting swimmers. Who could have imagined? Haha.
I did stand in the water and let the little fishes come nibble on my toes and heels though. It tickled so much! It was awesome.
We ate our lunches on the way to Bet Alpha. Bet Alpha is an old Jewish synagogue with a famous mosaic floor. It has a zodiac in the middle, which shows the Greek Christian influence on Judaism back in the day. It was brief and cool.
After that we went to Nain. Nain is where, in the New Testament, Christ raised a widow’s dead son. We sat in the small church there and sang and Brother Draper gave a small devotional. It was nice.
Then we headed to Mt. Tabor. Mt. Tabor is the believed mount of Christ’s transfiguration. Yeah, seriously. It was wonderful. And guess who just happened to be there that we got to meet? Truman G. Madsen. Yeah, I guess they’re filming a documentary on the Holy Land over here right now. Anyway, Mt. Tabor was beautiful. Brother Draper gave a wonderful lecture there on the transfiguration and the keys given to Peter, James and John and talked a lot about calling and election. It was beautiful. I felt such peace there on the mount. The Spirit was very strong during Brother Draper’s lecture. After the lecture we went into the church up there. It’s neat, they have Ionian designs on the tops of the arch columns, but the Ionian designs are such that they make the face of Christ over and over again. I couldn’t see it at first, but if you look at it long enough, you see His face carved in every design. It was really cool.
You take taxis up and down to and from the top of Mt. Tabor and on the way down, a bunch of us squeezed into this taxi with the Arab version of Gerry, the little old man on the short film in front of Toy Story who plays chess with himself. He was hilarious! He would just shout random English words at passersby and get us all to make loud noises out the windows and stuff and then he’d laugh this high-pitched, loud, crazy laugh, just like the laugh of Gerry. He was even wearing the sweater Gerry wears. We were dying. It was so funny.
From Mt. Tabor we headed home. After dinner we had our Ancient Near East course for 2 hours from 7-9. It’s hard to have class that late. But I think I wrote about our opening song the other day with the date palms blooming on the Sea of Galilee? Anyway, I got to class a little early and Brother Seeley was like, “We need a really good opening song today.” So I sat down and popped out these lyrics to the tune of “I looked out the window.”
“I looked out my window and what did I see?
Couples kissing by the Sea of Galilee.
Spring has come and it’s no big surprise.
Couples kissing right before my eyes.
I can get an eyeful in just one night,
A new couple daily comes to light.
Some say it isn’t so,
But I tend to disagree.
Couples kissing on the Sea of Galilee.”
I guess I should explain. Galilee is known for being the place where JC couples kind of “come out of the closet,” if you will. I guess in previous years, it’s always been where the most couples come to fruition. So our first Ancient Near East class period here in Galilee, a guy named Jordan in our group got up before class started during announcement session and said, “Some of you have been hearing rumors and what not, so I just wanted to set the record straight. Annie and I kissed last night and it was amazing.” And then he sat down. Well, you can imagine we all doubled over laughing. And since then, people have been getting up before class and making mock announcements similar to the one Jordan made. My personal favorite came last night before class when Joe stood up and said, “I just wanted to let you all know, Madison and I will be kissing on the last night here and you’re all invited.” Haha. People are so funny. So as you can see, the song was very fitting.
To be continued…

Easter and Galilee

Sorry it took me so long to post this and sorry it's so stinkin' long...I hope no one feels obligated to read it. I don't have my camera with me either, but pictures are on the way.

Well, it is officially the close of the most memorable Easter Sunday I have ever had. Except, possibly for the time when the Easter bunny found us at the gas station when we were on a road trip…that was cool. Almost as cool as this year’s Easter.
This year for Easter I didn’t dye a single egg. There were no eggs benedict for breakfast, no Easter baskets full of sweets and goodies, nothing pastel blue, pink, or yellow decorating my surroundings. Let me just tell you what my Easter DID consist of…
At 11:00 pm the night before Easter Sunday, a group of probably 30 of us headed out in sharutes (taxi-van type things) for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to attend the Easter midnight mass. Yes. I attended the Easter Midnight Mass at what is considered by many THE most Holy site in all of Christianity. It was so stinkin’ cool. I’ve always wanted to attend a midnight mass, or any mass for that matter, and I was not disappointed. It was surprisingly less crowded than I ever imagined it would be, however we still had to stand at the back of the crowd. At 11:30 an organ started playing, filling this huge cathedral with the dark music you hear on Medieval-type movies with monks and knights and such. A procession of monks came walking to the front, wearing the brown monk robes with the hoods and ropes around the waist. Everyone stood up and we started to sing in Latin. (They had handed out little booklets with the words and notes for the songs). Then for the next hour and a half we did this sort of call and response thing where three monks would sing a line and we would all repeat them. Throughout all of this people were lighting candles, saying prayers, and touching the sepulcher.
One of my favorite parts was when one of my roommates next to me tapped my shoulder, and, motioning to the monks with her head, said “The one on the left is hot.” HAHA! 19-year-old BYU student from America checking out the monks at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre! So golden. I thought it was pretty dang funny. At the end, they had this procession where they handed out candles to everyone and walked around the church in a big circle. My roommate swore to me that the “hot” monk looked at her a few times and that they definitely made eye contact. All I could think of was Nacho Libre and Jack Black singing, “We could break our vows togethhhhher! No, no, no, no, no, no way Jose! Only if you want to…”
One of my other favorite moments came when we walked out of the Church and were standing in the outside courtyard waiting for our group to catch up. There were people from all over the world there and there was this total European young guy looking at us girls. Finally, he walked right over to me and my friend Anne, who was still holding her burning candle. When he got to us he pulled a cigarette out of his pocket, and without saying a word, merely motioning with his cigarette toward the candle, implied to us that he would like to light his cigarette with her prayer-symbolic, Easter worship service candle. She didn’t say a word, or even change her facial expression as she held up her candle and he leaned forward, lit up his smoke and turned and walked off. Let me tell you, we got a good laugh out of that one.
So we got home around 1:00 am and we had to get up 3 hours later to go to the Sunday services at the Garden Tomb. Yes, the Garden Tomb—very possibly the place where Christ was buried and rose from the dead. We walked to the tomb as the air around us was just starting to turn from gray to a pale bluish, pinkish, purplish color…perfect for Easter morning. Guys, the Garden Tomb services were so cool. Can I tell you, the Evangelicals know how to celebrate! We walked into the Garden to Christian Rock music about Christ’s resurrection. When we got inside, an elderly gentleman saw us and, motioning toward the front of the Garden, said, “You young kids can go sit on the steps in front of the tomb…there’s still some room there.” I was grateful for his suggestion and felt like one of the little kids at baptisms who walk so importantly to the front to have a better view. And then it began. This rad, little, old, and energetic British man got up to the pulpit and welcomed us, then invited us to stand and sing. This was a celebration! I loved it! We rocked out to the Christian Rock singing about Christ’s resurrection and I was very touched by the Spirit. It’s a different way of praising—different than anything I’m used to—but it was still praise to God nonetheless and the Spirit honored that and was present. I love how into it the Evangelicals get, raising their hands, smiling, closing their eyes and really feeling it. I felt like I was allowed in to watch their personal and intimate communications and relationships with Christ. It was very touching. The rest of the program consisted of speakers, more singing, and then finally the end sermon. I think my favorite line out of the preacher’s sermon was when he said, “People call this place a garden tomb. But it’s more like a hotel where 2000 years ago a traveler stayed for the weekend on his way to glory!” Choice. It was so wonderful though. I’m so grateful I got to have these incredibly unique and special experiences this Easter.
When we got back from the Garden Tomb we left for Galilee. On the way, we stopped at Megiddo and Sephorris. Megiddo is supposedly where Armageddon is going to be. Armageddon—har Megiddo—literally means “the mount of Megiddo.” It’s a huge tel (archeological mound) that was destroyed and rebuilt 25 times back in the day! It was a key location because it guarded the Jezreel Valley, a very important valley for industry and enterprise because it connected the Mediterranean Sea to inner Israel and the Jordan River. It was really cool…there were shards of pottery from back to the Iron Age just lying around everywhere! Brother Draper talked a little bit about the last days and read from Revelations a bit and it was crazy to imagine it all happening on the peaceful plains surrounding these ancient ruins.
After Megiddo we stopped for lunch at this falafel place that was probably the best falafel I have had so far. And it was practically a dinner show. The guy making the falafels would tap his tongs and throw the falafels up in the air, or behind his back, or under his arm and catch them in the pita! It was really cool! I wish I had gotten a movie of it, but I didn’t think of it. It was sweet.
From lunch we headed to Sephorris which is known for it’s incredible ancient mosaics. They believe it was a Jewish city, but it is extremely Hellenized, complete with a cardo and Roman theater. The mosaics were incredible. There’s this one that’s known as the greatest Mosaic in the world called “The Mona Lisa of Galilee.” She was beautiful. I couldn’t believe something could be portrayed that beautifully through a mosaic. The ruins of the synagogue also had a mosaic floor. One part of it showed the sacrificial scene with Abraham and Isaac on Mt. Moriah. The cool thing about it was that next to the figures of Abraham and Isaac there were two little pairs of shoes…they had their shoes off because they were on Holy ground. I had never heard of that or thought about that in reference to that particular event. It was neat.
And then we drove to Ein Gev. Guys, you can’t imagine how beautiful Galilee is. It’s absolutely fantastic. Unlike during Jesus’ time, the Galilee is now a quiet little sleepy area with one major town (Tiberias) and the ancient ruins of others. We got in close to sundown and we immediately headed for the sea to skip rocks and watch the sun go down. It was so gorgeous.
Ein Gev is a wonderful resort. Our little bungalows are about 100 feet from the sea. There are palm trees everywhere. The mountains are in the background the opposite direction from the sea. They are covered in green like the ones in Hawaii. There are these what we like to call “banana chairs” along the beach that hang like hammocks…they’re kinda hard to explain, but they’re huh-mazing! Anyway, after watching the sun set on the lake we ate dinner. After dinner I headed out and nestled into a banana chair and watched and listened to the sea. Tiberias on the other side of the sea is a small collection of twinkling lights that are reflected in the water. When you look up you see the stars shining brightly through palm tree branches and it’s balmy and warm, even at night. I sat there and listened to the frogs croaking and the crickets chirping and I could almost imagine it during the time of Christ. I’m sure the frogs were there and the stars shined just as brightly at that time. I can see how Jesus would have fallen in love with this place and why he would come here to think and pray and find solace. I can understand why he would spend lots of time here and live with Peter on the shores of the Sea of Galilee…it’s so peaceful and its beauty is indescribable.
The next morning I woke up early and went out to read my scriptures overlooking the Sea as the sun came up. You have no idea what it’s like to read about Christ’s ministry while overlooking the Sea of Galilee. It gets me teary-eyed just typing about it. After breakfast we hopped on the bus and headed to the boat. We got on the boat and headed off for the other side of the Sea. It was so funny—the boat’s crew of three men in blue and white striped shirts, who could hardly speak a word of English, blasted the star-spangled banner while raising the American flag on the boat. We stood with our hands on our hearts singing the national anthem in the middle of the Sea of Galilee! Haha! I hadn’t seen an American flag or sang the national anthem for so long that it actually was really nice. After that, the captain let me drive the boat which was pretty sweet. Then when we got out into the very middle of the Sea, we stopped the boat and had a little class devotional. Brother Draper taught us about Jesus and Peter walking on water and about Christ calming the stormy sea, both of which took place on the Sea on which we were sitting at that very moment. It was AWESOME. Then we sang “Master the Tempest is Raging” and had some time to meditate as we continued to the other side of the Sea. It was probably my favorite part of the day.
The first thing we did on the other side of the lake was to go to the Jesus Boat Museum. Yes, it is called The Jesus Boat Museum and you can go find out about it at jesusboat.com I wanted a hat that said Jesus Boat on it, but they didn’t have any. Anyways, it was really cool. They found this boat that dates back to 1st century AD, Jesus’ time. They show a movie on the process of discovering it, moving it, and then preserving it and you get to see the boat. Pretty dang sweet.
After that, we headed to the Mt. of Beatitudes. Of course, there’s no way of knowing if that’s really where it was, but it commemorates it at least and anything’s possible. There’s an octagonal church there that was actually built by Mussolini. He was being accused of being non-Christian by many and so built this church to commemorate the Mt. of Beatitudes. Funny. It was beautiful up there though. There was a gorgeous view of the Sea of Galilee and the surrounding mountains. We had a great lesson on the Sermon on the Mount by Brother Draper. It was really nice.
We made our way to Tabgha after that. It’s a restored 4th century Byzantine Church that is famous for a mosaic of the loaves and the fishes. We had a brief lecture there after eating lunch and then headed for Capernaum. Capernaum was cool. There’s a Franciscan church there that is built over the remains of what they think was very likely Peter’s house where Christ lived for a while. In the church is a large glass area in the floor where you can look down into the living room of, supposedly Peter’s house. They actually have pretty good evidence that it was Peter’s house. Can you believe that? The ruins were cool there. There was a synagogue and apartment-like living quarters, all about 100 feet from the Sea of Galilee. It was AWESOME.
When we got home from our fieldtrip we had dinner and then a huge bonfire. After that I talked with my Galilee roommates for like 2 hours and it was really fun. Yay.

The next morning we woke up and had three hours of class outside under the trees overlooking the Sea of Galilee. It was an incredible class period. I wish all my classes for the rest of my life could be overlooking the Sea of Galilee. In our short breaks we had every so often we leg wrestled, had handstand contests and played Red Rover. It was the ideal class setting. Man though, our lecture that day was so inspiring. We talked about the calling of the Twelve Apostles and then started on the parables. We talked about the prodigal son for a long time and I was very touched. It’s like my eyes are being opened here to parables I’ve never heard before. They’re still the same parables I’ve learned about my whole life, but they’re being taught to me in a completely unique and splendiferous way. It’s amazing.
Anyway, after class our class got to go swimming in the Sea of Galilee for three hours. Usually Ein Gev has a buoy rope and a lifeguard out during the summer every day, but they don’t usually open it up until after Passover which is in April. So the JC worked really, really hard to get them to allow us to have one swimming day while we’re here. And let me tell you, we did not take our one day for granted. We did synchronized swimming, chicken fights, throwing, whirlpools, Frisbee, waterby, dunking contests, mud fights and just about anything else you can think of. It was a BLAST! I also swam some laps which felt SO GOOD. Although, I’m paying for it dearly today. I haven’t used those muscles in so long that I am extremely sore. It’s pretty pathetic. But it felt really, really good. It was good times.
That night we had a two hour class for Ancient Near East from 7-9. For our opening song we sang “I looked out the window” but here’s the lyrics we sang.
“I woke up this morning and what did I see,
Date palms growing on the Sea of Galilee.
Spring has brought me such a nice surprise,
Date palms growing right before my eyes.
I can take an armful and throw them into the sea.
The DREADED DEADLY undertow will bring them back to me.
It wasn't really so, but it seemed to me,
Date Palms growing on the Sea of Galilee."
It was pretty dang rad, I’m not gonna lie. For all my future years of primary service yet to come, I don't think I'll ever be able to sing that song the same again.
It’s so hard to get anything done here though. After class everyone just goes crazy and stands outside doing fun things. So after class I ended up doing my T-Rex impression for a bunch of peeps and today I don’t have a voice. Haha. But oh my gosh…one of my guy friends, Matt, has this creepy walk that he does and it’s pretty much the funniest thing I have ever seen. Please, please, please remind me to show it to you when I get home. It’s the bomb-diggity. I finally dragged my sorry self to bed because we had a fieldtrip the next day and it was so stinkin’ cool!
Okay guys, Gamla. Gam-flippin’-la. It’s my favoritest place we’ve been here so far. I felt like I was in Hawaii, Lord of the Rings, and the Lake Country of England all at the same time. It was GORGEOUS. Okay, so Gamla is this Greek city built on the top of a hill called the “camel’s hump.” It’s so narrow and steep, but 9,000 people lived on it back in the day. Anyways, it was taken over by Jews and became a Jewish habitation until the Romans came. The Romans were known for their cruel, harsh brutality. So when they started coming towards Gamla many of the people would rather kill themselves than become captive to the Romans. Consequently, 5,000 people ended up just throwing themselves off of the cliffs of Gamla so as to not be taken captive by these heathens. IT WAS SO COOL. You cannot believe the landscape there…absolutely breathtaking. I love, love, LOVED it.
After Gamla we went to a Talmudic village called Qasrin. It was cool because archaeologists have rebuilt it as it would have been back in 4th century AD. We got to tour a rabbi’s house as it would have been and see the synagogue and all. It was really neat.
They took us to a supermarket on the way home and I did something really bad. I have no self-control. I bought a bucket of ice cream with another girl in the program and we ate the whole thing in 15 minutes!!! It was disgusting and glorious all at the same time. I felt pretty dang gross for the rest of the day, but man was it tasty. We couldn’t stop laughing either, so it was a really funny image. There we were, the two of us sitting next to eachother on the bus holding a bucket of ice cream between us, spoons in our hands, chocolate dripping down our chins, laughing like maniacs. It was pretty hilarious. Good memory.
When we got back I ate lunch, took a nap and then attempted to catch up on homework. ATTEMPTED. I thought once we were down to 2 classes it would be easier to stay on top of it, but oh how was I wrong. We have three class periods of New Testament at a time, each class period’s reading taking me an hour and a half to do. It’s a lot of work, but it’s so rewarding. I’m learning the Bible like never before. I love it so, so much.
That night for dinner we went to the Fish Restaurant and I had my very first St. Peter’s Fish. They bring out a whole fish on a platter, eyeball and all. It was amazing! And surprisingly delicious. Quite the experience. I loved it.
After fish they took us to another supermarket where I bought bran (my new all time favorite cereal…I’m seriously an addict now, I can’t get enough. I seriously think I’m becoming an old person… “gotta have my bran” Haha.) The store was totally like a Safeway though…it made me so homesick for Safeway. I LOVE SAFEWAY. Mmm. I’m definitely looking forward to getting back to Safeway. Yay.

Today was great. We had class for three hours in the morning and then we got to go on this absolutely incredible hike in the Golan Heights. Oh my gosh…the Golan Heights are so, so beautiful. I couldn’t get over it. Not a lot of people live there, so it’s a lot of just beautiful landscape that’s luscious and green. Wow. I wish I could describe it. Anyway, we hiked in for about an hour. Our guide kept stopping along the way picking all kinds of plants and flowers for us to eat and pointing out cool things about the world around us. Our hike ended in a waterfall and swimming hole that was freezing cold. But I, being the girl raised at Northern Californian beaches, was the first girl to brave the cold and dive in. It was cold, but so beautiful. I would float on my back and just look up at the stunning beauty surrounding me. Oh man. I loved it there. Good, good stuff. Our guide, though, had it in for me. I think it started when he was telling us about the wild pigs in the surrounding area and I stated loudly that I really wanted to see one and asked if there was some kind of mating call or something that we could do to entice them to us. After which I started to snort and choke out noises loudly, hoping to attract the pigs. He laughed with everyone else but I could tell he thought I was a weirdo. Later, on our way back, when we were scaling up the side of a cliff, he was standing at the top with the kids who had already climbed all the way up. So there I was, spread eagle on the side of cliff, looking for somewhere to grab and he says, “Hey, see the girl in the red shirt? Try to hit her in the head with a rock.” I didn’t hear him say it, (people told me that's what he said) but I definitely felt the rock hit me in the head. My lovely roommate had pelted a rock at my head and had uncannily good aim. Everyone just laughed, but no one cared that I could have easily been knocked off balance and crashed down to a terrible and excruciating death! Haha. It was pretty funny though. Happy day.
And then, if that wasn’t a good enough day, when I walked into dinner everyone shouted, “Heather!!! You got a package!” Yes indeed, it had finally arrived and let me tell you, I was more than a little excited. Everyone asked what was in it and laughed as I shouted with unmistakable joy, “Deodorant and Pepto-Bismol pills!!!!!!!!” Haha. Along with a bunch of other wonderful things. Mom, that was the best…thank you so much. Those dark Cadbury eggs were HUH-MAZING. Thanks a bunch.
Right now I’m sitting in my bungaloo with about 10 girls next to me watching Enchanted. We just had a wrestling match/pillow fight, dance party and were serenaded by a bunch of boys with a ukulele. We joined them for a while and went and serenaded our teachers…it was fun. Good times.
Could life be any better? I don’t see how it could be, unless all the people I love and enjoy were here to experience it all with me. By-the-way, I would love to hear a shout-out from anyone reading this…I keep finding out all these people who are reading this and it makes me so happy! This is such an amazing experience that I just want to share it with everyone! Sorry the writing is sloppy and if it’s boring, but anyone and everyone is welcome to read! If you’ve got a minute, post a comment so I can know who’s sharing this awesome experience with me. Let me know if you have any questions. I’d be happy to answer or clarify anything. Love you all!

O Little Town of Bethlehem

Four days ago we took our fieldtrip to Bethlehem. Guys, it was AWESOME.
First, I have to tell you, we had a 14 page research paper due that same day. Our professor for our Palestinian Narrative course lives in Bethlehem and teaches at Bethlehem University. So our papers were due on our fieldtrip day when we went to BU. Needless to say there were students in every nook and cranny of this building cramming information into themselves and then regurgitating it onto paper. A kind of mass hysteria erupts every time we have something big coming up and it’s only a matter of time before one or more students crack the night before the dreaded day. And I can tell you, I definitely cracked. Although, not in my usual run-around-the-building-as-fast-as-I-can-knocking-people-over-and-wreaking-havoc-in-general kind of cracking. Something snapped and I just kind of really didn’t care anymore. I started my paper at about 10:30. That’s PM. Let me just illustrate something for you. I started at 10:30 pm. It was a 14 page research paper about things I knew nothing about previously. I finished at 12:30 am. TWO AND A HALF HOURS. To write a 14 page paper. That should tell you something about the quality of my paper. Looking back through my paper the next day gave me cause to roll around on the floor laughing with some of the outrageous things I actually put in a 14 page college research paper. Here are a few of my personal favorites, copied and pasted straight from my paper: While discussing the Islamic New Year and comparing it to ours I said, “There are many traditions that accompany New Year’s Eve such as watching the dropping of the ball in New York, singing “Auld Lang Syne,” and making lots of noise with party poppers and noise makers. Many people wear party hats and at midnight they kiss random people they have never met before. Most old ladies wear lots of sequence and too much lipstick.” Another good sentence was in the paragraph where I was talking about how both Islam and Mormonism emphasize helping those in need and having charity towards those around you. I ended the paragraph with a resounding “Yay for charity.” Way to end strong, eh? I think I’ve been writing on my blog too much. And then there were those times when I simply said, “The Isra and Mi’raj feasts are hard to find information on, but here’s what Wikipedia says about them…” and then I copied and pasted a whole page right off of Wikipedia. I have this funny inkling that my professor is going to hate my paper. Just a feeling.
Anyway, Bethlehem was really, really cool. I got to give the devotional on the bus on our way there. I talked about how we were going to all these places that were significant places in Christ’s life and ministry and thus coming to know him in this real, tangible kind of way. And then I talked about how we’re living in a constant battle right now that can’t be fought with physical weapons like swords and spears and such and that can’t be fought on a battlefield. Our only real weapon that we can use against the adversary in this spiritual battle is our testimonies of Christ. So I talked about the power behind a strong testimony of Christ and how, even though we’re coming to know him in these real, physical ways, that we need to look at our relationship with Christ and strive to come to know him—to have a deep, personal, and intimate relationship with him. And then I read the Living Christ: The Testimony of the 12 Apostles. It was really nice and I think it went well.
It took us a little over half an hour to get there and we had to go through a couple security check points, but we finally arrived at the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem. We had about an hour-long presentation on the conflict from the Palestinian point of view. It was very interesting and enlightening, although very one-sided. Although, that seems to be the only kind of information you can ever get about the conflict—one sided. So you end up just having to kind of piece all together yourself. I thought it was really good though because it was a clear, well-presented and thought out presentation from the Palestinian side, which many of the students hadn’t really heard yet. One of my favorite parts of the presentation though was to look around from time to time and watch the people who were trying not to fall asleep. Having a 14 page research paper due that day made for little sleep the night before and there were many a head bobbin’, let me tell you. It was funny to watch the different approaches of the various students. Some students would be trying so hard to stay awake, their head dropping, then snapping back up and looking around to see if anyone had noticed. (I’d try to allow them to maintain some dignity by quickly looking away so they wouldn’t know I saw). Others would full out snuggle down in their chair, put their head to the side and seriously go to sleep. No dozing there. There were some that would go to sleep accidentally, wake up and look at the teacher, realize it wasn’t worth the effort and then go back to sleep. It was quite amusing.
After that we headed to Bethlehem University. It’s a really nice campus with a beautiful student chapel that they took us to. There are about 2,700 students there, I think they said about 70% were Muslim and 30% were Christian. After a brief tour we got to have a dialogue with some of the students there. We started by asking normal, harmless questions about the college scene and such. And then it evolved into what they thought of the conflict and what it was like to live in the thick of it. It was a huge wake-up call for a lot of us I think. Although I ended up being very embarrassed for our group…we asked some questions that were very ignorant and quite offensive to the students. The woman directing our tour actually got up in front of us all and said that one comment was very offensive to them. I felt sick to my stomach because the last thing we wanted to do was come there and offend anyone. But people just weren’t being too careful with their word choices and the word “Terrorism” was applied wrongfully a couple times and I think probably confirmed a lot of stereotypes about Americans and how uninformed we are. Which is true, we are extremely uninformed in America. But some of the comments that were made and questions that were asked were not what the majority of us students thought. At least I didn’t. Sorry if this isn’t making any sense. The point is, it was a very good dialogue that opened a lot of doors that we hadn’t really been allowed into before. One comment really shocked me that was made by one of the Palestinian students. They had just gone on and on about how horrible the Israelis are and when one of us asked if there had ever been student dialogues between Israeli and Palestinian students, one girl answered that she had never met an Israeli in her life. That was crazy to me. Don’t get me started because I could go on forever and ever about his. But it made me want to change my major to International Relations and come over here and set up student dialogues between Israeli and Palestinian students. I think that that would be cool. It’s definitely needed over here.
When we left Bethlehem U we headed for the Church of the Nativity. Guys, this was so cool. It’s built over the grotto where they think Christ was born. We got to go underneath the church and see the exact spot where they think he was born and the place where they think the manger was. No one knows for sure for sure I guess, but let me tell you, the Spirit was burning when we sang “Away in a Manger.” We ended up singing a few Christmas hymns and I was really feeling it. It was a neat and beautiful experience.
We also got to see there the caves where St. Jerome translated the Bible into the Vulgate. It was pretty dang cool. Outside of the Church of the Nativity is Manger Square, with lots of little shops and stands. We shopped around for a bit and then got in the busses to head to the Shepherd’s Field.
When we got to the Shepherd’s Field we picked up our little sack dinners and sat on the rocky hills, picnicking as we watched the last of the light slip away, overlooking Bethlehem the whole time. After we finished eating our class had beautiful program. Jordan gave a short devotional on our Heavenly Father’s love for us and for Christ, evident through His sacrificing His only Begotten Son. It was very touching. Then I sang in a quintet with four other girls “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks.” It was nice and fitting, given where we were. Then Brother Draper got up and gave a devotional on Christ’s birth and Bethlehem. I like how he described the angels who came to the shepherds in the field. He talked about just how insignificant the location of Christ’s birth was and the lack of any kind of pomp or fanfare or ceremony of any kind. He said the Father knew that Christ had to come into the world just like any other person and that He couldn’t give His birth any of that kind of fanfare. And then he told us that there were, what he likes to call “rogue” angels. There were some angels that just could not resist rejoicing in and glorifying at His birth, and so they came to the shepherd’s in the field to declare His birth and rejoice. It was a charming little picture he drew.
At the end of Brother Draper’s devotional he said, “I just want to end by asking you a question…Is it your first time here? I’d be willing to bet that it’s not. Do you really think that at Christ’s birth you were up in heaven playing chess or lazing about doing nothing? NO! I’m sure you were watching this little baby come into world and rejoicing at His birth.” It was such a beautiful thought and the Spirit was really strong. I like to think that I was up there watching and rejoicing.
After his devotional, my roommate Emily played some Christmas hymns on her violin and then we had about 10 minutes just to kind of break off on our own and meditate for a while. Then we re-congregated and sang a bunch of Christmas hymns, ending the night with a massive group-hug.
It was such an awesome trip, probably close to, if not my favorite in-Israel fieldtrips so far. It was seriously the best Christmas pageant ever and it was in March.

Yesterday we finished our last final. Hoorah! On Thursday, we took a final in the morning and then had a take-home final due that afternoon. I pretty-much bombed the one in the morning, but hey, it’s over! I’ll definitely be getting a C in that class. But as said by the many who have adopted it as their new creed here, “C’s get degrees.” I was a little bugged by the final that we took yesterday. It was the final exam for our Palestinian narrative on Palestine and its history. Now, on the last day of class we talked about Turkey and Iran a little bit. One class period on it, that’s it. The rest of the entire semester had been on Palestine and its history and the history of the conflict here. Now, the exam consisted of 5 short essay questions. Only 5. Two of the questions were about Turkey and Iran. TWO OF THE FIVE QUESTIONS THAT WERE SUPPOSED TO TEST OUR KNOWLEDGE FOR THE WHOLE SEMESTER WERE ON THE HISTORY OF TURKEY AND IRAN!! I could write maybe 2 sentences on both of those questions…that’s 2/5ths of the test! So on one of the questions I wrote my one sentence that I knew about it and then I wrote a whole half page to our professor, Dr. Mussallam, basically telling him in so many words how ridiculous it was that these 2 questions were on the test. I doubt it will change anything, but I really saw it as very unfair and a poor indicator of what we should have learned and what we knew. So I very possibly might have failed that test. But at least I had my last hurrah…when I walked out of the test, before the door had fully closed, I pulled a “Grandma Sandholtz.” I yelled as loud as I could in a disney’s goofy-type style, “Waaaa hooo-hooooooooooo!” It wasn’t against Dr. Mussallam necessarily, but when I walked out of that test I was completely done with my crazy-hard finals and my crazy-busy week! I just had to let it all out. Many of my peers approached me afterwards and said they had enjoyed it and that everyone had broken out into laughter when I did it. It was the least I could do for them as they sat there sweating gallons over these ludicrous questions we had hardly ever learned about. Oh yeah, and we got those research papers back…I got a 100%. There’s no way he could have read it.
Later that evening we had our Galilee orientation (we’re leaving tomorrow!) and let me tell you, I am so excited. Besides talking about the normal packing and behavior topics, they really emphasized how unique and special this trip will be. They pointed out that now that our classes are done, we’ll just be studying New Testament up there. For one time in our life, probably the only time, we’ll spend 9 days completely immersing ourselves in learning about the life of Christ and His teachings and visiting many of the sites that He did. When will I ever have that opportunity again? Probably never. I will spend 9 whole days focusing primarily on learning about Christ. Wow. I checked out a copy of Jesus the Christ from the library. I’ve started it multiple times, but have never gotten all the way through it. So I checked it out, determined to finish it this time. I am so excited.
The Jewish holiday of Purim started yesterday. It’s the one that celebrates the story of Esther and the Jews deliverance from the evil plan of Haman. (I have to tell you my favorite quote of the week: our Jewish teacher, after our final on Thursday, decided to tell us about the holiday of Purim and how it came to be. At the end of his lecture he said that Jews say the same thing about every Jewish holiday, “They tried to kill us. They didn’t. Let’s eat.” Haha! I thought it was funny.) Anyway, so after our orientation meeting last night, we had a huge bonfire for Purim/end of finals. For the holiday of Purim, children dress up in costume, kind of like our Halloween. So we all dressed up for the bonfire and there were some good costumes. I went as a savage, ratting my hair and drawing crazy designs on my face. We danced around the fire and made banana boats….mmm…and then we acted out the story of Esther. And, of course, many students brought up their textbooks to burn, holding them up in the air, ripping out the pages and shouting joyous cries of relief at never having to read them again. It was quite hilarious. Overall, a very good night.
Today was our Easter Sabbath and it was just beautiful. The choir sang a song in Sacrament meeting that I absolutely love singing. It’s called Intermezzo. One of my favorite parts says, in reference to Christ, “Gift of heav’n, our life-bread and leav’n, Jesus my Savior, I love thy name! How dear they choice, how sweet thy voice, oh my Redeemer and friend! Thy word, thy way, I shall obey, my knees, my heart I shall bend. My hope and plea: Thy face to see: Love without end.” It’s so powerful with the music, I wish you all could hear it. Anyway, it feels so good to be done with classes. You can feel the gentle peace that has settled over the center and everyone is enjoying the chance to unwind. Last night I did my laundry and showered before going to bed, so it was pretty late when I pulled out my scriptures to read before going to sleep. My roommates were sleeping, so I grabbed my flashlight and went out onto our patio. It was one of my best bonding moments with Jerusalem. You’d never think Jerusalem could be quiet, but at 2:00 am it was. There was a thick silence surrounding me, unusual for this bustling and active city. It’s that time of year when the rose bushes have started to flourish. I don’t know if I told you, but the Jerusalem Center has flowers EVERYWHERE. Every patio has a large patch of rosebushes, a small garden, if you will. The moon was full and brighter than I remember seeing it in a long time. It was casting a halo around itself, unlike anything I had ever seen before. Julie Andrews tells us of raindrops on roses, and of wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings, but she never said anything about how gorgeous the light of the full moon looks reflected off a fresh spring rosebush. It was breathtaking. The luminescent moon’s light bathed me and everything around me in pearly bluish-white and life for a moment just seemed to stand still. My spirit soaked in the silent peace of Jerusalem while my skin soaked in the soft light of the moon. I probably sat out there for 20 minutes or half an hour, simply looking and thinking and loving. It’s hard to put this little experience into words, but it hit me for the first time how incredibly much I am going to miss this place when I leave, no matter how ready I’ll be to go home. I feel like I got to have a special moment with her that not everyone gets to have. It was choice.
Conclusion: Beauty is more than looks. I have been touched lately with the pure beauty of this place and all that it has to offer. Being here allows my life to be that much more beautiful. Truly, life is beautiful. Love you all.

A Walk to Remember

Well, I’m willing to bet that I had a more interesting and authentic Palm Sunday than anybody else reading this right now. Palm Sunday in Jerusalem is an event, let me tell you. We met at the Upper Gate of the Center at 1:30 and walked over to the Church of Bethphage. There were children lining the sidewalks on the way waving and shouting one of the three English words they know… “HELLO!!” The closer we got to the church, the thicker the crowd got. Tour bus after tour bus was setting free hundreds of eager tourists wearing matching bright yellow hats or the same T-shirt, or some other item of clothing to identify them with their group amongst the throng. Man guys, this was prime people-watching—people from literally all over the world and every sect of Christianity coming together to commemorate Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
So there’s supposedly this unspoken “competition” every year to see who amid the crowd can come up with the biggest palm branch to carry through the streets. Children kept bombarding us with palm fronds and olive branches for sale and many of the students bought a large palm frond to carry. I didn’t have any small change, otherwise I would have bought a palm frond. But I was content to take lots of pictures. Guess who ended up with the biggest palm frond? Of course, a BYU student. Daniel Ostler could hardly keep his buttons from bursting with pride over his 6-foot palm frond.
We finally made it to the Church of Bethphage and filed into the church with hundreds of others to see the stone that Christ supposedly stepped on to get onto the donkey. Then we all lined up and waited for the parade to start at 2:30. There were these guys there with guitars and tambourines and drums, playing an awesome “Hosanna” song that soon the whole crowd was singing. Even though we didn’t know the words, we joined in and danced as the Christian scouts of Israel filed past with flags at the head of the parade. The music was RAD.
We finally joined in the parade and started the walk from the Church of Bethphage to entrance into Jerusalem through Lion’s Gate (also known as Stephen’s Gate because it is believed by some to be the gate that Stephen was brought out of and stoned.) We got distanced enough from the little “band” that we took out our hymn books and started singing hymns. The mass turned into a mesh of song as each religious group started singing their songs as loud as they could. Behind us was a group from Greece with a loudspeaker. We really couldn’t compete with them. It was funny. Along the way I talked to some folks from Oregon and a Catholic Priest from Boston who is here on Sabbatical. It was just so dang cool!
We walked for about 2 hours (normally a 30-minute walk) until we arrived at Lion’s Gate. The parade actually ends at St. Anne’s Basilica and the Pool of Bethesda (probably my favorite place in Jerusalem visited thus far).
What an experience!
Speaking of crazy experiences, the other day a few of us decided to get out and tackle Mt. Zion. Mt. Zion has the Dormition Abbey (supposedly where Mary lived after Christ’s death), the Upper Room (supposedly the scene of the Last Supper), and the Armenian and Jewish quarters are in that area as well. We first went to the Tomb of David, which was cool, and then headed for the Upper Room. When we got to the Upper Room there was already a group of Asian tourists there, I think they were Evangelicals. Anyway, guys, the upper room was really neat. It felt very special to me and I really liked the feeling there. So we were looking around and enjoying the feel and pretty soon this tourist group started singing. It was a nice song and I was happy to see that other groups sing everywhere they go besides the Mormons. Before long though, their singing started getting louder and louder. They formed into a circle and one man went into the middle and started chanting. Pretty soon they were all wailing and screaming and babbling in strange tongues. The man in the middle would go and put his hands on someone’s head and they would start wailing and rocking back and forth and crying out in weird languages. Man, it was pretty bizarre. I had to leave. It kinda gave me the heebie-jeebies. Anyway, after that we read in our handbook that some people associate the upper room with the place where the Spirit came down on the Day of Pentecost and people were speaking in tongues. So that explained a little bit, but it was still kinda freaky. I’d never been exposed to anything like that before. It was a learning experience.
After the upper room we went to the Dormition Abbey, which is beautiful. After the Dormition Abbey we walked around the Jewish quarter for a bit. It’s nice. We got the most delicious ice cream bars I have ever eaten. There called nok outs and boy are they tasty. On our way out of the Jewish quarters we stopped in a little museum that’s all about the 3rd temple and the rebuilding of it. They had a model of it and everything…it was pretty interesting. The Jewish man working there was very orthodox, wearing the phylacteries on his forehead and everything. I wonder if those would give me headaches, or at least get annoying. I guess that’s kind of the point though, so that you’ll remember them.
Two days ago I went into the Old City with some folks to get money. We ended up exploring a bit and found this awesome Order of the Knight Hotel, or something in the Old City. It was pretty sweet. It’s so fun just wandering around the city and seeing what you find. You could be here for a hundred years and not see everything there is to see. Anyway, after that we walked over to West Jerusalem and got the best shwarma and falafels I’ve had yet. Absolutely delicious and about as big as my head. After that we went to a couple of the high buildings in West Jerusalem and rode up the elevators to the tops. At one building we struck up a conversation with the security guard who was from Columbia. We talked with him in Spanish for about an hour and I probably understood 50% of the conversation. I really need a refresher course. But it was so cool. And then when we went up to the top of the building we started talking with some Argentines who had been living in Israel for 27 years teaching theater workshops! Cool, huh? For some reason it was easier for me to converse with the Argentines. But I’m planning on auditing Spanish next semester I think…it’s so useful! You can use it wherever you go! After that we went to the dessert waffle place AGAIN. This is becoming a very dangerous and expensive habit. You have to eat them to understand. I’m hosting a waffle party when I get back. Everyone’s invited. We got a taxi back and our driver was my favorite cab driver yet. We spoke some Arabic with him, but his English was pretty dang good. He was nice and we had a dance party with him. Good times.
Conclusion: I wonder if anywhere else in the world gets such an eclectic mix of people from all places, religions, and backgrounds. It’s unique history and religious draw makes Jerusalem so unique in every way. I’m so grateful to be here.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

The next morning we headed out and pulled up to the Jabbok River at the most beautiful time of the morning. The Jabbok River is where Jacob wrestled with the Angel and it was GORGEOUS! It was so reminiscent of Northern California that I got a bit homesick being there. On either side of the river were grassy, green slopes spotted with trees and undergrowth and the new spring flowers. It was shady and quiet and peaceful, the river quietly bubbling along. We had a nice devotional-type thing there and talked about Jacob and his wrestle with the angel. It was very nice…a great way to start off the day. After that we headed to Jerash.
Guys, Jerash was SO COOL. It’s one of the world’s best preserved Roman cities. Did you get that? It’s one of the best-preserved Roman cities IN THE WORLD! Archaeologists have found evidence of habitation at Jerash from the stone through the Iron Ages. I totally felt like I was in Hercules. We definitely walked around singing Hercules songs here and there. Man, those Romans were stinking smart. And way more advanced than I ever even knew. One of my favorite parts was the huge Roman theater. I love that the Romans went around conquering the world and built enormous theaters everywhere they took over. Now there’s a civilization that appreciates the arts. When we went into the theater there was a group of men in kilts with bagpipes. They started up and we got in a big circle and danced the debkah there in the Roman theater. It was awesome. After we toured around Jerash for a while we went to this presentation in the ancient arena called “The Roman Army and Chariot Experience.” And I would definitely say that “experience” was the perfect word to describe it. It was probably 40 full-grown men in full Roman army garb showing us the ancient tactics of the Roman army. It was pretty cool. It reminded me a lot of Medieval Times, but kind of like in someone’s backyard. However, they were blasting music from Braveheart the whole time. That put a grin on my face. Finally, at the end when they had had their fake battles and such, these guys in chariots came charging into the arena. We started cheering like mad, clapping and shouting, looking forward to seeing some intense chariot racing. We were so excited because we were under the impression that they were going to do some good ole Roman chariot racing. No, no, no, no, no. The chariot “experience” consisted of the guys in the chariots riding down to the end of the arena individually and then coming back. They did that maybe 3 times. We all just kinda sat there with our mouths half open trying to register that this was what we paid $18 to come and see. It was actually more entertaining for me to watch the faces around me, at first lit with eager anticipation, slowly fall into a dumb stupor. Haha! It was funny.
Oh man guys, after Jerash we went to lunch. Holy smokes. The restaurant was called the Green Valley Restaurant and it was by far the best meal I have eaten since being in the Middle East. First they brought out these baskets full of hot-out-of-the-oven (we actually could watch them making them right there on the spot) discs of naan-type bread. They were huge with probably a foot and a half diameter. With these large discs of divinity they brought out all types of sauces and dips that would make your mouth water any day. So we ripped up those naan discs and went to town. It was so tasty. Then they brought out our main course—it was three kabobs of meat sandwiched between a pita with various bowls of veggie mixes to put inside. Oh man, after buffet meals for a week, this was heaven on a plate. For dessert they brought out juicy delicious tangerines. Now that’s they way to do dessert. It was wonderful and made up for the Roman chariot experience in every dimension.
After lunch we drove back up to Amman for a meeting at the branch house in Amman. It was really neat. The branch president spoke to us and it was a very sweet devotional that I really enjoyed.
Finally we headed back to the hotel for an early dinner and a free night out on the town. A group of us decided to head for the Royal Automobile Museum which was absolutely wonderful. Five of us crammed ourselves into a tiny cab and then spent the next 20 minutes driving around Amman trying to communicate with our Arabic-speaking driver. He stopped three different times and asked people on the street to translate for us, and finally we found two young guys that knew some English and were able to tell us how to say “museum” in Arabic. It was really funny. Anyway, the museum was awesome! There were some dang gorgeous cars there. It was fun to see the history of Jordan through the headlights of different cars. I thoroughly enjoyed the visit.
After the museum, we headed to Mecca Mall again. Some of the crew got pizza, but I spotted a Cinnabon and couldn’t resist. So I walked up to the counter and there was a pretty young and cute Jordanian working there. Okay, I can promise you I wasn’t flirting with this dude at all. Just wanted to get that out before I get on with the rest of the story. So here’s what went down:
Me: Hi. Do you have any cinnamon rolls right out of the oven?
Guy: We have chocolate rolls. You want to try?
Me: No thanks actually. Do you have any cinnamon rolls with nuts that just came out of the oven? (I pointed to a roll in a case right next to the cash register.)
Guy: No.
Me: What about that one? (Pointing again to the roll in the glass case.)
Guy: That’s for sampling.
Me: Oh really? Well, can I sample it?
After which he took the roll out, put it on a plate and handed it to me.
Me: What?
Guy: Take.
Me: …
Guy: Take. Go.
Me: I can pay for it.
Guy: No. Take.
Me: Okay…thanks!
And that is the story of how I got my free, warm, gooey, delicious cinnabon that was about the size of my head. Either he didn’t realize what “sample” meant, or he must have thought I was pretty cute. I’m inclined to think it was the former, seeing as I didn’t shower that day and looked pretty much like a man.
After cinnabon we meandered around some and then discovered the go-karts on the top level. Yes, I did go go-karting in Amman and it was FUN. It had been a while, but I found that I had not lost my racing skills. I was pretty good still. J After racing we found some gelato and then hailed a cab. Our cab driver couldn’t speak a word of English. We showed him our hotel card and piled in. He was not happy that we were piling 5 people into his tiny cab and almost made us get another cab. Finally he begrudgingly started off, but this dude had no idea where he was going. Beyond that, his car was seriously about to fall into a heap in the middle of the road. It kept making all sorts of weird noises and every time we went over any kind of bump the back end would deafeningly scrape against the asphalt. He kept getting more and more lost and finally started pulling up and asking groups of people where to go. No one seemed completely sure and we kept driving back and forth with the driver getting more and more upset every minute. By the end he was shooting off a rapid, constant stream of Arabic words at us, that I for some reason get the impression probably weren’t very nice. But hey, what you don’t know won’t hurt you. We all sat there stiff in our seats (it was probably because we were so crammed we couldn’t move), eyeing eachother with gogly eyes, wondering how we’d die first: having the car blow up into a million pieces, or having the man take us to a dark alley, take all of our money and then shoot us. After this situation of stopping to ask people, then driving some more to the accompaniment of our driver’s cursing for about 15 minutes, we finally turned onto a street that we recognized. It was the street our hotel was on and boy did we thank our lucky stars. What normally would have been a 10 minute taxi ride had turned into a 45 minute adventure that we were very happy to be done with. He ended up screaming at us until we payed him more money than what we really should have paid, but we were just glad to be rid of him. And I’m sure that gladness was mutual.
After we went to the bathroom in the hotel we decided to walk down the street to this market where they sell pirated DVD’s for dirt cheap. Let me tell you, this was the hot spot for poor BYU students. Kids came home with every DVD you can name, and then some. It’s not illegal here to have pirated DVDs, so I got a few to watch here and then I’ll toss them before I come home. It’s cheaper to just buy it here and watch it once then it is to rent it in the U.S. Anyway, on our way down there guess whom we should see pulled over on the side of the road with his hood up? Yes, our friendly mr. taxi cab driver. We really didn’t want him to see us, so we hid our faces and booked it past him.
At Food City (that’s where the DVDs were) we got our DVDs and then I hunted down some raisin bran. Mmm. I’ve been surviving off of it here for breakfast every morning. It’s wonderful. When we got back to the hotel I was really tired, but there were a bunch of kids in the lobby playing guitar and chatting, so I stayed up late shootin’ the breeze and listening to the guitar.
The next morning we packed our bags and shipped out. On the way back to Israel we stopped at a really cool mosque, the Citadel of Amman and the Amman Museum. I was pretty burned out and so probably didn’t get as much out of these places as I could have, but they were still neat. At the museum I saw the oldest statue built by man and some of the dead sea scrolls, the copper scrolls to be specific. It was pretty sweet.
We piled back onto the buses and ate our box lunches as we headed out for Israel. In our lunches we had boiled eggs, which I can’t stand. The girl sitting next to me, Bekah was her name, didn’t want to eat hers either. We were joking around saying we should race them down the aisle and then I was like, “Hey, we really should!” So I took out a marker and we decorated our eggs, mine becoming LaFonda the Luscious and Bekah’s becoming the Asian Invasion. We started them at the back of the bus and waited until we were going down a really good hill. Then we set ‘em loose and the whole bus got so into it! People were cheering for their egg (LaFonda was the favorite) and ooing and ahhing with each leg of the race. We ended up having a ton of races, adding in contestants such as Henry Biggins III and Pollyanna. LaFonda was the ultimate racer, though. It was funny how much our bus got into it though. Tons of people had their cameras out and everyone was planning like how we’d film it from all these different angles, like one camera a the start line, one on the floor near the middle of the track, one up above where they would pass below it, and a few different ones at the finish line so they could watch the instant replay to make sure of the winner. Then they started putting obstacles in the pathway, making it harder for our brave little racers. It was really a hoot and definitely made it a fun and memorable bus ride. I highly recommend it for anyone taking a long bus ride in the near future.
We arrived home early enough to get some lots of really important stuff done, like watching all the new movies that came back from Jordan with us. There was a different movie playing in every room. It was pretty out-of-control. Most of us called it a night pretty early though because we had to leave at 5:30 the next morning to drive to Eilat to go snorkeling, meaning we had to get up at like 4:45!
Oh man, Eilat was wonderful. It’s in like the top 10 snorkeling places in the world and it was a blast. It was just what I needed to decompress after our fieldtrip. Like I said, we left at 5:30 that morning and drove for just under 4 hours. When we got to Eilat, they briefed us a bit about snorkeling and then we sunscreened up! It was a beautiful, sunny day, with a nice, beachy breeze, perfect for a day at the beach. We spent the day snorkeling, lying on the beach, reading, eating delicious ice cream, and just soaking up the sun. It was wonderful. There were some pretty sweet fish there. And there were jellyfish everywhere…thank goodness I didn’t get stung by one. Been there, done that, no fun. There were large schools of barracudas and tons of brightly colored fish, ranging from the size of a baby carrot, to the size of a small child. The coral was pretty and it just felt so good to be in the water. I got in and swam some “laps” because it had been so long since I had gotten to swim at all…it felt so good. I really love the water so much.
When our scheduled snorkeling time was over it was getting later in the day so we headed into the city and got some dinner. My group got some delicious schwarmas, complemented by a nice cold glass of mango nectar. Mmm. After that we got McDonald’s McFlurries and walked along the beach skipping the rocks and watching the sun set. That’s my favorite time of the day and it felt so good to be there. It was a highly enjoyable trip.Conclusion: I love life.

Jordan on my mind

AHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Jordan was so stinkin' AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Words can never tell, but I will do my best.
Day 1: We breakfasted early and hit the road in our giant busses that look like large, large caterpillars. I’ve decided I really have to take a picture of our busses to show you all because they seriously look like gigantic caterpillars. It’s pretty dang rad. Sometimes I call our bus “Dim” like the huge bug in “Bug’s Life.” We have a good relationship.
Anyway, we headed for the border and got across in a smooth and timely manner. It’s funny—the Jordanians don’t really have any desire to see us or interact with it so one person just took all of our passports inside the crossing check while we stayed on the bus, they looked at our passports and we went on through. We could have had George flippin’ Bush on our bus and they never would have known. I kinda wished I was an illegal Mexican immigrant or something so it would have been more exciting, but being a big white American sufficed I guess. We crossed the border and our itinerary changed unexpectedly. Originally, we were supposed to go to Bethany Beyond Jordan on our way home from Jordan. But we were there and there was time and we could get a tour right then so we went to the traditional baptismal place of Christ. And boy was that cool. I loved it. The traditional spot is actually not in the actual Jordan River because in John it says that Christ was baptized beyond Jordan. The Jordan River has a bunch of smaller wadis coming off of it and it’s in one of these that they believe Christ was baptized. Anyway, we had this wonderful little devotional on John the Baptist and our teacher talked about his role in Chirst’s time and then his role in the Restoration. It was beautiful and the spirit was really strong there. It was a nice little start to the day.
We kept going and next hit Mt. Nebo. Mount Nebo is where Moses was taken to visualize the Promised Land and where some people believe him to be buried. It was pretty cool. After Mt. Nebo we went to Madaba where there is a very significant tile mosaic of a map of the Holy Land. Historians have used this mosaic map to reconstruct the Byzantine Near East. It’s huge, covering a good portion of the floor of the church it’s in. I touched it. Shhhh, don’t tell.
After Madaba we lunched at this shady little restaurant and then started our drive to Wadi Musa. I think Wadi Musa is about 3 or 4 hours from Amman, the capital. We arrived in Wadi Musa after dark and ate dinner at the Petra Palace Hotel we were staying in. They tell us to only eat fruit we’ve peeled ourselves, but they had these delicious-looking apples there that I really wanted to eat. So I took one, cut it into quarters and looked like a crazed rabbit eating only the flesh and scraping it off the peels with my teeth. I realized halfway through how I looked hunched over my plate, baring my teeth at anyone who looked at me strangely and gave it up. I think it was for the better. Some people went out that night, but I was pretty tired so I cozied down in my hotel room and did some homework. Can you say LOSER? But it was nice to not get behind at least.
The next morning my roomie and I went back to sleep after our wake-up call and so rushed around trying to make it to breakfast on time. You know, it’s funny, for some reason I always end up on the bed closest to the phone and so I usually take the wake-up call. The wake-up calls here in the Middle East aren’t friendly or happy little desk people that kindly tell you it’s your wake-up call—It’s a loud, harsh, and extremely obnoxious beeping. I think they probably just hold up the phone to the world’s most annoying alarm clock. Anyway, I’m usually so tired that I would say I am definitely not in my right mind. So the phone rings, and in the back of my head something knows it’s the wake-up call, yet I always answer in a voice striving to sound like I didn’t just wake up, “Hello?” And then when it just beeps at me I respond, “Okay, thank you.” My roomie likes to make fun of me for that. But you know, how many grateful thank you’s does that hard-working annoying little beep get everyday? Probably not many. I just like to think of myself as similar to the tenth leper.
We assembled in front of the hotel after breakfast and tromped down the street to the entrance of…PETRA! Oh man. There’s really just not much I can say to do it justice. We entered through the gates and walked down a long path until we started coming across caves and carvings in the sandstone. These were homes to the Nabateans who built and inhabited Petra. The first major thing we saw was the tomb with the obelisk façade. It was so cool! Our guide told us that the Nabateans just took a bunch of ideas from other cultures and mixed them into their own, so their culture was kind of a mish-mash of a bunch of other cultures. This particular tomb has tall obelisks on the top, similar to those of Ancient Egypt.
We kept walking until we entered the ravine. It’s this huge long and winding natural ravine that leads through the mountains to the center of Petra. The Nabateans were smart, carving waterways, gutters and cisterns and constructing dams and such to avoid flash-floods. The sandstone is beautiful in all its various shades of orange, red, and tan. It’s very similar to national parks in Utah. Anyway, at one point our guide had us look up high at a cliff face and told us there were some significant carvings up there and that we had to look very carefully to see them. So we were all looking really hard in this one direction and then he was like, “Oh, wait, I guess it is actually behind you.” So we turned around, and there, shining through the ravine in the morning sun was the treasury of Petra. Holy stinkin’ COW. It was incredible. The treasury is probably the most famous of the carvings at Petra and for good reason. It’s so detailed and awesome. It wasn’t really a treasury for the Nabateans. It got its name because back in the day people used to think the Pharaohs of Egypt used it as a treasury and had buried all their wealth within, which was completely wrong. Archaeologists nowadays think it was a temple/place of worship/possible burial tomb. We spent a while at the treasury with people bursting into random spurts of Indiana Jones Theme Music. It was funny. When we finally left the treasury, we walked to where many of the homes of the Nabateans were. The Nabateans lived there in the 4th century BC, by-the-way. We also saw the Roman cardo and theater from when they took over Petra. While by the Roman Theater we took a bathroom break and while I was standing in line, I lifted up my leg to try to stretch out my pants a little more and I TOTALLY RIPPED MY PANTS! All the way across my leg…you could see it from the front and the back. Thank goodness I had a little zip up sweater on that I could pathetically tie around my waist. I waddled around for the rest of the day a little awkwardly. Anyway, this whole time I had been planning on taking a donkey up the mountain to the monastery. When I ripped my pants I decided I probably wouldn’t take one up because I thought it would probably rip my pants more. But when we got to the bottom of the ravine my friends were all hopping on these donkeys and I could not resist. And boy I am glad I took a donkey…for multiple reasons. First, my donkey’s name was Jack. I kept talking to him in an encouraging voice saying things like, “That a boy Jack. Easy does it Jack. You’re a good donkey Jack. STAY AWAY FROM THAT EDGE JACK!” But oh man, that donkey ride was so stinkin’ fun! I got on and he just jumped right into action. The boys riding donkeys around me thought it was funny to try and get my donkey going really fast by coming up next to my donkey and making the little clicking noise that made him go faster. And then they’d laugh as he’d jump into a run and I would be screaming my head off intertwined with spurts of laughter and shouts of, “This is so cool!” It was really fun. The donkey ride up to the monastery really made the experience that much cooler, I highly recommend it to anyone ever going to Petra. Except one of my friends was riding on a donkey behind me who had gas problems the whole way up the mountain. No joke. Almost every step up he’d rip one off and I would turn around and look at my friend Bethany and say, “Bethany! My goodness!” And she could not stop laughing. I guess I’m not completely positive that it was the donkey, but that’s what Bethany kept saying so I gave her the benefit of the doubt. J
Okay, so finally our donkey’s made it to the top and we had about a five minute hike to the monastery which was absolutely awe-inspiring. It’s way up high in the mountains so you can see breathtaking vistas of the surrounding sandstone mountains, colored with patches of trees and greenery. It was GORGEOUS. We went inside the monastery and sang some hymns and then explored around for a while. It was so, so cool. But my camera died after getting a few shots of the monastery. So I was camera-less for a few days.
When we were done at the monastery we walked back down the mountain and lunched in the basin of the ravine at this restaurant they have down there. They had some delicious bread pudding…I’m all about the desserts. We had to start walking back to the entrance after lunch. But we were able to meander along and stop in all the little tent shops and such along the way. It was a perfectly beautiful day and I highly enjoyed it. When we got to the busses I changed out of my ripped pants and we started the 4 hour drive up to Amman, the capital of Jordan.
We arrived at the Ambassador Hotel in Amman and ate dinner. Then most of us headed over to the Mecca Mall by way of taxis. Dude, this mall was out of control. It was by far the biggest mall I have ever been in. We explored around and I got a blended crème at Starbucks, which was delicious. Then we called it a night and headed back to the hotel.
And there I will leave you for now…I only have two days left to go! Woot woot!

Suspenseful Situation on Sinai

After the Ibn Tulun Mosque we headed to the Egyptian Museum which was so cool! We got to see the King Tut exhibit. It was all the stuff they found in his tomb (which I went to!). His golden sarcophaguses were incredible. There were thrones and jewelry and statues and all kinds of everything! It was intense. After that we had free reign of the museum. There was so much cool stuff there. I saw the Merneptah Stele. It’s a slab of stone with a victory declaration inscribed on it from a victory in Canaan by Pharaoh Merneptah. It’s significant because it’s the oldest extant mention of “Israel” and so scholars use it to date the Exodus and Israelite conquest. It’s really famous in Bible archaeology…we’d been learning about it and I got to see it! They also had the royal mummies exhibit. Now that was cool. It was the mummies of many of the famous pharaohs of Egypt, including Ramses II, Ramses III, Seti I, Thutmose III, Merneptah, Ahkenaten, and many many more. It was really neat! A lot of them still had hair and teeth. I thought Seti I looked like a really nice guy. I bet he was a sweetheart.
After the Museum we headed to the Cairo Hard Rock Café. They served us delicious-looking salad that we couldn’t eat. (Some girls did and they got Ramses Revenge BAD.) We ate large juicy hamburgers and French fries and ice cream. And then they turned on the music. They blasted Macarena, YMCA, and a few others and we ROCKED OUT. It was awesome. We got a lot of the teachers up and dancing with us. By the end a bunch of random people were up dancing with us. It was a blast. I got a Cairo Hard Rock Café T-shirt that I like a lot. It’s pretty sweet.
After that we headed to the Khan al-Khalili Bazaar. Now this is the place that we were highly cautioned about because it’s where, every year, some girl got groped. So all us girls were pretty apprehensive about it. But it ended up being really fun. It’s crazy! It’s a huge network of all these tiny roads and alleyways that wind and twist and are lined with shop upon shop full of junk! It felt like an eternal garage sale! Haha. But our entire group ended up making it through grope-free! Yay! That’s a first I think. I got some awesome gold shoes that are pointy at the end! Yeah, I know. I’m stoked.
That night we had free time, but I was totally zonked and a lot of girls were sick by then, so we stayed in and had a girls’ night watching “The Mask” in my room.
The next day we got up and headed to the Citadel, which is also the Muhammed Ali Mosque. The citadel was so cool! It looked like it should be on the planet Naboo from Star Wars. I kept thinking, “Bri would love this!” I swear George Lucas got some ideas for Naboo from the citadel. Anyway, Muhammed Ali usurped control over Palestine from the Ottoman Sultan in 1830. While in control, Ali built a new royal palace and a mosque to house his tomb, hence the Citadel connected with the mosque. The mosque was beautiful. There was this huge chandelier and tons of hanging white lamps over a beautiful rug that covered the entire floor (which was very big). It was neat.
When we were done at the mosque we headed out for Sinai. It was a long bus ride, but we finally got to the Morgan Land Hotel where they had dinner waiting for us. We ate and slept for a few hours and then got up at 2:30 am to head out for Mt. Sinai. They gave some hot chocolate and a little sack-breakfast and we were on our way. It was funny, because it was so cold everyone was wearing a billion layers so we looked like a fat camp heading to Mt. Sinai to try to lose a few pounds! We arrived at the base of the mount and now begins my adventure story.
So there are 2 options for hiking Sinai: you can hike up the whole way, or you can ride a camel up 2/3 of the way and then hike the last third. So normally I’d be all about hiking up the whole way, gung-ho, right? But I had been talking before I came with a guy who had been here Spring semester and he had highly recommended taking the camel. He said that when you took the camel you could just relax and really absorb the experience and look at the stars, which were absolutely GORGEOUS up there. So I decided to do the camel thing. PLUS you can hike up any mountain any time, but how often can you RIDE A FLIPPIN’ CAMEL up a mountain??? So us camel-riders bunched together and went to the Bedouin guides, who starting grabbing us and taking us to their camel. Now you have to understand that at our Egypt orientation we had been talked to extensively about being cautious. They told us that people would try to get us on our own or lead us out into the desert and then who knows what. So anyway, this Bedouin man comes up and grabs my arm very firmly and starts leading me off the trail. So I’m stumbling along, feeling a little apprehensive, but I could still see and hear the rest of the kids so I wasn’t too worried. He stopped by a camel and then said, “You wait” and then he headed toward a little shack about 100 feet away. I stood there for a while watching until the whole group had passed by on the trail and I was standing there alone in the dark. The Bedouin man came back finally with some blankets and such and tied them onto the camel and then I got on and we headed off. I was feeling a little worried since we were by ourselves, but eventually we caught up with the walkers, but the other camel riders were long gone and far ahead. But once we were with the walkers I felt better. So we’re going along and then we come to this fork in the road. Everyone is going to the right, but when we get there, my Bedouin man turns to the left and starts leading me down this dark path all by ourselves. I freaked out. We were rapidly getting further and further away from the rest of the group and there was no one up ahead in front of us. So I started yelling, “HELP! HELP!” I kept saying to my guide, “I want to go that way! I want to go with the rest of the group! HELP ME! SOMEONE HELP ME!! GUYS! HELP!” Finally people heard and started shining their flashlights at me and I heard mumbling, “It’s Heather! Look! She’s being led off the path!” And I just kept yelling. Finally, I hear a voice in the distance behind me. It said, “Heather! Don’t worry. This is Eran. I am behind you.” Eran Hiatt is the program director here in Jerusalem and he is awesome. I looked behind me and he was walking behind us with his walking stick, slowly closing the gap. Finally he reached us and told the guide that we wanted to go with the rest of the group. The Bedouin man finally got it across to us that this was the path that the camels took because the other path had stairs and it was bad for the camels. So we kept going. And finally we caught up with some of the other camel-riders and I stayed with them for the rest of the ride. But it gave me quite the scare, I’ll tell you. Anyway, it was a big story for a while—Heather getting led off into the desert by some mysterious Bedouin man and having to be rescued by Eran! Haha. What an adventure.
Sinai was incredible though. We got to the top about 5 minutes before the sun started to come up. And then it started to creep over the horizon. Guys, I can’t tell you how gorgeous it was. Simply breathtaking. We all watched the sunrise and sang some hymns and then we had a really nice devotional. It was such a beautiful experience. Man, it’s no wonder that high mountain tops served as temples back in the day. It was like being in another world. After basking in the sunshine for a while we headed back down. At the base of Mt. Sinai is St. Catherine’s Monastery. Because it was Sunday we couldn’t go in, but it was really nice to look at. It’s a church built by Helena when she named Jabal Musa as the biblical Mt. Sinai. The church was replaced by a basilica church by Justinian to protect the monks who were living there. It was really cool. We had a class devotional at the bottom and then headed back to Morgan Land Hotel for brunch.
Finally, we packed onto the bus and headed for home. Our border crossing went very smoothly and after we had crossed over we headed down to the shore and skipped rocks on the Gulf of Aqaba. It was beautiful. On the bus ride home I sat next to Miss Anne Kelly, my kindred spirit. We laughed our heads off playing “Would you rather…?” because we were so tired and drained so everything seemed that much funnier. I think my favorite of hers was, “Would you rather have a tiny little sparrow permanently attached by a chain to your nose and it was always trying to fly away and so tugging at your nose, or be chased eternally uphill by a lion?” I chose the sparrow.
It was nice to get back to the JC. It felt like coming home. It was so good to be able to eat salad and drink water not from a bottle.
Well, friends, that concludes the Egypt experience, although my words did not do it justice. Plus I got lazy by the end and just wanted to be done with it, so it’s not as detailed as it could be. But oh well, at least I finished, right? Now I need to catch up on all the fieldtrips we’ve gone on since then: Jericho, Judges, City of David and Hezekiah’s Tunnel. AND I need to tell you about our Ramadan Extravaganza! And I need to do it all before I leave for Jordan day after tomorrow, which I am so incredibly excited about!!! By-the-way, Petra was just named one of the modern top 7 wonders of the world. And I’m going there. Holy flippin’ cow.
Conclusion: I haven’t done a conclusion for a long time. Maybe because I haven’t finished an entry for a long time. Well, as much as I loved Egypt and as much as I love Israel, America will always be my home. But Egypt did have one leg up on us as far as the whole “cool and fascinating history” goes. I am so grateful that I got to go to Egypt. It was absolutely unforgettable in every way.

Still going...

Okay, so our buses finally came and because it was so early, none of our touring sites were open yet so we headed to our hotel (Oasis Pyramids Hotel again). However, we weren't supposed to check in until later that afternoon so they didn't have anywhere for us to go. We had planned on having our scarament meeting that night at the hotel, but we were there with nothing to do and the pool house was not in use, so we headed to the pool house for our own little makeshift sacrament meeting. It was cool. I just think it is the most fascinating thing that whether you're in a church building in Livermore CA or in a pool house in Giza Egypt the church is the same and so is the spirit. It was a nice little meeting.
After that we got on the buses and headed for the Ibn Tulun Mosque. Now this was very interesting. To get to the mosque, we had to drive through what is called "The City of the Dead." This is a huge chunk of Cairo that has these ancient familial tombs where families have been buried for centuries and centuries. Their ancient ancestors are buried there and their family memebers are still being buried there as they die, to this day. Now, the interesting thing is that Cairo is really really overpopulated. There simply is not enough room for everyone. So lately, what's been happening, is that people have just started moving into these ancient tombs and living there! Families are living in these burial places. It's crazy! And then when a family who owns a tomb has a death in the famliy, the family living in the tomb will move out for a while while the family does the burial and stuff, and then they'll move back in! It's unbelievable. It was very sobering.
Anyway, we drove through the city of the dead and arrived at the Ibn Tulun Mosque. I believe this is the biggest Mosque in Egypt and it was beautiful. We had to cover our feet to go in, so these little men tied little baggies on our feet and we all waddled around like ducks. I wish I could remember more of the details about this mosque, but I'm starting to lose it all. It was really cool though.
My battery is about to die and I'm worried that I'll lose everything, so I'm going to end this installment...sorry it's so short, I'm going to finisk Egypt later today, as soon as I can charge my battery again. So hang in there because as soon as I finish Egypt I'm going to write about yesterday's excursion...City of David and Hezekiah's Tunnel! It was awesome. And then next week we're going to Jordan! Woo-hoo! Love ya'll.

Are you sick of Egypt yet?

Alrighty, day five. After breakfast they loaded us all onto the buses and we headed off for Valley of the Kings. This valley is in the middle of nowhere and served as the burial grounds for many Egyptian pharaohs. They’re still discovering tombs. Something the Valley is known for is its “natural pyramid” that overlooks the valley. People come from all over to see this natural pyramid. It was cool.
Our ticket that we bought allowed us to go into three tombs. I played “mom” as I handed around my sunscreen to anyone who wanted some. It was really dry, hot and sunny. Our guide, Habibi, talked to us for half an hour or so about the tombs and discoveries, etc.. He told us that back in the day, the workers started work on a pharaoh’s tomb as soon as he took the throne. Talk about being prepared. Anyway, many if not most of the tombs are unfinished because when a king died it took 70 days to do the embalming and mummification. So all work in the tombs stopped and everyone moved to work on the actual burial chamber to make sure that it would be finished by the end of mummification period.
First, I went with a group to King Tut’s tomb. Yessiree, King Tutankhamen. They have his body there. I saw THE King Tut. He looked like a prune. A big one. They also had one of his sarcophaguses…he had a bunch…kind like one of those Russian dolls. The walls of his burial chamber were covered with paintings and carvings of baboons. Baboons were supposed to be the animal and symbol of guards and protection. Not exactly the first thing that pops into my mind when I think “baboon.” Something more like bare butt. Or big butt. Or red butt. Or Rafiki. But I guess they can be pretty mean when they’re mad. It was pretty cool though. Once again, it was much smaller than anyone would imagine after watching “The Mummy,” but still cool.
After King Tut’s tomb we headed over to Thutmosis III’s tomb. We had to climb up a bunch of steps to get there. It was kind of in a crevice in a high cliff. I have no idea how they got his sarcophagus and burial box up there, but they did somehow. Anyway, his was full of all these passages and rooms with elaborate, colorful paintings. The ceilings were all painted dark blue with gold stars. The really cool thing about his was that the walls in his burial chamber were covered with Egyptian stick figures! I bet you didn’t know there were Egyptian stick figures, but there are and they are way cool. I loved them.
Our last tomb that we decided to go to was Ramses IX’s tomb. There were some really neat carvings in the entrance, huge bigger-than-life-sized depictions of Ramses and tons and tons of hieroglyphics. The burial chamber was intensely colorful with pictures covering every bit of wall and ceiling. On the ceiling was the God of the sky and day and night (I can’t remember her name). But I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of her. She’s standing like a table on her hands and feet and every day she swallows the sun and then births it again at the beginning of the next day. There were two huge depictions of her on the ceiling in bright blues and yellows. I wish we had been allowed to take pictures.
After Valley of the Kings we stopped to look from a distance at Hatshepsut’s Temple. Hatshepsut was the woman who became Pharaoh and always depicted herself as a man. Let me tell you, she was a mover and a shaker. After she died her husband/brother destroyed almost everything she had built and scratched out her name on everything and replaced it with his own mainly out of jealous envy. Anyway, a few years ago there was a shooting at Hatshepsut’s Temple and many tourists were killed. Because of that the Temple had been closed for a long time and so when our directors were planning our Egypt trip, the Temple was closed and so they didn’t put it in our itinerary. However, it opened up again recently, but we didn’t get to go. It’s too bad we didn’t get to go because it looked really cool…I got pictures.
After seeing Hatshepsut’s temple we went and looked at the Colossus of Memnon. It’s these two huge statues that once stood at the entrance to a Temple. The Temple isn’t there anymore, but it’s an active archaeological site—they’re still excavating it. It was pretty sweet.
Now, after that we went to my second (close to first) favorite site that we visited in Egypt—The Funerary Temple of Ramses III, also called Medinat Habu. This place was incredible. When you think of the classic Egyptian Temple, this is what you think of. There just aren’t words to describe. It’s a temple praising Ramses’ deeds and lauding his accomplishments and military victories. I wish I could have seen it in it’s prime. It was completely awe-inspiring in its run-down, ruined condition. Every surface was covered in majestic depictions of Ramses III and his battles, etc. There were some very unique carvings there that our guide pointed out to us, such as men wrestling and Semites. Man, this place was too dang cool. I wish I could describe it better. Some areas still had a lot of color. Everything had carvings on it…all the walls, ceilings, pillars, doorways, everything! Man, it was neat.
After Medinat Habu we headed back to the hotel for lunch and then we had the afternoon free. Someone had organized a two-hour camel ride through the working land and villages of Luxor and so I decided to go on that. We took motorboats across the Nile to get to the “less swanky” side of Luxor and my roommate Jenny and I got on our camel, who made us feel really good about ourselves by moaning laboriously and shaking his legs violently when he stood up. The caravan was very fun, but also very sobering. We saw neighborhoods of true poverty. Homes with dirt floors and dried mud-brick walls. Dirty kids playing barefoot on dirt fields. Narrow, dirt roads and alleyways, chipped paint, derelict roofs. It was intense. The fields that these people worked in, however, were well-kept and beautiful. They grow all types of produce there. But man, it was like walking through a village on survival-mode.
After the camel ride we went back to the hotel for dinner and then we headed off for the train station to catch our overnight train from Luxor back to Cairo. And boy was this train ride an experience! It was really fun. I’m all about the overnight train thing. It’s great…you just sleep while you travel. My roommate, Clare, and my favorite thing was the announcement on the cupboards in everyone’s room. It was full of spelling errors and kindly informed us that the belly-dancing contest would take place in the club car after dinner. Yes, the belly-dancing contest. Too bad we weren’t allowed in the club car after dinner, or I would have rocked that little contest baby. Haha. We all got a good laugh out of it anyway. Before dinner, however, a few of us went to the club car and quoted lines from “White Christmas” and sang “Snow, snow, snow, snow snow!” Hey, we thought it was funny.
Our dinner would probably best be described as a “mystery meal.” No one was quite sure what we were eating and so many of us avoided the food and ate the cookies and candy bars our guides highly recommended we bring on the train with us. (Yet another reason I would have rocked that belly-dancing contest.) After dinner we had fun exploring the cars and doing handstands in the hallways. Then a group of us decided to start “blitzing” people in their rooms and just piling as many people into one of those tiny rooms as possible. They are seriously hardly big enough to turn around in. We packed 32 people into one of those rooms and we were pretty darn proud of ourselves. We had fun opening the curtains in the room at train stations and watching the faces of the people standing on the platforms outside. Open-mouthed, unabashed gaping. It was rad.
I didn’t sleep the best…I woke up a couple times because there was a group of kids standing right outside our door talking and laughing loudly until the wee hours of the morning. And then, I had to go to the bathroom the whole night, but I was too lazy to get up, put my shoes on and walk to the bathroom at the end of the car. It was like camping when I was a little kid. So instead of going to the bathroom and sleeping peacefully the whole night, I slept fitfully and kept waking up until, around 3:30 am I finally just sat up and literally said, “Fine!” and went to the bathroom. After that I slept well…until 4:30 when they woke us up for breakfast. If you can call it breakfast. It was, like, four different slices of greasy bread and one of those little wrapped cheeses. Haha. I had a snickers bar and some delicious cookies for breakfast. Bad Heather.
We were supposed to start touring as soon as we got off the train, but I think things went smoother than they thought they would and so we were standing out in front of the train station at 5:30 am waiting for our buses and our police escorts. And it is here that I will leave you waiting for the next installment of the last three days of my Egypt experience. Dun-dun-dun. (That was supposed to be suspenseful theme music.)

Karnak made my cry

Okay folks I’m buckling down and getting Egypt over with so that I can start writing about my everyday adventures again. However, before I start I’ll just tell you about the feeding the babies thing I mentioned before. There’s a hospital right down the road from the Center called the Red Crescent Hospital. The church actually helped a lot in getting it started a while back. It’s a hospital for women specifically and the service couple women go over once a week to help feed the babies. The service committee decided that we’d like to open it up for anyone who wanted to help out. So we had sign-ups and I got to go help feed them a couple days ago. It was such a sweet experience. I had this premie little baby that had just been born that day. He was so tiny…his body filled my palm and a couple inches down my wrist and that was it, smaller than many dolls. He was so sweet. He just stared up at me and kept drifting off to sleep. Oh boy though, for a baby his size he sure could belch! After he was done, I got this beautiful chonkers girl in a pink sleeper. She was huge and I just wanted to take her home with me. All the babies had such dark, thick, hair. I just kept laughing to myself thinking of Lyddie and her wisps of, well, nothing really. Anyway, it was a really, really nice experience. I loved it.
Alrighty, Egypt. First to answer Julie’s question: no, there was not a mummy in the pyramid we went inside. They’ve removed all mummies and everything else that once was inside the tomb to museums and such. But we did see the sarcophagus. It was just really cool. I’ve been inside a pyramid. Dang girl.
Just a cool little fact about the pyramids—the biggest pyramid, Cheops, was built by a pharaoh in the fourth dynasty (I can’t remember his name). But anyway, the second biggest one, Khafre, was built by his son and that’s the one we went into. But, even though it’s smaller than Cheops (said KEE-OPS) it was intentionally built on higher ground so that it looks like it’s the biggest. Those funny competitive Egyptians. Another cool fact that I wasn’t aware of before was that the pyramids used to covered in beautiful white limestone, with a 10-ft gold cap on the top. Get this: Cheops is 481 feet high and had 2,300,000 limestone blocks, EACH WEIGHING 5,000 LBS!!! It’s completely unfathomable. Over the years the people and tomb raiders quarried the limestone and stole the gold to use for building and trading. Sad, huh? Those pyramids must have been pretty been dang majestic in their heyday. I mean, they’re majestic now, so I can’t imagine what they must have been like then.
After going through the pyramid and then making our own human pyramid and taking lots of pictures, we headed over to the Bedouin camel men. They plopped us on camels (two people per camel) and we got a ten minute camel ride, down a slope and back. It was so fun! It’s scary because when a camel stands up, he first stands up on his hind legs and then stands up on his front legs, I really almost fell off. Everyone got a kick out of my high-pitched squeals and giggles. It was an experience to be remembered.
After our camel ride we headed down to the Sphinx. Oh man, I can’t believe I saw the Sphinx. It’s 240 feet long and 66 feet high. His head is that of Khafre, the pharaoh whose tomb we went in and the cool thing is that it is carved out of a single mass of rock. Yeah. Incredible. We had some fun getting pictures of us “kissing the sphinx.” Sweet. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you…I kissed the pyramid when I was inside! I’ve kissed the pyramids! (I’m starting to get a reputation here…first the camel, then the pyramid, and now the sphinx.) Haha.
Okay, so after the sphinx we piled back on the buses and headed out for Saqarra and Ptah-Hotep. Ptah-Hotep was one of my favorite places in Egypt. Probably number three. It’s the tomb of Ptah-Hotep and is known for it’s intricate, complex, colored, detailed, beautiful carvings and hieroglyphics. It was awesome. Not too big, but absolutely stunning. We weren’t allowed to take pictures so sorry about lack of visuals. There’s really no way to describe, it was just wonderful. Right next to Ptah-Hotep is Saqqara. Saqarra was neat. It is the step pyramid that is the first and oldest pyramid in the world. It was the main cemetery for Egypt’s ancient capital Memphis. It contains tombs of at least 14 1st dynasty pharaohs. Cool. When we got there a sandstorm was starting up. It was cool and very unlike what I thought a typical sandstorm would be like. It wasn’t especially windy with sand flying hard and fast everywhere. It was very quiet, almost like when it’s snowing. The sand particles were just gently drifting around in the air, slowly, but our guide, Habibi, said that in one hour you would be up to your neck in sand. Just while we were standing outside talking for a few minutes a pretty thick layer of sand came over all of us. Scary to get lost in, but cool to experience once. After Saqqara we headed to Memphis.
Memphis was the ancient capital of Egypt. There isn’t much there now, a lot of it is still being excavated. But we saw some cool statues of Ramses II (now he was one ambitious fellow) and a smaller sphinx. It was pretty cool.
After Memphis we went to the Papyrus factory. Although factory probably isn’t a correct title for this place. You see, in Cairo there are about 6,329,578,985….etc, etc places that call themselves “The First Papyrus Factory” or “The Original Papyrus Museum.” There are seriously ten on every block…it’s a little out of control. But anyway, we went to the one that our tour guide had a contract with of course and they showed us the process of making papyrus. It was actually really neat. It sure is a labor-intensive process. Anyway, a bunch of people bought papyrus with really cool Egyptian art. I really wanted to get this one of these geese…it’s a copy of the first and oldest painting in the world with color. It was a representation of the uniting of upper and lower Egypt and it was really, really pretty. I actually kind of regret not getting it. But I did get a beautiful Tree of Life Papyrus. It’s really nice. I’ve decided that Papyrus is really nice. I like it. The place we went to was the only papyrus place that sold the Abraham facsimiles. Lots of kids got those.
We headed for lunch at the Saqqara Restaurant. It was this fun outdoor tent-type thing with men playing instruments and women making hot, fresh, flatbread that was delicious. They served us rice and kabob. Mmmm. Way good.
Our last stop of the day was to this silver jewelry bazaar that was really expensive and pretty mac. But lots of the kids went nuts and bought all this expensive, mac Egyptian jewelry. Whatever. All I could think about was a snickers bar. I can’t remember if I told you already, but Egypt had a very strange effect on me. I started craving chocolate…ALL THE TIME!!!! I don’t know what happened, but as soon as I got there, all I could think about was chocolate. So I kinda sorta got into the habit of eating a lot of snickers bars. Yeah. Bad Heather. It continued after we got back and I just barely broke the addiction...I finally finished off the box that I bought and kept under my bed here in the Center. Yes, yes, I know. Pathetic isn’t it? But man, the withdrawals were awful. Now I know what a smoker must go through. I could only think about snickers all the time and I almost believed that my body was in pain from not eating them. Oh boy.
Okay, after that side tangent, we headed to the airport after the bazaar for our flight to Luxor. Our flight was almost two hours late, but it was only a 50 minute flight, so it wasn’t too bad. We got in to our hotel at about 10:30 and they had dinner waiting for us. Sweet. More food. Just what I needed. Haha. Anyhow, we stayed at the Mercure-Etap Hotel in Luxor, literally across the street from the Nile. Every room had a balcony that overlooked the Nile. It was beautiful.
The next day, after breakfast, we took carriages to Karnak Temple. Yes, carriages. It was so rad! Four people per carriage…our driver told me to come sit up by him, so I did. He just smiled at me the whole time and we tried to communicate in broken English. You know, that makes me think of something that I noticed in Egypt that really made me laugh so hard. Most of the people there speak very broken English, but enough to get by. I don’t know why, but because these merchants speak broken English, all the guys in our group felt that they would be better understood if they too used broken English, along with a Middle Eastern accent and huge hand movements. They looked and sounded so ridiculous. Most of them didn’t even realize they were speaking with an accent or hand movements or in completely fragmented English. It was so funny! I bet the merchants could speak better, but that they just wanted to see the Americans make fools of themselves. Haha. It made me snicker. Mmmm…snickers. No! Bad Heather.
Anyway, we got to Karnak and we had to wait outside for a bit while our group congregated and our guide, Habibi, gave us some background. Oh my gosh, guys. I had no idea. I had never heard of Karnak before…I don’t know how I hadn’t because it was one of the coolest places I have ever been in my life. I stood there in the hypostyle hall just silently weeping. I was so overcome with awe that I seriously could not keep myself from crying. I’ve never had that experience before. It was completely non-spiritual (I think)…it really was just being completely overwhelmed. It was incredible. You guys can’t imagine this place. You simply cannot imagine the size, the grandeur, the hieroglyphics, the colors, the complexity of architecture…everything! Construction of Karnak began during the Middle Kingdom between 2040-1700 BC. I can’t remember exactly, but I think it took around 400 years to build and it never was completely finished. It’s construction went through many pharaohs, all who kept building and contributing. Oh man, it was absolutely stunning. Just breath-taking. Unbelievable.
Alright, so after Karnak we got back in our carriages and went to Luxor temple…it was about a 7 minute carriage ride…they’re very close. Luxor was incredible, too. However I wish we had been able to do them on different days because I was already tired and overwhelmed from Karnak and so I probably didn’t get as much out of Luxor as I could have. But it was still really, really cool. It was mainly built by Amenophis III and Ramses II. I just can’t believe I was there. There was a really cool statue of King Tut and his wife in there, along with some cool carvings showing some of the cool traditions of ancient Egypt.
We went back to the hotel for lunch after Luxor and then we were supposed to take an afternoon felucca ride on the Nile, but it was so windy that they canceled the Feluccas and had us go in motorboats instead. It was still really fun. That’s when I took that picture of me touching the Nile. We watched the sun go down on the Nile and just had a ball being crazy college kids. After the boat ride I went with some people to an outdoor bazaar and we looked around. My excellent bargaining skills made themselves evident there. A girl I was with haggled with this man forever to get a scarf for 5 dollars. I wanted one, but I didn’t want to pay 5 dollars for it. I haggled with him forever and he would not go below 4…I wanted to pay 3. So I walked away a couple times and then he would call me back and we’d haggle some more. Finally I really was walking away and got pretty far when I heard him yell, “Okay! Okay! Come back!” When I got there he said he’d sell it to me for 3, but that if my friend who got it for 5 asked me how much I paid for it, I would tell her I paid 5 too! Haha. Funny. But I got a really cute scarf for 3 bucks baby! I definitely have Grandma Jacobs’ genes, although I bet she would have gotten it for 1 dollar. J
After dinner a group of us went over to Brother Draper’s apartment again to learn about the 3rd facsimile in Abraham. It was really neat to learn about it. I wrote down a lot of notes about it in my triple so I’ll have to tell ya’ll what I know when I get back. Cool stuff.
Okay, I am officially half-way through Egypt. I have four more days to go, but this is a good start. Once again, I’m sorry it’s so long. This is acting as my journal so I’m being as thorough as possible. Feel free to skim! Thanks again for caring enough to read about my adventures and put up with my horrible English. Like I said, it’s much more fun to have an audience to write to…it keeps me motivated. Hope everything’s well with all of you! Love ya’ll…