Jerusalem

Look the first thing I have done is broken the rules and uploaded a photo.
This is right of my porch, the view is better from other areas.

After two very long flights we have all arrived in Israel. Oh wait. Only thirty of us are here, because the other fifty-one are still in the US. Stuck in Phoenix to be exact. But they should arrive in small groups within the next few days. It is actually nice having a group just thirty of us here, but I'm sure we will enjoy having the rest. They are missing out though and I'm sure they know it. On our first day we were picked up from the airport and got to the center around four. We had a mini orientation because they didn't want the lost 51 to miss out. Then we had our first meal at the Oasis-the cafeteria- there was a ton to choose from, mainly vegetable dishes. Which I enjoyed. We get fed three large meals a day, nothing else. Luckily I have a nice supply of granola bars to keep me happy. We also had a mini class, which was kept very brief because everyone was so jet-lagged. My room, which I mainly spent the rest of the night in, is at the very end of a long outdoor corridor. It is a very, very small space. So far only one of my other roommate is here, Whitney. Therefore we got first pick on the prime beds, closets, drawers, and best of all hangers. So we unpacked and went to bed. There is your very brief summary of day 1.

Alright day two.  Sleeping was well..as my grandpa would say, "I slept like a baby, waking up every two hours crying." Mainly my ill sleeping was caused by two main reasons. One, I have a lovely cold right now and was having the difficulty of breathing. And two, my roommate nor I had any way of setting an alarm to get up in the morning. Thus I slept holding onto my watch and waking up every half hour panicking about the time. Although one upside of that was that I was up at 4:30 to hear the first prayer of the day. The prayers are said five times a day in the city and are broadcasted over very loud intercom systems, the word is that they all purposefully point their speakers right at our building so we can really enjoy the prayers. The prayers sound like they are sung, it really is just like our own unique background music. We went through another orientation meeting this morning and then set out on our tours of the city. We were split into three groups. Seven girls, three boys, and one of the professors. Our group also had my professors son's three of them, one is actually in our group, Jared may or may not be his name...I only remember that it starts with a J. All of the professors families get to come live with them in the center for an entire year, they all have only gotten here one week prior to us. Our walk was three hours long and we went through East Jerusalem, West Jerusalem and the Old city. It was really fantastic, there were a few merchants that were just waiting on our route so that they could give us all their business cards. Also we got our stylish water bottle carriers, they actually aren't a shoulder strap. They are little backpacks, which is good because our bottles are all two liters! We weren't allowed to take our cameras with us, thus no photos. But we will have plenty of time to go explore for ourselves the next few months. Luckily we were rode back to the center afterwards, because we ended up on the complete other side of town. We had a few hours to eat and do anything we wanted, because at two we had another orientation. Well I ate then somehow fell asleep in my room...and bam! I wake up and its 2:20! It was awful I had to walk up the four flights of stairs to the auditorium and walk in the only door, which happens to be right up front. Ya you can basically say I felt like a fool, because they had counted the students and had announced that one person wasn't there yet. Oh ya me. And everyone kept asking what happened and if I was okay. Let's just say I will not be late for any classes again. So now more free time, then I'm not really sure what were doing tonight..guess I should find out. Pretty sure it includes some get to meet you games, bleh. Well if you have actually read this forever long post then good for you, I guess. I'm glad your spending your time reading about my day. Until next time.