Day 108

Thursday. The 15th of December.

Our last and final day in Jerusalem. I went out with Whitney, Ben, Lindsay, and Koryl again today. Mainly because I was still a bugged from yesterday.We did the Via Dolorosa, it is the fourteen stations along the path that Christ carried His cross. We don't really believe in it, but it was still fun to do. We found the first nine stations and then went into the Holy Sepulcher where the rest of them are. I went into the little shrine thing build on Jesus 'burial place.' Usually there is a humongous line for it, but there was only like five people in line so we went through. Afterwards we walked over to the Western Wall, we stayed there for a little while. We then saw Izak, he had left the center for good the day before, he was with his mom and soon-to-be-fiance. It was fun meeting someone's family. Izak told us that they had just been up at the Dome, which we thought was closed. So we ran over there and it was open! Someone had been spreading some lies at the center. So we had about five minutes up there until it actually did close for lunchtime. Afterwards we walked around the city a bit, a few kids did some last minute shopping. We went to that gummie man that loved my hair the other day and he remembered me and gave me a free treat. Then he called me 'the princess of Israel.' He was super nice, he even asked me how I was enjoying the gummies I had bought from him the day before. We did an final Aladin, Omar, Jimmy, and Bagdadi sweep on our way out. We stopped at a place for shawarma. They only sold shwarma and I only had two shekels left to my name. Whitney ended up buying me a tortilla with hummus, what a kind soul. We walked through the Arab Costco one last time and headed up the hill home bound. At the center I finished packing, my bag is exactly fifty pounds. I am quite an excellent packer if I do say so myself. I have my large suitcase, a tiny bag, and two backpacks full of four months of accumulated stuff. I turned in my cell phone and lugged my heavy bags up all of the stairs to the top level. Those will be a joy getting through the airport. When I got to the top Lauren was there and told me that Sam was outside. I had texted Sam earlier in the day and asked if she would come by to say goodbye, because I wanted to see her one last time. So I went outside and we talked to her for a little while, she was in the hospital the other day because she was feeling really sick. But she was feeling a little better now, she also has officially decided not to go back and work for her mean lawyer man. I wanted to talk longer, but Lauren and Leslie hadn't even started to pack so we said goodbye one last time and went inside. Right before we left Sam told me that her husband Zaki had told her after I had left her house a few days ago that I had 'the beauty of all the nations.' Basically that I have got the best attributes of every single ethnicity. Easily the best compliment I have ever gotten. I happily went back to my room and finished cleaning all of my stuff completely out. And I have just been working on updating my blog. We had our last dinner, I have been saying it is our 'last' everything today. Now I'm just waiting until seven, when we will be driven to the airport. Also bummer I just found out that my flight from JFK to SLC was changed to be four hours later. Lame. But I am so excited to go home. I love it here. But knowing that I will be home soon is far more exciting.