Day 19

Sabbath. I have decided that I love having Sabbath on Saturday instead of Sunday. Because after you have your day of Church you still have a free day afterwards and can get all ready for the week. But I hate how they have our day set up here. They have breakfast at 8 but church isn’t until 10.  So there is no way I’m going to get up early and dressed for breakfast and then have an hour to do nothing. So I have just been sleeping through breakfast. Which is lame because we aren’t fed again until four. So I pretty much fast every week. I’m going to have to stock up on granola bars or something of the sort. Our sacrament meeting was good, all of the speakers did well. It went over time quite a bit so it shortened Sabbath School, which I was fine with. Because it was my first time going and they just read scriptures for it today. Our RS was really good afterwards, Sister Ludlow, my professor’s wife, taught us. I feel like they are the smartest couple ever, they just do everything so perfectly. After church was over we were all way hungry. But good news, I still had an entire loaf of bread in my backpack. Melissa and I were just going to go down to our room and eat it, but Matty and Nick remembered that we had it. So they came over to our room and we ate the entire thing. It was still super soft even though it had been sitting out all night. Our home teachers came over after the boys left. Our home teachers are Andrew and Adam. They are both really nice guys. They asked us what was new in our lifes, it was actually pretty funny because we had nothing to say. We then came to the conclusion that we all pretty much are living the exact same life. We do all of the same things. Same classes, same church, same food, same people. Melissa and I convinced Adam to go to the City with us because we wanted to go to the Garden Tomb and we still needed to exchange money. So we walked up to the Tomb and met up with a few other kids that were there. We stayed for a little while, but then had to head out for the money. The three of us went and exchanged our money and talked with Alladin for a while. He asked me where my ancestors were from, aka what my ethnicity was. I have been asked every single day that I have been here what I am. And every time I answer them with Caucasian they don’t seem to believe it. On our walk up the hill to the Center we stopped and talked to this old man that Adam has become friends with. He was really nice and wants us to come over next week when we get back from Turkey and talk with him. Once we got back I had to change back into my Sabbath clothes before I could go to the Oasis. At dinner they had ice cream. Which was perfect because we were so hot from walking outside. We each got a scoop of vanilla/white chocolate (yum) and pistachio (gross).  I really don’t understand why people like pistachio ice cream, it is disgusting ick. I sent Hannah an email after dinner, because….it’s her birthday!! 17 on the 17^th!! YAY. I called home after I sent the email and talked to them for a while. I had a devotional at six, but I was still on the phone until twenty after so I ended up not going. Because I hate walking in late to things. Especially here because the room it was in you have to walk in the very front and everyone watches you. So now I’m just typing this. But I need to start packing my bags, because were flying out to Turkey tomorrow for the entire week!! Yaya, no homework or classesJ  So I won’t be updating until next week. I promise I’ll take good pictures and upload a bunch when I get back. Shabbat Shalom

Day 18

I added some links to other girl’s blogs that are here with me on the side bar. I’m using my blog for more of a journal, so it’s pretty lame to read. Some of their blogs are more fun to read, if you want.

Friday. I feel like I have been here forever. But really it has only been about three weeks. Which is great because I am still here for about twelve more! OT was two hours this morning. It was rough. I couldn’t get the lesson outline to print out to take notes on, so paying attention became even more difficult than usual. We had class with Ophir, Judiasm, after OT. And we’ve all been stressing out because he told us we were going to have a quiz. So I did the reading really well, but I didn’t study any of the past readings. The quiz was mainly multiple choice with a few fill in the blanks. And it was a hard quiz. I guessed on most of them. But lucky for me I am pretty good at guessing and got 8.5 out of 12. I was satisfied with that score. We had a make your own sandwich bar for lunch. Which I’m actually not a fan of, because they usually only have lunchmeats for it. Yuck. Ludlow’s class was after lunch. Which we had another quiz in. But his quiz was only over the reading from the night before which was only a few pages long. I did much better on this quiz and got a 6 out of 5. Yes. Extra credit. Right before the quiz I gave Melissa an quick overview of the reading because she didn’t do it. And it happened that everything I had told her was on the quiz. So luckily for her she got the same score as me because of my great summarizing skills. Class ended at 2:20 and were not allowed to leave the building until 3. So we slowly got ready then headed out. Melissa, Matty, Nick and I left together. We went up to Alladins first to get money for Turkey, but he was closed. Bummer. We went into the Old City and headed over to the Jewish quarter. We hadn’t really been over there except for when we went to the Dome and the Western Wall. The Jewish quarter is soo much nicer than the Muslim and Christian quarters. They are only a few yards away from each other but are completely different. And you rarely see Muslims in the Jewish quarter, or Jews in the Muslim quarter. Most of the stores were closing or closed because they were all preparing for Shabbat. We found one bakery that was closed but still had some workers in it, so we were able to get some Challa bread. We actually got three loafs, two normal and one sweet. Then we just sat in a nice area and ate our bread and people watched. Another group of BYU kids walked by so we gave them some of our bread, there is a pretty good chance that you will always pass other kids while when the city. We finished off two entire loafs. Then went walking. I loved it because we didn’t have a set place to go, we were just wandering around. And most of the streets were empty, which was fun to see because usually they are full of people. We ended up going up some stairs that led us onto the roofs of all of the shops. It was a ton of fun, we climbed all over the roofs and watched people from above. We felt like we were in the movie Aladin, walking on top of the roofs. It was one of the most fun day’s I’ve had just wondering the city. You could see the Dome and the Center from the top. We also found a bunch of tiny kittens, they were soo small. But wouldn’t come to us because they were too scared. We then headed back because we didn’t want to miss dinner, but we got popsicles on our way. Because the last hike up the mountain to the center is killer. But we were pretty slow getting back, because we got a little turned around in the city and we were always waiting on Matty because he would be off taking pictures. The rest of the night was free. So I watched What’s up Doc? with a bunch of people in the lounge. I had never seen it before, it was actually really funny but so random. We then had a brief intermission and got some snacks from the Shekel Shack and the went onto have a double feature of Father of the Bride. After that I went to bed because it was way past my usual bed time.

Day 17

Sorry for the lack of photos. But I really just haven't taken really any. Because a lot of places we go we are not allowed to take pictures, or a thousand other kids are taking photos so I end up not taking any. Ya I know, I'll try to take more and be camera annoying. I didn't do any homework at all for class today, it didn't put me too behind. But still it starts adding up. At breakfast I though I was being brilliant by toasting my pita bread then putting the scrambled eggs inside of it. But a few people made fun of me for it, just wait though I bet they will be doing it tomorrow. OT was a struggle staying awake, but that was our only class this morning. So after fifty quick minutes it was over! We had a field trip today half an hour after class ended. But it was a repeat field trip, because they had taken the "original thirty" on it while we waited for the "late fifty." The trip was to the Garden Tomb, again. So we all walked down the valley then up to the city to get there. It's quite a spectacle to see nearly ninety Americans walking the streets together. We were given the exact same tour as last time, down to the same tour guide. I thought he was great the first time, so I enjoyed listening to him again. We were allowed to split up once the tour was over. Melissa and I wanted to exchange money for Turkey and hit up the Olive Wood store. But that didn't happen. We ended up going in a group with Asia, Catie, Izak, and Maddy. First we went to lunch at a little pizza place in the Old City. It wasn't great but it was fine. Everyone that worked there kept calling me the healthy one just because I got water to drink, but everyone else in the group got coke. At one point I was just sitting their minding my own business eating my pizza. And all of the sudden something lands in my hair, oh it's just a pen cap from our waiter who was standing reasonably far away.  And before I even realized what it was he had already pulled it out of my hair. It was the funniest thing that had happened to me all day, it was just so random. After lunch we wanted to go to the Dome of the Rock but Melissa and I had short sleeves on. So we hit up Shaabons (I just realized I've been spelling his name wrong and I don't want to go fix it on all of the posts). And we got ten shekel scarfs from him. We then walked over the the Dome, but had to wait in the hot hot sun for fifteen minutes before it opened. While we were going through the security to get in I was last with Catie and she had her bible in her bag, which apparently isn't allowed inside. So her and I were pretty much kicked out, so we ended up stashing her bible and went back in. A few people in line behind us were actually pretty upset that we got kicked out for having a bible. We walked around the dome for a little while. Melissa and I were wearing our scarfs on our heads because both of us have the dark hair and it gets really hot. We like to think that we well actually one day be able to get into the actual building by pretending to be Muslim, because we look the part. After the Dome we had to walk home because we had class with Bashir at three. We stopped multiple times on the way though for cokes (the third coke stop of the day) and popsicles. The boy's like to "establish" set prices with some of the shops so every shop that we walked by with coke they would try to haggle the price down to four shekels. We got back to the center with about two minutes to spare before class. But we ended up being late to class because we had to change. Because Matty had told me right when we walked into the center that I had major sweat spots on my back from my bag. Oh well thanks, who doesn't want to be reminded about  how sweaty they are. Bashir's class was only an hour today which was nice. I sat on the back row with Andrew and he was fun to talk to, he kept me awake. After class I took a two hour nap. Because my tummy had been feeling sick all day and I had a headache. So I missed dinner. Which was fine because my stomach hurt too bad anyways. I have spent the rest of my night just getting all of my reading done. I actually understood and finished all of it, okay well most of it. Laila Tov.

Day 16

Again it was a struggle getting up this morning. I think I have decided I’m always so tired because I don’t sleep well at night. I wake up to everything. Like when Whitney from across the room moves or at four in the morning to the call to prayer. Today has been pretty easy. Again nothing exciting. I’m getting pretty bummed out that I haven’t been able to go to the Old City since last week. Like right now for example all of my friends are in the Old City, but I’m just waiting for my Hebrew class to start. Oh and I forgot to mention that I have Hebrew three times a week and Arabic only has it once or twice. OT in the morning like always, then Ludlow. I think Ludlow’s class is interesting because we are actually learning the History. It’s much better than Basir Bashir’s class. Matty was sitting next to me in class and was sleeping almost the entire time, which of course made me tired. Class was only an hour but we had to stay an extra hour for another orientation. It wasn’t too bad, because we talked about our field trip to Turkey! We are flying up to Turkey in four days and are staying for the week. We won’t have any classes and we get to visit a lot of Greek Ruins. I’m uber excited, except for the fact that we are going to be spending a lot of time on the bus. Because we will be going all throughout Turkey. We went over basic rules, it’s pretty much the same rules that we have here. Just more strict. We have a 10:30 curfew and are required to have a boy with us at all times. It is going to be a really fun trip. But I don’t think I’ll have access to a computer while I am there so I’ll catch up the blog when I get back. After the meeting it was time for lunch, we had Falafels! I love Falafels. They are so scrumptious. I had Hebrew, like usual, after lunch. I took my flash cards that I had labored on the night before, but I don't really know any of my letters. So it was pretty much an epic fail in class. I was supposed to be able to translate words out of another student's book, but let's just say that it was a bit of a struggle. In Hebrew we each letter has two forms a block letter and a script letter. And then every letter has a vowel hooked onto it. So we all sound like two year olds trying to sound out each word. After Hebrew my class got to go on a tour under the center, but I bailed on it. Melissa and I wanted to walk up to Hebrew University to use their internet instead. But we had to find a third person, cause of the rule of three thing, no one wanted to come. Luckily we kinda tricked one girl to walk up with us, she thought we were going down to the Old City. But nope. The University is literally right across the street from us, but we have to walk to the other side of campus to even get in. And we have to go through security checkpoints, it reminded me of an airport. Once we finally got in we were able to get to the library. We have internet here at the center, but there are a lot of restrictions. So Hebrew U allows us to upload pictures, use facebook, and skype. All things we cannot do here (although I still upload pictures anyways). We walked back just in time for dinner and then we had another forum. All of our speakers at the forum talk about politics. They are either pro Palestine or pro Isreal. The man who spoke was far more interesting than the guy who came last week. But I still haven't kept up to date with the politics, so I didn't always know what he was talking about. But it was still interesting and Melissa explained a lot to me. She is a Middle Eastern Studies Minor, thus she has taken multiple classes on the subject. After the forum I was supposed to play night games, but bailed. Mainly because the kid in charge is just too intense for me and the fact that he is not a fan of me. He isn't a fan of me because he was trying to boss me around the other day, but I wasn't having any of it. He's not in charge of me. So I went to my room instead and got ready for bed. Then had a conference call with the Rents. I fell asleep only moments after I hung up. I was going to try to stay up late enough to talk to Hannah, but obviously that didn't happen.

Day 15

Following up on my HE last night, we played volleyball against two other groups. We came out on top, undefeated to be exact. I finished the night off studying for Bashir Bashir’s class, Islam, with Matty, Leslie, Melissa, and Whitney. I am progressively getting up later and later each morning. Breakfast usually goes from 7-7:50, so I don’t have to wake up until around 6:50. But I have to factor in when the three other girls in my room are going to be getting ready. Let’s just say that I am not a fan of the four girls to one bathroom thing. I’m probably going to be extra descriptive in this post, because my day really wasn’t exciting.

I have a pita at every meal, it’s a staple, a must. I’ll tell you the best way to eat it. Fill the pita with the nutella and peanut butter, understand that neither of these taste like normal US products. Then sprinkle a bit of cinnamon into. Next you sent it through the toaster. It comes out all melted inside. Heaven. I’ve been trying to limit how much I eat it.

I had OT and Islam this morning. I got my second essay back in OT, I got a terrible score on it. Which I found ironic because I thought it was much better than my first paper, but I scored a lot lower. What evs. Hopefully essay three gets scored well. We had Islam for two hours. It is easily the worst class were taking here. We have had it three times and have learned nothing. Bashir Bashir has just been criticizing us about not generalizing Islam. We are probably the most open minded group that he has ever talked to and are all ready for him to teach us. But he is generalizing us as close minded Americans. It is even more funny because he isn’t Muslim so were not getting the same biased opinion like we are by our Jewish teacher in Judaism. None of the student’s are a fan of him.

I played foosball with Matty and Melissa after class until lunch. Except we didn’t have a real ball so we improvised and found another little ball that moved so slowly. So it was a very, very slow motion game. Once again I won and I was on my own team. Games are one thing that I actually excel at. After lunch I took a quick nap then went to Hebrew. Hebrew is a fun class so far, but I am not a fan. Just because I have it at the worst possible time so when all of my friends are going out to the city I can’t go because I have class. So it’s a bummer. And my Hebrew class isn’t hard, but it is soo much harder than the Arabic. They don’t have to do anything. Lameo. I went to the library and I wrote my next essay for OT and did the reading for Ludlow’s class (Ancient Near East). I was up there with Whitney and Leslie, we took a break for dinner then went back up for a little while. After that I hit up the Sheckle Shack with Melissa, it was the Grand Opening. They have a ton of snacks, we didn’t actually buy anything but we mooched off of other people. We then made flash cards for our Hebrew class, which proved to be quite challenging. Because we didn’t have any flashcards, I ended up cutting up my binder and notebooks for the thick paper. It barely made enough for the both of us. But it was soo time consuming, that by the time we finished it was ten and we were exhausted and went to bed. I realize that ten doesn’t seem late, but for some reason I get extra tired here. Thus I am always going to bed early and taking naps, but at least I’m not the only one. PS for some reason I get a ton of complements everyday on my clothes, hair, accessories. I find it funny because I wouldn’t consider these things to be cute. But I’m fine with the complements.

Day 14

Lauren and me at Jericho

Terrible picture of Herods Palace

Herods palace. Kaitlyn and one of the Quiste sisters (she kinda blinked)

St. Georges Monastery

We had to get up sooo early this morning. Breakfast was at six, so we had to be ready by then. So I only got about five ours of sleep, plus the sun had drained me from the day before. Today was a field trip day, so after breakfast everyone had to be at the upper entrance ten minutes before we left. Everyone made it to their bus in time, except one girl got on the wrong bus. So she was with the wrong class the entire day, I don't understand how she didn't notice before we left. We visited three of the four sites of Jericho. And I know that in every post I say something about how much we sweated and how hot it was. But this day takes the cake, it was the hottest day of the year so far or something like that. And we were exposed to it almost the entire time, because all of the Jericho sites are out in the middle of the freakin desert on top of mountains (okay more like hills)! So we had to hike to most of the locations. Thus once again we were all sweating to death. I'll try not to mention the sweating any more and just assume that you already know that I am always sweating. One of the other sites we went to was the Winter palace of Herod. He was a really evil ruler. He killed everyone who was close to him, family included, because he was afraid that they would try to steal the throne from him. He eventually died of some gross diseases, in the palace we visited. We got to walk around the remains of it which was fun, hot, but fun. We also went to St. George's Monastery. The bus took us up a super narrow and curvy road, where we then pretty much hiked up multiple hills to see the Monastery. It was built into the mountain. It is owned by the Greek Orthodox Church, who actually own more property in Israel than any other churches. Which I thought was kinda ironic. We drove back to the center after and went straight to lunch. They had made us pizza again, it was sooo yummy. I think I may have eaten five or six slices. Don't judge me, I had just climbed through the entire desert. I took a quick cat nap after then went to Judaism class. It was two hours long, but it went pretty fast. And I didn't fall asleep so that was a plus. Also our teacher gives us a break at the hour, which is really nice. Now I have just spent the last two hours in the computer lab with Lauren and Kaitlyn. Doing this. Blogging. Mainly because mom emailed me saying to update this thing. And waiting for dinner, because were already hungry again. Only nine more minutes. HE tonight, as in home evening. Family has been taken out. Were playing volleyball. All of the other groups are going to the city. If anything else exciting happens then I'll write it down tomorrow.

Day 13

Leslie, Tel Aviv in the background 

Leslie in the Alleyways of Old Jaffa

Old Jaffa

Its freeday, freeday, gettin down on freeday. If you didn't notice that was a play of the lyrics from that tacky Black song. We got up early for breakfast but didn't have plans until ten. So I some what read my Judaism book's until we were ready to head out. Oh your wondering what our plans for the day are? I guess I'll tell you. Ha. That is the point of a blog. About fifty of us have been working on a plan to spend the day in Tel Aviv. At ten we all got into our multiple vans, hit up Aladdin's (not pronounced like the disney movie, like all-ah-deens), and drove the forty-five minutes to the city. Once we got there we all changed into our swimsuits and pretty much ran to the beach, set down our stuff, and ran to the water. Our original plan was to walk around the city first, before getting in the Ocean. But that obviously didn't happen, because we all just saw the water and had to get in it. It is soo hot here. I have never sweat so much in my entire life, it is the norm to soak your shirt through here. So the water was the perfect place to be. Even though the water was really warm as well. The salt was irritating my skin, so it got all blotchy in a couple spots. And multiple people told me it was blotchy so I dried off and tried to cover it with my hair. It eventually faded. But I felt like I was covered in salt the rest of the day. After swimming for a while we walked over to Old Jaffa. Which was a thirty-five minute walk. We actually had additional rules for being in the different city, we were required to have a group of five with at least one boy. But the boys were being lame and inseparable so six of us girls just walked over ourselves (no worries we called the center and they changed the rule for us). Jaffa is the oldest port in the world. We walked around the whole city for a few hours, it is full of narrow alleyways with cool little art shops and old buildings. We ended up separating into just a group of three of us Melissa, Allison, and me. Because the other girls that were with us has signed up to leave at five on the earlier bus. And the three of us had signed up for the much later bus at ten-thirty (when I say bus I mean prescheduled van set up by the security men for us). The girls and I walked around Jaffa for a few more hours then made our way back to the beach because we couldn't get ahold of any of the other kids that were staying later. We were exhausted when we finally got back to the beach. And the other kids wanted to walk up to Jaffa because they had been at the beach the whole time! We pretty much did the opposite of them all day long. Instead of walking back to Jaffa with them we had a late lunch/early dinner of Falafels. I have decided that I really love Falafels. I feel like its pretty much what I would eat at home. After our meal, we went and sat on the beach for a couple hours while the sun was going down. I listened to Allison's entire life story pretty much the entire time. It was a really long story, she's a chatter box. We then walked around the city, but everything was pretty much closed. And we ended up in a sketchy part of town, so we headed back to the beach and met up with one of the other groups of kids. They all had their towels out and were just laying down in the dark, so we joined them for a while. Oh I forgot to mention about the swimsuits here. Men either wear speedos or just their straight up underwear. It is really gross. And while we were all just laying on the beach some weirdo man came by on his phone and just lapped us a bunch. And he would just stand right by us, oh I forgot to mention the fact that he was dressed but his pants were pulled down in the back so he was mooning us the entire time! Ewww. We weren't quite sure if he thought it was socially acceptable or what, but luckily he eventually left. A couple more boys from a group came over with us, Matty and Iszac, so we went to dinner with them. Because at this point we were just waiting for the vans to come get us. We walked over to a pizza place and ordered our food. Our waiter was really great he spoke a bunch of languages (Allison speaks french, Melissa arabic, Matty spanish) and talked to them each. Once we finished eating we went outside to wait for the vans, because ten-thirty proved to be a really long time. And this van full of orthodox jews pulled up playing really loud music and they hoped out and started dancing on the roof and all around. So our boys of course, Matty and Nick, ran over and danced on the roof with them. It was actually really funny, those two boys are pretty wild. They are both BYU-H and are total beach bums. But they are some of the cuter boys and are way fun to be with. Our van came right after that and those two boys and Melissa and I were all sitting on the back row together. I was super tired, but everything they said just seemed to be soo funny. We got back late, took quick showers then crashed for the night.