Classes, Check-points, and Germans

Last week was midterms, this week is finals. It's funny how that worked out... So the semester here is front end heavy. After this week I will only have New Testament and Ancient Near East, instead of Judaism, Islam, Old Testament, Ancient Near East, and Hebrew. So between this week and last week I will have taken 9 exams. I just have to keep looking at my schedule and reminding myself that once I make it through this week life will be wonderful! After this week we only have morning classes, we go on field trips twice a week, the homework load is significantly less, and we have tons of free days. Oh and we have our 11 day Galilee trip coming up, followed by a 4 day trip to Jordan. And I guess I shouldn't be complaining anyway because I am living in Jerusalem!

They also seem to be canceling/rescheduling things left and right lately. Last week our passover dinner got pushed back because they're not done remodeling the kitchen. Today our separation wall field trip got canceled because of the rain. We also aren't allowed out into East Jerusalem and the Old City for the first time today because of problems on the temple mount. Everyone else that wasn't in the library this morning apparently could hear the sirens all morning. But no worries I'm still completely safe. So needless to say I've had ample time open to study for all of those tests, so in a way I guess it's kind of a blessing.

Another thing that has been canceled frequently in the last couple of weeks is my Islam class. My Islam teacher lives in Bethlehem which is in the West Bank. The only reason that he is able to come into Jerusalem is because he obtained a special permit because he has a job in Jerusalem. But to get across the checkpoint can take hours, and he is not allowed to drive his own car across. The first time class was canceled he was unable to come to class because an Israeli soldier wouldn't let him into Jerusalem and wouldn't give him any explanation why. Since coming here I've heard many checkpoint stories, and they've probably impacted me more than anything else. I never realized how blessed I am to have the freedom I have. Also being an American I can cross the same check-point at any point without any problems. I can only imagine the frustration of being denied access to Jerusalem for no apparent reason.

One last neat story then back to homework...

So a little background, the Jerusalem Center does free concerts once a week as a way to give back to the community. They are typically classical music by very talented musicians. Musicians love to come play here because the setting and acoustics are so incredible. Anyway last week I was volunteering and helping usher at one of these concerts. One of the main reasons they have us host is because people from the community love to see who the students are that live here. (Sometimes I feel like if they were doing a tour of the center, they could point to a group of students and say something like "here's one of recent exhibits, some of the students that actually live and go to school here.") It's actually kind of funny. So I was hosting last Sunday and this older German couple came up and started talking to me. The first thing he said to me was "Are you a Latter-day Saint?" which really caught me off guard because throughout all of Jerusalem we are known as "the Mormons" or "BYU" never Latter-day Saints. I told him yes, and he then asked me if I had been to Salt Lake City. I told him that I live right by Salt Lake, and they both got really excited and told me that they had recently visited Salt Lake and had seen temple square. Through the course of the conversation they told me that the elders had been coming to their house, and every time they come they feed them great big meals, which the elders love. I don't think they originally knew exactly where they were coming to for the concert because they told me that they got so excited when they got here and saw "Brigham Young University" on the sign out front. They told me that they knew who Brigham Young was, he was the one who had took the saints across the plains after Joseph Smith died. I was very careful to let them do all of the talking about our religion, so that in no way was I proselyting. But it was really fun to hear someone else tell me about what I believe. I had never wanted to bear my testimony of the truth so bad in my life. But even without my testimony I'm convinced that this couple will get baptized. They were in Israel because he is a retired doctor and they go around doing humanitarian service. So they were here doing service within the West Bank. They told me that they hadn't seen the elders for a while because they had been gone, but they're going to call them as soon as they get back. I'm sure the missionaries just absolutely love them! Like I said I'm convinced they know it's true!

Tel Aviv

I went with a group to Tel Aviv last Sunday to spend the day. The weather couldn't have been more perfect! We spent the day exploring and playing on the beach.

This is part of the group with the Mediterranean Sea and downtown Tel Aviv behind us.

We went to a flea market, which turned out to be a glorified garage sale. This was just around the corner from the flea market...

Since being in here I've been having weird cravings for food that I miss. The food I miss most is definitely cheddar cheese. You can only imagine my excitement when I found some in the market in Tel Aviv. So I bought a little wedge of it. It cost 14 shekels (about $3.50), but it was totally worth it!


The best part of the day, by far, was playing on the beach. We weren't allowed to swim, only wade. So we spent most of our time playing ultimate frisbee and watching the sunset. This is my fearless ultimate frisbee team, or at least part of them...

So I've decided that sunsets/sunrises have become kind of theme of my adventure here. The day that I left Utah there was the most beautiful sunset. My mom told me that it was Utah saying goodbye to me. Then on the plane ride I had a window seat so I got to watch the sunset and the sunrise as I was flying over the ocean. When I went to Egypt I watched the sunset over the Nile a couple of times, once while floating on the Nile. Then I watched the most beautiful sunrise on top of Mount Sinai. At the Jerusalem Center we have the most beautiful view, so I have watched the sunset over Jerusalem from Mount Scopus, where the center is. And then of course last week when I was in Tel Aviv we sat on the beach overlooking the Mediterranean Sea and watched the sunset. I got to hold this sunset in my hand...

New Friends

So before I left I had a friend forward me some of the local people that I should go visit while I was here. I finally got around to going yesterday. Three of my friends and I chose to go to a family that lives just up the way. We were all a little nervous about just going to some random house and meeting some locals. We also weren’t sure if we were going to be able to follow the directions to find their house. We found the house just fine. When we got there we sat in front of the little entrance to the community of houses for a couple minutes not really knowing what we were doing. Eventually we got brave enough to knock and announce ourselves. A lady poked her head out of the window and we told her we were looking for Nuha and Aya. She said “I’m Nuha” and Aya (her daughter) is here too. She pointed to the stairs and told us to just go up them to the front door. So we went and met them up there. They immediately welcomed us into their home before we really even had a chance to tell them who we were. We found out Aya was 13 years old, and she also had a brother that is 14, a sister that is 6, and a brother that is 4. I felt loved from the very first moment I met them. After being there for only about 10 minutes Nuha went and got us grapefruit juice. And we all just sat and chatted and got acquainted with one another. I was very impressed with their English, we had very little problems communicating. Aya told us that she loves learning English. Right away they got out photo albums to show us pictures of them with past BYU Jerusalem students, as well as other pictures of them. I felt like family even though I had only met this family 10 minutes before. Through the course of the conversation Nuha’s husband told us that he works at a restaurant. We talked to him about his job, and about the different food we had had since arriving in Jerusalem. After that conversation ­­Nuha went downstairs and got us pita, hummus, mushrooms, beans, and tomatoes to eat. It was so yummy!! And it was incredible to be in a Palestinian home, with a Palestinian family, eating Palestinian food. Nuha asked us how many Palestinian friends we had, and we told them they were our first. Both Nuha and Aya said “good!” in unison when told them that. After about an hour we had to leave because we had to be back before sundown. None of us wanted to leave though. It was raining when we left, and Aya was concerned that we were going to get wet. I told her that I had a hood on my jacket, and she proceeded to put my hood on my head for me. I barely even know her and her family, but I already love them! We were all walking on air on our way home and we couldn’t help but smile!

“The world fears time, but time fears the pyramids” cont.

The title of this blog is the first line of the infamous pyramid sound and light show. We saw the sound and light show the first night we were in Cairo, the pyramids are amazing, but the sound and light show was probably not my favorite thing in the world. It was much more fun to go back the next day and see them in the light, and go inside one of them. I think this was so neat because the pyramids are something I have heard about my entire life, and I would never have even dreamed of going inside one of them.

So if I could only choose one word to describe Egypt I would probably choose “grand!” Or at least to describe things like the ancient ruins, the pyramids, and the Nile. It’s amazing though that among these amazing sites are people that live in complete poverty that don’t even have clean water to drink. Needless to say my 8 day trip was amazing, and dare I say slightly life changing. I saw so many things that I’ve learned about since a young age and I also experienced visiting a developing country for the first time. There is no way to describe even a small portion of my adventures in Egypt, but here are some of the most exciting parts…

One of my favorite things was all the different types of transportation we used. We used 9 different types of transportation: bus, train, camel, airplane, taxi, shuttle, felucca (the boat we took down the Nile), a horse drawn carriage, and walking of course. My two favorite were the camel and the felucca ride. My hotel in Luxor was on the Nile, so we took feluccas down the Nile to ride camels, went on a camel ride, and then sailed back down the Nile while the sun was setting. Can you say incredible! It was the most beautiful sunset, and it was so peaceful! I also saw the most beautiful sunrise while in Egypt. One morning we got up at 2:30 to hike Mount Sinai. We started hiking by 3:30 and we were at the top by 5:30. The coolest part of the hike up was the “camel parking lot.” So when we were 2/3 to the top all the people that rode camels up, had to get off and walk. So we got to weave through all the many camels in the dark. Also on the hike up we had to always be aware because getting run over by a camel was a common threat. Camels will never have quite the same excitement they once had. Anyway when I got to the top of the mountain, the sun was just beginning to peak over the mountain. We sang hymns as we watched the sunrise, it was incredible!

Another one of my favorite parts of our Egypt trips was visiting the Valley of the Kings. While there we had the opportunity to go in the tombs of Ramsees the I, III, and IX, as well as King Tut’s tomb. We weren’t allowed to bring cameras into the tombs, and I think that was something that made it one of my favorite places. It was nice to be able to just enjoy being there, and not worrying about documenting everything. I loved being in the tombs and seeing all of the amazing hieroglyphics. Sometime in the last month I learned that hieroglyphics were carved and then painted. In these tombs there were places that still had the original paint, so cool! It was also fun to think about what it would have been like when they buried the Pharaohs with all of their treasures. While I was in one of the tombs the power went out. How exciting to be in an ancient tomb with no power, but it was also nice that a couple of us had flashlights on us.

Going to the Egyptian market was really fun and exciting! I became excellent at getting everything down to at least 1/3 of the price they originally told me. All of us girls agreed that we had never received so many compliments in our lives. You would walk down the street and they would say “oh beautiful eyes” or “hi baby face.” They also loved yelling “no hassle” or “Obama” at us. The neatest part was going past the tourist market to the real Egyptian market. People ignored us a lot more while we were in the real market. We got to go through and just observe the Egyptians in their everyday lives.

We were extremely spoiled the whole trip, staying in 5 star hotels, and going to nice restaurants. One day we had the chance to eat at the Hard Rock Café for lunch, and we most definitely had a dance party while waiting for our food. It was pretty great! J

Although the pyramids were grand and amazing, I think that the Luxor and Karnak temples amazed me even more. I just simply couldn’t comprehend that these were built anciently. They are incredible, and HUGE! The pillars, the hieroglyphics, and just the structure of the building were incredible! With arms stretched out as far as they could, it took 10 people to go around one pillar.

I could probably keep going on for forever, but here are at least some of the highlights. Going to Egypt was probably one of my favorite weeks of my life. I couldn’t help but think how spoiled and how blessed I was the entire time.