A Quick Game of Catch Up

First off, sorry I have been such a slacker. It is easy to get super busy and super tired here and not leave time for blogging but I am working on it. Hope this post helps to catch you up with some highlights of the week.

Our field trip on Monday was to Yad Vashem which is the Holocaust Museum in the state of Israel. Now, I had been to the one in LA so I kinda knew what I was getting into going here. It was interesting learning the reactions the Jews living in Israel had to the Holocaust survivors who moved there after the war. I had never even thought that they would have been persecuted, but that is exactly what happened. They were thought of as cowards for not standing up to the Nazis. It was only till years later, after this museum had been built, that the people of Israel began to have a new perspective on the whole thing. This museum reflects that mentality well. It idealizes the revolts of some ghettos and does not linger much on the "cowardly" Jews of the other places. It was a unique experience for sure. 

My favorite was the exhibit/hill thingy that commemorated all the children killed. It was just this dark underground room filled with mirrors and lights that represented all the children and a voice read off their names and where they were from. It was quite powerful.

On a happier note, Mark (aka Marcus) below had hurt his knee and was kinda limping around so Makara and I took it into our hands to abuse this limp and get him a wheelchair and push him around all day (don't worry Kris, your son is fine we just had to have a little fun while we had the excuse). The best was when someone put their sweater on his lap and he was just lurking in the middle of us all looking like an old grandpa (pictured below). Gave us a good laugh for sure.

Sometimes, when the weather cooperates nicely, we hit up west jeru and play ultimate frisbee. And let me tell you a story...it is some good times for sure and of course my team dominates.

The other night was our talent show in the auditorium (if i could put up a video of the whole thing I would) seriously people are sooooo talented!! Megan played guitar and I sang Mean by Taylor Swift. It was quite a nerve wracking experience but we plowed through and had a great time. Shout out to our teacher and coach Bryson below.

The majority of the time at the center, it is hard to find places to be alone so the other night we hung out in the elevator for 2 hours...it is the new bomb shelter if you are wondering ;) haha jk but great times with great people and lots of laughs.

The other day we took my first bus ride in jeru to this place called Ein Kerem to see the Chagall windows. Each represent a different one of the 12 tribes of israel. They were legit. Then we came back and hung out in the city mainly on the roofs in the Jewish quarter. Tucker and SJ decided to entertain us with a show. Mainly we were just putting off studying for finals....it happens.

Hope that helps with the quick update. More to come. Sorry again. Still in love with this place!

Forbidden Love

Don't I have beautiful roommates? I am one lucky girl. We began Valentine's day right wearing our red, pink, and purple with a surprise from our wonderful home teachers (shout out to Jason and Vladi) 

And although it was not on Valentines day, we had a dance and it was a straight up blast! The theme was naturally forbidden love. Yep it is perfect for our situation here. And guess what happened? First kiss in Jeru right here! Ludlow boys. haha granted it was on the cheek but still it counts right? True love. 

Fab four pic

The gang. All 83 of us...well most of us.

Shout out to madre and Marilyn & Bill for the wonderful packages! I really felt the love :)

Love you!

When I Say "PASS", You Say "OVER"!

Thursday was our Seder dinner. (yes I realize I am behind and am quite sorry about it) Our Israel teacher (featured in our roommate pic below) lead it with the help of several students. There was a specific order to everything and songs we had to sing along with foods to eat at certain times. Several students read the story of the exodus and others sang songs. It was a quite unique experience to say the least. I love being here and being able to witness and partake in different traditions. It makes me appreciate and understand other cultures and religions more. There is a reason behind everything they do. Luckily I had the wonderful opportunity to help finish off the dinner with a bang...rap style.

This was the JC Crew! So much white gangster it kills me but it was such a great time! Don't worry it was not sacrilegious at all. It was rap called "who knows the one?" and it was 12 days of Christmas style talking about Jewish history. Over all great time and I felt like such a super-star.

Our rap in whole is featured here:

 http://huntsmansintheholyland.blogspot.com/2012/02/passover-seder-winter-2012.html 

please enjoy :)

WORD.

sheep. spice. stache.

field. trip. day.

always a fun time especially when it is a beautiful day outside. (apparently every day during the winter that it doesn't rain is bad for them but i really enjoy it) k so we hit up a place called Neot Kedumim which is this biblica garden place in the middle of nowhere between Jeru and Tel Aviv where they have plants and stuff that relate to verses in the bible.

naturally we started out right by herding sheep and goats learning what it really means to be a shepherd. if you can't tell from the picture the best way to get them to move was making noise so that is exactly what we did. it was all fun and games till a goat may or may not have pooped on me....yea. welp it happens. what can you do?

dark spot on my knee...yep poop

look how pretty and green it is for Cam and I's sorority pic

then we got to grind up hissup which is a common spice that tastes so good. you dip bread in olive oil and this stuff and dude it is bomb! i am not kidding around. grace and i dominated. the perfect team.

later we made home made pita via camp fire for lunch. we definitely have some work to do at perfecting that one before getting to the level of street peta workers. they are so good.

then more trees and stuff that was really interesting to see what they looked like. i had no idea what almonds in all their coverings looked like. plus it is always a good time when the Ludlow family comes with us on these field trips. this is a pic with me and Joe the charming 13 yr old.

what are Madison and i supposed to do with stems of plant that look like moustaches but take a pic like this one. voted best pic of the day easy.

then we had the unique experience of seeing a torah scribe in action. we learned that it takes a whole year to write an entire torah scroll and that they write on animal hide with natural made ink and they scratch off mistakes. lots of cool info.

our field trip was a great break from midterms that are now over (hallelujah!) we can finally breathe and sleep again.

ps- valentines day was great. pictures to come but we are celebrating here on friday with our dance themed forbidden love (thanks i made that one up and am so proud) so i will for sure have to write about it :) 

well love you all!

shout out to grandma for the wonderful valentine's day card! I love mail!

Comic Relief from Midterms

Today my worst fear was realized...the post office workers in israel are on strike. I repeat. No mail in or out till further notice. Okay yes maybe worst fear is a little exaggerated and they will probably figure things out in a day or two but coming from someone (aka me) who is awaiting a package and always into getting letters it is a hard time.

To compensate for this disappointment and sadness in my life I have turned to thievery. Now before you freak out it is nothing major. I just play the game of "lets see what I can sneak out of the oasis (my cafeteria) and save to eat for later." Until today the most I had gotten out with was walking out finishing eating my cinnamon toast. Today, however was a whole new ball game. Without the aid of a sweatshirt pocket I managed to swipe a banana. Take that Donkey Kong! At lunch, I upped the ante. With my sites on the biggest piece of peta bread, I planned my escape route. Long story short, I am currently enjoying that very piece of peta with my rationed amount of Jif peanut butter that I hold so dear as I write this blog post. 

In other news tonight we attended on orthodox synagogue which was a really unique experience. I personally loved it. I love seeing the devotion of other religions and the way they all worship God. For their Shabbat service, they sang a lot and then had time in between to pray. All the members were very welcoming and would help us know what page in the prayer book they were on so that we could read the english translation of what they were saying in hebrew. Some of the prayers had tunes that were easy to pick up on and so we hummed along. Over all I am really glad I got that experience. It is one I will always remember.

I feel bad about having no pictures in this post so I'm gonna throw up a few random ones that I really like from previous days

roomie pic at the garden tomb

Some strange food...it is like hot pink broccoli....super sketch but just another day in the old city

Yep they even have yogurtland...kinda

For more laughs please please watch the youtube video called sheep by Remi Gillard. I died laughing. The Pac Man one is also good study break material. Enjoy!

Welp that is all for now folks. Midterms are here and this is quite the stressful week but I am plowing through and enjoying every minute of it. Love you all!

A day ruled by our stomachs...no regrets

So uncase you haven't caught on, Sundays here are our free days. The day was beautiful so we decided to make the most of it, naturally. We started the morning right by hitting up the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and got bagels (not to be stereotypical at all but they were soooooo good) clever name too right?

Then we explored this part of the city for a little till we found a place that sold donuts. Now some background on the donuts. We had all heard epic rumors about how great these things were and great news, they lived up to our expectations (if you can't tell by these pictures)

band pic

Then, with the intentions of attending a service at the church of all nations (outside the garden of Gethsemane) we headed up there. Sadly, the schedule we looked at was wrong and there was no service. However, it all became worth the trip when we were let inside the gated garden by a friar. (Shout out to Davis for talking to anybody and everybody and charming his way into us getting leaves from the olive trees inside the garden) Totally worth the trip.

Then, we walked up to an overlook past the cemeteries and ate lunch and had somewhat of a photo shoot...other pictures to come

no short people :(

Jewish pizza so good!

Then we hit up the old city and visited our favorite merchants, made a few purchases and contemplated other ones. We ended the night celebrating Kylie's bday eating pizza and ice cream in west jeru. Overall it was a great day and a great night and we were all beyond exhausted to say the least.

The Adventures of the Almost Waterslide (aka Hezekiah's Tunnel)

Fun fact, the center is producing a new tour film and yep you guessed it, we are the starts. Sadly this means we had to leave an hour early so they could get all these cool angles of us walking and paying attention to lectures (they also filmed our classes on Friday...ya kinda difficult to pay attention with cameras in front of our faces but we do what we can)

We started out overlooking the city of David and then ended up beneath it in Hezekiah's Tunnel. The water (which they said would go up to our knees) came up a lot higher on me. Don't worry. I planned for this. As you can see in the later photo, I rocked the aqua socks today (and I thought running shoes were a no no fashion statement) We took a aqua sock group photo but I am having a hard time tracking it down. Sorry.

Once emerged from the tunnel, we were greeted by a few European men who had come out right before us who were sporting speedos and their underwear....ya more than we wanted to see but we got a good laugh out of it for sure.

After emerging from the tunnel, we ended up at the pool of Shiloah  where we had a little devotional reminding ourselves of the miracle of the man who was blind from birth that Jesus healed by spiting in dirt, making mud, placing it over his eyes, and then having him wash in the pool we were sitting near. It is interesting to me the places I feel the spirit the most and have the most reflection. This was one of those places. After talking about the miracle and the symbolism of Jesus being the water of life, we sang Come Follow Me.
For those of you that are not familiar with the lyrics it goes like this:

"Come, follow me," the Savior said.

Then let us in this footsteps tread,

For thus alone can we be one

With God's own loved, begotten Son.

"Come, follow me," a simple phrase,

Yet truth's sublime, efullgent rays

Are in these simple words combined

To urge, inspire the human mind.

Is it enough alone to know

That we must follow him below,

While trav'ling thru this vale of tears?

No, this extends to holier spheres.

Not only shall we emulate

His course while in this earthly state,

But when we're freed from present cares,

If with our Lord we would be heirs.

We must the onward path pursue

As wider fields expand to view,

And follow him unceasingly,

Whate'er our lot or sphere may be.

For thrones, dominions, kingdoms, pow'rs,

And glory great and bliss are ours,

If we, throughout eternity,

Obey his words, "Come, follow me."

When we sang this, the words just hit me. All we ever have to do is follow the Savior and his example. It is that simple. Sometimes we just need to be reminded of the purpose of being here. All the stress of upcoming tests, drama, daily struggles...all of it in the grand scheme of things are not that big of a deal. Everything will work out how it is supposed to in the end if we just do our part to follow Him. I am really grateful for this reminder I received today sitting and pondering by the pool of Shiloah and for the wonderful experience I continue to have here in the Holy Land. Love you all!

Arabian Nights

Last night, we had the long awaited Arab night which consisted of everyone dressing up in the best Arabic way we know how. It was a great time obviously. 

It all started when our Arabic teacher, Aymman teaching us a little bit about the reading of the Qu'ran and the daily call to prayer and the month of fasting. Then, two of the callers from the mosque were there to demonstrate each for us. We hear the call to prayer every day being broadcast from the towers around the city, but being in the presence of the people while they do it was an awesome experience. They make it sound so musical however, they do not call it singing. It is very unique and beautiful.

Just the gang in our awesome Arabic outfits. Tucker was the normal one. I sported my genie pants. Brennan dressed up in a suit and we all called him an oil lord/rich arab. Megan was our gypsy type. We covered all the bases.

They decorated the Oasis (our cafeteria) to set the scene.

After dinner, we were taught how to dance by these 4 high school kids. They demonstrated first and then we split into groups and learned it so we could all come together in the end and perform. It was all about the footwork. My favorite and the hardest move was definitely the "airplane." I will have to break that one out at the next dance party. As is expected, the dancing just turned so american into a dance party. Good times when we are still just a group of american tourist kids and it always comes out.

Over all, it was a good time. 

Lesson learned: Costumes make everything better.