Just a Peak at Turkey

Not to be a tease but I am way too tired to blog about my awesome week just yet so I decided I would at least put up this pic of me and my roommate Natalie being welcomed to Istambul, Turkey which was the start of an awesome week. It was a blast! More pictures and stories to come but just wanted to say I am alive and loving life still.

More to come.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it SNOW!

Welp if you haven't heard it snowed in Jerusalem on Friday for the first time in 4 YEARS and I was here!!

Lets just say that paying attention in class was kinda difficult and as soon as we had our break we headed outside to have a massive snowball fight! Who knew something we were all happy to leave behind in utah (aka the snow) would make us so happy. Maybe it was the fact that we got to attack everyone with snow down their shirts or maybe just cause we made this bad boy. Whatever the reason, it was a blast and I am so glad I was here to witness it :)

I love it here more and more every day and now we are off to Turkey for the week. Love you all!

Halfway there and Livin' on a Prayer

Sadly, it has come to my realization that my time here is over halfway done..... :( I am no where near ready to leave, but that is natural.
In celebration of the great times that have already occurred thus far, I decided to reminisce a little bit

(note: it was super hard deciding on pictures to put in this post cause there have been so many such great times)


Here are just some examples of the types of pics we take to recap the journey thus far:

The Huntsy Group Pic

Boy Band Pic

Pretending to be Antiquities Pic

Jumping Pic (soooo many takes to get these right)

 Roommie Pic

Cheesy Team Pic

Example of random dance parties we have in the forum waiting for class to start Pic

And that kinda says it all right there. Thanks for making my blog reach 1,000 views :) you guys are the best!!
More to come. Lovin it!

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!