Day 2

So we took Austrian air again to Tel Aviv. I really wish I knew more German because it was being spoken by everyone there. We arrived around 3pm and, after a long time going through security, customs, and waiting for people whose baggage didn't arrive, got on a bus for Jerusalem. All of the signs are in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. Driving into the city was awesome. All of the buildings are required to be built out of Jerusalem limestone. It is very hilly and reminds me of San Francisco minus the big buildings and gays. The weather is a little humid and it gets really nice in the evening and is only a little hot in the day time. We got our room assignments and ate at the Oasis (the name of the cafeteria). There are a lot of food options here and it's pretty good. I have two other roommates and they're pretty cool. There was a lot of space to put all of my stuff and even some room to spare. The view from my patio is amazing you can see the entire old city. I will do a photo upload once I get a good amount. After dinner we all went outside on the big balcony and talked to some of the teachers about the city. We are right in the middle of the one month long Muslim holiday called Ramadan. During this holiday, Muslims fast from sunup to sundown, eating large feasts and partying at night. They like shoot guns in the air and do firecrackers before sundown it was kind of scary at first. We are right in the middle of the Muslim quarter so we got to view it from the balcony. The streets are lit up with white Christmas lights. There are these large spires on the tops of every mosque that are lit up with the same green lights. There are a bunch of megaphones pointing in every direction on top. Four times a day there is the "call to prayer." Each of these spires play a recording or have sombody live singing this prayer. It is very eastern and mystical sounding. Not all of the spires play the same music and there are a ton of mosques so there is this cacaphony of Muslim prayers going on. They do the call of prayer before sunup at 4am. I was scared I was going to be woken up by it but I was so exhausted I slept thorugh it. Anyways after we were on the balcony and listened to the call of prayer we had an orientation. This guy did an organ solo on the massive pipe organ and they basically went over a bunch of boring stuff. Then we met briefly with our ancient near eastern studies teacher and religion teacher. Then we broke up into groups and took a tour of the center. The center and city are beautiful at night and the weather is perfect. We went to bed after this. The next day we woke up, had breakfast, and went to another orientation. We then went on a general field trip of the city. The drivers are crazy. They don't really care about pedestrians. We started out walking around in the Muslim area. The streets are pretty dirty and there are a bunch of stray cats but all of the people were very religious and kept to themselves. The shop owners know all about the BYU kids and would stop us and give us their business cards. We didn't really stop anywhere for too long and were told not to take pictures. We went through the Muslim area, through a Christian area (stopping at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre). We also passed through an Armenian area. We then went into the Jewish area. There was a mall and brand name shops. The streets were a lot cleaner and it seemed like there was a larger mix of secular people. There would be the orthodox people with their hats and beards but also there were people that were dressed in regular clothes. We were allowed to look around and I found a power adapter that I had been looking for. After this we came back, had lunch, and more orientations. Its about 5pm right now and we have a little break to do whatever as long as it's in the center. We haven't yet recieved our cell phones and id cards.