Photos!

Pictures from various field trips

Pictures up!

Go to facebook of pictures of me. I will be posting random photos on here of like the city and stuff later!

Update

Well everything has become very busy now! I have lots and lots of reading and hw and quizzes etc. Saturday night (Sabbath) we went to the Orson Hyde memorial garden and it was really cool. I spent most of Sunday studying. There is this cool lounge/student store in the centre and we had a dance party thing there Sunday night. We went to a bunch of cool lookout points on Monday (where I took my facebook pic). My favourite place from that field trip was the St. Augustine church of the ascension. I took lots of pics of that trip. Tuesday was a busy class day but a few of us were able to go into the city for a few hours. We went under the Damascus gate where the original gate was at the time of Christ. We also went to this place called Zedikiahs cave. It is this huge cavern where the stone was cut out of for making the temple and the walls. It was really cool. We had a forum that night and it was pretty much a really busy day. Today (Wednesday) we had class and then took tours underneath the centre. All of the people who take the tour take chalk and write their names on the walls at the bottom (we are allowed to). I made my name really huge along with the year. Well it's lunch time now. I'm going to upload pictures some day!

Pretty Photo

View of the city from the center the day I got here. It takes forever to upload pics I might go over to Hebrew University one day and post a bunch to Facebook or something. I will do a legit post tomorrow it is bed time!

Sabbath

So this is going to cover yesterday (Friday) and today (Sunday).

Friday:
We had the first day of real school. I went to Old Testament and Ancient Near East Studies. Lots of reading to do so it looks like I'm going to be very busy. After those classes, we had lunch and met with our committees. I am on the "in-Jerusalem activities committee" which basically covers little field trips for us to do on free days while we are in Jerusalem. After this, a bunch of us decided to head into the city and do some exploring/get out money converted to shekels. I changed some of my cash for a trip a few of us have planned for the beach in Tel Aviv on Sunday. Probably 75% of the people at the center went with us to the money changers and we were going to go to the "Via Delarosa" and the Western "Wailing" Wall. Because it was taking so long for us to all get done, people left in small groups. I decided to go with these three girls that were going to go alone because they didn't have a guy with them (I was under the impression that girls had to have a guy with them at all times but in actuality it is only during the night but it was good that I went with them). We didn't know how busy it would be but I guess Friday during Ramadan is like the busiest time to be in the city. We left for the Damascus gate, not knowing that it was going to be packed. There were so many people trying to get in and out it was like a rock concert or something. The girls wanted to try and get through and that's why it was good I was with them. A lot of the guys were like "hey baby" and stuff but luckily none of them got groped or anything (which I heard happened to some of the girls trying to get through the gate). We started trying to get through and it was so packed we had to turn around mid way, take a rest in a shop, and push back out. It took like a half hour. We then called the center to ask for an alternate route. We walked around the perimeter of the city and ended up at the wailing wall. It was very interesting seeing the mix of ultra-orthodox Jews and just normal ones there. I didn't go up to the wall because we will be going there another day but I got some good pictures. We met other people there, many who didn't even try going through the gate. On the way back there was me, two other guys, and nine girls (three of which were from my original group). We headed through back through the city. The streets were pretty crowded and I decided to kind of be the sweeper and stay at the rear. Pretty much by the time we arrived at the other side of the same Damascus gate (the crowds being only a little bit smaller) it was just me and seven girls that I was getting all paranoid about. We all pushed through the gate and made it luckily. We walked back to the center and were back about a half hour before dinner ended. That night we had some get to know you activities and brownies.

Saturday:
It was kind of nice that today was fast Sabbath because there was no breakfast and therefore no reason to wake up. I slept a good 10.5 hours. We had church in the big auditorium that has huge windows overlooking the city. I was one of the few who wasn't in ward choir (they sing the prelude) so I passed the Sacrament. After sacrament we had Gospel doctrine and Priesthood just like any normal branch. The branch isn't a student ward (there are people that work at the embassy and stuff) so we probably won't be getting a bunch of callings. The main callings are already filled. After that I hung out at my apartment and now I'm doing this. Dinner is starting soon so I'm going to wrap it up. I am looking forward to going to the beach tomorrow a bunch of us are going I think and it should be a blast.

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.

Travel Day

So I am currently in Vienna Austria at the airport on a layover. I am wiped out from traveling and there is still one more flight plus a bus ride. We flew from Salt Lake to Chicago to Washington DC to Vienna. Its like 11pm in Vegas right now but its like 8am here. It's so weird. Anyways I don't usually blog but I think this will make it easy for people to see what's going on without having to send mass emails. Hope you enjoy!