A new idea saves the day!

Guess what family. I had a brilliant (and simple/stupid for not thinking of it earlier) idea!

I'm going to resize my pictures, and then they will upload to my blog better.

Hallelujah! So I'm going to go back and start adding them. Love you!

Egypt Day 3 - Tombs and Pyramids !

Egypt day 3 September 19, 2009

Holy cow this day was a huge day. I'm pretty sure my journal has six or seven pages on it on just this day. So, here goes. (It was a super exciting day though, so bear with me...)

The first thing we did was wake up super early and get on the bus so we could go stand in line at the Great Pyramids. The sun was really hot. It's hotter and more humid in Egypt, so basically we just had a really sweaty week. It was refreshing though, cause nobody really cared what they looked like. Awesome, right? I enjoyed it.

We got to the Great Pyramids and we all stood in line, but unfortunately we're Americans and we actually understand the concept of a line. The other people in this world apparently don't. Because of this, 13 (I heard) people in my group didn't get tickets into the tomb... I was so glad that I did when I heard this. It's something I've always wanted to do. I thought about giving someone my ticket. I may have tried....but (this is horrible) I was secretly hoping they'd say no....which they did. Ahh I'm terrible...but oh well. I went in...

This is us sitting in line, waiting to get tickets with the great pyramid behind us! This is Alison, Michelle, me, and Kathryn. You may notice that I have headphones around my neck a lot in pictures. Don't worry, it's not because I'm tuning out and listening to music. We have headsets that we wear on site so we can always hear our guide and don't have to crowd around him. In the heat of the Middle East -- it's a must. It's really fun :)

It was really cool. The entrance to the tomb is higher up the wall, not right on the base, so we had to climb up to get to it. Then when we entered it was really dark until our eyes adjusted. They have electric lights going up the passage ways, but some parts were pretty dark. The first part was kind of a jagged tunnel that honestly looked like a cave. That part was flat. Then we climbed a mini ladder up to this other tunnel that was slanted upwards. I'll guess a 45 degree angle (?) for about 50 yards. There were wooden blocks on the ground as footholds, and a railing to pull yourself up, but it was probably a 4 ft high tunnel, so you had to bend over, then crouch a little, and climb. I didn't notice it then, but it definitely put my thighs to work. They were a little sore after....guess I need to get on the bikes here more, right? But hey, that's the plan, so it's good. Anyway, after the 45 degree angle, it flattened out for maybe 5 feet, then there was a place to stand up. Then we had to bend over again for about 5 feet, and then the tunnel opened up into another about 45 degree angle slope with the passageway up on the two walls of a tunnel that was flat but off limits. After a while the paths came together, and we kept climbing up, and then it flattened up and we had to crouch down to get into the main tomb chamber. Cool right? It was pretty dark, with a couple lights, and the sarcophagus at one end of the room. We came in (if you think of it as a rectangle) at the bottom, left corner of a room that was about...10 yards wide (up and down, if the rectangle is on it's side) and about 15 yards long. I actually laid down in the Sarcophagus for a couple seconds. I saw some people doing it, and there weren't any guards or anything up there with us, so I couldn't resist. I only could make myself lay down for about 3 seconds though because I kept thinking about a mummy laying there for a few thousand years....eeek! After that we sang songs. The Acoustics in the tomb were sweet! At one point everyone in there was just our group, and so we all did a low, humming sound and a few people did kind of higher pitched, African song sounding things...Don't know how to describe it, but it was really sweet sounding. Then we sang a couple other songs, the last being my choice. A bunch of the people had left, so it was just our group, and we sang Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. I always have that song stuck in my head here, and I love it. It was so awesome to sing it. We sang the last first on the way out of the pyramid. At the bottom, we were almost to the entrance, and one of the guards came and played a trick on me and Amanda. Not very funny, but he walked towards us while we were walking out with his arms outstretched blocking the exit, and said in broken English, "Sorry, closed. Have to stay in tomb overnight." I was just creeped out and finally pushed one of his arms away and walked passed and said no to him. I wasn't afraid he wouldn't let us out, but I didn't want him cornering two girls in a tomb. Bad scenario. But he didn't resist or anything on letting us out, so it was probably okay.

Cameras weren't allowed in the pyramid, but we took pictures outside, so I'll have to upload them. Some people have had success on uploading them. I think I need to re-size them, so if I ever have an hour or something, I'll try to do that. I have so many to show you guys, I'm sorry!!

Okay this is me and Kathryn in front of the big pyramid we went inside. You can see the entrance, right next to my shoulder. You have to climb up to it on stairs that they've carved out of the blocks. See how high up it is? And how huge it is? Look at the little, itty-bitty people standing on it and at the base. It's huge.

....I'm not going to list everyone's names....sorry! (Let the record show that I could though..)

This is Kathryn, me, and a girl named Tonya. She has let me borrow her computer to skype before...thanks tonya!

Jumping pictures are frequently taken in our group...

After that we went to an overlook of the pyramids. One interesting thing, our guide, Islam, told us how to deal with all the people trying to get you on a camel or to buy something. They are everywhere! But Islam said that if we say, "Nien Danka" instead of "No Thank you" then we'll be okay for three reasons: 1) German people visit Egypt way more than Americans and so they've done everything and the merchants know that there's not a huge change of getting them to buy anything, and 2) There's not much chance of the people speaking German, so they give up, and 3) if they do speak German, we don't and therefore we wouldn't be tempted to continue a conversation with them. Ingenious, right?

This is the overlook. We had to drive everywhere for all the stops in the pyramid site, because they are just so huge! (And I'm supposed to look like I'm holding up the pyramid with my hand, but photographer didn't really....succeed...)

We then made a stop to the Sphinx, which was sweet. It's way big, just like the pyramids are unreal...ly huge. We went in through the temple at it's feet and up inside to a ledge that looked out over it. I got a picture that looks like I'm giving the sphinx a kiss, it's pretty awesome. Add that to the list of hundreds of pictures I'm supposed to add sometime...
Here we go!

This is the first view of the Sphinx, from the bus, since we had to drive. See the little dots right on top of the paws? Those are people. This guy is BIG.

This is inside the temple that leads up to the big pyramid. The high priest would've embalmed the body of the pharaoh here. The Sphinx is set on a little hill to the right of where I'm standing in this picture, outside of the temple. We went through it to get to the closest place you can go to get to the Sphinx...

Which is here. Awkward picture with just me and the Sphinx.... :)

And here's the picture of me kissing the sphinx. Who by the way doesn't have a nose, because one of the people who conquered Egypt decided to show the Egyptians that their god was not a real god because he didn't even have the power to protect his nose from being destroyed.

After that, we went to the Papyrus factory in Cairo! It was cool. I bought some papyrus there, which was probably more than I should've paid for it, but not a ton...anyway. Yeah they showed us how they make Papyrus. And I will now tell you. Here we go. First they take the stocks of Papyrus and soak them in pieces about 5 inches long. Then they cut them into strips and pound and roll them flat. When they're pretty thin they soak them in water for six days (not joking) [and it's longer if you want a different, darker color] and then they lay them on a flat block and arrange them in criss-crossing patterns. After that they press it between two pads with weights on top of them, and it dries into very durable papyrus paper that you can crumple up, get wet, etc. and it doesn't get ruined. Cool, right? And that's also how you can tell real papyrus (made from papyrus) and fake papyrus (made from banana tree leaves) : the criss-crossing patterns. If they're fake they don't have criss-crosses, just one direction of leaves. So there you go.
They had the facsimiles from the Pearl of Great Price there. Pretty funny, after the demonstration on papyrus leaves they said: "Oh, and here's a special thing for Mormons" and they pointed to a wall, front and center, that had the facsimiles. We must be good customers :).

This is the papyrus demonstration. The bowls on the table are the places to soak the papyrus stalks. Closest to me (the camera) is just the stalks soaking, then the next is the strips soaking, then the board where they pound and roll the strips, and then on the end of the table, kind of blocked by the guy, is the press they use to press the paper while it dries.

After the papyrus factory we drove out to Memphis, which was at one time the capital of the Egyptian empire. (Along with areas like Cairo and Thebes[Luxor], and I think a couple others). So at Memphis the only area open is a museum with a mini sphinx made of Alabaster (and thus better preserved than the one in front of the pyramids which is made of sandstone) and a huge statue of Ramses II. The City was originally on the west bank of the Nile, but the river has moved east, and so that's when the city lost it's importance. It's probably the place where Joseph lived when he was the Pharaoh's right hand man, and also where Moses would've lived, and where the Pharaoh took Sarah in because Abraham said she was his sister. So, kind of a historical place. It was very cool.

This is the sphinx. Same guy's face as the big one in front of the pyramids, but much better preserved, yes?

This is the huge statue of Ramses II. They've built a special building for his statue, with a balcony so you can get up and see his face better.

me!

Next we went to Saqqara, which is an ancient burial ground by Memphis. It is the place (Katy) where Imhotep's step pyramid is! I saw it! I've been there! Sweet, right? We also got to go inside a tomb there that wasn't a ruler, but a noble. His tomb was in the ground and we went down like we were going in a cave to get to it. That was fun. We also saw some real, live Scarab Beetles crawling around on the ground in the tomb. That was freaky. I was okay about them until someone saw movement in the dark headed to my foot, and we pointed the flashlight there and there was one crawling directly to my foot, and about six inches away. I moved fairly quickly...I'm sure you can imagine. And then I got out of there. Upstairs in the tomb area there was some cool carvings on the walls. I got in trouble for taking pictures....but I still have them. Whoops! The color on the walls was really cool. It's thousands of years old, but some of the color is still there. Can you imagine? It's really cool.

This is the temple in front of Imhotep's step pyramid...

Step pyramid! Thousands of years old! And this was a huge engineering development for them. They used to just set the rectangular "mastabas" on top of tombs before this. Imhotep had the idea to put several mastabas on top of each other, and thus created the first pyramid, ever.

This is the noble-mans tomb. This is my group waiting to go down the steps. Our guide in Cairo is in the green shirt. His name is Islam.

These is the steps into the tomb...

This is inside the tomb, where we saw the scarab beetles. I got a picture of them, but it didn't turn out very well, so I'm not going to post it.

This is a picture of the carvings upstairs in the temple in the back rooms. The color was awesome!

Finally, after all those stops, we stopped for lunch. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and we were all fading, if not faded already.

After lunch we headed to the airport to go to Luxor! We traveled by bus, plane, horse-drawn carriage, sailboat, motor boat, train, car, walking, and riding a camel while we were in Egypt. Cool, right? I'll explain all of those that I haven't, don't worry. They're coming up in the next few blogs, just be patient :).

Egyptair!

The flight to Luxor was short, but fun, and I wrote in my journal, documenting everything. It was only about a 40 minute plane ride, which was nice. We took a bus to our hotel with our new guide for Luxor, Rafaat. When we got to the hotel (The Sheraton of Luxor) it was right on the river Nile, with palm trees and a nice swimming pool, and it was five stars. It was so sweet. We still couldn't drink the water or eat the fruit, but that was okay. It was such a nice hotel. Amanda, my roommate for the whole Egypt trip (and one of them at the Center), asked me one night, "If this is a five-star hotel, why can't we drink the water?" and I said, "because it's five Egyptian stars." Which was funny, but I should note that this was a really nice hotel, even by our standards. It was really great. And the shower was basically the best thing ever.

Door of our hotel room. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the bathroom, which is the door on the right. It was probably the cleanest bathroom in all of Egypt. Wait, not probably...definitely.

Mine and Amanda's beds with our stuff thrown on them after a long day... You can see that we went out on the balcony, too.

This is the view from the balcony! How spoiled are we? Rooms overlooking the Nile, with palm trees and a wonderful pool? It was amazing!

Okay, whew! Day 3, check. Now I'll tell you a little story from my day today 9/27/09:

Okay sorry, no pictures from this day...but....

Today we were planning on doing the Via Dolorosa where Christ walked during his trials and there are places where he was scourged and everything, and we were planning on doing that for our Site Log for OT (cause New Testament sites are okay now), and we walked down Mount Scopus, into the Kidron Valley, and then up the other hill and we saw another group that was coming back to the center and they said that the center had called and said that they should go back and that the city was closed. We signed out with our cards and everything, so we figured that the center would've texted or called us if we were supposed to come back, but we decided to call them (since they don't charge us to call the security office in the center) and check just to be safe. So I called and told the guy where we were and what we were planning on doing and he told me the city was off limits today and that we should head back to the center.So, after climbing up the big hill we turned around, when back down, and then had to climb the hill to the center. (Sweaty climbs and we didn't do anything...yay! :) ) While we were hiking back up the hill, the security office called me again and asked who was in my group, so I told them (there were six of us) and then I asked what had happened and they guy said that at the Dome of the Rock there had been a problem and that gunshots were heard, so they were closing off the city to the students for our safety. I told them okay and we got back perfectly okay. It was like a normal day. We wouldn't have known anything. It's lucky we called though because we were going to go in through Lion's Gate to start Via Dolorosa, and that's right by the Dome of the Rock. I don't know if we would've had any problems, but still...tender mercies,right? So now we're back in the center, which is probably good cause now I can study for my midterm and write my paper and do my readings.

Anyway, that's just something that was interesting that happened. That was our second run-in with security changing plans. The other one was when we went to the wailing wall and there was a shooting in a neighborhood south of there and so we changed our routes and the buses picked us up instead. We're okay though, so don't worry about us!

I love you all! I may try doing another day today, cause we're going to be in the center all day and I'll be studying, but I'm not sure how that will work out. I hope everyone is having a good Sabbath!

Egypt Day 2 (9-18-09)

Hello again all!

Now I'm going to write about today and Egypt, on the 18th of September.

The morning of the 18th we woke up in the Kibbutz we were staying in and had breakfast. Waking up was a little crazy because we all left our cell phones at the center upon instruction, and so not many people had alarms to wake up by. We were a little rushed when we finally woke up, to say the least.

We had devotional on the bus when we all finally got on there. It's always fun to be able to sing as a group and have a prayer and a thought. Interesting, right? We also have spotlights and stuff and play games. I'll try to tell you all about those as they happened. Basically the spotlights are just papers we filled out with our most embarrassing moments, why we decided to come to Jerusalem, etc. But they added the thrill of having the person whose spotlight they read to come to the front of the bus and everyone on the bus can ask them whatever questions they want to. We are a hilarious group, if I do say so myself, and so we ask some really funny questions, and we get some extremely funny answers back. It's been really fun to do that for group unity and everything, I really like it.

Anyway, the first thing we did after we got on the bus was to go through the Israeli/Egyptian border. They told us that we were not allowed to take photos, to be sure to say we're tourists while passing through, and to not let anyone cut us in line. The last piece of advice kind of confused us a little until we got to the border and realized that people in the middle east have no idea what a line is. They just walk to the front and put their stuff on the x-ray machine or what not. It's actually pretty effective for them, but not effective for 82-90 people who are all trying to get through the border and stay as a group on the other side. So, what you have to do is push forward until you are packed in so tightly that nobody can get in. That was fun.
Anyway, I was a little nervous about the Egyptian border after going through customs (?) when we landed in Tel Aviv on the 2nd of September. The woman who was looking at my passport had so many questions for me and asked all of them two or three times, as if she was unsatisfied with my answers. She gave me a pretty hard time, and I was worried they wouldn't let me into the country. Finally she did though. It was kind of intense. Anyway, nothing like that happened on the Egyptian border. It may or may not have helped that the person who talked to me was a man and that I'm a blond. I noticed immediately the difference in attention I was getting as soon as I passed into Egypt. It was a little unnerving, but nothing really happened that was scary or anything. We had a very safe trip. I will tell you on each day the little bits of attention that I got because of my hair and skin, and my eyes. Some of them are pretty funny.

After crossing the Egyptian border I got to practice my Arabic a little bit. "Marhaba" means hello, and I used it all the time! Mom and Dad, it's kind of like how you found if you said "Bonjour" to French people in France and then started talking in English afterward, that they would be so much nicer than if you just started talking in English to begin with. So true. Oh, one more interesting thing about the border was that we left our busses and had to get on new busses on the other side of the border, so we had to take all our stuff with us and walk across. When we got to our new busses they came equipped with two guards for each, with guns, and I think two bus drivers. It was a full bus, but still very fun.

This picture is super anti-climatic....but after we crossed the border and drove for forever, this is basically what we saw...a whole lot of nothing. Desert! It was still cool though, just to see how dry it was.

After we got on our new bus we just drove for a long time, basically. We had about a six hour drive? And with 82 students we also had scheduled stops for bathrooms and lunch and etc. every couple hours. It was nice to get out and stretch our legs, but it was definitely hard to get everyone rounded up and back on the bus in a timely manner. Most of the time we ended up playing frisbee or going in the little rest stop shops and buying soda or candy or ice cream and we were there for a little longer than planned (or maybe they planned for it, I don't know), but it was all very fun, actually.

When we drove into Cairo I was awake and alert. I wanted to see the pyramids! I knew that our hotel was somewhere close (ish?) to the pyramids, so that eventually we'd be able to see them. I don't know if it's all the times we played "who can see the ocean first" or the lake or the city or whatever we were going to, but I definitely have it ingrained into me that I want to be the first one to see the big site! And guess what, all the years of Dave Clark training paid off, and I was the first one to see the pyramids on my bus. I was so excited too, like a little girl. I had kind of given up on seeing them when I finally did, and so I saw them, literally looming out of the haze in the distance (they are so big!), and I didn't mean to, but I yelled out, "Pyramids!!" and everyone on my bus started looking around for them. It was pretty sweet. They were sometimes blocked by buildings and stuff so we all to be patient to see them sometimes. It was really fun. They are actually located in Giza, not Cairo (which is why they are the great pyramids of Giza :) ), and Giza is on the west side of the Nile (oh, which I also saw and we crossed. That was sweet too.). They're on the west side of the Nile though because the sun sets in the west and so that is where the people were buried always. The Egyptians lived on the East side, the place of life, where the sun lives again each day, and their tombs and such were on the west side, where the sun dies each day. Interesting, right?
This was kind of the first view that I saw of them. They were actually much smaller than this and must more in the distance, but I didn't think to take a picture until about here. Aren't they huge? They just loom out of the distance.

And some more pictures....

Anyway, we went and checked into our hotel and a lot of us went swimming before dinner, including me. They had told us that we shouldn't get the water from the pool in our mouths or eyes and so we shouldn't duck our heads under (also that we weren't allowed ever to drink the water in Egypt, brush our teeth with the sink water, or get any water in our mouths or eyes while showering or etc --it was bottled water and hand sanitizer all week long.) but we decided to go for it anyway. And, of course, we ended up playing a big keep away game that was really fun and a lot of us got our heads under the water and just tried not to be too afraid of it. The pool was chlorinated, so we felt okay about it. Brother Manscill also kind of gave us the green light, so that was okay. (And I didn't get sick the whole time I was there, so there you go.)

Dinner was good, and consisted of everything cooked really well and no fresh fruits or veggies. (That was our food all week. Bread and Meat with the occasional cooked veggies...we were all so so so so grateful for our fresh fruit at the center when we got back.)

After dinner we went to a light show at the Pyramids! My goodness, that was cool. They light them up and do lasers and stuff on them. I thought it was just going to be done to music or something, but it was also narrated and kind of a history about them. Our guide, who was with us the whole time in Cairo, Islam, told us that it isn't updated and so he'd tell us about them more the next day on our tour, but it was still interesting. The voice was just like Jim Dale, the narrator for Harry Potter, though. Very deep and soothing, to the point of making sleepy people even more sleepy. One funny quote that we said all week after we went to this light show is, "Man fears time....but time fears....THE PYRAMIDS!" We all died laughing at the light show when they said that. It was pretty random and really funny.

First shot of the pyramids! Welcome to Cairo!

They used lasers and put them on the pyramids and the sphinx and everything, it was cool.

Just part of the narrative, but the picture was clear so I thought I'd put it on here.

This was the last view of them, at the end, with everything lit up. (The building next to the Sphinx is the temple that we went into to go look at it.)

Anyway, after that we went back to the hotel and went to bed.

Now for today, the 26th of September:
Today was the Sabbath at the Center, and we woke up, had breakfast (I had pancakes with peanut butter and syrup on them. It tasted so good, and reminded me of home, it was great!), and went to choir (the prelude hymn was #70 - Sing Praise to Him, which I haven't heard, but really liked), then in Sacrament they talked all about parables and each person had a parable. My OT teacher talked on the parable of the Ten Virgins. It was really interesting. He told us about how after being betrothed a bridegroom had a period of 12 months to prepare for the bride to come to live in the house of his father with him, and the bride would also have to prepare. He said that in the parable of the Ten Virgins the waiting period that they have is that 12 months, and that their unwillingness to share their oil was not an act of selfishness, but just because they simply couldn't share the preparation that one makes during those 12 months, because a lot of it isn't tangible. I thought that was really interesting, and made the parable's meaning come to life a little more. After sacrament we of course had Gospel Doctrine, and talked about preparation and blessings of the temple. Then in Relief Society we had an amazing lesson about Service and the example that Christ is in service. It was, again, a wonderful Sabbath.

After that I've just been catching up on my blog a little bit. We have dinner in a half hour, and then a fireside from our Relief Society president on Charity --one of my favorite subjects to learn more about and think about. I am really excited.

I hope all of you are having a wonderful Saturday! I love you all!

Here's Egypt, Day 1

Today is a day of rest at the center (9/25), which is nice because tomorrow and the next day are days of rest also. And possibly Monday. You can tell we need a lot of recuperation from our awesome adventures in Egypt. We're all so tired, but it was such a great trip. I think what I'm going to do is to write once a day in my blog for the next few days, and I'll document both that day and one of the days in Egypt, in a row. That way you can read about my week there and this coming week here. Plus, I probably won't have much to say about this week because we have a lot of classes and what not. So, here goes.

First day of the Egypt Trip 9/17/09:

On this day we were just traveling to Egypt. We didn't really get to Egypt until the 18th, but I will hopefully be able to do both days today, since I have free time before dinner (since it's our Sabbath :)) Anyway, we got up at 5:30, were on the bus by 6:30, and then we drove for an hour until we got to our first field trip stop: Beer-Sheeba. This is where Abraham lived, and where he dug a well, where he left from to go sacrifice Isaac, and actually a lot of other things. It was really interesting. We also got to go down into the Cistern system that they dug to keep their water, which is why we're all wearing yellow or white hard hats in our pictures. Okay, picture time!


This is Me, Kathryn, Lizzie, and Michelle before going into the site...


The first thing we saw was this well, which is a reconstruction of the one that Abraham built. It was pretty cool.

A tower that they've built so you can go up and overlook all the ruins. These ruins were way cool cause all the house walls and foundations were still up. That's pretty unusual for it to be this clean-cut.

This is me walking down into the cistern system (where they stored their water). Hence the hard hats that are way dorky :)

This is a reconstruction of the horned-altar that is described in the Old Testament. I say reconstructed because they were dismantled. It is actually made from the original stones, just rebuilt.

After that we went to a place called Sde Boker, which is an overlook of the Wilderness of Zin, where the children of Israel wandered for 40 years, and also David Ben Gurion's Grave, who was the first Prime Minister and first Defense minister of the State of Israel. He tried to start more of a community out in the harsh desert areas of Israel, and wasn't very succesful. Or at least after he died it went back to pretty much how it used to be.

Here are some pictures from there. The second one has Victoria, me, and Amanada. (The first is me and Kathryn...but you should know her face by now :) )

After that we went to a place called Tel Avdat. I don't know if I've told you guys, but a "Tel" is a city that is built on top of another city which was built on top of another city, and so on. They are archaeological marvels, and also puzzles because it's hard to excavate the lower levels without ruining the first levels. This tel was really cool cause it had a bunch of awesome ruins on top of it. They were ruins of Nambataean people, who were apparently really good stone workers, which is why the ruins are still there and still intact. They also date back to the time of Lehi and etc, which was pretty cool. Here are some fun pictures from there..


This is, from left to right, Victoria, Cathleen, me, Tonya, and Kathryn.

This is a baptismal font, they believe. And it's deep enough that they could be baptized by immersion....Pretty cool.

After that we got back on the bus and we went to tour a Kibbutz. (This is the first time that I've looked up the spelling. I've been spelling it "Caboots" cause that's how everyone pronounces it.) Basically what a Kibbutz is, is a utopian society where everyone works together and produces and they establish a place of complete unity. Obviously it isn't a perfect utopian society, and they receive an allowance to buy the "necessities that are unequal" (which is how it was explained to us) so everyone that likes music can buy that, or if people like more wine than others they can buy that, and etc. But they all have teams that they work on. There's the kitchen team for the cafeteria, and the field workers. The main thing they grow are dates. They actually gave us all a date to taste, and it was really interesting. The whole experience was very interesting. They told us about how you have to petition to get it, and then if you are okayed for a trial period you come to live and decide if you want to stay, while everyone decides if they want you there. Also, they're not extremists or anything, and everyone is free to come and go as they please. I just found it very interesting to tour it.

These are just pictures of an overlook of the Kibbutz. It's pretty big. In the top picture the stuff on the left is all cattle grounds. Apparently everyone told them there was no way they could raise cattle in such a barren land, and they wanted to prove that they could. I guess they have over 600 head of cattle now. They spray them down with cool water three times a day to keep them cool. Pampered cows.

After that we went to our hotel, which was another Kibbutz, I believe. The two busses we had both stayed at different Kibbutz, so we didn't see half of our group this night. Oh, I forgot. For dinner we ate at the Kibbutz Yotvata (the one we toured), where they raise cattle and are famous for their ice cream and chocolate milk. And a sample of ice cream came with dinner, it was heavenly!

Anyway, this day was really long with all the driving and stopping and getting off and everything, even though it seems short. It was also really fun.

Now I'll document yesterday, the 25th of September. Everyone mostly just stayed in yesterday and recuperated from being so worn out after a week of traveling so much. I got my laundry done, talked to a few of you, and then I did some reading homework. After dinner I worked out. They only really have bikes and weights in the gym area at the center, so I did a bike....Katy and Clayton, Kudos to you both. I did 16 or 17 miles though, I don't know if that's good? Or accurate, for that matter, but it made me feel good about myself :).

I forgot something Mom and Dad would LOOOVE!

Last Wednesday we had the opportunity to go underneath the center. I know it doesn't sound that exciting, and all of us were kind of like....."um...okay ?" but it was so fun! And what's more, I couldn't help but thinking how much Dad and Mom would've just died for the opportunity, with how much you guys have gone and looked at houses and frameworks and buildings and everything.

Anyway, there is a crawl space that runs underneath the entire center. The main reasons for this are genius: They wanted to have a space that made aesthetics and maintenance way easier, which it completely accomplishes. They are able to put everything that is traditionally on the roofs here underneath instead, which allows for the center to have such a great look on the outside. The roof is completely clear. Also, they can access all of the pipes and everything in the entire building from underneath. They ran everything through there. The same goes for the Kitchen, water filter, elevator motors, and everything. It's all underneath, so they can install new appliances, find and fix leaks, and service the entire building without making a mess and without having people up in the hallways and etc. They can also pull extra space out of the crawl area to add offices and etc. to the building. They already did that on level 5 when they realized they needed more office space. Very ingenious.

It's formatted like the center is, so there's an underground level underneath each level and it steps down from the eighth to the first floors, which is cool. There's also a little spot that previous students have written their names on the foundations with chalk that someone left there. Kate- I found Katie Vargo's name! And I added my name to the foundation as well, so I will forever be a part of the center. Fun, right?

Anyway, I thought you all would enjoy that. Love you all!

I should've taken my camera underneath, but I didn't...oops, sorry familia!

My day : 9-15-09

Today was a pretty normal day, we had classes, got our announcements, etc.

But one thing was a little unique. They "orientated" us on going to Egypt! We leave on Thursday morning at 6:30 a.m.! Crazy, right? And apparently we have no classes for over a week...Not until a week from next tuesday :) :) :). I guess there is one benefit from having lighting speed homework and reading assignments out our ears!

A lot of us are a little nervous about Egypt cause they told us all this great stuff like we could all get traveler's diarrhea that is so bad that we'll have to ....go..... outside of the bus with a sheet hung up for us....and we have to be sure to sanitize our hands, and always have a boy present. We have to be sure to let the guys go into taxi's first and get out last so they don't drive away with a girl in the cab still...and we will get armed guards and a new bus for Egypt with Egyptian tour guides at the border. Umm....oh yeah, and we were instructed that if any men try to touch us at all to scream "Don't touch me!" at the top of our lungs. I have a feeling I'll be doing that for some of the more timid girls in my group. Hopefully we won't have any problems.

BUT! EGYPT! Ahh! We're all so excited. We get to go to all our sites and just have it be oriented like a field trip the whole time. We're taking a bus to our first hotel, and then a plane to our next one, and then an overnight train back to the first and then back to the center via hiking Mount Sinai on the last day. We'll be gone for a total of 8 Days! and then we have a free day when we get back, then the Sabbath on saturday, and I think another field trip day, and then another free day. I'm not sure why we have so many mixed in free days at the end of our trip, but it will be nice to get some rest and do reading and stuff! And hopefully I don't get sick. Will you all please pray for me while I'm there? I really don't want to get sick or abducted or any of the above. I'm going to be super careful, don't worry. I'm really excited. I get to see the pyramids! And the Sphinx! And tombs and everything! Who knew that I would ever get to do this? I'm so thrilled.

After orientation today we did some sites for my Old Testament Site Log. We have to visit 30 sites this semester for OT, and find scriptures and stuff for them and document our thoughts and everything. So, today we went to Orson Hyde Memorial Park, which was kind of weird in that it reminded me of Utah....with a view of the Holy Land ? It was cool. Then after that we went to the Garden of Gethsemane! (It was just a small group of us to do sites, so we didn't stay long, but I got to see the site, which was really cool. Apparently people go there from my group to sing hymns and stuff before church on sundays. I'll have to go. Ooops...I mean Saturdays...haha, I always make that mistake!) I'm not sure if that was the actual site of the Atonement though, or if it just is a grove of the oldest trees that are left from the actual garden, which I think covered the whole mountain side. I'll have to wait until we go there on a field trip to tell you all about it. It was really cool though, and I can't wait to go and have some time to sit and just be there for a while.

After that we went to the Tomb of Mary, which was fun, and a little different, how they worship her as well as Christ, and everyone else, right? :) And we went to the Russian Orthodox Convent of Mary Magdelene, which has gold onion tops on it :). It was very sweet. Again, a short visit just to document it for our site log. And we went to the Jewish Cemetary and just all over the Mount of Olives! It was really fun. I hadn't been over that way yet, and I was glad to get some outside time today.

Anyway, time for bed, I love you all!!

The Shephelah - Lowlands 9/14/09

Hello! Today was the date of our second field trip. We went to the Shephelah, which is the lowlands of Israel. We mainly visited five valleys of the Shephelah, which all had fortresses to protect the cities in the hill country to the east.

Some cool ones that we went to were Bet Shemesh, which is where the ark of the covenant was returned to the Israelites in a cart driven by two milk cows....And I'm pretty sure they opened the box cause they were curious and there was a curse on the land that wiped out all the people. That's kind of fun, right? Also, there was a cistern there, which is a cavern of sorts that the people dug out in the rock underground and then plastered the walls so they could store water there and not have the water seep out through the rocks. It was really cool, we got to go down and take pictures and stuff. Very fun. Also a lot of people collected pottery shards there. I didn't get one though. Oh well. I did almost sprain my ankle there...that was fun. I just stepped off a rock weird and rolled it a little. It only hurt momentarily, and then it was fine. Whew! Dodged a bullet there.

This is Bet Shemish. Do you like the fanny pack? They're very convenient. And I'm going to resume refusing to wear one, after Jerusalem. Maybe that's it...maybe Jerusalem just makes everything cooler :)

This is descending down into the Cistern....it was really cobweb-y and steep, but very, very fun. I have inherited the Dave Clark love of dark caves, and cool climbing areas and etc. I think I'm a little more skittish than my wonderful Dad, but hey, I do love it, still :)

This is inside the cistern...

Next we went to another valley, and it was pretty sweet....We went to this big Cistern there, along with a subterranean olive press, which also was sweet. We got to talk about the Atonement and how Gethsemane is derived from the word "Gath Shemish" Which means oil press. That was really cool also. The rock in that area was pure white and reflected the sun at us from all angles. I really don't think I've ever been so hot in my life. That and I am sporting a slight sunburn from my adventures in Tel Aviv yesterday...which by the way, I still think are amazing.

Next we went to the "Bell Caves" which were really awesome! They reminded me of Southern Utah / Zion a little bit. The rock wasn't red or anything, but there was just huge rock walls in a bell shaped cave, which holes at the top. I think it was man-made though. Still, really awesome. And the acoustics were unbeatable. We sang hymns and a girl names Kathleen sang a song for us, and then two girls named Lizzie and Anna sang that primary song that starts "Whenever I hear the sound of a bird..." in harmony. It was so beautiful to hear both songs from those three girls! I loved it. And we took some awesome pictures....again, coming soon hopefully.

After that we went to Tel Lachish. which apparently was one of the most important cities in Israel in Old Testament times. That's really cool. I don't know if I've blogged about this before, but a Tel is an ancient city that has had many generations and civilizations build one after another on top of each other. Usually it's because the city gets destroyed by fire, earthquake, or war. One of those three, usually. So it's an "A.D" (Dad :) ) or and Archaeologist's Dream, because there's layers of cities and civilizations right underneath each other. Pretty cool stuff. This one they haven't excavated all the way, so it still has it's volcano shape. (Because the city gets higher and higher as they build on top of each other, and starts to cone because usually they use the older outer walls as reinforcements on the outside for their walls, and it's flat on top because the level it for a city. They do this because of defense reasons, mostly.)

We then went to these caves called the Caves of Mikhal....I think. I'm a little rough with all the names. I think this was my favorite part. They were so cool! You have to hike up a tiny tiny ways from the road and you find this little opening in a rock, and it goes down to a little room, and the little room has a tunnel that is probably two and a half feet wide and about three feet tall. Just perfect height for human crawling. So you crawl on all fours for about ten yards, and then the cave opens up to this cavern. You have to climb down a ladder to get to the bottom, which isn't very high, maybe ten feet? So the first room had all these little cutouts carved into the wall. We went somewhere earlier that had a Dovery, where they raised Doves, and it was similar, but I don't know how you'd raise doves in this cave. Then there was an opening to a larger room that had some really small tunnels going all over the place with holes in the walls and ceiling that you could stick your head out of after climbing up through the walls. It was pretty sweet. Someone said they climbed up one and saw a tarantula the size of their face....ummm glad I wasn't there for that! :) Anyway, we had a really cool devotional about light and darkness, and how Christ is the light of the world. We all turned off our flashlights and headlamps and sat in complete darkness. This was darkness with absolutely no light. Nothing for your eyes to adjust to after a little while, and Bro. Manscill talked about the blind man that Christ healed at the gate to the temple, and etc. It was really cool, then we all turned on our flashlights and sang hymns and a couple guys shared stories about their missions and experiences with light they had. It was really cool. Aaand then we played. Everyone was crawling everywhere and lifting each other up and climbing and taking pictures and etc. It was so fun. I almost can't believe that BYU not only allowed us on, but they also took us there. None of us would've been any the wiser had they not taken us. I just loved that they're so open to adventure out here. I guess you'd have to be, in the Holy Land :).

After that we made our last stop of the day to the Valley of Enoch. Sounds awesome, right? Well.....it's the valley where the story of David and Goliath took place. Isn't that awesome? I saw the valley with the two hills where the Israelites and the Babylonians stood on opposite sides, and Goliath, who was 9'6", stood and challenged any of the Israelites to battle who would come. And nobody did. Then David, who wasn't even in the army, but just a helper who was instructed to bring food to his brothers, showed up at the right time, and couldn't believe that nobody was willing to die for their God and country. That nobody had the faith. So he volunteered. Then everyone tried to give him armor like Goliath had, and swords and etc, and he wouldn't take it. He had faith in his God and wasn't about to give up his advantages of the skill he'd acquired with his sling and his agility. So he went to the riverbed and picked up five stones, and then he stood facing Goliath and charged at him. It took one shot, and he hit him right in the forehead and lodged the rock right in his head and killed him. It was a neat experience to stand there and everything, but it didn't really hit home until Bro. Manscill invited us to pick up stones to take with us and I was walking around and, lo and behold, I see the very riverbed where he went to pick up the stones. It was dry, so I didn't see it before. How cool is that, though? It happened right there! And now I have 5 David and Goliath stones for some very lucky primary class to hold in their hands at some date in the future.

Ooh I forgot to tell you also, they gave us slings to try to hit a box they set up across the valley, and we all learned how to sling stones just like David did! I got really close. I aimed perfectly and it would've hit it had I let go when it would've gone a little higher. Dang, right? But it was still really fun.

After that we headed for the Center. We were all super super dirty. It was fun, we looked kind of like explorers, and even though the day was hot and dry, everyone had a great time. It was probably one of my most fun days yet, just because we got to go so many places and do cool things. I'll get pictures up here sometime, I promise. I love you all!