Egypt Day 8 - Final Day! Hooray!

Okay, so on September 24, 2009 I woke up at 2 o'clock a.m., boarded a bus, and hiked up Mt. Sinai.

Well, actually...backup. Amanda and I didn't have a clock in our room that was easily accessible....(I was really wishing for that travel alarm clock that we bought but didn't put in my bag...oh well!) Anyway...we kind of woke up to the sound of voices in the lobby, and Amanda said, "Angie....Angie! I think everyone's up and going!" And so we got dressed so we could go out and look and I put my contacts in and everything....I looked at the lobby without them and just saw a group of people...so there you go. So we got all dressed, and got out there, and it wasn't our group! It was only one o'clock! So we went back to sleep! It was really funny though!

Anyway, we got a short breakfast and a little mini lunch/breakfast in a sack, and we got on the bus, and we drove to the bottom of the trail.

Now we got off the bus, congregated, were told that we could take camels up for $16 one way, and then we set off. I was determined to hike that whole mountain, and I can proudly say that I did!
This is our whole group, getting "the spiel" which we get everywhere we go, and don't get me wrong, it's super helpful.

This is me, preparing to hike! The headlamp didn't stay on my head long, I ended up just holding it in my hand, cause I've never really been a huge headlamp person.

It was hard though...I'm not a bad hiker, but I fight a huge mental battle whenever I hike. But I made it! It was dark and the stars were absolutely gorgeous. I passed time hiking by singing songs :), and I looked at constellations, and I thought of all the people wishing that they could be hiking with me, that I wished could be there too. There were camel people along the trail, and they would just kind of appear and then ask if we wanted to ride a camel. there was one little skinny part of the trail kind of near the top that had camels on either side, left and right, and it was so freaky. I had gotten in between clumps of my group at that point, and so I went through what I have come to call the "Camel Valley" all by myself. It wasn't really a valley, it was more of a cliff, but there were camels on both sides. It is funny now, but of course then it was kind of like a haunted house... I'm sure you can all imagine. :)

Anyway, we kept hiking, and we got to the very top portion, and there was a stream of beautiful sunlight on the horizon, and I was so exhausted, and we came to the stairs. Someone said there were something like 700 stairs at the very top. And camels don't go that far. Camels stop at the bottom of the stairs. But anyway....I had a great attitude the whole way up, but those stairs were the point that I had to call in for some heavenly reinforcement. I really wanted to make it up that mountain. I was determined, even though I was exhausted.

And it was so worth it.

Here are some pictures, the ones that you all have been waiting for! :)

This is Amy, Emily, Kathryn, and Me at the top, and we were all SUPER super sweaty :). I took my backpack up, so the sweatmarks are from the backpack straps.

Rising sun!

Me with the sun in the background! It was so so so beautiful! And right in front of us, there was a straight cliff down a couple hundred feet. I was sitting a little further back than some people :)

This is around the time when we left...

After we sat on Mt. Sinai, at the very top, and sang hymns and I wrote in my journal, and we watched the sun rise, we were compelled to go down the stairs again, by our religion professors.

The hike down! You can see how rocky and dramatic the terrain is.

At the bottom of the stairs, we had a testimony meeting, in each of our classes. It was powerful, and I bore my testimony of the fact that places don't make testimonies. However wonderful being on Mt. Sinai was, and it really was an amazing experience, places don't make testimonies. I know that the Spirit and the Gospel led me to this study abroad, and that without it, that experience wouldn't have meant very much to me. It was a great testimony meeting.
The beginning of our testimony meeting!

Brother Manscill and me after the testimony meeting. I was so happy and uplifted. It was an amazing morning!

After that we hiked down a different way, down stairs in the back. It was a little long and we were tired, but we were all really happy and uplifted. It was a wonderful day.
These are some of the stairs and me...don't know why I took this picture. I think I just wanted to commemorate each step, maybe?

We got on the bus, went to our hotel, showered and packed up, and headed for the barn. It was a long drive to the border, and then we had to wait in line for a while, and get back on our new bus. But we were so, so excited to have fresh fruits and veggies again! It was heaven that night at dinner!

But, one last thing, we stopped at this restaurant for lunch, and it was right on the beach of the Red Sea...so of course we all ate really fast and went and rolled up our jeans and our shorts and waded right on in! We hadn't gotten a chance to go in it yet, and we're going back later in the semester, but we just couldn't wait. It was really fun!

This is us in the Red Sea! It's (from the left) Becca, Michelle, Tonya, Kathryn, me, and Allison!

Fun!

So, everyone, this has been my Egypt adventure! I am sorry that it took me so long to get the whole trip documented, but that is that!

I really hope you guys have enjoyed it!

I love you all!

Egypt Day 7 !! 9-23-09

This day was a big travel day, so it wasn't super, super eventful.

We did do some stuff in the morning, though. First we went to a large mosque in Cairo. We learned all about Islam (some more, but from a Muslim's perspective who we had gotten to know throughout the week.). And I mean Islam the religion, not Islam the tour guide :).

We talked about niches in Mosques, and how they always face Mecca, and that way when they pray they always know which way Mecca is. We also talked about the Mo'azzin, or the guy who calls people to prayer through song 5 times a day; the Imam, who is the preacher on their holy day, fridays; the Minaret, which is the tower that the Mo'azzin calls to prayer on top of (like a tower). He also said that they call to prayer through voice and song because Catholic churches already called to prayer with bells, and they wanted to respect Catholic practices as well as have their own, distinguishing way to call to prayer. Or at least I'm sure that's how Muhammad, their prophet who brought Islam to the earth, was. He had very good relations with all religions...sometimes Muslims today and other religions too, of course, clash at times...

Anyway, back to the Mosque. We learned about the domes and how they have them for acoustic purposes, and we had to take off our shoes when we entered.

Oh and they had a big fountain to wash with. They first wash their hands three times, and then their nose, then they was their mouth out, then their whole face, then the left arm, then the right arm, and then the ears. And Last they wash their feet. It's to purify their senses and those parts of their body that could be used to sin or dirty themselves.
This is the Mosque we went in. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of it...

This is Islam showing us how they pray with the nice behind him. He wasn't facing Mecca cause he was just demonstrating.

Me in the niche :)

This is a macro shot of the woodwork in the mosque on the pulpit...They dont' believe in having images of people in their mosques, because they believe that is a form of idolotry, so it's mostly caligraphy and decorative plant designs.

Me in front of the fountain area where they wash... The pink dots Islam always gave us to distinguish our group from others. He called our grop "Tut" Like, King Tut...but apparently it's pronounced "Toot" Instead of how we pronounce it...and so he'd call us "Toot" in his accent and everything and make puns, like "Toot! Toot, faster Toot!" Or, "You lazy toot!" "Or "Toot, quickly please!" It was interesting...and funny...and after a while it got a teeny tiny bit old... but still funny.

Me again! Fountain again!

This is inside the Mosque, they had tons and tons of hanging lanterns that were lit inside, suspended under the domes. It was amazing.

Just kind of an artsy shot :)

After that we got back on the bus, and there was KFC waiting for each of us in our seats! It was manna from heaven, seriously! The one issue is that it's finger food and Egypt was a germaphobe's nightmare. But, we sanitized, and I didn't get sick the whole time in Egypt! It was wonderful!

After that we started off for the Sinai Penninsula for the next day's adventure!

And after a long bus ride, we arrived in the middle of nowhere...or it seemed that way, at a really nice hotel, at about nine o'clock. Then we had dinner, and tried to go to bed, because we had a 2 a.m. wake-up call the next morning!

Folk Dancing and Organ Concert !

Hello all! This is super-blog week, can you tell?

We had two awesome nights this week where we had folk dancing! The first one was in our Arab Culture night, which I have already blogged about, but the second one was on Friday, and I didn't take any pictures. It was Israeli folk dancing, though, and was really, really fun.

Our teacher was this little Israeli guy in tight pants and a tight shirt with one of those microphones that clips on his hear and comes down in front of his face. He reminded me of Richard Simmons a little bit.... but it was very fun!

The other thing I just wanted to mention, even though I forgot my camera to this one too, is an organ concert that we went to by Walter Whipple, our center organist. He is an amazing organist, really. And he's pretty famous. A Church here, in the Old City, Called St. Savior's Church, or San Salvador, had just installed and built a new organ. It is now the second best in the region, under ours here at the center :). Anyway, they invited him to play a concert for the community, and of course 50 or 60 of us students just had to show up for it. It was amazing. He played all six Mendelssohn Sonatas in a row, as Mendelssohn intended them to be heard. It was very relaxing, and amazing. The cool part of the church, too, was that the organ was behind the apse, so we could see him while he played. It was great! A lot of churches have the organ in the back, so it's not very fun to watch, but this one was fun.

And, bonus! We got to go into the Old City at night, which is strictly forbidden, at all times. It was a special permission situation though, and because the church was right inside New Gate we could take a cab there, and just pop in, turn on the first street, and walk through the monastery to get into the chapel. It was a great night! And I studied for a test during the concert....which was relaxing. Nothing like some classical music to clear your mind :)

Yad Vashem Field Trip Monday October 19th

This week our field trip was to Yad Vashem, which is a Holocaust museum here in Israel.

I didn't take many pictures, because cameras weren't allowed inside the museum, but it was really good. I did take some of the grounds, so here we go:

We walked onto the museum site, and our professor for our Judaism perspectives class was our tour guide for the grounds before we got into the museum. We went to a different place after this, too, so he came with us to show us the grounds of the museum and the other site also.

First we walked onto the grounds and there was a path with trees surrounding it. It was a garden, named "The Garden of the Righteous Gentiles" meaning those who helped the Jews, but were not Jewish, escape from the Nazi's. Ophir, our professor, explained to us that the purpose of the garden was to remind Jews who exit the museum and memorial that there are still good people in the world, even though it's easy for them to feel like the whole world is against them after going through that museum. It was really interesting.
This is the garden. It was a stark difference from the rest of the memorial, which is made with concrete and very stark, as a symbol of the incredible gash in history made by the holocaust.

After that we went into a plaza where Ophir told us that they have Holocaust memorial days there. There were two bronze relief sculptures there, one that shows the desparation and the feelings of the Jews who were herded around by the Nazis. the Nazis aren't pictured in the relief sculpture, but suggested in the background with bayonettes and helmets. The other bronze relief is one of definance and liberty, of Jews who rebelled against the Nazis and stood up to them.
This is the entrance to the next main plaza.

This is the first bronze relief, you can see the people that look submissive and down being herded. You can't really see the depiction of the soldiers...I'm sorry, this picture isn't that great.

This is the one of the defiant crowd, fighting for justice.

Ophir also told us that after the war, the survivors would go and tell about the places, and oftentimes people's response to it was "Well if it was really that terrible, then how did you survive?" And beacuse people felt like they would be questioned as to how they survived, who they forsake or stole food from in order to survive, then it wasn't talked about much. Of course the second reason for survivors not talking about it was because they wanted to supress the awful memories, but I had never heard that other side. The survivors were ashamed that they survived and so many others died. I had never even considered that. But because of it, there was an attitude of covering it up. In about 1985 it is said that perceptions changed about it, and there was a new perspective that not only the people who openly rebelled were heros. No, others who merely fed a starving person, who ran schools for people, who hid someone, they were heros too.
Because of this there was a more open feelign of needing to record the survivor's stories. Even now there are people who have never spoken of it, or who have only finally told their stories.

Next we went to a statue which the museum and memorial is famous for. I got a picture next to it. It's a story of a man who was a teacher in Germany for Jewish students, and when he had the chance to send the children off to a concentration camp (he wasn't required to go), he couldn't stand the thought of them going alone, and so he went with them. It's a bronze relief sculpture also, and you can tell that it's an abstract representation of an adult with his arms around a group of children. It was very interesting, and a story of heroism at the museum.
This is me in front of that bronze sculpture. I have a slight smile, because it is an act of heroism, even if it was really, really sad.

After that we went to the entrance of the museum and got a guided tour. We had headsets and she walked us through each exibit. The museum was built after the monument, and is dug into the hill. It's a triangular tunnel, and off to the sides of the tunnel are the exibit rooms. The main hallway of the museum is split up by "gaps" so you have to zig zag through the museum exibits, no matter the amount of time that you have.

We went through, and the exibits followed the chronology of the war. It was a really good museum. I'd say this one, the Washington D.C. Museum, and when I was at Dakau were the most powerful experiences I've had learning about the holocaust.

The last exhibit was the hardest, I think. It was all very intense...but the last, when they had liberated the camps, there was a room showing footage that was taken when they found them, with the prisoners and the pits of dead bodies and emaciated people. It was really hard to watch, and I couldn't for more than a couple minutes. It brought me to tears to see how awful humans were being treated. It was really hard to see it. I really just prayed that I could always remember that, and always remember to treat others in a kind way. I hope to always remember learning that.
This is the top of the museum, which we walked over before we went it. It's the only source of natural light in the museum.

These are two signs that we saw in the cafeteria in the basement of the museum entrance building. I thought they were so interesting, because of course it's a Jewish state, and so they have to keep things Kosher. That includes not mixing dairy products with meat products, even in the same meal. So, they had different sections for those who were eating "meat meals" and those who were eating "dairy meals" so they wouldn't be mixed. Very interesting.

After the museum we had lunch, and we were all pretty emotionally drained, but we went to Mt. Hertzl, which is a monument to a guy named Hertzl who was a spearhead in Jewish Zionism. He died before there was a Jewish state created. Anyway, they exhumed his body from his original grave and moved it to this "mountain" where he could be a symbol of the Jewish state.

This is Mt. Hertzl, and that's Ophir our Judaism professor, wearing his Kippah :). He was explaining to us about the Cedar trees, which dignitaries have come and planted the trees.

This is Hertzl's tomb, and it says "Hertzl" in Hebrew right behind me.

We actually spent a lot of time there talking about stuff, cause that's our professor's specialty....but I was exhausted so there's not a ton that I remember and really care to blog about....It was an interesting experience, but the place that I want to remember in this blog, is Yad Vashem.

Egypt Day 6 (9-22-09)

Hello all! I am on a roll this week on posts, yes?

Okay, there aren't a lot of pictures from this day. The stuff that I could take pictures of wasn't that amazing, and not memorable, and then the things that I wanted to, I couldn't....so sorry everyone! I hope you still like it!

I thought that I should post another Egypt, seeming that I want to be all done with it so you can all enjoy it during the time that I'm in Jordan. I guess you guys have a lot of homework if you want to keep up, so I fully understand if you can't keep up, just look through the pictures or something :).

Okay so on Egypt Day 6 we woke up on the train from Luxor to Cairo. It was a slightly tedious start, because I woke up from the train movement as soon as I was remotely rested, and lay in bed wondering what time we were supposed to arrive. I also had almost missed my stop in Paris when I took an overnight trip from Germany, so I was paranoid that we'd miss our stop in Cairo and not be dressed yet and what not. Anyway, so I lay there looking out the window and freaking out at every stop, and finally our butler knocked on the door and brought us breakfast. Then shortly after he came and told us we had 15 minutes, which was nice. I didn't know he was going to do that, so there you go! First class all the way. :)

After we got off the train, we took a bus to the hotel we had previously stayed in, in Cairo. We couldn't check into our rooms yet, so all 82 of us had to use the two rooms they had kept to store luggage in to change (which involved finding our bags and uncovering them enough to get stuff out and then change where nobody was (impossible...) and then put stuff back in your bag), freshen up, and then get back on the bus after breakfast.

So something tricky....I found a place in the spa where there were two showers in the ladies locker room, and I brought my stuff there and showered :). Not many people got to shower, and those who did held up the bathrooms in the rooms for a while, which was not very nice and I didn't want to do. Anyway, this way I got to shower! I did break my watch in the process though, cause I had to throw my watch over the shower door so it wouldn't get wet in the shower...because of that the back broke off, and then the battery wouldn't stay in very well...

Anyway, now off to our day! This day we went to a Coptic Church in Egypt. That's code for Christian Church in Egypt, by the way. This church was the oldest one in Egypt, and also where President Brown worked for a number of years, categorizing different ancient texts they had there. It was pretty interesting. They just taught us about the history, and everything like that.

After the coptic church, we went to another church that had some ancient torture devices that used to be used on Christians...they were pretty nasty. All of them were metal and had spikes and stuff....it was gruesome. After that church we went to a synagogue in the area. That was also very cool, but at that point it was just kind of another church. Well, I guess this synagogue was interesting because it had been the site of a discovery of ancient scrolls that...proved something, or had a record of something.... Oh it was that it had scrolls that nobody knew what they were, until the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered, and then they realized that they were fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls text. So there you go. History, and stuff. :)
This is the entry to one of the Coptic Churches..

This is the foundation of the Coptic Church...you can't really see but it's set on a big extra story, which was the orginal and what not.
Sorry...but these are literally the only two pictues I have from this day. I hadn't realized that before...Sorry all!

After that we went to one of my favorite places on the trip: The Cairo Museum! Oh my word, the number of "(gasp) no way!" moments that I had in that building were numerous. First we went and saw some random sarcophaguses, and statues that I'd studied in Art History that you wouldn't really recognize....and we couldn't take cameras, but to name some, there were: The Seated Scribe (which has glass eyes that have lasted this long, and also is still well painted. It demonstrates that only upper-class people could afford to be scribes, because of the expense of education), a Sphinx made with Hatshepsut's image, that her name was erased from by her son...; A statue of the Pharoah with the god Ra in the form of an eagle protecting him from behind his neck, and some others as well. One of the coolest things was King Tut's treasures! I saw King Tut's famous sarcophagus and headdress, as well as all the other treasures. They filled one whole wing of the museum. To think that he wasn't even that great of king! He only ruled for 9 or 10 years, and probably was a puppet king, and his treasures were so great! And solid gold even! I saw the coffin boxes that covered the sarcophagus. There were three that they made and then assembled inside the tomb, because they were too big to make it in the chamber. They were all plated with gold, and they were all increasingly bigger than the last. They were insane!

Another interesting thing was his Canoptic jars. These provide a lot of evidence that Tut was murdered instead of dying naturally. The High Priest was involved in the embalming process, and usually they would take great care to embalm the body and the intestines and etc, very well, to preserve them for the afterlife. Well, King Tut's body wasn't as well preserved as other mummies, and to top it all of, there is visible blood remains splashed on the sides and tops of his canoptic jars, the jars where his intestines were kept. This shows that the High Priest didn't really care about the embalming process for Tut, and that instead of carefully draining, cleaning and drying the organs, then placing them in the jars, he simply removed them from the body and threw them into the jars, blood and all. Guys, I saw 3000 year-old blood! It was cool!

After that I went into a special room that you had to pay extra to go see, and saw some more mummies! "The Mummy Room" was really cool. I almost didn't pay to go in and see it, and then I thought about what my Dad would say. "It's only money" :) and I thought, "Am I not in Egypt, on the other side of the world? Am I not going to the Cairo Museum? Why am I not going to pay $12 to go see these mummies that I've studied about in my classes, that I'm studying now, and that I've read about in the Bible?" And so I paid the money. I hope you're proud of me Dad :). I'm really glad that I did! I got to see the mummies of Hatshepsut, who I have studied about, and we went to her Mortuary Temple; and Ramses II, who I have studied about, who is probably the Pharoah of the Exodus, and also whose statues and other places we visited all over Egypt; and tons of others! There were 20 of them, and it was just really interesting to see some really, really well preserved mummies. All of them still had hair, and teeth, and even ear lobes! It was really sweet. I'm no so sure Jen would've liked it... :)

We didn't get a ton of time for the museum, which was sad, cause we were on a tight schedule. But that's okay. I don't have many pictures from that day either, because the museum we couldn't take pictures of, the churches were cool but not really picture-cool, I guess, and then after the museum we went to a market place, were I didn't have my camera out for fear of getting pickpocketed while my attention was on something else.

But yeah, that's where we went next! To a marketplace area that is the second largest complex of flea markets in the world. The largest is in Istanbul. It was really cool. They said it'd be easy to get lost in, though, so we were kept to a certain area, and we followed it. The streets all wound around and zig-zagged. It was nice to go in and look for stuff. I didn't buy much from here, cause by that time we were all a little tired of being heckled and having people try to convince us to look at their stuff. Everyone said, and I agree, that we got a little more terse with the shop keepers on this day. They wouldn't bargain much with us, either. I think they were used to American tourists who wouldn't walk away if they wouldn't go down in their prices. Boy, we showed them. I just kept walking away, and therefore ended up buying less stuff than I could've. But I did get a few key Egyptian souveniers :).

After that, we went back to the hotel and had dinner.

Actually, before I had dinner, I went with our tour guide, Amanda, and a guy named Richie (so we'd have a guy with us) and he took us to this famous cotton store. It was a pretty far drive too, and Islam, our guide, took us as a favor. (We asked President Brown if it was okay before we went, too.) He didn't even want to let us pay him, but Richie ended up giving him some money to thank him. It was a really neat experience, though. We got to see Cairo in a totally different light. And the best part was that even though people could see in the windows, they wouldn't look in the windows of the car, cause they weren't thinking that an American blond would be there. In the bus they always look up and stare, so its harder to look out the window. But in the car I really got to look and observe the people and the culture. It was also sweet cause it was the end of Ramadan, so everyone was out celebrating downtown. There were boats out on the Nile with twinkle lights all over them! It was really pretty, I liked it a lot. Anyway, we got some cotton products....ahem.... and then we went back to the hotel, had dinner, and went to sleep!

This was also the night that I got on the internet and talked to a bunch of you guys on g chat! It was fun, right? :)

So, there you go! There is day 6 of Egypt! I hope you don't get sick of reading these!

Arabian Culture Night!

This happened last night, on Wednesday October 21st!

We had an Arab Culture night that was arranged by our Arabic teacher, Ayman Jebara.

We all dressed up in Sunday clothes, and went to the forum (which is where we've come to live a lot of our life here at the center). The first thing on the list was an Islamic / Religious introduction. I was a little wary, cause we've learned about Islam and Judaism everywhere we go, but this was pretty cool. They had a father and son who do the prayer call for the al-aksa mosque, on the temple mount. Their family has been doing this service for 530 years, they said. It has been passed from father to son, and they take it very seriously. What a family legacy!
This is Ayman and the father and son. I forgot to mention that some people wore Sabbath clothes, but some people dressed up in Arab garb that they'd gotten as suveneirs in Egypt. So there you go! These two guys from my group had on traditional headdresses.

Anyway, first they showed us the call to prayer. Now, we hear this every day, five times a day, starting at 4 in the morning... You'd think we'd have had enough of it, yes? Yes. But it was different to have a paper in front of us telling us what it is, and reading the translation. It gave it more meaning. Anyway, we got to hear the different styles of prayer call of both the father and the son, which was sweet. (They didn't speak English, and actually didn't say much at all except for singing the prayer call and etc., but Ayman spoke to us about it.)

Anyway, after they showed us about the prayer call, Ayman asked them to show us their prayer for the evening, which they were going to do anyway. It was very interesting. They took their shoes off, and faced away from us towards Mecca, and the father led the son in prayer. Then they did a second one, and they could be at different times, because the second one is the personal prayer time. It was neat.
This is the Father and Son in prayer. You can't see well, but the Father, on the left, his prayer rug is slightly in front of the son, signifying that he's leading the prayers.

Kind of a bad picture, but you can see them kneeling completely with their foreheads touching the ground. They repeated this several times, standing up and then kneeling back down again.

After the presentation in the forum, we went to a nice dinner in the Oasis, where we normally eat, where they had set up a nice buffet for us, and Jimmy, the head chef, had prepared a special meal with foods that are common in Arab cultures. We all walked in, and we had to sit at assigned tables, and of course, Kathryn and I were assigned to the same table. We're just supposed to be best friends, I guess, cause we just can't seem to ever get away from each other! It's really fun though, I love that Kathryn and I not only are both on this trip, but are roommates and everything too, it's way fun.
This is, from the left, Victoria, Kyle, and Kaylee waiting to be ushers for people coming to dinner after the religious presentation.

Kathryn and me at our table :)

Everyone seated. It was all decorated nice with table clothes and nice napkins, which by the way, I learned how to fold! Christmas dinner, I call that job :)

This is the buffet, with nice flowers and everything, and over on the right is Jimmy, the head chef, who always cooks our meals and has worked as head chef in five star restaurants, but really loves working here at the center :)

My meal...and yes, I tried everything. There was even stuffed carrot, and my pita and bread is covering some veggies and other fun stuff.

So, after dinner, which was interesting...some I liked, most I didn't...but I did try everything. I also can't remember the names of anything, but oh well. We did have a good dessert though. Well, kind of good. Actually, my tummy was a little unsure about the different foods that I fed it last night. It got better though, which is good.

After dinner we had Arab Folk Dancing. There was first a performance, and then they broke us into four groups, and we all learned together. Then they got us in a huge circle, all together, and we did the dance. Then a big throng of jumping around and dancing broke out, which was really fun.

After that they had us get into a big circle again, and they asked the people who felt like they were good at it to come into the middle and form a smaller circle. I was too timid to go at first, but it looked like tons of fun, so after a while I just went and got in the circle. That turned out to be a sweet idea, too, cause shortly after they had everyone kind of kneel and clap to the rythm, and then one of the dancers pulled me to dance in the middle. I thought that I was going to dance with them, cause a couple others had pulled people in to dance with them, but then he just left to go show other people what to do, and I was just dancing by myself in the middle of the circle for everyone clapping. It was fun, but I definitely didn't do anything very special! Oh well, I had a good time. Then after that I kneeled down and then a girl pulled me up to show me the girls part, and I just was twirling around and doing all sorts of fun stuff with my hands. It was really fun. Some people skipped out to study, but I'm so glad that I didn't. I had a really good time.
This is Ayman telling us about the dance, at the beginning.

This is them showing us the dance.

Anyway, that is my Arab Culture night from yesterday!

Sidenote:

Sunday - Olive Pressing and Prayer...

Sunday, October 18, we had an Olive pressing activity in the Center! It was so so awesome.

We started by putting freshly washed olives into the press, by the bucket. Then everyone took turns on the press, pushing in a circle, so the wheel of the press could smash all of the olives. We got going really fast, too. People were running around, it was really fun and kind of intense.

This is Sam, filling my bucket with green olives. I heard it was best to wait until they were black, but I guess here at the Center we're just a peculiar people or something ...

This is me pushing the press...not a very good picture, to show the press or what not, but I'll try to get a better one up here...

After all the olives were good and smashed, we put the mush into woven baskets to go under the press....we had to use our hands, and they were way way nasty after. It was fun though. I was glad that we're all in college, and therefore no olive-mash fights were started. It would've been gross. Really nasty. But fun, I suppose :)

This is Kyra and I putting our mush into our woven basket. It was all over my hands. Like I said, I'm grateful there was no food fight.

Here is a little better picture of the press, and us putting the mush in, you can also see a little bit better.

After the baskets were put under the press, then they rigged it with stones and pressed the oil out of the mush and into a basin. It is really sweet. That was basically it, which was wonderful.
Here's the press, with the stones to add the weight to press it.

And one of the other end of the press, where you can see the oil spilling out into the first basin, and then a larger one just outside of this picture to the bottom-left.

Then we went out into the city for the rest of our day!

Kathryn, Kyra, and I (yeah, I know, no "K" name, so I shouldn't have been allowed...) Decided that we were just going to go out for a few hours, because we refused to stay in. We had a big midterm due, that was basically a research midterm, for our Palestinian / Islamic perspective class. So we set out to do some site visits for our Old Testament class, and also to get some Lunch. Sundays and Mondays are always sack lunch days here at the center, and they're usually the same thing...and they've just gotten old and lost whatever lustor they started with...

Anyway, so we decided to do some sites in west jerusalem, so we called a cab to take us over there, so we could just walk back. Because there were only 3 of us, it was 10 sheks instead of 7, which was okay. We were just glad that we didn't have to walk up the big hill to the city :). So we told the cab driver that we wanted to go the Dormition Church, which is on the south west side of the Old City. So, he took us to the North East Side. Direct opposites. Let's just say that communicating with language barriers isn't the funnest thing. For us or the cabbie. He was a little irked that he had to go all the way around the city, and we were a little irked that he didn't know where it was when we told him the name of the place. But, oh well. We got there eventually, and it was a good day :).

So when we got to the Dormition Church, there was a lovely sign saying "Church closed on Sundays between 11:45 and 12:30 for prayer." It was 12:00 on the nose. Great. But then we saw underneath the sign a little line that says, "Open Invitation." And we thought, "Sweet! We'll go in and see it, and we'll just have to say a prayer. Not bad at all, do-able." So we went in :). It was really cool. We just quietly listened to their service. I don't know really how to describe it. I didn't take any pictures because that would've been tacky and irreverent, but we were in the congregation with three other people, and there was a group of about fifteen people standing in the apse of the church, circling the altar. They were just kind of reciting at first, and then they started to sing. Included in the 15 people, about half of them were monks. And they had the most beautiful prayer / song service I've ever heard. They all just knew the parts, and there were a few solos, and just the acoustics and everything were so perfect. It was very touching, to see this small gathering of people worshipping like that. I think that's what I've liked most about being here, is gaining and understanding and appreciation for the way others worship. I may not believe in it, but I do see real humility and devoutness from everyone here.
This is us making growling faces after having to walk up a hill anyway, even though we took a cab (the goal of taking a cab was so we didn't have to walk up the huge hill and the long, long walk around the city), and our driver didn't know where to go. But we were kidding. And that's the Dormition Church behind us.

A better picture of the Church.

Anyway, after that we went to the Last Supper room, or a representation of it. The Last Supper room is in a basement of this other church, but the Dormition Church claims to have it, and it's in an actual upper room....Which doesn't make sense, by the way, because if it was the real room it would be below city level now, even though back then it was an "Upper Room." But we went and saw it, and it was interesting.

This is me in the Upper Room area. Tons of people were there, and you can even see some Nuns!

Kyra has this thing about nuns, so we took a picture of her and Nun, but had to be sneaky about it...

Then we saw the Tomb of David. Who knows if it was real, but of course they have a room where people go and see, and the tomb is covered on both the men's side and women's side (two separate sides) with a curtain, so you can't see it at all... I bet there's just empty space behind it...but that's just my cynical side coming out haha, whoops! The sites are all very interesting...but sometimes I can't help but think, "umm...yeah right..."

This is a statue of King David outside of his Tomb, with Kathryn and me.

Me and David's tomb. You can see the covering that's over it. And there's even a Harp, because David was famous in his kingdom for playing the harp.

Oh well! After those three sites, we went on an excursion through the city, through Zion's Gate, which I've never been through before, which was cool, through the Armenian quarter, which I've also never been to cause it has less shops and etc. and is slightly more residential, and then out of Jaffa Gate, down into West Jerusalem and to Sbarro's Pizza! We were craving pizza.....yeah....so we had pizza, a breadstick, a soda, and a salad for a pretty reasonable price! It tasted delicious. I love the food here, but I honestly am so excited for American food again :). Mmmm! My taste buds will forever be altered slightly from being here, in a good way, and I've gained a new appreciation for a bunch of other foods, but I think that I just love American food. The taste of home, you know?

This is me going through Zion's gate. I had to commemorate it :)

This is a huge group of soldiers that we saw in the city, and had to take a picture. Something weird is happening with my shirt...
But Military service is mandatory here for all young adults, for two years, starting at age 20. Everyone does it, both girls and boys, and they take them on tours on their free days and educate them, and show them around. I think it's part of an outreach / education program for the young adults, and it just happens to provide them with a standing army, so there you go.

Those were the last pictures I took of this day, sorry! But this is the rest of what we did:

Anyway! After that we had an adventure walking back through west jerusalem and to the Old City without a map. That was fun. We walked past this underground prison. I'm not really sure if it's in use or not...but we had the creepy thought that we'd be walking over prisoners, if we were.

Then we went back to Omar's for Kathryn to pay for her Olive Wood, and he gave us a ride home so we didn't even have to go up the big hill on the way back, either!

It was a very pleasant day, and I loved getting to go out into the city and just waltz around. We were discussing the fact that when we see tourist groups now, we don't feel like them. We feel, of course not like locals, but at least like we're familiar with it. Visitors maybe, instead of Tourists. It's really great :)

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this! I love you all!