My Last Friday in Jerusalem: 12-11-09

It is strange to think that from now on, I will only have last days in Jerusalem. Today was my last Friday. The Last Friday of my study abroad. It was actually a good day for lasts, and was a common theme for me. Let me elaborate.

We had our two last finals this morning and this afternoon: New Testament and our Field Trip Exam for NT. Both were pretty fair, and went really well, I believe. The New Testament took an hour (ish) and was a lot of writing. The Field Trip Exam took about 5-10 minutes and was my last final for Fall 2009! I'm all done with finals! Sweet!

After finals I sat on my bed and did a Sudoku puzzle. I haven't had much time for those. I actually haven't had much down time, because I am always multi-tasking between studying, being here with friends, going out into the city, and keeping in contact with the people I care about. But, I decided that I was going to take 20 minutes and sit on my bed and do Sudoku. It was wonderful.

After that we had an outing to go do the Via Dolorosa in the Old City. I've already done it, and so I almost didn't go, but in the end I was so glad that I did! I knew we were doing it with a priest, but I thought that it was more like groups have priests as tour guides for their group and they take them through the Old City, and our appointment was at three. But no. It is one huge processional, and there are a handful of priests that do it, and they have two carrying speakers while three of them switch off reading from the Bible in three different languages. It was so cool! So I got to go again and see the sites, but also experience the Via Dolorosa for how it is pretty famous for being. It was great! I'll only put a few pictures up, because it's late here while I'm blogging this, and you've already seen pictures of the Via Dolorosa, but I want you to see the massive crowds that were there. It was pretty awesome.

Huge Crowds!

And the other direction too...

This was the priests with the microphone at the second station, doing their thing.

After the Via Dolorosa we went through the Old City and shopped just a little bit. I bought a couple items, nothing too big, and then we went to the Western Wall! We got special permission to go to welcome in our last Shabbat with the Jewish people here. It was cool because sundown marked the second day of Hanakkah, so they had two Menorahs (one HUGE, and the other one just huge), both with two candles lit. We are so lucky to have gotten to see so many holidays and festivals and things while we have been here! Fall Semester is the best, I am convinced. Anyway, we went to the Wall for their Shabbat, and I walked up to the front of the huge crowd and touched the wall. I don't have any pictures from inside because the whole "lighting the fire on the Sabbath" thing, but I did take some right before we walked in. So there you go!

The whole Plaza... filled to the brim for Shabbat, and Hanakkah too.

The flames are from the HUGE menorah.

This is just the kinda huge Menorah, the second one. You can see the two candles lit :)

After that we caught cabs back to the center, and had dinner (delicious :)), and then we had an Oscars night here at the Jerusalem Center. People have been making videos the last couple weeks, so we had some really really fun ones. The two most looked forward to (and there were ones that nobody had any idea about, but we loved, too) were (1) an Impressions video, and (2) A Secrets Video. On the Impressions one, everyone did impersonations of animals and etc, and then of specific people here at the center that have their own unique attributes or funny sayings, mannerisms, etc. The Secrets one was kinda fun...it was everyone telling a secret, and then they played them all. Mine was kinda lame. The last one was AMAZING though. It was a kid here who is a pre-mi, and he got his mission call and kept that a secret from EVERYONE except a couple people, and his secret was just a clip of him reading where he had been called to from the letter. He's going to Prague!

This is Sarah and me, at Oscar's night. Didn't fix the red eye...apologies. They even put up fake "sponsor" papers behind where we took pictures. It was legit.

And this is Kali Clark and me!

Anyway, it was an amazing day, and an amazing last Friday. I can't believe that I've down to this. It will be good to be home though, even though I'll always miss Jerusalem!