Back in the City

~ Highlight of the Day: Successfully navigating the Old City without a professor ~

 

After four hours of class this morning, an awesome lunch, and some security orientation, they set us loose on the city! It was a bit intimidating, but our group stuck to familiar streets and stayed close to each other, and didn't go too far. It was a lot of fun to just idle our way down the street, stopping here and there at the shops and asking the shop keepers about their merchandise. We didn't cover a lot of ground, but we talked to people. Every now and then a merchant would recognize us as BYU students, and they'd say "for BYU, only two shekels" or "BYU, best milkshakes here!" We're apparently known as the 'Mormon University', and in orientation they told us that if we ever need to take a taxi back to the Center we should call it that, not the BYU Jerusalem Center.

 

And I found plenty of Ouds, one of which I will definitely end up bringing home. Apparently actual instrument quality ouds are large. . . shorter than a guitar, but much deeper, so I'm not sure how I could get it back home with me. You can find small ones, but they're the Near Eastern equivalent of the $40 pink ukuleles. If I can't find anything better I might settle for that. . . I'll definitely mull over it for a few months.

 

Well, tomorrow's the Sabbath for us. It will be a bit weird having Saturdays and Sundays reversed, but I think I'm going to like it.

Day 2: The Holy City

~ Highlight of the Day: Walking through the Old City ~

It's killing me that I can't post pictures. There is so much to see, and so much to show! Today we went on a quick tour of Jerusalem. We walked up the . . . north wall I believe, and entered through Damascus gate. After that I couldn't tell you where we went - I got terribly turned around, and if I hadn't been with a group I'd have been lost for hours! We did go up to the roof of the Austrian Hospice and look out over the city at one point, and we got to briefly stick our heads into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  That was probably my favorite site. To witness the people, some of which you could tell had traveled much farther than yourself, so humbly worshiping there was simply moving.

I can already tell I'll be spending as much of my free time as possible there. I can't wait till I become familiar with the city and know my way around. . . and I did find some stringed insterments, so you know I'll be back :)

I'm also in heaven with all the different plant life here. I have a pomegranet tree right outside my room. And there are olive trees everywhere! It's interesting to see what kinds of indoor (at least what people in Utah/Washington consider 'indoor') plants the shop owners decorate their store fronts with. They're planting things like ponytail palm and Norfolk island pine. At the Austrian Hospice I saw Plumbago auriculata, which I had worked with for most of the summer up in the Estate Houses at Longwood. And of course there are just a slew of plants I've never seen before. I will probably invest in a Native Plants of Israel book . . . if I can find one.

I have my sights set on the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens. It's only 17 minutes away from the Jerusalem Center, and I think if I can convince two other people to go with me, and figure out how to take a taxi, I'll be set!

Well, believe it or not I'm already swimming up to my eyeballs in homework, and it's all due tomorrow morning! So here's to blogging in English and being in Jerusalem!

Jerusalem!

Ok. Blogspot is in Hebrew. . . and I don't know how to switch it to English. . . so if the formating* is really weird for a while, that's why.

Um, yeah, so I'm in Jerusalem. It took me 14 hours of sitting on a plane, plus the 3 hour flight to Provo. . . and if we really want to get crazy we could add up all the hours I've spent in the air this past month what with flying home from Pennsylvania as well. And though my plan was to make this blog chock full of pictures, the internet here doesn't have the capacity for that. So I'll try to post my pictures, but it'll have to be every now and then. Like the pictures I took of Greece from the airplane window earlier today - those will make it up here somehow!

 It putts the punctuation at the beginning of the line. . . I'll work on it tomorrow after I sleep*

~Highlight of the Day : Being in Jerusalem ~
 

Still Up.

~ Highlight of the Day: Spending time with my favorite people :) ~

 

Well, I'm off to the airport in 3 hours. Yes I'm still up. Don't ask me why. . .

 

Next time I post I'll be in Israel!!!

Gone!

~ Highlight of the Day: comming home to the Fishbowl :) ~

 

I'm packed for Jerusalem, I'm in Provo, and I'm happy. It's so good being back. Even if it's for only 2 1/2 days.

I quickly packed up the bonsai stuff, and dug up my daffodils (the ones I started from seed 5 years ago. . . they were supposed to bloom this year. . . )

 

It was like a treasure hunt digging for these :) Maybe I can get them to bloom this year.

 

We cleaned out the pantry, including the pickles I pickled forever ago. 

 

 

One jar ended up being edible.

 

 

Aaaaand one last look at my phone. . . I won't be seeing it again for 4 months!

 

 



Done Yet? Nope.

~ Highlight of the Day: watching the stars from the driveway, just like on clear winter mornings in high school when we headed off to seminary in the dark ~

 

I am getting so close. . . I'm pretty much done with packing for Jerusalem and moving, I just need to finish filling and closing up all the boxes of my stuff.

 

Here's probably the biggest accomplishment of the day:

 

I threw away all my old trophies that I've been holding onto for years and years. That made one whole box just disapear! My mom pointed out that if I can't see myself displaying it in my own house someday then it's probably not something I need to keep. I've come to find that I agree with her on that regarding most items. I still can't part with some of my old girls camp beads. . . or my art projects from elementary school. I suppose I'll get plenty of chances in the future to go through and throw stuff out.

I also gave Bekah's weeping angel mask a nose job. With my dremel :)

 

 

 

It looks painful, but I assure you it's not!

Well, I'm sure I'll be terrible at posting while traveling, and as I'll be flying to Provo tomorrow I wouldn't expect too much for a day or two. I fly out to Jerusalem in 3 days! Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!

 

One Last Day in Seattle

~ Highlight of the Day: Spending 3 hours in my most favorite store ever - Value Village ~

Today was really busy, a lot of fun, and just a teensey bit productive :)

Um. . . I've sort of hinted at this in the last few posts, but I should probably mention it officially at some point - my family is moving to Arizona. So I'm in the middle of packing for Jerusalem and for moving. Not to mention that I should be sort of fixing up the yard and I want to say goodbye to my favorite places. It's much too much to do in 6 days. Maybe I could have done everything in two weeks, but my parents didn't even know until last week.

So what did I do today? I savored my last shopping trip to Value Village (probably what I'm most sad about leaving behind. . . ), and went to the Science Fiction museum at the EMP (Experience the Music Project) in Seattle!

 

 

 A DALEK! Ahhhh!!! The first two episodes of season 7 (Doctor Who) are supposed to make the Daleks scary again. . . I can't wait :)

 

There was an exhibit all about Avatar. . . we had a staring contest. He won.

 

And there was an exhibit on horror movies!

 

 

I now want to see a few old thrillers. . . definitely not 'Texas Chainsaw Masacre' though. That one looks gross. 'The Wicker Man' seemed fascinating, but it apparently has a lot of yucky stuff of a different nature in it. . . and it's rated R.

 

I saw this though and thought it was hilarious :)

 

 

I will have to watch this with my Provo buddies during Winter semester! I definitely learned more about horror film than I every thought I needed. I came away with an appreciation for the immense history of horror, and an intense desire to watch Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.

 

After all the dark scary stuff we took a walk outside. . .

Gotta love Seattle! My family may be moving, but I will still find reasons to come back here. I love the Northwest too much not to!

 

 

~ Quote of the Day: "Oww! I can feel it in my livers!" - Rebekah ~

 

Paper Route

~ Highlight of the Day: Feeding the chickens with my adorable four year old cousin :) ~

 

Update on packing - Ehhhhgrumphfffeh. I don't like packing.

 

So on to happier things!

 

I helped my siblings with their paper route today - It's the one I had in high school and passed on to them when I left for college. It's a pretty sweet route because you get paid per paper delivered and it covers an apartment complex which you can get it done in pretty good time.

 

So it was fun to do that again :)

 

Day 2 of 6

~Highlight of the Day: Giving Threadless.com shirts to my dad and brother (late birthday presents) ~

I have so much stuff. . . and it's all in the living room and dining room. Unfortunately in order to pack it all I need to unpack it first. And that means looking through all the middle school and high school stuff. . . not to mention elementary school. And then there's the painstaking task of deciding what to keep and what to get rid of. Soccer trophies from 11 years ago? Gone. Plant project from 5 years ago. . . couldn't quite part with it.

For all those who are familiar with Doctor Who. . . my sister's Halloween costume this year:

It's going to be absolutely terrifying.

And for those of you who have no idea what that is, or why it's the scariest thing ever:

Home!

~ Highlight of the Day: Going through boxes of old stuff from elementary school ~

I was on a plane for a little less than 7  hours yesterday. Usually I'd be totally fine with this. . . but I was suffering from a particularly stuffy nose with a tendency to sneeze at inconvenient moments.

 

Seattle!

I did survive though, and I'm home in Washington. Green, cool, lovely Washington! The stuffy nose did prevent me from enjoying that wonderful it's-been-wet-for-three-months smell that I love so much. Not that it smells much like that at this time of the year - we do have a sunny season sometimes :)

 It's good to be with my girls :)

And these guys. . .

Well, I have 6 days and 3 goals.

1. Pack for Jerusalem

2. Pack all stored stuff into a small number of boxes

3. Enjoy Washington. All of it.

I'm doing alright at that 3rd one. Not so much with the first or second. I only got as far as opening up all my boxes and going through all the nostalgia found in them. It took my nearly all day :)

I did find time to do a little photo shoot with my siblings. Apparently they like steam punk! Who knew? I am no photographer, but they had fun dressing up. . .

  

SVU!

~ Highlight of the Day: Talking to Grandma about mum festivals :) ~

Well, Ben is officially a freshman. We checked him in, fretted over him enough to be embarrassing, ate at the cafeteria he'll be eating at for the next 8 months, and then went on our way!

Southern Virginia University is a small but cool campus. There are some really old buildings with interiors that resemble the beast's mansion (from Beauty and the Beast), and a huge statue of a knight out front. Can you get much better?

(The College Freshman in his natural environment)

After dropping Ben off we drove back up to Baltimore and decided to catch a movie with our free evening. . . We didn't have much to choose from so we settled with Hope Springs. It's got good people in it, including Steve Carrol, so it should at least be funny, right?

So wrong. I'm not sure what audience they were going for, but it was just awkward, inappropriate, and way boring. So we left in the middle to see if there was anything better. . . all we could find was Paranorman. Also really odd. Humorous, yes. Sophisticated or appropriate for small children, no. It was better than old people talking about sex though, so we stuck with it.

I think I'll just take action and violence next time around. . . 

Going, Going, Gone.

~ Highlight of the Day: Getting to visit with the sister missionaries at the LDS Washington Temple Visitors Center ~

So my Longwood internship is over. I am really not very happy about leaving. If I wasn't headed off to Jerusalem I probably would have found a way to stay. But it's been a good three months.

I turned all my stuff in, even my garden pass and name tag. I'll probably be reaching for my scissors and pruners for another month or so. . .

I've found that I sigh a lot after leaving places and people I love. I've been sighing the whole way down to Virginia. . .

Big, deep, 3-months-is-just-too-short-and-4-months-will-seem-even-shorter sighs.

Packing

~ Highlight of the Day: Seeing my family! ~

It's been a lovely day. I slept in (as much as you can with a 5:40am habit and needing to use the restroom. . . ), sat on the porch while eating breakfast, packed to the Of Monsters and Men radio on Pandora, went on a field trip to a huge estate, gave away almost all my food, and showed my family the gardens.

I am always amazed at how much clothes weigh. As predicted, I'm totally pushing the 50 lb limit.

I took one last walk through the forest to the production greenhouses  (in all honesty I may walk this tomorrow, but I may not, so I'm playing it on the safe side).

My garden (now Maddie, Becca, and Sara's :) is still an overrun mess, but there are significantly less weeds then there used to be! It's still got a good month or two to spit out some veggies :)

We drove past all sorts of old ruins today - I want old ruins in my backyard. . .

All in all it's been a pretty good almost-last-day. I still have a few goodbyes to say tomorrow (sad ones . . . not that I've had any particularly happy goodbyes :), and after that we're off to Virginia!

Last Day of Work :'(

~Highlight of the Day: Discovering I forgot yesterday's barely eaten lunch at work after forgetting today's lunch at home! ~

My last day of work was today. . . very bittersweet. I could have stayed here a year, easy. I feel like I'm missing out on the most exciting times of the year - the Mum Festival and Christmas. Of course, the fact that I'm not here for it all this year practically guarantees I'm going to come back at some point. It may not be for several years, but I'll be back!

What's hardest about leaving is seeing all the potential in the relationships I've built up for the last 3 months, and knowing that that potential will never be fully realized. But then, that's a pretty accurate description of life, isn't it? We're always passing in and out of people's lives, and there's not much we can do but make the best of the time we've got.

Ug. Can't stand sentimental stuff.

 K. My family will be here in less than 24 hours, I've not really started packing yet, and I am looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow morning (at least a little bit :).

Mail Time!

~ Highlight of the Day: mailing three letters (two of which were typed) and a post card ~

Short Post #3:

I love sending mail. I cannot wait to send mail from Jerusalem! I don't think I've ever recieved a letter from out of the country. . . I'm not sure I'd know how to address one being sent across country borders. . .

I'll just have to find out! :)

Craigslist

~Highlight of the Day: Finding a small Polish ornament on my kitchen table ~

There are some 23 students ending their internships this month. So there have been a lot of goodbyes. I don't like these kind of goodbyes. These are I-won't-see-you-in-at-least-a-very-long-time goodbyes.

Anyway. I helped my roommate post something on Craigslist today :) Gotta love Craigslist!

I feel like writing a good Craigslist post is like making an angelfood cake - you have to have all the right amounts and all the right ingredients. Then you just have to be patient and wait for the magic to happen.
I could probably go on and on about the beauties of this website. . . but that would ruin my 'short posts' effort! So I'll leave it at this: Sell roosters, buy ukuleles, don't give your address to creepers, and enjoy the spoils of those who suddenly feel the need to de-clutter!

Short and Sweet!

~Highlight of the Day: Talking to my sister about Doctor Who for way too long :) ~

Ok. I think most of my posts are a little long winded. Who would've guessed? I hate essays with a passion, but apparently not blog posts. So without further adieu, a short (and hopefully the beginning of many) blog post.

Today I made Raisin Sour Cream Pie. It sounds gross, but it's actually not!

I was going to make pumpkin pie, but misplaced a can of pumpkin and a can of sweetened condensed milk (you know, the two most important ingredients). So I turned to the almighty interwebs for a solution, and here it is!

(blurry picture of pie in the oven :)

One whole pie

What's left of it! (I shared :) 

(In case you are interested. . . )

Raisin Sour Cream Pie

1 cup sour cream

 1 cup white sugar

 1 cup raisins

 2 eggs, beaten

 2 teaspoons distilled white vinegar

(I used apple cider vinegar. . . it's what we had)

 1/2 teaspoon salt

 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

 1 (9 inch) prepared graham cracker crust

 Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2. In a large bowl, mix sour cream and sugar. Fold in raisins and beaten eggs. Stir in vinegar, salt, cinnamon and cloves. Pour mixture into pie crust.

3. Bake pie for 40 minutes, or until knife inserted in center of pie comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool slightly.

Ummm. . . does this count as short? Perhaps not. . .

South Korea and a Typewriter

~ Highlight of the Day: Finding awesome stuff in a dusty old closet ~

I honestly did not expect this day to be this cool. It completely took me by surprise!

So, first things first, I got to spend all morning in my PJ's (that right there is enough to make any day a good one :) and then I got these leftovers for lunch.

Then I actually did something productive (I helped a friend in her garden).

My Korean roommate made an exquisite dinner of stuff I'd never seen before.

That was enough to make my day great:)

We had all sorts of stuff. I'd name some of it but I can't pronounce half of it, nor can I remember.

It was all delicious. I'll leave it at that!

Then, because it looked like it was going to rain, I was rooting around in our upstairs closet (the one I've only looked in once before) for raincoats and I found the most amazing thing:

A TYPEWRITER!!! It's from Sears. It's electric. It's perfect. I think I could type on this guy all day!

What are the odds that I'd find an old typewriter my last week here? So cool.

And, of course, to wrap things up, I went with a group to watch the firework show at Longwood. It was 80's themed, which means I had to keep myself from singing along with everything :) It was great fun. After the show ended all I could think about was how I'd soon get to go home and type!

Bring back typewriters. Yes? No? :)

Livin' Off the Land

~ Highlight of the Day: learning about bad bugs and the good ones that eat them! ~

I got to hang out with the IPM people today! I always thought I'd hate an IPM class, and that it'd only be difficult and gross. But I found it to be absolutely fascinating and so very useful.

And having not photographed any mealy bug or mealy bug destroyer (it's like a super hero bug :), I will now go on at length about that most fascinating topic: dinner.

 I'm actually rather proud of what I made tonight - everything was from my garden except the oil, noodles, salt, and cheese. I used quite a bit of produce, which is excellent because I need to finish it all in less than a week! Produce used in dinner included: four different colors of peppers, chives, basil, zucchini, and a ton of tomatoes.

I have discovered that I will eat just about anything if I grow it in my garden. If you had told me a few years ago that I would eventually be choosing to put chives and peppers in my meals I would have laughed. But this summer I grew peppers, so eat them I will! There's just something different about eating things you've grown in the garden. So I'm thinking there will be personal gardens for my kids who don't like their veggies :)

The red ones are hot, which I suspected but did not think to confirm until after I cut one up.

Yep. And back to the book. I'm so close to being done, but I'm not sure I'll be able to finish in the next week. . . keep your fingers crossed, because if I don't finish it now it will be at least 4 months before I can!