First Day of School

~ Highlight of the Day: Seeing all my Jerusalem people on campus - so good ~

First day of class down, many many more to go. I think this will be a good semester though. If I can only figure out how to not freeze solid before getting to class, I think I'll be set! :)

First day of class story: 

I'm a Junior now. I've been attending the good ol' BYU for two and a half years now, and would count myself fairly familiar with my surroundings here. I may even allow myself a bit of pride in knowing where the Cluff building used to be (like the old timer that I am :). 

So I wasn't too worried about the fact that I had no idea where my first class was. Surely, I thought, I can figure it out on the way there. So off I went, decked out in two coats, a big fuzzy hat, and perhaps (as the morning would shortly show) a little too much confidence.

I met up with my roommate (also taking the class) and we set off for the Wilk. We had about 8 minutes before class started, and in those 8 minutes we managed to walk the entire building, but didn't manage to find our class. We were getting a little desperate (almost-willing-to-ask-random-strangers-for-help desperate) when we ran into our RA from freshman year.

She informed us that the room we were looking for, 'EXTENDED IPF', was in the IPF building. Not the Wilk. 

And so began our quick, and slightly embarrassing, trek across campus to the Intramural Practice Fields. Upon getting there (only 12 minutes late :) we saw a group of students just beginning to disperse, and assuming it was our class, walked up and took a syllabus from the pile.

 It wasn't our class.

 So we put the syllabi's back and took a last desperate look around.

That's when we saw the other group of students sitting about ten yards away, listening intently to our professor.

So yes, I am a Junior, and I totally got lost trying to find my first class.

It's been a good semester so far :)

And this was dinner tonight. I was rather pleased with how it turned out, so I thought I'd share:

(tilapia!) 

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.