Settling Into Home

~ Highlight of the Day: Getting a new charger for my laptop! ~

 

Gone are the days of needing to perfectly position my charger (usually a several minute process) and apply the exact pressure on the right spot of my battery to get my laptop to charge!

 

Now I just have to worry about the battery :)

Today I woke up at 4am (that's 1 in the afternoon in Israel), and tried to sleep in three more hours. Then I watched my brother run a 12K (the 12 K's of Christmas to be exact), watched the Hobbit (which I stayed awake for the whole time. Maybe not completely aware. . . but awake :), and began learning "Don't Think Twice It's Alright" on the guitar.

 

1st Weird Thing About Being Home: My wardrobe has more than tripled. How do I even begin to handle that?

 

2nd Weird Thing About Being Home: Food is always available, and so is the media. . .

 

Aaaaand pictures. Cause who doesn't like pictures? :)

 

 This would be looking down into the courtyard/plaza of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre from a nearby rooftop on our last day in the city. This is where I was at 12:12 on 12/12/12!

This is the Dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, from the top.

 This is a lemon from our lemon tree! I love lemons! I wish life would give them to me more often. . .

This is my sister, who now has short hair, and a beautiful avocado pie made with freshly squeezed lemon juice.

And this is Seth (in the grey/blue shirt, looking epic) finishing his 12K this morning in the rain. Did you know it rains in Arizona? I didn't.

Home! Sort Of. . .

~ Highlight of the Day: Eating homemade almond roca - gotta love Christmas cookies! ~

I'm home! Well, if you can call a brand new house in a state I've never really been to home. It's where the family is though, so it's good enough for me :) 

And we have a pool now. 

And palm trees. . . 

and citrus trees! 

I went on a run this morning, took a bunch of right turns, ran along some canal thingy, saw a huge fish, found citrus trees, ate an orange (while I was running :), got a little lost, and about four miles later found my house again. 

Observations on Arizona: 

It's flat. 

It's warmer than Israel in December (but not by too much).

It's an excellent place to be if you're studying for an Interior Plant ID event :) 

Everyone has a pool. 

Only Four Days Left . . .

~ Highlight of the Day: getting homemade cookies in primary! ~

 

Quick post - Today was our last Sabbath in Jerusalem (bittersweet). I'm going to really miss teaching in Primary. As crazy as seven and eight year olds can be, they sure are sweet and lovable (most of the time :)

 

I thought life would get a little less busy after finals. . . it hasn't. Oh well! I'll sleep when I'm home in the States I guess.

 

Finals Are Over!

~ Highlight of the Day: Finding the secret stash of notes hidden at the JC :) ~

 

I have less than a week left. . . And I used to be sort of Ok with it because classes were totally wearing me out, but now finals are over, and life is all happy and perfect again. Well, I am looking forward to homemade food and my family and my ukulele. . . and facebook a little bit. So I am still excited to go home.

Anyway, this is what I did during finals week:

 

 I hiked to the top of a big ol' church tower.

 

 (in the rain)

 

 We knocked on a sketchy green door and got to look at some awesome tombs.

 

 There were a fair amount of sweet clouds (due to the rain :)

 

 I visited the Russian Orthodox Church of Mary Magdalene again.

(also known as the 'golden onion church')

 

 look! a sweet garden! :)

 

 Oh yeah. I did do some studying. This picture was taken two pages into (and only and hour and a half away from the deadline of) a four page paper on the Sennacherib/Hezekiah accounts. That pita probably saved my life.

 

Today we went out to the Arab Costco, and I got a chocolate bar that tastes like smores.

 

And then Annie Reed and I discovered secret stashes of notes hidden in the JC, and added our own to them. Best thing ever! I was going to be really disappointed if I didn't find them. But I did, so now I'm good :)

 

And after that I sang in the Christmas Choir Concert.

 

And after that I gave a speech at the t-shirt unveiling.
(every semester designs and prints their own t-shirt. This semester they chose my design, and they asked me to give a speech. . . I said,

"I drew it in Stratford's class"

and then sat down to wild applause and one disapproving look :)

Studying Hard

~ Highlight of the Day: enjoying a good Jerusalem rain ~

Today I 'worked on' my final paper for my Ancient Near East class. And by 'worked on' I mean I applied for a job back at BYU, composed a craigslist post for a friend's friend's contract back in Provo, and played with my professor's children. Now I'm going to sleep so I can spend time in the city tomorrow. . . :) I've got a horrible case of Jerusalem Senioritis. They call it JCLDS here, or Jerusalem Center Last Day Syndrome. I'll keep you updated on the severity of my condition.

 

Today it rained! Everything is so beautiful when it rains. . .

 

The Dead Sea, and Masada, and Other Stuff

~ Highlight of the Day: Floating in the Dead Sea! ~

 

Today was our last bus field trip. Kind of bitter sweet. We're so close to the end. . . Well, here's pictures from the last couple days:

 These are the kumquats from the tree on the 8th floor. . . at least I think they're kumquats :)

 

 This was taken from the top of the YMCA tower in West Jerusalem. I'm not sure what the building is, but it's a cool one! I'm going to miss domed structures when I get back to the States.

These are spices for sale at the souk in West Jerusalem. Part of me wants to get spices, but another *probably wiser* part of me points out I'd probably never figure out how to cook with them. . . 

 

This is the siege ramp that the Romans built when conquering the Zealots at Masada. It's huge, and frankly one of the most impressive things I've ever seen. I still remember building one of these up our swing set one winter after my parents visited Jerusalem and told us all about it :)

This is the zig-zag path leading up to Masada. Thankfully we didn't have time to climb it, and instead we took the tram! Some of us decided to run down it. I was not one of them.

This is me in the Dead Sea! You can look at pictures all you want, but until you're actually in water that's 30% salt, you'll have no idea what it's like. It's the weirdest thing! Kind of gross too - it's almost like the water's thick and grimy, and everything you touch becomes like that.

We drove to En Gedi after swimming in the Dead Sea, which was perfect because we then got a chance to swim in the fresh water spring and rinse off. Water falls are pretty great, even if they are really cold!

We ended our day with Qumran, where they discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls. I think the cave in this picture is cave # 4. . . but I'm not sure. The scrolls were hidden in the caves by Essenes who lived in a settlement at the top (where I'm standing and taking this picture), and were living there at the time of Christ.

 

Well, I've got a paper due tomorrow, and another one on Thursday, not to mention three finals on Thursday and Friday, so I'm going to go study/fight off sleep!

2nd Half of Galilee

~ Highlight of the Day: Realizing I know the Old City enough to find things without a map :) ~

Ok, here are the rest of the Galilee pictures:

This was an old Crusader castle, which was actually newer than a lot of the stuff we usually look at. . . anyway, this picture's cool because there's a lot of green algae in it :)

 This is Benias. . . I think. It's as north as we got - we could see the Israel/Syria boarder. They had some really interesting left over bunkers, and cutouts of army guys.

 This was. . . eh, I forget. But when they talk about motes and beams in Matthew 7:3, this is what the beam is. They used them over door frames and such. . .

 Synagogue floor at Sephoris - it's the zodiac calendar. . . a great example of Greek/Hellenistic influence in early Jewish culture.

 I really like mosaics. A lot.

 This is me, and Neil, and a really old olive tree. I want a really old olive tree in my backyard.

 Crocuses! I love Israeli fall :)

 So while everybody else is checking out churches and rocks, this is what I'm doing.

 This is a really dark picture of Madison, Annie and I in the Bahai headquarters' gardens.

 The rocky coast of Caesarea Maritima

 (Still at Caesarea) this is a section they didn't excavate away to show what they found - it was way cool! The pottery layers are so distinct, and we found all sorts of interesting things among the pottery, like teeth and bones and shells.

 This was a beach made entirely of shells - it's one of the most amazing things I've ever seen! It was so hard to tear myself away. I think if I ever lived next to a beach I'd just have a house full of shells.

 This picture is significant because I recognize it from when my parents came here years ago - I made them a photo book of their trip, and so every now and then I recognize a place and finally have a context for it!

 This was our last time at the Mediterranean Sea. Kind of sad.

 Thanksgiving meal! Marshmallows grilled on a stick are actually worth a try :)

 When we got back from Galilee the 8th level was decorated for Christmas - it was the best welcome home ever :)

 My garden survived for two weeks without me - I was a little worried about it, but now I know it'll last at least through winter semester, and maybe through summer too if future JC students water it!

 

So Friday we went to the Jerusalem Botanic Gardens. It was pretty cool, and I took a lot of pictures of plant tags. . . I'll only post two, how's that? :)

 This is cool because I actually saw these up on Mt. Tabor (where Elijah faced off against the priests of Baal)

 

This is the tree whose leaves smell like lemon. Some day I'm going to have a part of my garden devoted to plants that smell like lemon. It'll be the best thing ever :)