Blog Update

Well hello from the Holy Land everyone! Shalom! I, fortunately, have an incredible sister who is willing to post all the emails I send her on the blog so that all of you can see them, even though I can't update it myself. The security on these computers is really tight, they have blocked a lot of sites. I was honestly quite surprised to find that facebook was blocked, considering I had seen previous students get on it during even the spring semester! But that's okay. I don't really mind because I'll spend a lot more time getting to know new people rather than trying to stay connected to people i've known already for a while. Ok, so I'm looking at this keyboard and it's ridiculously cool because it has Hebrew letters on the keys as well as English. :D! I can't figure out how to get it to type that though...

Anyways, today is sunday for all of you. You will all have to go to church and stuff and I get to have my MNE 2 class which is taught by a Muslim Palistinian guy... I can't remember his name. Please excuse the way I introduced him, it wasn't meant to be rude or disrespectful or anything. So after class today I am planning on going with a bunch of people to the Old city to explore and do fun stuff. I'm going to get my money changed to sheckles (hooray!) and buy some more skirts to wear in Egypt, because it turns out, as much as I hate skirts, they tend to be much cooler than pants. Go figure. ;) haha. And in 120 degree heat, that is very important.

Yesterday I went to a fireside given by a teacher at UVU named Blair Vandyke. He was AMAZING, and totally reminded me of the character of Wilson on the TV show House. Sorry Kristen, he is married and has 7 kids ;). I thought of you though before I found out he was married. Actually, he married the girl he sat next to on the plane coming to the Jerusalem center when he came here! Freaky, haha. It was a cute story. Anyways, he told us all about 7 particular places in the Holy Land that have particular significance to LDS history, many of these were places where the Holy Land has been dedicated. It's been dedicated a total of 11 times! Wow. It must really be an important place. We had the firieside in the incredible auditorium where they hold concerts with the gorgeous organ and huge windows facing west towards the city. I had a hard time paying attention becasue I kept getting distracted by the sunset reflecting off the gold roof of the Dome of the Rock... (maybe that spelling is inacurate, I'll figure it out eventually though).

Everything here is amazing! I was glad I finally got to talk to mom on the phone last night, Mom, I hope you and Roger had fun at the Cabin and didn't get eaten by bears. Jeff, I hope mom told you about why I think about you all the time here. If not, write me an email and I'll respond to you with a personal one telling you all about it. I'll respond to you either way if you write me an email, but you particularly would LOVE it here. Dad, you'd better start saving up your money so that Jeff can come too! :) I will be so jealous. Oh Jeff, also, i told Katy Seely that you said hi, and she told me to say hi back. She's adorable.

So yesterday we ("The Chicago 20" as we have been so fondly dubbed [excuse the split infinitive, the other way sounded too weird to me]) went on our "orientation tour" of the Old city. Dr. Seely took my group of 10 and Dr. Draper took the other group. Dr. Seely was so amazing and funny, and I loved being with him. He kept taking us places and showing us things by saying "Now, I really shouldn't be doing this, but..." It was great. Even though it was Shabbat, I got to try my very first Fallafel! (I have no idea how to spell that). It was SO good, and kind of unexpected. When I first heard the word "fallafel" I thought it would be something sweet, or desserty, kind of like a "waffle". I was surprised when it ended up being something totally different, but still quite tasty. It's hard to explain kind of. They take a pita bread thing and slice it open, and then proceed to shove into it all kinds of vegitables, plus some squished up beans or something that have been squished into balls and deep-fried and then they shove a bunch of french fries and on top of it all they put some kind of sauce or something (i think maybe hummice? again, another word i can't spell). We even got to go inside the church of the Holy Sepulcher, which was amazing, and the bells were ringing and we even saw a procession of priests that Dr. Seely thought were Greek Orthadox, and one of them was oh his cell phone and it was funny. It's fun to have such close proximity to people who know so much about the Holy Land and you can just ask them anything and they'll tell you!

The culture here is so different from anything in the United States. It's really hard to try to break the habbit of looking people in the eye, when i've been taught to do it for so long. And the men here have no qualms about looking at women, long and hard. It is very creepy. Especially the teenage boys. They just stare at you and I think a lot of the times they stare right at your eyes hoping that you'll make eye contact with them so that they can have an excuse to do something. It's pretty scary, but i'm glad that we go everywhere in groups and the guys are so nice and willing to go with us and i'm sure they'd protect us if they needed to. Anyways, I'd best be off cause I have class in a little while, but the rest of my day will be pretty full and exciting! I miss and love you all and hope everything is going well on your side of the world! I love you!!! I'll try to update again soon. :)