Jerusalem

I miss Jerusalem. I don't know what it is about that city that makes me ache for it. I miss it in a totally different way than I miss Oregon. Different than I miss Poland. Different than I miss Utah. And I miss it today for some reason.

I want to be back. If I could only go to one country ever again, I might pick Israel/Palestine so I could be in Jerusalem.

I Love Poland

If you've been following the tragic events that took place in Poland on Saturday, you will know that the President, his wife and other prominent members of the government passed away in a plane crash. Today I got a lovely New York Times article sent to me from Ewa. And because I love Israel/Palestine and love Poland, it only made me love this article more.

Thanks Ewa!

PS--My neighbor over here just mentioned Poland in an important speech. You can read the whole speech HERE. (Paragraph's two and three are the good ones about Poland.)

Happy Easter!

(Mandi, Kristen and me at the Garden Tomb, August 2008--and yes, that's the Sweaty Dress)

I've been thinking a lot today about my time in Jerusalem and how grateful I am to have been there.
I'm a little "homesick" for it actually.
But I loved General Conference yesterday and today
and I loved the messages of Christ and His Atonement and Resurrection.
And because He has risen, so will we.

Validation

I remember when I first got to the airport in Salt Lake preparing to go to Jerusalem. I knew two people on the trip. One I met in the MTC years ago (she went to Russia and had our classrooms on the same floor) and the other had moved into my ward just a few months before (though I had met him several times over the course of college since we had lots of mutual friends). In the airport I found myself meeting tons of new people. Most of whose names I couldn't remember that first day but only remembered what they were wearing, or some special feature they had (like Mandi's curly hair or Meg wearing a "Wal-Mart-T", which I instantly coveted or Caryn the girl from South Africa). My friend remarked that I made these friends quickly. He joked that all I had to do was compliment them on their shirt, hair, bag etc and we were instant friends. And, I think it's true. If someone compliments me or says something nice about me, I instantly have feelings of affection. (No this isn't a hint, but if you want to leave a comment with something nice to say, I won't say no...)

Anyway, my mom sent me the following short film. I think you should watch it even though it's kind of long.

It was fantastic.

I like how the video insinuates that the world would be a different (and better) place if there were more compliments, validations, and showing of love and affection.

And I completely agree.

And maybe I'll start really validating people on their character instead of only saying I like their shoes, dress, haircut, bag, earrings etc. It would probably make me happier and it would definitely make them happier.

Happy Weekend! I can't wait!

One of those posts again

Every once in a while I write a post of a bunch of different random things. This is one of those.

Randomness No. 1: When I was in Vienna in 2004 I remember seeing galoshes in the store windows. They were new. They were just coming out. I remember saying I wanted some. Then we went down to Venice. There was a really high tide that day and flooding. All the locals had galoshes they wore.
(Some even had thigh high galoshes. Like the ones for fly fishing.)
See below:

We walked around on these raised platform things that were set up all around the city. Like these people:

I really wished I had had galoshes. I remember my friends asking why I wanted them and wondering what I would wear them with. I thought they would look cute paired with a skirt. (Boots over pants were still kind of weird back then.) I didn't buy the galoshes. About eight months later I was going on a mission and had no need for galoshes, just thick wool lined boots. Then, when I came home, galoshes were all of a sudden trendy. I sometimes don't like jumping on the trend bandwagon (even though I wanted them waaaay before they were trendy).

Well, I bought galoshes on Saturday. Yep, I caved. It was now time to swallow my pride and think, would I rather have dry feet and calves or think, "I'm not getting those because everyone has them now and I wanted them looooong before they were popular?" Now they'll come in really handy with the rain. Though, I was slightly disappointed this morning that last night's rain storm had subsided and I didn't get to enjoy the full effect of the rain protection.

Randomness No. 2: I bought a new Camelbak water bottle when I went to the local R.E.I. wanna-be store in search of a new water bottle since the stainless steel one I had has a small opening making it too difficult to clean properly (and it can't go in the dishwasher so that makes it even tougher). So now I'm drinking tons of water because it's so easy to just sip out of the straw. My problem is two fold: 1. I have a small bladder. 2. I probably have the desk farthest away from the bathroom. I find myself frequently walking briskly to the loo after having waited much too long before getting up to go. (In Jerusalem I took a Camelbak. I was drinking the entire time. I was probably the most hydrated person there. I also always took advantage of a bathroom when I saw one and always had a few shekels in change to use at the bathroom.) I am nice and hydrated all day at work but I'm pretty sure I go to the bathroom way more than anyone else. It's 11:19 now. I got to work at 8:30 (on the dot, hooray me!) and I've already gone three times. Did you really want to know all that? Perhaps not. But you just read it anyway. But anyway, I can't take my water bottle with me anywhere otherwise I'll just keep sipping and I don't have an iPhone so I don't have the Need2P Restroom Locator app.

So now that I've officially blabbed about nothing. I'm going to get back to work. But right after I visit the loo again...

Sweaty dress

 Since it's Sweaty Summer Round 2, I only thought it appropriate to wear my sweaty dress on the hottest day yet this summer. Now, unless you went to Jerusalem with me, you're probably wondering what the heck is a sweaty dress? It's this dress:

And why is it the sweaty dress? After a particularly fantastic dance party at the JC (Jerusalem Center), in which I had worn the fabulously breezy blue dress, I looked like this:

At least I wasn't alone right?

Sweaty Summer Round 2

Last year I spent the entire summer bathed in sweat.

1. Valley of the Kings, Egypt: My undershirt was completely soaked.
2. Jordan: If you look closely I have pit stains. It was hot and that shirt was not forgiving.
3. River Jordan: Trever's back is very wet. Had I had my picture taken, the results would have been similar.

4. Tel Dan, Israel: Enlarge the picture. You can see the sweat on my forehead.
5. Gamla, Israel: I am starting to get a puddle of sweat on my neck. If I had photographic evidence of the end, That sweat triangle extended to my belly button. And I had had a camelbak on. It was incredible, I had no idea I sweated that much.

This summer is turning out to be similar, but not for the same reasons.
First off, I'm moving to DC. And it's humid there, so I'll be sweating.
Second, I'm trying to get back in shape so that adds another significant element of sweat.

Today we hiked Mt Pisgah, which if you had asked me before we went how long of a hike it was, I would have told you for sure five or six miles to summit. I found out that it was about two miles to summit. I am not in good shape that's for sure. Here are a few pictures from the hike. It was beautiful:

And yes I was really sweaty.

Good news is that when we got home we jumped in the pool for a few laps and then powerwashed the deck ghetto style-- meaning we used a hose and a brush. Too bad the only brush we could find was a toilet brush. The 70s house dress added to the over all ambiance.

PS. My diploma came today!

Poladroid

There is a program you can download online that turns your pictures into Polaroid looking pictures. (Redundant) Anyway I have now seen it on two different unrelated people's blogs and decided I needed to check it out for myself. I love it. I love the way it makes my pictures look. I decided to turn a few from Egypt into Polaroids. I like the way it distorts the colors slightly and blurs the edges. The only part missing is the actual shaking of the picture. I always liked doing that. But here you go, for your viewing enjoyment:

At the pyramids. (Duh)

On the Nile.

Me on a Camel! How exciting!

In front of King Tut's tomb.

Here we are walking around the giant stone scarab eight times to ensure that we get married.

Temple at Karnak columns. I was amazed.

Oh how I miss my summer days. My next big adventure is figuring out my life. I think I'll be working on that for the next 50 years though. Who knows what I'll be doing next summer though? Hopefully something fun and relatively exciting. Writing my missionaries (my sisters, duh)? Probably.

I didn't finish about Jerusalem!

Ok I've greatly neglected writing about the rest of my trip! Here are some of my favorite pictures from the last couple weeks.

Me and Mandi at Masada.


My roommate Loral and me standing in the Mediterranean Sea at Cesarea Maritima.


Caryn, Tricia and me after seeing after what seemed like a million Tels, we got excited about something living.


Me and Erica at the land of Dan.


Mandi and me in Dan. If you look closely you can see the sweat dripping down my forehead.


On the Sea of Galilee with Spencer, Peter and Mandi.


At Peter's Primacy with Pope Johny P the 2nd. This is my excited face.


Me with my St. Peter's fish.


Tatoos in Galilee. We were really hard core.

Ok, maybe I will do a little bit on my time in Galilee before doing another post about what my last week in Jerusalem was like. Galilee was wonderful. The worst part was that it was incredibly humid and I was a constant sweaty mess. The best part was being where Jesus had been. Unfortunately I'm not very good at taking pictures and I'm especially not good at taking pictures of things that may be spiritual or really personal. For example, when I was at Auschwitz in Poland, I didn't feel right about taking pictures there becasue of the importance and possible sacredness of the site. So because of that, I don't have very many pictures of actual sites or less dorky pictures. But I did really like Galilee. I was surprised that I didn't feel more spiritual throughout the time I was there. I expected to have intense spiritual experiences as I went to the different sites that the Savior had been and had performed miracles. I didn't have them. Instead I felt hot and irritated. I sweated more than I ever had in my life and instead of being able to focus on the miracle of the Savior's life, I was busy wiping sweat off my brow and underside of my glasses. I was a disgusting wet mess. I was annoyed that I couldn't enjoy the sites as I wished and that when I did have the chance to sit and listen to lecture prepared by my teacher, the heat made me tired and sleepy and it was hard to stay awake.

In retrospect however I am thankful for the time I spent in Galilee. I have come to a greater appreciation and realization of the life of Jesus. He taught and preached in that heat and tried to change the thought, philosophy and traditions of the time. I never could have done that. Heat takes everything out of me. I can barely concentrate when I'm too hot. I remember a particularly hot day on my mission walking around with my companion with no desire to talk to anyone because we were so hot and miserable. I am thankful for what Jesus did. I am thankful for his constant action so that we can have what we have now. And I am grateful to have just a little better understanding of what he went though to give us what we have and know now. And thats the best thing I got out of Galilee.

Slacker

Well it's official. I'm a slacker. I have neglected to post anything about Jordan or Galilee or the entire last month of my trip. Now school is starting in about four days and I have been home for two weeks and have forgotten intimate details of my wonderful summer. I can never recall that much detail on the spur, it will have to come up randomly and then I'll be able to recall ridiculously specific facts. So in attempts to give just some small look into the end of my trip I'll do a picture gallery. Cop-out? Yes. Effective? Depends on who's looking.

Standing in front of the Treasury at Petra. This was the most dramatic
thing I've ever seen I thought it was so cool.


Me on my donkey at Petra. I thought my donkey was going to keel over as it hiked the 900+ stairs to get me to "The Monastery" which kind of resembled the Treasury. I bought my little guide a water and tipped him an extra dollar and felt cheap. Poor kid.


At the Mosque in Ammon. We had to wear these sweet get-ups to enter the mosque. It was pretty hilarious and we all came to a greater respect for the Muslim women because we were so hot wearing them.

Well, that might just be as good as it gets for the time being. I am leaving Oregon in two days and have yet to pack and clean and shop. We have a German exchange student who is going to live with my parents for the next year (school year I think) and we are frantically getting the house semi presentable for her and get her room ready. But it sounds like the family is in the pool, so I might just swim instead...

Epiphany

I've always wondered why I get sunburned so bad on my nose and forehead despite the sunscreen I put on. It finally dawned on me a few weeks ago why. That's where I sweat the most! Ever since I was a baby I have had little beads of sweat on my nose, and my forehead generally sweats a lot. So in attempts to keep myself dry (and to keep the sweat from pouring down my face in buckets), I wipe it off. This not only wipes off my sweat, but the sunscreen too. I am now sunburned in those two places despite the large amounts of sunscreen I applied in Jordan. I'm afraid it's going to peel.

I am back from Jordan. We arrived home yesterday to be told that we weren't allowed to leave the city due to heightened security. This is largely due to Senator Obama's visit to Jerusalem these couple of days, but there was a mini-terrorist attack outside his hotel a few days ago when we were in Jordan, so we aren't allowed out until further notice. It's not too bad since we have a midterm coming up, a field trip this afternoon and two field trips next week before we head out to Galilee, so I'm not feeling like I'm on house arrest. The good news is that the teachers all seem to think that we will be able to go out today to exchange money. We are going to Bethlehem this afternoon and evening and will have a little Christmas devotional in Shepherd's field. I will write about the Jordan trip later, but here is a little preview to look forward to:

Three quick things about the trip:
1. It was super hot. They told us it was 43 degrees Celsius (109 Fahrenheit) yesterday, but we heard reports of it being 48 (120) when we were at the Jesus Baptismal Site. It was practically unbearable, and the air conditioning on the bus wasn't the greatest.
2. I got a minor eye irritation on the trip and had to wear my glasses the entire time. Not fun when it's bright and you want/need sunglasses. Not having sunglasses doesn't help with eye problems either.
3. Petra might just have been one of the coolest places I've ever been.

Stay tuned for the rest.

"You know you love me, XOXO..." --That's for you Emma and Liz.

Egypt (part 2)

I am now finally writing the rest of my trip to Egypt, but first the craziness that was this week: So last Saturday, we got back from Egypt. Sunday we had class, Monday we had class and free time for the afternoon. I went to the Holocaust museum here. Tuesday was a hike around Hezekiah's tunnel and Wednesday was big studying, Thursday and Friday were finals, and then Friday night we went to Synagogue and today I had to give a talk in church. So it was an incredibly busy week. Today I went to the Dormition Abbey and the Garden of Gethsemane.

Here is my favorite picture from the Abbey:

This is an a dome directly over the supposed tomb of Mary. I liked that it is all women from the bible. Some of them are from the Apocrypha, and we couldn't figure out who one of them was, but we decided that it is, Eve, Esther, Ruth, Jael, Judith, and we weren't sure who the last one was, maybe Miriam. Judith is the one holding the head (she cut off the head of some war guy, and Jael drove a spike through the temple of a military leader).

So back to Egypt. After flying to Luxor we went swimming that night because it was so hot. I have never been somewhere where I'm sweating at night standing outside because it is so hot. I knew I was going to be in trouble for the next day. Here are the highlights of my time in Luxor:

We went to The Valley of the Kings and saw the tombs of Tutankhamen, Ramses IV and a couple other pharaohs whose names I can't remember. I don't know what I was expecting when we got there, but it was a lot more developed than I was expecting. The tombs were so cool though. I loved Ramses IV's tomb. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures inside so I don't have one. But here is what the valley looks like:

That first day we also went on a camel ride. The guy who led my camel was so funny. He kept giving me the reigns of the camel and whenever his boss came he would take them back. I felt like a spoiled rich tourist sitting on my camel going through really cool but very poor area of town.

This is our group. There were 40 people riding the camels!

Here is my guide and his friend. Unfortunately for them I wasn't
looking for an Egyptian husband.

Here's me on my camel!

The temples we went to were also really cool. Here are some of the pictures of the temples we went to. I thought they were really cool too. The best part were the sheer size of the temples. I loved the lotus columns at the Karnak temple, and the Luxor temple. It was so cool.

Karnak

Luxor

We finished up Egypt with a visit to a mosque and some shopping. The mosque was really cool and was a smaller version of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.

Tomorrow we're going to Jordan. We will have structured free time (meaning we aren't allowed to go anywhere the teachers say we can't), because of the shooting that happened yesterday. We will not be going to the gladiator and chariot place because that's where the shooting happened. I know that the center wouldn't let us go if there was any danger. I'm excited. When I get back I will write about our field trip to Hezekiah's tunnel this week.

Egypt (part 1)

We rolled back into Jerusalem last night around 11:30 after our six-day excursion to the hellish heat of Egypt. Despite that, the trip was absolutely wonderful! I loved it. Here are my highlights, pictures included:

We started our trip last Sunday around 6 am and headed down to hit up some Old Testament sites before spending the night at a Kibbutz. The best places were an old fortress which I unfortunately cannot remember the name of and I don't have my notebook with me, but there was an old Byzantine era ruined church there that I really liked. It was totally ruined, so I don’t know why I liked it so much but I thought it was really cool.

This is me with Sister Thomas, the doctor's wife in the chapel.

We also went to Ben Guron's grave where there was a great overlook of the wilderness that the Israelites had to wander in for 40 years. It was desolate and nothing. I don't think I could have handled it.

The Kibbutz was cool. The idea of Kibbutzin stems from socialism. In the 50's groups of Jewish people moved down to Israel and formed communities that a pretty self sufficient. We took a tour of one and had dinner that night there. Their main products are dates and chocolate milk. Here is a picture of the date trees. I thought they were really pretty:

The drive across the Sinai was super long and I just kept thinking about having to traipse around that for 40 years. It did not sound appealing to me in the slightest. We stopped a few times driving across. I tried to do homework, I tried to sleep but the bus ride was so bouncy I couldn't really do anything. We learned that the bus driver was driving about 50 kilometers above the speed limit which helped us make the best time across the desert that the teachers had ever made. We all got really excited whenever we saw camels too.

As we pulled up into Cairo, our hotel was in Giza (which is where the Pyramids are) and I was so excited to see the Pyramids in the distance when we came into the city. Apparently Cairo has 18 million people living there and there are estimated 2 million cars. The most entertaining part was the cars weaving in and out all over. Our tour guide told us that the lines in the middle of the road are more decoration than actual traffic lines. There were people all over. That night we went to a sound and light show at the Pyramids that was entirely overrated and over priced. I was skeptical to go remembering the Malbork show in Poland of last summer, but there were only three or four people not going so I went. The show was pretty bad and I ended up talking to my "date" Meg the entire time. But we got our date picture:

Yes that's the Sphinx right above Meg's head.

The next day we went to the pyramids. It was unbearably hot by 8:00 and I'm pretty sure I have never sweated so profusely in my entire life, until I went inside the pyramid (the one on the left of this picture) and I felt like I had just dowsed my body in wet. The inside smelled and was thick with humidity (humidity from everyone's body heat) and it was not entirely pleasant. It was so hot and disgusting inside that when I got outside it felt cool. My back was covered with sweat and I had it dripping off my earrings it was so gross. It was really cool to be there though. I was surprised at how big the stones were and I just wanted to climb up the Pyramid.

I took a sweet Sphinx picture that everyone thought was so great, but I couldn't take credit for the idea since Cami had done it months ago, but it was the most clever picture so I did it too.

After the Pyramids we went to the Step Pyramid of Zoser which was the precursor to the pyramids now.

By the end of the day, we were so hot and miserable and had to go get on a plane to go down to Luxor for a few days, which I will write about later.