this everyday life

i decided to do a post on the things that are part of "normal" "everyday" life here at the j.c. (if you haven't caught on... that stands for jerusalem center...) 

we were walking through the old city the other day, and i realized that this is not normal. in less than a week, i am going to go back to real life. planes, trains, automobiles and all that jazz. no more walking everywhere, no more bargaining for what i want (i'm scared that i am going to try and haggle with the cashier at walmart...), no more weird smells, no more listening to the call to prayer every day, no more seeing tour buses everywhere and thinking "these tourists... they are soooo annoying!" 

"real life" is waiting. 

and to be honest, i'm kinda scared. 

what happens when i walk to class and forget my notebook? i can't just run downstairs to go and get it.

what am i going to do when i get a text message? (i haven't texted in over 3 months!)

what if i burn everything that i try and cook??? say it isn't so!!! 

(that might be a little too much for me to handle...)

our shopping mall.

this guys has skillz.

home.

for like 4 more days. 

we're not going to think about this anymore...!

ramadan started last week... so the old city looks like christmas!

just an olive tree in the kidron.

no biggie.

;)

p.s. the sunsets over the city are amazing.

we decided to spend a whole day dedicated to just walking through the city and taking pictures.

this is one legit police car.

we were a little afraid that it would start transforming in front of us...

skull hill/golgotha/calvary

they built a bus station there.

hmmmm.

not quite what you were expecting huh?

damascus gate!

they actually had scaffolding covering it for most of the summer, and they only removed it right before we left for galilee. so i had to get a pic!

 

story:

so we were trying to spell "jerusalem" all over the city.

i saw a shoe store and thought - perfect!

"s" for shoes!

(they have these random shoe stores everywhere...)

the shop owner next door was making fun of my "s"...

the view from the top of the austrian hospice.

1st century paving stones!

the western wall

st. james armenian monastery

the street right by zion gate

it almost makes me consider being a vegetarian...

it's a small world after all...

have a happy, sunshiney day!!!

play. pause. resume.

once again, i am amazed at the speed at which this week flew by.
(are we sure that we didn't just hit the fast forward button and forget to press play again?)
so this week has been crazy busy. we went to tel aviv on monday, and it feels like it has been weeks, not a matter of a few days.
good news of the week: 
i have a place to live in the fall!
even better news:
i'm living with my sister!!! (you better be ready to hear about some pretty amazing adventures come august...)

now back to israel.
i never thought that i could get sick of wearing a tshirt and pants every day. but i discovered this week that i can. especially white v-necks. however, they are almost a necessity here (for those of you planning on making this trip in the future - bring as many as you possibly can. they will save your life!) but i think that i am going to boycott all tshirts when i get back home. and i might just throw all of my clothes into a big pile in the middle of my room and cannonball right into the middle... and then roll around in them for a bit. why hello dear friends! did you miss me??? because i missed you!
do you ever feel like you can do more crazy things when people don't know you that well? i have this crazy memory of the first time i bore my testimony... i was in island park, and i wanted to bear my testimony. i remember thinking: nobody here knows me... if i look stupid then nobody will remember me. the next thing i know, i'm standing there, in front of a packed church (this is right next to yellowstone in the middle of summer... peak tourist season anyone???) little did i know that there was another overflow building. not just people sitting out in the foyer. no. an entire building of people that can hear me. luckily, i haven't met anyone that remembers me from there, but i have this strange habit of stepping outside of my comfort zone when i don't know anyone. 
what did i do now you ask?
i danced. 
if you know me at all, this will probably have you rolling in fits of laughter on the floor. those two words (me and dance) don't usually appear in the same sentence for me, unless they are separated by a little word called CAN'T. 
i'm not saying i did spectacularly. because i didn't. but i had a ton of fun! 
and honestly... the best part of the whole thing was the costumes. if i had access to youtube, i would post the song that we danced to, but i guess you'll just have to listen to it yourself. (waka waka by shakira)

i have to give props to my pal jess... 

who taught me everything i know about ratting hair... 

 can i be buried in one of these pleeeeeeze?

dormition abbey

i was our groups leader... they wanted to be able to go out and explore the city, and thanks to the amazing sense of direction (which i inherited from my mother!)... i led us all over the city.

i decided that my call in life is to be a tour guide.

 absolom's pillar

 we stopped by a shop in the armenian quarter that did ceramics... this table was incredible!

you can see the 8 gates of jerusalem.

(only 7 of them are open...)

i've been through all of them except for golden gate...

i was debating if it would be worth sitting and chipping away at the wall...

nuff said.

---------------------------------

a good end to a fantastic week!

(and i looooooooooove my visiting teachers!!!!)

here comes the sun...

sorry you don't get a lot of me writing today.

i want my lunch.

 st. george monastery in the wadi qelt

this is after we crossed the sea level marker on the way to jericho... and sang 'under the sea' from the little mermaid.

we are that awesome.

 my hair was interesting today.

besides getting up increasingly later, i don't want to come back at the end of the summer with a white forehead, so the bangs are not allowed out of the center.

 i want to build my future house on the side of a ravine.

on a more spiritual note, this is what the area where the good samaritan story would have occurred.

it was hot.

rocky.

and if you took one wrong step, you would fall a long, long way down.

the interesting thing is that these hills would have been a lush, fertile green only a month ago. they are quite brown now.

but this is the "fertile" wilderness!

the grass that dies here is actually used to feed the herds during the rest of the summer. even though it is dead, they still eat it.

yum.

 this is a sycamore tree.

bible lesson:

zacchaeus climed this tree like when he wanted to see the savior pass by.

actually it isn't this exact tree.

but it was still pretty cool.

 we were storming the walls of jericho.

march two, three, four!

at herod's winter palace outside of jericho.

he died a miserable death here...

but we like to practice our crane move too.

just in case we ever need it.

----------------------------------------------

it was SO HOT!

but i love the sun :)

i need direction

i refuse to think that today is saturday.
because i forgot to post my music.
so, my excuse is that because i haven't gone to bed yet, that it is still technically friday. take that saturday morning!



this was going to be a list of music that had inspired me over the course of this semester... but it seems like the end of the semester has sapped all motivation that i had. (having said that, i can also contradict myself and say that i have so much energy i think i might explode!!!) i can't stop thinking about jerusalem.
not for a minute.
unless i am missing my weather-bipolar, former home.
it's amazing to me that i actually find myself missing it.

i've decided something (and it is your job as my reader to hold me to this...)
i need some goals for the summer.
otherwise i am going to just sit and watch the whole world pass me by for the entire summer, and i will come out of it, and not have made the most of it!
da list:

• do push ups every night. (i stink at push-ups... so the number is going to start very low. but i am going to eventually build it up... hopefully i can be doing 50 push-ups every night in a little bit. don't judge.)
• write something every day.
• spend a half hour every day in quiet. no music, no tv, no distractions. just me, just thinking.
• greet every cashier by their first name. (it seems like a really random goal, but my uncle made me promise i would...)
• train for a sprint triathalon. i don't know how possible this is going to be in jerusalem... but if not, i'm going to be able to run a 10k/half marathon when i get back!
• keep up my blog!
• wake up earlier - i really really realllllllly want to be a morning person. which seems really weird if you have seen me in all my glory in the morning. yes, i am going to make this happen.
• go to be earlier - again, me = night owl. (as you can see by the time of this post...)
• get to know everyone on the trip
• simplify my life - i think i need to start with #9
• do yoga. meditate. breathe.
• be on facebook less.
• spend less time on the computer in general
• be more patient with people that annoy me. (this is mostly because i am really snippy at my younger brothers. i want to be the "cool" older sister... not the grumpy one that comes home from college that they don't like to hang out with. you get my drift?)

i could really make that list inexhaustible... but for your sake, i will stop!

i saw this today, and i thought it was super cute.

i have a new project now... 

with a white t and skinny jeans??? i am sensing a fashion uprising here.

and most definitely in a good way.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

i tried on my old prom dress from senior year

and the first thing i said was - "that used to fit???"