October update

Sukkot. Festival of the Tabernacles. 6 am. Whacking of the Willows. Accidentally erased all of my pictures, so this is all that's left.

Hezekiah's Tunnel. Alex, Annie, Kaylen, Lisa. Lots of water, lots of fun.

Graves at Lachish. Annie, Kayla, Laurann, Ellen.

Symphony with an amazing, famous, 25 year old Chinese pianist whose name escapes me.

Assembling hygiene kits. I was on towel folding duty.

Lorina, Laurann, and Annie at the St. Anne's Church.

Ben Yehuda St. with Alyssa, Lorina, Maddie, Annie, Laurann, and Eric.

Biblical Garden Fieldtrip. Shepherding. Katherine, Annie, Rosemary

Preparing lunch with Kayla, Laurann, and Alyssa.

Major reaction to the onions. I lost all my mascara by the time the tears were gone.

Me and Rachel with our lentil onion stew.

It's been a great month! These pictures don't do it justice. I finished up finals today (except I still have 2 essays to write). Next week we head to Jordan. It is going to be amazing and I can't wait! 

Sleep...or lack of it

It's finals week aka no sleep week. My last one is tomorrow at 1:30. Then there's 3 essays to be written before we head to Jordan. I promise I'm alive and a post will be coming soon; hopefully with lots of pictures. But until then, these two pictures will have to do. 

Will feeding sheep and goat.

Me with the sheep. 

Hope you have a lovely Thursday!

This week...

I had a massive midterm for Ancient Near Eastern Studies. 

In preparation, we became good friends with the white boards.

This is the Assyrian and Babylonian kingdoms timeline.

Here's the condensed Assyrian, Northern Kingdom, and Israeli King list.  

And then there's me after 3.5 hours of sleep, with my whiteboard of the major time periods.

After recuperation day (the entirety of yesterday), I decided I finally needed to go out to the city.

 So, today I joined a bunch of people for a quick trip to Ben Yehuda street to get Schwarma. 

Me, Will, and Mary with our delectable lunches.

My new favorite foods!

We finished off our day with Arab Culture night. We had a class about prayer call, followed by a delicious dinner that I sadly didn't get pictures of because I reverted into historian mode.

 Alyssa, Annie, Rachel

(Will, Annie, Mary, Kayla, Brandon)

Shabon, our favorite shop keeper, let the five of us borrow clothes for the night. 

(Abi, Steven, Annie)

And we even got to learn some Palestinian dances. 

It's sure been a great (and busy) week! 

Eilat

I went snorkeling in the Red Sea on Sunday. It may have been the most beautiful body of water I've ever visited. It was a 4 hour drive there and another 4 hours back. So basically, I went to St. George and back in a day and threw in some snorkeling in the middle.

 The water was the perfect shade of blue and the weather was just right. 

(Brad, Quinn, Michael, Will, McKay)

I was with my best friends. 

(Annie, Kathryn, Laurann, Mechale,Abi, Ellen)

We swam with the fish, saw some massive clams, and dove to sea floor.

(Annie, Jaylen, Sophie, Rachel, Bethany, Mary, Erin, Catie)

Then, we drove home, had some great bus discussions (thanks Alyssa, Will, and Ellen!) and slept the night away.

I've fallen in love

with an ancient city

with waking up at 5:00 to finish monstrous readings

with fighting back drooping eyes, so I can learn more

with call to prayer

with sitting on the lawn listening to the same 5 songs on the uke

with delicious Jewish rugelach

with religious music
with amazing talent shows
with my professors' 13 kids running round the center

with the Via Dolorosa
with St. Anne's Church
with ward choir

safe to say, I'm in love.