Pics Galore!!!

Zedekiah's Cave. They took the stone from here to build the walls of Jerusalem. It went for forever, I can't believe that people had to carry stone that far!

The tombs of David's sons. It is so cool that there are all kinds of historical things all throughout the city. This is 2 minutes from the Jerusalem Center.

Went to Tel Aviv to the beach. One of the best days so far. I haven't been to the beach in years! And yes, I am a pregnant mermaid.

I love how easy it is to make friends. Best social experience of my life so far!

We went and spent the opening of Shabbat at the Western Wall. It was not at all what I expected. They were dancing and singing and praying and reading, and 100 other things. I though they just came and cried and prayed there.

Takin' down the walls of Jericho.

Oldest city OF the world. I love oddly translated signs!

We stopped to look at the tree that the man climbed up into to see Christ... but it really isn't the tree because they don't live that long. I don't think that the girls were as excited as we were.

Playing the Good Samaritan

This is overlooking the road to Jericho

Aren't we studs

I'm so glad we live in real homes.

I hate leg sweat.

So, the internet is so slow at the Jerusalem Center, so a group of us decided to go to the University next to us that is quicker, so I figure now or never to upload some pictures.

When in Rome... Jerusalem

I got to go to this really sweet party thing the other night. So, according to the Jews, it was just the beginning of a new year, something like 5211 or something like that and they are starting a new year and they have a holiday called Rosh Hashanah. So apparently a couple of my friends got invited to go to this Jewish Rabbi's house (as if there were any other kind of Rabbi). Somehow I was lucky enough to get invited to go with them. So about 8:30 we took off from the JC and went to this guy's house. It was so cool to see the difference in traditions and religions. There were probably 60 or 70 of us crammed into this room with a bunch of dinner tables.  We all sat and chatted, and they had a bunch of traditional foods and said a bunch of prayers and got drunk, but it was a really cool experience to get to go into the home of a native family and see how they live.

Field Trips!!!

I remember those stories that Mikael and Nathan told about the priests fighting over cleaning the steps. This reminded me of it.

I love watching the priests.

Jerusalem is soooo beautiful.

This is looking from Nabi Samwel, which is the place where Samuel was buried... but not. They found his real burial place, but for some reason Muslims and Jews come to worship at the tomb. I don't get it, but it sure is a great view.

My two buddies, Katie-boy and James!

This is in front of Gibeon where the sun stood still to let the Jews kick the Hitites bootie.

You know that you are going to have a GREAT semester when one of your classes is called field trips!!! I have a new suggestion for the Jerusalem program. Not that I don't love the classes, but they should get rid of some of them and we should just do field trips the whole time. Or maybe we could just have lectures on the buses as we travel from place to place the whole time. But you take what you can get ;) Our class consisted of driving around Jerusalem and they taught us about the geography of the city and we read some of the bible stories in the places that it actually happened! It is so awesome!!! Our teacher is a genius too, which makes it all the better. He was showing us all the little things that you would never find out with a normal tour guide. Where else do you get 4 guys with a P.H.D. in Egyptology, the Bible, Hebrew, and Near Eastern studies! Talk about ideal tour guides! It amazes me all these stories that I knew (and so many that I didn't) happened in the very place that I am looking at. Before it was point "a" to point "b", data entering the head, but now I will look at those stories and see Abraham snaking across the ridges of the hills, the armies marching from miles away coming to attack the city and the streets where miracles were preformed. Wow!

Freeday... officially my new favorite day of the week.

First two free days!!! I love the town! It has been so fun getting to explore the city. I feel like I am on a mission again, but I get to do all the fun things that I always wished we could have done. On Sunday we went out after church and tried to visit a couple of the churches. I was so excited to go to the Church of the Ascension, which is a Russian church. I was so excited to go talk to some Russian people, but it turns out that they were these two dudes sitting at the entrance of the church making you pay to go in. So we bumped out of there and went down to one of the many of the Gardens of Gethsemane. It was really neat, but I am excited to go to some of the other ones because it didn’t really feel that special. We had to hurry back for dinner because we were all dying. Remind me not to go out in the blazing heat in the middle of the day on a fast Sunday. Woops. We went out again later that day and explored the city some. Pretty much we walked real slow and talked the whole way, but it was a lot of fun. It has been a blast though getting to know everyone. We were talking about it the other night. There is no other social environment like what we are in right now. It is so rare to become so close to so many people in such a short period of time. It is pretty cool! I have made a lot of good friends.

First/Second day on the town

Zedekiah's Cave, way sweet. This is where the quarry for Salomon's Temple.

I have always wanted to preach to a whole congregation, this was my shot at the Lutherans.

Apparently this is the center of the world, but you know what is even better?! Me being in the center of 4 girls ;b haha

The churches are so beautiful! I love the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, we spent 2 hours there going to the different services

We finally made it!!!!

After a ridiculously long trip, we finally arrived in Jerusalem! All the traveling went pretty smooth, except for the fact that I had only gotten three hours of sleep the previous night and got a grand total of 30 min of sleep on all of the flights. I didn't know that I could even function on so little of sleep for 3 days. It was really fun getting to know all the different people that will be on the program with me. I am really excited about the group that I am with. It looks like a really fun group of kids. There really were only two things of note with the trip over.

So we flew into Vienna from the states, which I was really excited about because I thought that we were spending the night there, but turns out that I read the itinerary wrong and we only had an hour layover or so. But that is not what I was not what I was going to say. Anywho, I had a major flashback when I flew into Vienna. We ended up at the very same gate that I flew out of when I was coming home from my mission. It was 11 months to the day when I had been standing there with my mission buddies from the MTC and we met a senior couple that was traveling out to there mission and a bunch of missionaries fresh from the MTC with their bad haircuts and nasty part :) I'm allowed to say that because I was one of those. It was so strange to think that I have been home that long. It made me really homesick for Ukraine. I was tempted to just head over to another gate and catch a ride to Ukraine for a quick detour. I don't think that it would have been much appreciated, so I refrained (just barely though). As we were flying out, the pilot announced that we would be flying over Sophia and the Black Sea, which only threw me further back into flashbacks. We got our Visas renewed in Bulgaria and our mission was right on the Black Sea. I couldn't believe how beautiful the Black Sea is. There are these awesome islands all throughout the Black Sea that look so cool. My new dream is to buy one of those islands and build a mansion on it! The other cool thing is that the guy I was sitting next to. I asked him to let me by when I was sitting down on the plane and I could tel that he didn't understand English but knew what I was asking. He was wearing a Kippa so he was obviously a Jew. I knew that I wasn't going yo be able to talk to him. All of a sudden he whips out of copy of this newspaper and I look over and I could read it! It kind of confused me at first because I knew that he didn't understand me, but then I realized that it was in Russian, so I got to chat it up with him on the airplane. I know that I am going to love it here, I have heard so much Russian already and I have been here only a day!
Anyway, today was really sweet too. We got to go out on the town and see the old city on a little tour. We were in a group with the director of the Jerusalem Center. It was so amazing to see all of the things. I never really associated so many of the stories of the Bible with a place, in my head they were all in this mystical place that got taken up with the City of Enoch, but all of a sudden they materialized in my head. I know that I am going to be spending a lot of time at those sights, so I won't bother trying to describe them all right now.
One thing that blows my mind is that this place, considered holy by 3 religions, has been turned into one huge market. I always imagined the streets to be just the way they were back in the time of Christ's life, but there are vendors selling souvenirs and all that other stuff. That just blows my mind. It is like money changers in the temple!
The best thing, well, maybe not the best, but what topped it all of was the end of our little excursion. We ended up in west Jerusalem on this walking street with shops everywhere. We had gotten 30 shekels to spend. I was walking down the street when I got a glance of my favorite word in any language. GELATO!!!!  I was so excited. You probably can't understand what this word does to me. So of course I took a little detour and went with a group of kids to get my first gelato in the Holy Land. What better way to end the trip than with a two scoops of heaven in a bowl? I submit that there isn't! Unfortunately, my spirits were dampened shortly thereafter. One of the girls informed me that some of them were talking and decided that I was going to find my wife while I was here. What is with all this pressure?! That is like the tenth time people have told me that, but I never expected it from the people that are here. Can a man have some peace?! ;b
Anyway, that is a rundown of the excitement so far. I am so excited, and utterly exhausted. I woke up this morning to my roommate going to the bathroom and I have been so excited that if I wake up it is for good, because I am instantly awake. So we all got up at 4 o'clock and listened to the call of prayer for Ramadan. So we were all sitting out on the balcony at 4 in the morning. I'll guarantee that one won't be happening again! So I figured that I better take some pictures of because I won't ever be awake to get similar pictures at that time again.