October 4th... Catch up time

Sorry I have been so bad at keeping up on all this stuff. Life has been crazy with all the homework we have had the past couple of weeks, but I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel!!!! Hurrah! So, I am going to try to catch you all up on the AWESOME things that we have gotten to do. So, our field trip on the 4th was called the Shphelah Field Trip. One might ask himself, "What in the world is a Shphelah?!" Don't worry, I still ask that question sometimes! And by sometimes, I mean usually always. To the best of my knowledge it is the name for one of the geographical areas of Israel. I can tell you what is in it though. There are 5 hills and cities that were built in order to protect the way up to Jerusalem. If I am wrong, don't correct me, let me be happy in my ignorance. So anyway, we went and visited a bunch of ancient cities and saw a lot of the excavations of the cities, for example Gath. That is the place from which Goliath hales. It was really interesting to see all of them, but sometimes it got really long. Good thing there are 80 of us to keep each other company. I'm not gonna lie, the most interesting part of the trip was watching all the helicopters and jets going. Apparently there were all kinds of military bases around us because all kinds of helicopters were doing touch and goes and there were some jets way up there dog fighting!!!! It was so cool to watch them practicing. I have decided that real life is a little more interesting than trying to guess what the past was like.

It was pretty awesome getting to stand in the places where all these stories happened. As a member of the official reenactment committee for the Judd class, I was drafted and cast as the upper half of Goliath in the 5 minute rendition of David and Goliath. It was truly Oscar worthy! We got to play around with some slings and had a 80 person firing line. I am just glad we weren't in real battle because there probably would have been more friendly fire than anything else.

We also got to go sing in these really cool caves were they mined limestone back in the day that way good acoustics. They are called the bell shaped caves.

We also visited other cities that had tombs, dove cotes (I guess that is the name for the place where they raise doves?), oil presses, wine presses, etc.

Probably my favorite place was Lachish. It is one of the cities and we got to see a lot of the walls and stuff from the city, but there were a lot of the stories that we got to hear. It was taken by the Assyrians right before they tried to come to Jerusalem, so we heard the Biblical account as well as the Assyrians and the local story that was written by those being defeated. It was neat. I tried to keep it short because I am sure the longer they are, the less they get read.

New Photo Post

I posted pictures just barely with all the Egypt trip, but there were a lot that I wanted to show other than what I talked about. So here are some.

Is this a familiar scene to any of you? I don't know what it is, but buses for me mean instant naps.

One of my proudest moments. We were driving into Cairo and I played this guy on the passenger side in Paper, Rock, Scissors. Yes I did win, but I am more proud of playing it with some random Egyptian while driving down the highway.

This Oasis is actually our hotel if you believe it or not. Yes... we did live in a bungalow.

Me, James, and this kid named Jake. These are the pillars in Karnak. There is a room in the temple that has 134 of these pillars. It amazes me that they were able to do such amazing things with man power only.

In front of the Nile that separates Cairo from Giza.

Enjoying a delicious meal of french fries and hamburgers at Hard Rock Cafe.

This was at the pyramid light show in Giza.

I learned to do this just for the pyramid. I almost look like it... right?

Bell shaped caves that are made from quarrying the soft limestone.

Watch out Goliath, I'm pretty wicked with a sling shot.

My professor's daughter Emily. She is the cutest thing ever, besides my own nieces and nephews of course. She sure makes me miss them!!!

So... I just want you all to meet my new best friend James

So, I pretty much die of laughter all day long with my new friend James. Here is just a small taste of an experience with him. Here it goes.

Well.. it's been almost a week, since I updated, and 2 weeks since I've written.  Life has been just splendid.  After the huge 8 day vacation of a lifetime, the school work basically hit my like a big dump truck full of homework and studying.  If you though that coming to Jerusalem was going to be a vacation for me...well you were wrong.... I have been studying my little tush off lately.. here's a pic...


Anyway, school is going ok, not great, not bad.... just ok.  Somedays I don't even leave the Jerusalem Center, and I go to bed, and think to myself, 'What did you do today James?', and I answer 'Well, I ate, studied, ate, studied, ate, studied, and now i'm about to sleep.' and then I think to myself... 'WHERE DID I GO WRONG?!?!?!'  haha... But its good to learn things.. right?

Well, some things have happened in my life.... let me fill you in...

1. I GOT A CALLING!!! YES! This is true and rill!  I am the Senior Primary choirister! HA!  I'm so excited! It's going to be awesome.  I already had my first week, which was a disaster, but it can only go up from here. Since when did we add songs I don't know to primary?!?! I've only been gone for what? 10 years?  come on people!!  Once again.. a pic straight from church.. for you...


2. I JOINED A VOLLEYBALL TEAM ON MY OWN ACCORD!  Yes, you probably can't handle this much earth-shattering news in one day, but I, James Peter Grant, on my own accord decided to join an intra-mural volleyball team that.. HAD A DRAFT!! I KNOW!! Who would've thought... it turns out I'm like REALLY good in Israel, but not so much in America... not quite sure how that works..but that's how it is....so I deal with it.  We are 'Team Ace', and it's one of the most fun things I've ever done... everytime I hit the ball I yell 'VARSITY!' just for Brittney....

yup... that's my block....own it!... just kidding.. i'm basically the guy on the far right.... most of the game... and it turns out dancing is NOT helpful... but don't worry... I was in charge of the VOLLEYBALL PLAYLIST!! HAHAHAHA I knew you'd love that!

3. I got to see an orchestra from Germany, with a world-renown cellist come here and perform at the Jerusalem Center.  It was so cool.  Every Sunday night there is a huge concert here, and it is a pretty hot ticket in the classy Jerusalem scene.  Well, me, Melia, and Johnathon decided we wanted to see this youth orchestra that was on tour, and they were GREAT!!!


This isn't a pic from our concert, but you get the idea.  Also....sitting just 2 seats away from me, next to my Johnathon was this political heckler, that was yelling about political statements in between the 1st and 2nd song, and it was super awkward.  After he yelled the crowd start to uproar and getting mad... JUST LIKE IN THE SOUND OF MUSIC....when the Nazi soldier comes out at the concert and says 'They're GONE!'.. ya basically just like that... it was insane.. AND his eyebrows were HUGE!! LIke unto the briar at the base of Sleeping Beauty's tower... HUGE AND GROSS!! I wasn't able to get a pic of him, as I don't have a cell phone to slyly use in a concert setting.. but i DID find a picture of his biological brother online....


They basically look like twins... so imagine this guy....add 30 years to his face, dye his hair black, grey, and white, and you get the guy we sat next to... super awkward!!


Anyway,
things are going well.. I've basically been eating, sleeping, studying, and playing a volleyball game here and there. After finals more fun things will happen... and I will fill you in on some more field trips... enjoy!!!

Peace and Blessings

James

What happens in Jewish class

"Sometimes I don't know if you're talking about antique jewelry or Jewry of antiquity..."

--James Peter Grant

taliafinley.blogspot.com

This is a digital version of my friend James, hope you enjoyed!!!
 P.S. A special thanks to my friends James and Talia for making these posts that are quality.

Egypt Trip: Saturday and Sunday

Saturday

Mosques
We got to go to some really cool Mosques that morning and our tour guide, Islam, taught a little about Islam, the religion. It was really neat to see how they worship and how devote of people they are. I think we forget too often that there are really devout and good people in every religion, especially non-christian religions. I really love our tour guide. He had some really great sayings that we continually repeat, even 2 weeks after we have been back. Here are a few of them. He called us group Toot, after King Tut (which is how it is really pronounced) Here are a few of them. "Toot, come more closer please, lazy toot, actually believe it or not, deal or no deal, yes or not, you believe zis, facebook is my family..." I miss him already

Oscar Awards
Me and my friend James had been commissioned for our very own production of Aaron and Hur supporting the arms of Moses while the Israelites fought, so we set up a small but quality production. It was great. I think we will get an Oscar for our amazing theatrical skills.

Sunday

Sinai
We woke up at 2 Sunday morning to hike up to Sinai. Believe it or not, I was not even tired. I love hiking so much!!! I miss it. It was neat heading up the trail in the middle of the night and seeing how many people besides us got up to see the sun rise on Sinai.

Dance Party Bus
We had a very long bus ride back to Jerusalem, so in order to pass the time more quickly we set up a dance party on the bus. It was flaming hot on the bus, but well worth it. I think I have officially danced 10000 times more on this trip than an accumulation of my whole life put together but it was a blast. I can literally say that there is only one mode of transportation that we haven't had a dance party on, and that is an airplane, but we will remedy that.

Egypt Trip: Friday

Egyptian Museum- Stinking tired but cool
I really wish I had been at full strength this day, but the train ride and lack of sleep took it out of me. This place was sooooo INCREDIBLE, but I would have enjoyed it so much more had a been fully awake. We got into Cairo at 4 in the morning and started our day as soon as we got of the train. By far, my favorite part was seeing the mummies. It was so cool seeing the mummies of the people that we had been learning about. These bodies are 3000 years old! I never want to be that old.

Church-
We had our own little church service in one of the conference rooms off of the lobby. We were all in our normal clothes except for those that were participating in the administration of the sacrament. It was a unique experience that I don't think I will have again to take a meeting with you on a trip.

Dirty Sheet-
That night, we got a call from "room service" that told us they made a mistake and made our beds without changing the sheets from the last customers. They asked us to take the sheets to the front desk so that we could exchange them. Apparently I am really stupid or was extremely tired, because I completely bought into it. I hung up the phone and then got thinking about it. Why in the world should I have to take the sheets to the desk. So I call them up and ask them if they will come change the sheets for us. So a couple of minutes later a man comes to make our beds, but when he comes in he sees that the beds were already made and it really confused him. He didn't speak english so well so he left without doing anything because he thought we wanted him to make the bed instead of change the sheets. We get a call again from the "front desk" saying that we haven't taken the sheets to the front desk. By this time, I was pretty frustrated that a 4 star hotel had made a mistake and was going to make us bring the sheets. I don't remember exactly how it played out, but we finally figured out that it was people from the program. Well, I'm an idiot! But, apparently housekeeping didn't get the memo because another man showed up at our door saying "make bed, make bed." What I don't get is that they send another person that DOESN'T SPEAK ENGLISH! We tried to explain to him what happened and finally told him that everything is ok and that he didn't need to do anything. I was... punked!

Egypt Trip: Thursday

Motorboat dance party-
We had to take another boat down the river, and when I say we had to, I mean we got to because it was so fun! As we motored down the river, one of the doctors that is with our group suggested a dance party on the boat. So, how could we decline, we moved the table out of the center, we cranked up the music and had a dance party on the Nile. Unfortunately, we were asked by the administration not to do it again, but it was fun while it lasted.

Karnak- AWESOME!!!!
I would have to say that that this has been my favorite experience of the whole trip. I didn't even know about these temples before I came here. It is AMAZING!!! These temples are so impressive. I would say that they were even more impressive than the ancient buildings and monuments in Rome. These buildings were built over 3500 years ago!!! And they are still standing. I can't even imagine what kind of building processes they went through to raise these columns and obelisks. It is just incredible. The other cool thing is that there were amazing hieroglyphics in the temples. There were really neat things that could draw parallels to the temple. I don't necessarily believe that it came from the temple or that it was a corrupted version of the gospel, but it was still cool seeing those parallels. I could spend days there. We then took these little carraige things to the next AWESOME temple.

Temple Luxor-
Pretty much the same things. What amazes me is that these two temples, over two miles apart, back in the day, it was connected my a road that was lined with statues of sphinx. I just can't wrap my head around all that manual labor. I was born in the right century.

Train
That night we had an overnight train ride from Luxor to Cairo. It was fun, but man I paid for it the next day. I was completely exhausted, all I wanted to do was get some real sleep.

Egypt Trip: Wednesday

Valley of the Kings-
Valley of the Kings was by far one of my favorite things of the Egypt trip. In the latter dynasties of Egypt, the Pharaohs didn't have enough money to build pyramids like they used to, which really means they didn't have enough slaves, so they went to these mountains and instead of building pyramids they carved out chambers from the rocks and had tombs in the rocks. This is where they found King Tut. The crazy thing is that King Tut's treasures represent something like 60% of all the treasures from Egypt, but it is one of the smallest of the tombs and one of the smallest treasures of the Pharaohs. The only reason we have it is because he was so unknown that the grave robbers didn't find his tomb because another Pharaoh covered the entrance to his tomb when they were carving his out. My question is, who in the world has all this treasure in their attack? If it is in yours, let me know because I'll take some of that money. Anyway, we got to walk through all the tombs of all the Pharaohs that we have been learning about. It was really cool because we walked through the tombs of the Pharaohs that were in the Bible. There was this one tomb, Tutmoses III, that was a boiling hot sauna. I have never sweet so much in my life and it was instant. You know it is blasted hot when you walk out into over 100 degree weather and it feels cool! It was so awesome though, I would go back in a heartbeat.

Hatshepsut-
This was a really sweet temple that was near the valley of the kings. There is not much to explain about the temple. Pictures do much better, but while we were there we danced the Waka Waka again. Unfortunately I am too lazy to type out the story so I took this from my friend Tessa's blog. And she says (with minor changes) Shakira can heal the world. Our class has made a goal to do the Waka Waka dance at every location possible. We’re all convinced that this song not only has immense healing powers, but also will stand the test of time, thus we are all willing to make this our legacy. Unfortunately, we didn’t always know which sites were totally appropriate for “waka”ing. Turns out, Temple of Hatshepsut wasn’t one of them. We wired our radios to play it in everyone’s headsets and did our thing. The security guards didn’t like it very much, so they came running down the stairs to talk to our guide and confiscate the footage and take him to the police. Our wonderful guide, Islam, politely declined the guards and agreed to show the police the footage and insisted that it was harmless. As he put it, they were moving in rhythm together. But, it’s pretty rare that people accept the excuse of “we’re just stupid Americans who love to dance”. Islam, accompanied by the security guard, took the video to the police. He stopped, looked and Islam, and said, “That…is….awesome”. As my friend Brandt says, “Waka waka healed that security guards heart”. It was epic. You can be expecting a Waka Waka video montage sometime in the near future.

Colossus of Memnon- Pearl of Great Price
We got to see the place where the facsimiles and the mummies that the church bought that are now the facsimiles and the Pearl of Great Price for us now. You never really think about things like that, that it came from some physical place

Falukah/ Camels- Little kid dancing, driving
We took this thing called a Falukah which is like a really weird sailboat, to the other side of the Nile to go get on some camels. As we were riding down the Nile, the captains of the falukah put on some music. We had this really funny native kid that was helping him out on the boat that we got up to do a dance for us on a boat. We then hoped on some camels and had a 40 camel caravan winding through the countryside of Luxor. It was fun getting to see the country in Egypt and the little village areas. I was a little disappointed because I thought that we were going to get to ride them ourselves, but the people led us the whole time. I really wanted to have a camel race, but what can you do?

Suuq- Most fun night ever, confidence boost
That night we went to the Suuq, which is the market. It has been one of the most fun nights that I have had since I have been here in the Middle East. I thought that the people hassled you in the Old City in Jerusalem, but I was wrong. I have never seen people try to sell so diligently, and their tactics are quite funny. I have never had so many compliments that are not true but happy to take them. I was with a group of four girls. As we walked through the streets all the shop owners kept yelling out, "Lucky man, four wives, I give you 40 camels for one of them." I didn't think the price was quite right, but when I was offered a Ferrari and a helicopter, I was completely willing, but the girls just liked me too much to give me up ;) j/k Anyway, some of my other favorite compliments were, "4 wives? Strong man!" or "Diligent man". It was fun, but I probably needed the opposite of a confidence boost, maybe a humbling experience, but I'm not complaining!

Egypt trip in sections.

What a glorious trip!!!! So we have been gone for a week in the land of milk and honey! Well... the second land because we all know that America is the first, but Egypt was pretty dang fun. There are just too many stories to tell. Probably some of the most fun I have had in my whole life. It all started last sunday morning. Let me just tell you now that we have the coolest group of kids EVER!!! Every where we go is a party. I haven't had time to do all the blogging and I was planning on posting it all at once, but it is taking so long, so I will do it in selections.

Tel Bersheva-
So, before this Egypt trip, the word Tel was like nails on a chalkboard for me. Apparently a Tel is the remains of a town on top of a town on top of a town on top of another. So, they really weren't that interesting before. I was really excited for Jericho, but then we got to the Tel and I wasn't very excited because there really wasn't that much to see. Turns out that Tel Bersheva is way sweet. My favorite part was the wells that they had there. There was a way deep well that you could throw rocks down and then hear it a couple seconds later. And then there was a cistern that you could go down into. And then there were the bricks that you could still see the hay that they put in them from over 5000 years ago. It was way cool.

Tel Arad-
I wasn't very pumped for this one either but it turned out to be really cool too. It has an ancient Israeli Temple there that we got to look at. I guess back in the day, the temple in Jerusalem had satellite temple that were away from Jerusalem, so we got to see the layout of the temple and got to go into the Holy of Holies. It was actually really interesting.


Kibbutz Keturah-
 The first night we stayed in a Kibbutz, which is similar to the New Order where it is a self-sufficient community where everything is shared between the people. So that night we lived amongst them and had a great local meal of hamburgers and fries! It was way fun being there because, if you didn't realize, it is so stinking HOT here. That night we got to cool off in the pool and swim. It was a blast.


Desert Dune Experience-
So we went to these way cool sand dunes just out in the middle of the boonies. I use to think that New Mexico was barren, but seeing some of these places makes me realize that we live in a lush oasis compared to these places. I didn't realize that there were real places on earth that truly had no form of life there. So we played on the sand dunes for a bit, had a wrestling match, you know, the usual. I tried wrestling this kid that does Judo, he kicked my bum in like two seconds every time. This one time he got me in this choke hold that cuts of the circulation to the head, so I started blacking out, but knowing me, I hate saying uncle so I just sat there until I couldn't see anymore, and apparently he realized what this did, cause he stopped, when I couldn't do anything. Never passed out, but I never realized that you could start blacking out that quick. You learn something new everyday. After that, we had a chance to just go sit on our own and ponder for a bit. That has been one of my favorite things that we have done. I always like to be doing something and it just eats away at me if I know that something is going on anywhere and I am not a part of it, but just sitting down and thinking was so nice.

Swimming-
There is nothing better than cleaning the sand from your crevices than going swimming. They set up a little BBQ by the pool at the Kibbutz that we stayed at and got to swim that night. What cracks me up is that no matter how old you are, there is always segregation of the guys and the girls. It reminded me of Middle School. All the girls were in their little huddles together talking and the guys were chasing them around. We had the biggest chicken fight war that I have ever seen. It was a blast. Great end to a good day.

Headsets and friends-
We have these little headset transmitters that let us here the teachers/tou guides wherever we go, but the whole trip my buddy James' headset was broken, so we used a splitter the whole time, so pretty much we were connected at the hip the whole time. James and I pretty much do everything together and it is really funny cause people will come up to us and ask how long we have known each other because everyone think that we have been friends for forever. I think that they are just jealous of how fun we are ;b

Monday

Border Crossing-
Busses are probably one of the most fun things that we do. We have had some pretty epic times on the busses, but there is nothing worse than a sweltering bus, which someone defines every single bus that we have been on, but let's be honest, it has never stopped us from having fun on the busses. One of my favorite things is playing paper, rock scissors with people that are on the other bus as we are driving. One of my proudest moments was playing Paper, Rock, Scissors with an Egyptian in this little blue truck as we were driving into Cairo. As we drove in to Cairo, we saw this sign for an Andrea Bocelli concert. I wanted to go so bad. They set up a stage for him right in front of the Sphinx, so James and I were going to put down the money and by tickets. How sweet would it have been to have my first concert be at the sphinx with Andrea Bocelli! Turns out that we were in Luxor the night of the concert, so we didn't get to go, but one can dream, right?!

Pyramid Light Show-
When I hear the words "Pyramid Light Show" I think of sweet lights, some fireworks, some awesome music. I am not complaining, but I am just going to say that the light show was way cooler in my head than the actual light show. But I did take an engaged girl on a date to them, so I pretty much dominated. It was our second date, no big deal. Her fiance will never be able to compete with a date to the Pyramids, but I guess he will just have to deal with it.

Tuesday

Giza Pyramids-
I don't know if you guys realized, but the pyramids are the BOMB!!! I had no clue they were SO HUGE!!!! It is probably some of the most amazing things that I have ever seen. I knew that they were big, but I don't think that I could have imagined them being that big for having been built 5000 years ago. It is incredible! I wish we could have spent more time there, but we got to go see different look out points and see all kinds of Pyramids. I had no clue that Egypt had so many pyramids. Did you know that egypt has something like 130 pyramids, because I didn't! Obviously the ones at Giza are the coolest, but there was one lookout where we could see 15 pyramids at a 360 degree view.

Waka Waka-
Shakira did this song and dance for the world cup called Waka Waka. This song is single handedly healing the world. So, in honor of coming to Africa (the song is about Africa) we all learned the dance and video taped them. Remember how I hate dancing, well... this is way fun. We broadcast the music through the transmitters and we all have out headphones in and we dance together. It is a blast and the funny thing is that everyone stops what they are doing to watch us and video tape us, especially the Asians. As my good friend James put it, "For the first time in centuries, the Pyramids have competition." So our plan is to video tape it in all these really cool places of us doing it and we are going to make a compilation of all the places that we have done it, put it on you tube, get popular, get on the some celebrity talk show thing, and then film a version of it with Shakira herself, because she is going to love it so much.

Sphinx-
It was pretty cool to see the sphinx, but there really isn't that much to say about it. I did man handle the thing and take it for a rodeo ride, but that is all in a days work.

Papyrus-
We went to this papyrus factory in Cairo where they showed us how they make papyrus and then they have all kinds of replicas that they have done of ancient papyri. It was really cool. I ended up buying one of the judgment that the Egyptians believed in. It is pretty darn cool. It is going to go real well in my old world style office/ sweet hand built library.

Memphis-
Memphis is one of the old Capitals of the Egyptian kingdom back in the day. It was really cool to see some of the statues that have been preserved. Especially to see the famous one that they have of Ramses II. I just can't believe how long ago this civilization was and that the stuff they did still remains and how good they did for it being so long ago.

Flight- We then took a flight to Luxor from Cairo. I was completely exhausted after fulfilling some life dreams, so I was head bobbing until the stewardess came around and brought me some guava juice. As soon as I downed that stuff, I was ready to go. Talk about a quick pick me up. I guess I just needed some more blood sugar.