And So It Begins

Shalom! Welcome to my blog! I've been here in Israel for a week now and I have so much to share already, and unfortunately not as much time to do so as I would like! I'll to try to to my best.

Today was a gorgeous day! As I will explain later, the weather has been a little rough and has been keeping us inside, so the sun and warmer weather were quite a blessing. I was up late last night, and I slept right through my alarm clock and breakfast this morning. So my roommate, Christina, and I made our way into the Old City to find some fresh bread. The sun was shining and for the first time in quite a while I was warm! The city was alive and busy on a Saturday morning. As you may know, Jews celebrate Shabbat on Saturday, so pretty much everything is closed in the New City from Friday afternoon until Saturday afternoon. The Old City, however, is hoppin'. We first made our way into the Christian quarter to find Shaban, a money changer and store owner we've been told we can trust. He is really a great guy and loves to help JUC students. He's even got a little Wheaton fan flag and sticker that a past student gave him hanging in his shop! He welcomed us into his store and bought us tea from one of the vendors who walks up and down the street with a tray of tea. I don't even like tea, and I loved this! He told us how to make it so I'll have to try it out and make it for you all when I get home. He told us where to find the freshest bread, not from a vendor, but right at the ovens down a little ally. He said to tell them he sent us and to only pay 3 shekels, a little over 75 cents. Its always a good idea to get Shaban to help; normally they would overcharge Americans and we would have to pay at least five shekels. We found the shop and purchased the bead right out of the oven, what a great breakfast, all we needed was a little penut butter! Then I stopped at a jeweler's shop. It had gorgeous handmade jewelry. It was on the expensive side, but it wasn't the tourist junk you find in other parts of the city. The owner was very nice, especially when we heard we were from JUC. He told us as students we get a 25% discount, then tried to sell me a beautiful pair of earrings. Store owners in the Old City are very persistent. Usually its easy to say no and just walk away, but it can be harder when they are so friendly. In the end I told him no, but he gave me the earrings anyway to take back to school and advertise for him. Then he said I could have the earrings for the price of the silver when I brought them back if I would like. I told him I would advertise for him, just because he seems great and I'd like to support his business over other somewhat sleazy shops. Plus, how could I say no to someone so trusting. I still won't buy them, even if it is a good deal, but I'll pass the word around and return them soon. He also gave us this spice to put on our bread. Its called zapika, and he told us that he used to take it too school with him and it would "open his mind". When someone hands you a little plastic baggy of spices that will open your mind, some red flags usually go up. But he was just using the best English he could and I've seen the spice in spice shop displays. It was great on the fresh bread. Another shop owner saw us with our bread and offered us cheese on our way out of the city, but I didn't trust him quite as much and we didn't stop. Its really a different culture with different values. I love the people's willingness to share with us, but not everyone's like that and even if they are you have to be on your guard all the time.

After lunch I went out with a few girls into the New City. Two of the girls had been here last semester and were taking us to a hill that they climb to study. It was absolutely gorgeous. It was a hill in the middle of the city, but you wouldn't even notice it unless you were trying to find it. There was a tiny path up the off of Hebron Road (busy road that leads out of Jerusalem and into Hebron). At the top the hill looks out onto Hebron Valley. Its absolutely gorgeous. The hill itself is littered with rubble from stone buildings that used to stand there. Now, all that's left, are the stone foundations, covered in moss. It was wonderful to be outside, after a few days shut up trying to stay warm. The breeze was cool, but when the sun made it through it was perfect. We stayed for a while and I journaled.

At 3 I played some football behind the school with some other students. It was a lot of fun and great to be rough housing outside again. I scored a touchdown but dropped a few passes too. Afterwards I went for a short jog through the new city with another student. And that's pretty much been the day. I also got to hang out in the garden some and eat kemkwats off the trees. It reminded me of spring break and my girls back home.

So that's today, but there's a lot more that has happened and a lot that I've learned and would love to share with you. So lets start towards the beginning.

Here's the scoop, incredibly brief: I flew out on Thursday, January 24th and arrived on Friday the 25th.

The next day the new students had a photo scavenger hunt in the Old City and a tour after dinner of the New City (or west city). The next day, Sunday, we had our first field study for Physical Settings of the Bible. Dr. Write took us around the city and showed us some sweet stuff, I'll have to go over that in greater detail later. It was really amazing, best class period I've ever had. The rest of the week I had classes and a ton of reading to do. I think all my classes had reading due the first day, but since we didn't get the syllabus until the first day we had to do twice as much reading to make up for it. But the classes are amazing, and most of the reading is very interesting too. I'll go over my classes in greater detail soon as well.

The weather has been very cold and Israel only heats the buildings a couple of hours a day. So basically, until today, I was cold since I got of the airplane. It snowed on Wednesday and Thursday and the whole city shut down. Except for us of course =), we were probably the only students in the city that had class. I went yesterday to an outfitters store and blew a bunch of money on warm clothes, but it'll be worth staying warm. My room is on the roof and is amazing! Its probably the sweetest bedroom here. It looks out onto the west city, and every morning I start the day with this beautiful view (note the snow!):

The kids here seem to be great kids. Its fun to see us emerging from that awkward get-to-know-you stage. The professors are wonderful as well.

And that's been a lot of my experience up to now. Of course it doesn't do last week justice, but if I try to I'll just get further behind. I have another field study in Jerusalem tomorrow so I'd like to post about my first one before I have another to write about. Hopefully I'll get that up tonight, but first I should take a shower while the hot water is on!

A couple of hours later: so I didn't get to get my first field study posted tonight and I need to go to bed. It'll have to wait. I'm also putting all my pics on an online photo album, I'll get the link to you when I've got them all loaded.