I've figured it out!!!!

It's the world cup. THAT's why the internet won't work. ughh!
The internet is the WORST here. I can’t even download a study guide, much less update my blog, but here I am……early trying to do so. I was told to include a little more of what the daily life here is like, which is fun……and something that I haven’t really taken time to do, so…now I will.

So, I live in Jerusalem. It’s AWESOME…..and terribly conflicted.


(this is my view of Jerusalem from the center.....that's right.)

People ask me my opinion for a solution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and I just get a headache thinking about where to start. We’ve been taught in classes all semester by a Palestinian Arab and a Zionist Israeli, I have talked to people on the streets and at universities and I feel I have a pretty good handle on the situation now. And it’s a mess.

What we have here are displaced people, displacing people.

I have a lot to say about it, but I’m not actually allowed to talk about politics via the internet. A weird rule…maybe a little out of control, but I understand it and will respect it.

Ok. Now, other current events with me:

I ATE CAMEL! And it was surprisingly good. My professor recommend a place to us…..so we got it at a non-sketchy restaurant and they served it to us 3 different ways. One was like a pot roast kinda, another grilled, and then kebabs! It tasted a little like beef, but you could tell it was different……maybe tasted a little game-y. it wasn’t tough at all, really tender….a good experience, totally worth it. There was a bit of drama at the center about it though because…well…....it’s maybe…sort of…..illegal in Israel. We got this awesome email that made me laugh, that I WOULD post here…but…I decided I maybe shouldn’t……oh well…story time when I go back to the States.





ANYWAYS!

I took some pictures of people around the city, which was actually kind of bad, because Hasidic Jews don’t want their pictures taken at all…..let’s just say it’s ALSO not kosher.
And if you want to take a picture of just an Arab person they usually want you to pay them…that’s just the culture. But…..i didn’t tell any of these people I was snapping pictures…oops.











We had a traditional Passover dinner led by our Judaism professor and it was really cool. Passover is in the spring but besides that it was completely legitimate. (and soooo long)





Walking around the city is so fun and exciting it just never gets old. The group I was with went to an ancient cardo and it was pretty cool. It’s so weird to think that the road I’m walking on was the same road that Romans walked on……and Christ too….no big deal. ;)


(some Byzantine-column lovin')



We went Khalidi Library and saw some Arabic texts which were very old and really cool. We found a convent and wandered through it, turns out that it has this old cistern area that winds underneath the building, under the city…kind of like phantom of the opera…you know what im talking about? We through a little caution to the wind and went into this garden that said “No trespassing” it wasn’t in English…..but we know that’s what it said….we just wanted to see it so we decided to plead ignorance if we were caught. Turns out it was a seminary….whoops. but everything was fine, we didn’t see anyone and we walked in, walked out. THEN we went and saw an Armenian Museum….which was closed…but we walked to it, so I decided to mention it.


(sweet underground convent)


(armenian quarter in the old city. i just thought this was a cool wall)

I can’t wait for this week to be over. I’ll be done with classes and will have lots of time to explore. Time is running out fast and it makes me pretty nervous. Next week we’re going to Galilee! And I’m very very excited.

I’m not quite exactly sure what most people want to hear about, so just tell me…. otherwise they will be mostly what they have been……yes.

some perspective...

We were hit pretty hard this week. On our field trip day we went to Yad Vashem in West Jerusalem. Then yesterday we had a Holocaust survivor who had been to 9 different camps come and speak to us. I’ve only met one Holocaust survivor before him and he was 92 years old. It’s weird to think my kids won’t have the same opportunity.



Yad Vashem is Jerusalem's Holocaust memorial. I was really looking forward to visiting, because that history is interesting to me and I thought it would be even more interesting to see it in Israel. I was a little apprehensive about it too, because learning about the Holocaust can be overwhelming.We had breakfast, and then we left on buses at 8:00 AM. When we got there, the gates of the complex (which is very big and houses several different buildings) were ugly and black and kind of twisted around. I don't really know how to explain it, but it was obvious the emotion they were trying to convey. It's up on a hill which overlooks several valleys all around, and it's a really beautiful location.
Our Jewish narrative teacher met us there, and took us around for an hour or so to see a few things outside. One of the things he showed us is this big plaza made out of limestone (everything Jewish in Jerusalem is limestone) with these two big metal sculptures in front. One of them was a relief sculpture of people being prodded to a concentration camp. The other was more of a statue of a bunch of people, with one leader in particular, who were supposed to be resisting the Nazis. Our teacher told us a few things about those two scenarios that I hadn't known before.
So some of the Jews resisted and wouldn't do what the Nazis were telling them, and they were killed on the spot. But many of them did what they were told, because they knew that there would be a chance of survival. After the Holocaust, survivors were looked down upon. It was so weird for me to hear that. The Jews thought of those who resisted as heroes who stood up for what was right. Those who went along to the camps were seen as being weak, and especially those who survived. The attitude toward them was, "So, whose food did you steal so that you could be here now, while they died? Who did you take advantage of to get you where you are?" They were seen as cowards who weren't loyal to their people. Isn't that terrible? So that's the reason why so many survivors kept quiet for so long after the war. Lots of those who had a number tattooed on their arms would wear long-sleeved shirts even on hot days so that people wouldn't see the tattoo and start to ask questions. Just in recent years have we begun to hear more about all this from them. I thought that was crazy. (PS, did you know that the only camp where they did those tattoos was Auschwitz? So if you ever see someone who has one, you can be 100% sure they were there and not somewhere else.)



There's a museum that we went through next and it was shaped like a long triangle. It starts on one side of the hill, with the top of the hill at the same height as the top of the triangle. It comes out from the hill about 30 feet on both sides, and then it goes through the hill in the middle. Does that make sense? So when you're inside the museum, you're inside the hill.
It was a really incredible museum. Which I almost feel bad saying concerning the topic but there was the main triangle-shaped corridor, coming to a point high above your head, that you could see all the way down (made of cold concrete) and then off to both sides of the corridor were all the different rooms. The corridor was blocked off so you couldn't just walk all the way down from one end to the other, even if you wanted to. You had to follow the path from one room to the other, crossing the corridor each time, and getting closer and closer to the end. Everything there was symbolic of something, or had a specific purpose, and the purpose of this was to force all visitors to see the whole story of the Holocaust, from beginning to end.
It started showing a conglomeration of a whole bunch of different videos of life in Jewish Europe before the war, projected on one end of the huge triangle. Then we walked from room to room and saw from the beginning of the Nazis rising to power, learning about how their organization and Hitler were really a beacon of hope to the Germans after WWI, and seeing the progression of how threatened they felt by the Jews, and then started the dehumanizing propaganda, and then persecution, which got bigger and bigger until the concentration camp stories and pictures that we've all seen before. I really understood the big picture better than I ever have.




A couple of things stood out to me.
First of all, one of the most terrible things was how the Nazis' philosophy was to deceive each of their victims, up until the very end. Up to the very moment that they undressed for the "showers," they were told to remember the hook's number that they hung their clothes on so that they'd remember where to go get them after they got cleaned up. The soldiers picked Jews out to work, and they were required to lie to the others about where they were going so they'd all go without a fight, and then when they were all dead, these Jews had to go back in, get the bodies, and get rid of them.
They had to pay for tickets to take the trains to the camps, and there were signs up at the camps that indicated the trains ran both ways. They had fake train stations at the camps with fake arrival and departure schedules. All of this made it much easier on the Nazis because almost no crowd control was needed. The more you know about those stories, the more you realize how much control Satan had over these people. It's almost unbelievable.
I really appreciated how the museum took such great care to keep reminding us that, while 6 million Jews were killed during this time, each one of those people had a life, a personality, a family, a job, and so on. It wasn't just a big group of 6 million, it was an individual at a time.


(obviously, this isn't me....i took this picture so....)

After that main museum, our guide took us to the children's memorial, which was even more powerful, if that's possible. It had its own building. In front of it, there were these square stone pillars, about the width of a person, and they were arranged in a group of about 15, with the tall ones in the back, shorter in the middle, and the shortest ones in front. It was supposed to look like a group of children, arranged in a singing group or having a picture taken or something. All of them were very roughly cut off at the top. It was meant to symbolize that their lives had been cut off and they were never able to get any farther than that.

You walked in, and it was almost pitch black, with only a few black and white pictures of some children, who were killed, on the wall in front of you. Then you enter the main room, and it's even darker, but with hundreds of tiny candles scattered around. You can't even tell where they're sitting, but you can see them everywhere you look, against the black. Then there are mirrors all around, so the candles are reflected, and it looks like millions of little bright specks to represent the 1.5 million children that died. There's a voice that reads names, ages, and hometowns of some of the children. I don't think there was a dry eye.



I’ll write about other things later. I don’t think I should mix in other topics with this post. (it’s too long anyways.)

someone told me that this picture didn't show up......and obviously I think this is very important, so here you go. :)

obviously, i am the worst blogger.....but to be fair...the internet has been a little spotty lately.

This week was a lot of fun, so here are some of the highlights.

What have I been doing? More and more tests. Most of my classes are done at the end of June, so we’re taking all our quizzes and writing papers in preparation for finals. Hooray…

I got a little sick, and by a little I mean I got a stomach virus that ate me from the inside out. Incidentally, when you’re sick the very last thing you want to eat is hummus and herb-y salads made of olives, 2 liters of olive oil, and umm.....yes....olives.
So I literally hadn’t eaten for probably a week.
(I do love the food here, but really, the closest thing to comfort food is lentil soup.)
It was pretty bad, but in a very strange series of events I was quarantined to my room, force-fed a peanut butter sandwich…..and I got better. My friends took care of me and after a fair-at-best night’s sleep….I was back to a solid 79%. (and still climbing)

My friend Tiffany had a birthday and we wanted to celebrate it but we were pretty scheduled with forums and guest speakers to go out. I was able to make it out to the old city in the afternoon though and I went on a quest for some “English” cake. They don’t have cake over here…..their cake is like flan…..which is good….but sometimes….you just want some cake. So I went looking for some……and with much difficulty I found some in a closet-like grocery store. It was Betty Crocker but all in Arabic…and awesome. I had to get the ingredients to add in to it which was kind of funny because I was just walking around the city with the 3 eggs I bought for 1 shekel. It was pretty empowering because although I don’t feel like a tourist, I will always still look like one because I’m white. But carrying around eggs was like a sign to everyone who saw me. Tourists don’t buy eggs! She must live here!


(i think i was in the middle of saying something....hence the awkward expression)

However when I was walking down the street, a man called me out and started saying something…I tried to say in very broken Arabic “I…Make….Dessert…..? I need these (pointing to eggs) but he grabbed them from me and started walking away …“…umm….sir?” so I followed him because he took my stuff and he walked in this really small doorway but it opened up to the sweetest old city Jerusalem grocery store I have ever seen. It was huge but hidden in the twists and turns of the market place. It had everything…it was like the secret garden…of American staples…..still all in Arabic or Hebrew of course. So this nice man wrapped up my eggs for protection and I was able to find everything else I needed for our party.

We made cake and frosting, and ate it while overlooking Jerusalem at night. It was Friday and we live on the East side so all the Arab teenagers were setting off Fireworks to annoy the Jews on the beginning of their Sabbath (there might be another reason they were going off…but….chances are that’s why) so we saw fireworks, had cake, and listened to the Call to Prayer.

I went to West Jerusalem for a change and hung out on the Jewish side. Went to the YMCA, I played Coldplay over the church bells for all of Jerusalem to hear. There was a sweet souk (market place) there and I bought some dates and craisins and some coconut. Yummm…


(sweet market place in West J)

On Monday I went to Bethlehem!!!! There’s a huge wall around the whole city (you know, like that one in Berlin) with only one entrance and exit. This checkpoint is way intense. If you’re in a smaller vehicle you have to get out and they search your car and person (every single vehicle…so yeah, it takes a long time) Since we were on a bus the Israeli soldiers just came on and walked down the aisle…with their automatic weapons…….scary! I understand why Palestinians are upset, I can’t even imagine having to go through that every day. We saw a Jewish settlement just over the 30 foot wall and we went to Bethlehem University and talked to some Palestinians our own age and their perspective on things. I wish I could find one word for “eye opening” but….well…..interestingly enough the next day we had an Israeli political lawyer scheduled to speak to us....i wish this wasn’t already so long otherwise I would explain how contrary everything is….out of control.



I had a really great experience at the Church of the Nativity. There’s a spot there that they have designated as THE spot Christ was born and the grotto where Jerome translated the Vulgate. We sang some Christmas songs and it was just really powerful and nice. There’s really no way of knowing whether that is the actual spot……..but it happened somewhere. Somewhere close to where I was and I could feel that with me the rest of the day. Walking all through Bethlehem I thought about that. I expected the city to be really hectic and touristy and crazy but because of the Israeli checkpoint not as many people come as often. I found it very peaceful and calm and I felt closer to my friends and closer to the Lord. After we got back to Jerusalem I still had “Silent Night” still humming along in my head.


(that's the spot)





It’s been a good couple weeks…time goes by super quickly here and I wish it would stop it because I still have so much I need to see!!!
(also….this next week….i’m totally going to eat some camel….Gross?....probably. Awesome? YES.

Can I please just stay on vacation?

Midterms were a success!….(so far) And what better way to celebrate success than going snorkeling in the Red Sea?!?!

Well…that’s what we did and IT WAS AMAZING. I have never been snorkeling before but it was quite awesome and I loved it. We drove about 4 hours to Eilat and spent the day on the beach of the Red Sea in all of its crystal-clear, blue glory. The weather was perfect, and I did get a little bit of sun but it’s to be expected living in Israel for four months, right?



The reef was so spectacular. It was something I had only seen artificially in the Aquarium I used to work at and on TV. I swam 3 feet directly above a school of fish that were the size of my face and just floated there watching them swim beneath me. They were every imaginable color and shape and were so used to people they’d swim pretty close to you.
This day was really nice because it made all of us feel like it was actually summer…like a vacation….which we woke up from on Monday of course….but……for a brief second we were carefree.



I spent some time journaling (I’m ashamed to say I’m a little behind, but one thing’s for sure, when it is finished my journal will be so cool…) I also went geo-caching…which was epic. I went with this guy and we followed coordinates to a date-palm tree…and after an intense search we found a film canister from Germany inside the palm tree! INSIDE!...just don’t ask…we signed our names on a paper and slipped it back inside for the next person to find.


(it's really blue)

Things have once again gone back to normal…..well, as normal as a city that pretends half the population doesn’t exist can be. There are always demonstrations….usually there’s always something going on…but for now nothing to make us stay inside. So we ventured out again and got falafels, visited the City of David National historic site…which really is full of Zionistic propaganda…..but….what are you going to do right? They are all about rebuilding the city of David and re-establishing Jewish families around Jerusalem….nevermind that there are thousands and thousands of Arabs and Palestinians already living there.


(City of David)

The highlight of this little trip was going in Hezekiah’s tunnel which has thigh deep, running water for about 533 meters which is how Jerusalem was taken a loooong time ago. It was dark and really low in some places….can you picture almost crawling through a watery tunnel in the dark? Awesome. : )


(tunnel)


(bonding.)


(we ate at a dairy Kibbutz on the way home and it had the best chocolate milk i've ever had. Hence the reason we are sitting on a cow.)

More homework of course…….there’s not really an end to it….so another midterm on Thursday….another update soon…..but that’s all for now folks.

I haven’t written in awhile……but I suppose the reason is because this is what I’ve been doing with my life:

My lovely roommate took this picture......awesome.
Hooray for midterms!

Well, I don’t know if many people are up on current events but the Gaza flotilla incident has stirred riots and strikes from Arabs & Palestinians all through Jerusalem so we aren’t allowed out of the center for at least three days……we can go to West Jerusalem if we want (the jewish side)….but….it’s midterm time so it’s just as well. Yesterday there were people shooting fireworks at the police….(slightly ineffective)….it was crazy loud, and just a couple streets from where I live.

Israel has had a blockade of Gaza for awhile, they won’t let in any building supplies (concrete, rebar, etc) for fear of them making weapons and they let in about a quarter of the food needed for the Palestinian refugees to survive. Most of them are living in tents since they were driven out of their neighborhoods in Israel…and 80% of them rely on humanitarian aid…….Israel on the other hand has a responsibility to keep its borders safe ……and the flotilla was definitely going into this to have a conflict….draw a little attention……
As a coincidence we had a Palestinian Activist come to speak to us tonight. He was scheduled months ago, but with all these current events…..it was very interesting He said that 1. It was going absolutely nowhere, and if Israel makes an enemy of the Turks it’s going to be a problem. And 2. The US needs to take more of a responsibility of where all their money is going. 3. The number one thing that needs to happen is to remove the feelings of victimization. None of those things are easy things to do….so…..we’re all still stuck.
Things get pretty crazy here in a hurry…I hope it settles down soon....



In other news I’ve recovered from Egypt…almost 100%. When we all got back we had a big reminder that we aren’t just on vacation because we had a big paper for Islam and the Palestinian Narrative class. I stayed in mostly this week, catching up on homework and what not. I managed to make it out a couple times…..and I TRIED to replace things I lost in Egypt but….alas….there are no porcelain-ivory no. 1’s walking around here so make-up is VERY expensive…I’m talking about 30 dollars for foundation. So……I guess I’ll be roughin’ it until August. Oh well…it’s not that bad right?

I kept it to sites around the city, so I went to Gethsemane and the Garden tomb. When I walked to Gethsemane I was with 2 guys and had no problem. However we passed a group with 4 girls and 1 guy and they were mugged, literally ten minutes after we had passed them! Scary! That could have been me….luckily though, nothing of value was stolen. And now it’s off limits because of crime….awesome. oh well, at least I saw it before it closed. And even still, we can see it if we take a security guard with us.


(Gethsemane)


(Garden Tomb)

I made it to Dormition Abbey, a church commemorating Mary. It was awesome…….really really beautiful,…..but sort of creepy because there was this crypt underneath it.



I went to the Jewish third temple museum which was very interesting. They are a group of Jews who are expediting the building of the third temple by making sure everything else is ready. They built all the necessary things for it so they have a 6-foot tall gold menorah, a table of shewbread, altar of incense….really…..everything except the Ark of the Covenant….because nobody knows where that is…I’ve heard some pretty interesting theories, and no, it’s not in a warehouse in Germany.

Same day I saw King David’s tomb, the room of the Last Supper, and Oskar Schindler’s grave stone (as in Schindler’s list). There were hundreds of graves in this cemetery but you could tell which one was his, obviously…because of all the rocks. Every time someone visits they put a rock and a note on the grave…and then periodically they come through and take them off and people start over.



On a fieldtrip on Monday they took us out to Azeka and Lachish and we saw some tels, ancient cities all that good stuff. The site of the famous David and Goliath. We were given slings and we practiced throwing rocks….it was pretty cool. We even saw this underground room that looks like the a very ancient version of the Department of Mysteries in Harry Potter….AWESOME.



Then we went CAVING. Yup. More caves. They’re all carved out of lime and really smooth. Some were huge…these were actually the caves that Sylvester Stallone as Rambo repels down…I’ve never seen the movie but the cave was cool.


dramatic lighting in caves? i think....yes.



However some were small. REALLY SMALL. I’m talking about on-your-stomach-army-crawl small. Like in legend of Zelda when you make Link crawl under stuff (nerd alert….)…..holes that small! By the time I went in and discovered that I would be claustrophobic and would MAYBE not fit through…it was too late and I couldn’t turn back…literally. COULDN’T. couldn’t extend my arms, it was pitch black….i had a flashlight but had to try and squeeze through this tunnel with my arms….oh my …..it was the pyramid panic attack times 100. I made it. It was totally fine…but I decided that that would be the worse way for me to die. That’s all.
We all came out completely dusty and gross but it was really cool and I’m glad I did it. Don’t think I would do it again though…..I have bruises all over my knees from crawling around caves. Outta control!


(just a picture to show how small the tunnel was in relation to a person. and yes, i mean a TUNNEL...not just a hole. It was at least 15 feet long.)


(blurry, but SO happy to get out of those caves)

I felt exceedingly homesick this week….for the States…..and for a place where I don’t live with 80+ people. At school, I at least could just go….go somewhere. Here, you really don’t have a place where you can just be by yourself and think…except for the shower. I mean we have a gazillion terraced balconies with beautiful views to look over the city but anyone can join if they feel like it….and I miss being able to just go. Especially since we’re on lock down, I can’t even leave the center! Ah! Loving it as always, but sometimes you just want to take a walk by yourself in Jerusalem.