On Egypt and airports and Allison

Hey all!

I am finally getting pictures posted! Good for me, right? It sure took long enough. So here's the secret about why I'm really doing them right now--I am stuck in the airport in Atlanta, Georgia, and I have nothing else I can really do. I would love to sleep some more, but it's freakishly cold in this airport; I should catch up on some reading, but the lack of sleep thing kind of hinders the reading thing... My flight from Minneapolis was delayed because of weather, so I just barely missed my connection to Tel Aviv. Unfortunately, they only have one such flight per day, so I'm just kind of sitting here for an extra day. I could have gotten a hotel, but Delta wouldn't pay for it because the delay was due to weather, and I wasn't about to pay $60 for a hotel room, so I got me a nice piece of floor and slept pretty well, although not very long. Today I'm just chillaxin' in the airport... by the way I just realized that I have in my carryon 4 or 5 replacement razor blade cartridges... I'm kind of surprised I got away with that! It was an accident, I promise, I just wasn't paying enough attention when I was packing.

So before I put up the pictures I want to say hello to my friend Allison! Let's hang out when I get back, ok?

And now for some pictures.



My first pyramid!






This is the tiny, steep, smelly, dark, hot little shaft that we had to climb down to get into the pyramid. Then you get to the bottom and there's an empty stone room. Woohoo.





Tourist police on a camel... you could say, Camel Fuzz?





The little pyramid in the background, on the left, is the Bent Pyramid. It was a failed attempt at a normal pyramid.





Cairo pollution combined with lots of humidity... the air is so thick you can taste it.





I loved how the pyramids just look like part of the city...





Pyramids and Coke. Lovely.





The Sphinx! I liked this better than the pyramids almost.






These cute little girls came up and asked if they could have their picture taken with me. On my camera....






My roommate Janell and I on a sleeper train





A boat! On the Nile!






We got to ride camels! Very fun, very scary noises!






I like the crane in the background... This is an obelisk, which were these big monuments put up at the entrances to temples. Apparently there are more Egyptian obelisks in Rome than in Egypt. Go figure.







We went to a Nubian village, and this super cute little girl wanted my glasses.






We had one temple visit at night. After 5 days of Egyptian temple, I think they all start to look the same. So this one, seeing it at night specifically, was different and pretty cool.





See? Pretty cool at night!






My roommate Janell at King Tut's tomb! We couldn't take our cameras in to the tombs at the Valley of the Kings.






Harvest time! This soil looked very Midwestern, I thought--much darker than anything we've seen in Israel, for sure.






This is my favorite hieroglyph! It's a duck. I don't have any idea what it means.






This is us taking a remarkably spectacular hike up to some remarkably un-spectacular turquoise mines.






Me with some friends in the back of our Jeep--we rode in Jeeps way out into the Sinai Desert. Sometimes there was a road, sometimes there was a trail, sometimes there was nothing. So fun.







Waiting for the sun to rise on what is traditionally known as Mount Sinai, I contemplate life, or perhaps death--by freezing! It was so cold there! Good thing I have hardy Minnesota blood... We hiked up this mountain in the middle of the night, leaving out hotel at 3 am.






I made a camel friend on the way back down the mountain.





This is the sunrise from the top. So pretty!




Well, that's all folks! I apologize, this is a really long post, but that's just a snapshot of my trip to Egypt (har, har...)

I still have like 9 more hours here in the Atlanta airport, so I plan to do a little bit of wandering around to stretch my legs, as well as some reading. I got a nice little nap in, and am working on staying hydrated... I guess that's good for jet lag. Nothing too exciting at all... but then I'll be on my way back to Israel! Now that's exciting.

Love you all!

On Plans and Their Execution

Hello friends and family! A very merry Christmas to you all!

Christmas around here is especially merry, which is part of the reason I haven't blogged in so long... sorry about that! Here's what happened: About six hours after getting back from Egypt (pictures coming soon--I promise!), I hopped on a plane to Amsterdam and then to Minnesota! This plan has been in the works with my dad for several weeks now, but was definitely a surprise to my mom and Sarah. I showed up just in time for my dad's birthday dinner at the St Paul Grill. Family friend Marlene Larson collected me at the airport and brought me to the restaurant. Mom and Sarah were, as anticipated, surprised. Sarah almost died, I think, but was propped up in the corner of the booth. The biggest surprise to me was the wait staff--several different ladies were just so excited to hear what was going on and kept saying that we were making them cry. I probably could have cried myself; the end of the Egypt trip plus the long journey to the US meant that I had not slept much in 4 days, so I was ready to crash. And crash I did--Mom woke me up the next day at 12:45. The past two weeks have been filled to the brim: spending time with family, catching up with friends, cooking, shopping, packing, wrapping, etc. I'm only home for 19 days--I leave the 28th--so pretty much every moment is used up. My parents are coming to visit me in Israel, so I will be returning to JUC on a different flight that gets me back to Jerusalem about 10 hours before them. I'll have 10 days with them and then another 2 weeks or so on my own before spring semester classes start. I am so excited to show my parents around Israel, and I know they are looking forward to it as well.

Again, I apologize for how long-overdue this blog is! I will get pictures from Egypt and my visit here posted as soon as possible. Until then, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

I'm done!

My finals are over, my last paper has been turned in, and life is good! I think I did well in all of my classes, so I'm feeling pretty happy about that. I did some serious shopping yesterday and will be packing up and getting ready to move into a different room tomorrow, and then leaving for Egypt on Saturday morning! We'll be there until the 8th, so only a week, but it should be good. I'm a little nervous about getting sick, because it sounds like quite a few people do. I'm just planning on not drinking, eating, or breathing the entire time we're there, and it should be fine. We'll be swimming in the Red Sea on the way down, so that should be a fun time. I won't have my computer with me, because the plugs won't work, I have no battery, and I don't want to have to deal with it. So once I get back I'll post pictures and stuff, but this will be my last blog until at least the 9th.

I have pictures from our school time in Bet Jalla finally! We went back there today, to have lunch with the principal as a sort of thank-you thing. When we got there, we found out that all the kids had been sent home because there was this huge rumor that there was going to be an earthquake--like a 7 on the Richter scale or something ridiculous like that. Apparently Jericho has had a few earthquakes and aftershocks recently, and in my last blog I mentioned the little earthquake that I completely missed... but there was definitely not an earthquake like the rumor was looking for! Apparently a lot of parents came to pull their kids out of school and it was just mass chaos. But it was nice to be able to have lunch with Miss Grace, the elementary school principal, and Dr Thomson, the high school principal who we got rides from on Tuesday mornings. We actually went over to the school secretary's house to visit for a while with all the teachers, because she had surgery on varicose veins and has been out for a few weeks. Palestinian hospitality is amazing, let me tell you. We had so much food there, and you can't say no because it's rude... and then we went to lunch after that and once again couldn't say no because Miss Grace really wanted to take us out... it was a lot. I feel like I might have eaten a buffalo. So anyway, here are the pictures.


My roommate Janell with some of the kids... this is K-3, so the youngest of the 3 kindergarten classes. These kids are 3 years old.




Me and Salim! He's my favorite, let's be honest. Isn't he a cutie? He knows one English word: Spiderman :)






Some more of the kids...






This little guy is going to be a heartbreaker some day...






Janell again...



Lots of love to everyone! I can hardly believe I've already been gone for a semester... but I'm only through 3 months out of 8, so I'm not feeling too bad. Everyone here is getting sad about leaving, but I get to stay for a whole nother semester. That's terrible English, but I don't care at all. Probably the biggest problem I will have with being here another semester is the food. We get a lot of riceandslop, which is exactly what it sounds like... we get really good soup sometimes, but tonight we're getting beef goulash. No fun. But I think I might go out for some hot drinkies after supper at a really cute place in the New City. We'll see. Lots going on over here! I hope everyone back home is doing well, love you!

On happenings in Jerusalem

It's raining here! We may haev finally hit the actual rainy season--it started raining last night and is still going strong today. It will rain hard for an hour or so, break for an hour or so, and then pick up again. It's also just cold. I'm wearing two pairs of socks, long underwear and pajama-type pants, three longsleeved shirts, a sweatshirt, and mittens with the fingers cut off. I'm also drinking hot chocolate. I'm sitting in class right now, actually, but not wanting to pay much attention. I have too much other stuff to do. I'll probably start reading through and editing one of my final papers in a minute, but I just wanted to say hi to y'all back at home.

I have 2 days of class left! Finals are next week already; isn't that insane? It's gone so fast. I am so glad I get to be here for another semester.

I almost forgot! Here's the big news--we think we had an earthquake yesterday! I was in Beit Jala, near Bethlehem, for my last day of volunteering with kids (I'll try to get pictures up...) and missed it, but lots of people that were here didn't feel it either. Apparently it was very small, but the bookshelves in the library were shaking, and some people noticed, so they looked at an online seismograph with live readings, and there wasn't one for Israel, but the one in Turkey showed some activity right around the time they felt it here! So, just so y'all know, I have survived my first earthquake and didn't even notice it! How sad is that? I always thought an earthquake would be really exciting or something, but apparently it's not. Bummer.

Well, I better get back to paying attention... or at least pretending to! Love to everyone at home, and happy Thanksgiving! I will be making a pecan pie here, and this afternoon we're peeling potatoes for real mashed potatoes! Usually we get the box kind, which I never eat because they are far too similar in consistency to Cream of Wheat.

On Jordan

Hey everyone! I am back; I am finally posting a new blog. I'm sorry it's taken me so long, but it's been busy.

We just got back from Jordan last night. We had a 4-day field study there over the weekend. I was sick, so it really wasn't all that fun. Also I don't like Jordan that much. It is like Israel and the West Bank in a lot of ways, but at the same time it's not. We had to have a Jordanian tourist policeman with us (the fuzz!), and two Jordanian tour guides--one for the undergrad bus, one for the grad student bus. We had to switch buses at the border too, and got Jordanian buses and Jordanian bus drivers. I didn't like the Jordanian tour guide, he talked too fast and just gave us a lot of facts without a big picture. I like the big picture. Speaking of pictures, this post is going to have a lot, so hold on to your hats!


So my roommate Alison and I went camping two weekends ago now...

it was so so fun! We took a bus...



to a little town where we had to climb through a hole in the fence to get onto the path...



where we hiked for a while....

and set up camp in what turned out to be a mountain biking trail!

We had very little food...



but a lot of fun! We had planned to walk along the trail to another town and take a bus back to Jerusalem, but we realized that we hadn't gotten nearly as far as we expected to, so we just walked back to Mexico.




Er... Jerusalem.



About Jordan... I was sick, so I was heavily medicated for a good portion of the trip, which means I don't remember it quite as well as one would hope. I didn't really pay attention to much that was going on at all, actually. But I got some cool pictures... here are some good ones.


Class time in an AMAZING location... same ol', same ol'... :)


Old Testament tell of Pella? I don't remember what happened there...


Nice view from Gadara...


My friend Karin and I at Gadara


Bedouins and bagpipes at Jerash (modern name for Gerasa)


The Jabbok


I rode a donkey in Petra!


Modern-day Amman, New Testament Philadelphia, Old Testament Rabbah. That flag there is the biggest in the world.


The Treasury at Petra. It really wasn't a treasury at all, it was a tomb. Close enough.


I found an inscription! It says WO. This is Iron Age, 10th century BC, contemporaneous with King David. The Israel Museum will be showcasing my find soon...


This is the Arnon, the sometimes-contested border between Moab and Ammon (2 Kings 3 talks about Mesha king of Moab rebelling against Israel; the Mesha Stella, an inscription found at the same place that I found my inscription talks about how Mesha pushed north past the Arnon into Ammonite territory).


View from Mount Nebo (Deuteronomy 34). That's the northern end of the Dead Sea... Jericho is off the picture to the right; Jerusalem is kind of straight ahead, but definitely not visible.


So there's a little overview... Honestly I rembember hardly anything that we talked about on the trip! I had to ask friends about the locations of several of these pictures. I'm feeling much better now, but have a lot of work to do in the next few weeks. I have a week and a half of classes left, and then finals. So I'm going to be very very busy for a few weeks, so don't hold your breath for a new blog post! I leave on December 1 for Egypt, so I'll definitely have stuff to post about that! Until I get a chance to post again, love to everyone!

Hey everyone!

Physical Settings Class (Ruth in middle in blue)

I have zero time for a post right now, but I just wanted to check in, say hi, and let y'all know that I will get a new blog up soon, with pictures from a backpacking/hiking trip I just went on with my roommate Alison! I have a big test tomorrow, two big papers I'm working on, a ton of Hebrew to translate, and on top of that I think I'm getting a cold. I'm starting to cough more. But I'm drinking lots of fluids and I have multivitamins that I remember to take occasionally... so I should make it through. Check back in a day or two for a real post, I know it's been a while and I apologize for that! Time has started to go faster here... I'll be done with my first semester before you know it!

Love you all!