On catching y'all up...

Hey family and friends!

Looking Romanesque

I want to post a bit more about my trip to Galilee, because I didn't actually say much in my previous posts. We were staying in Kibbutz Ha'on (hah-own), which is right on the lake. We had little cabins, pretty nice, with 4 people to a cabin. It was nice, especially the part where we could leave our toothbrushes in the bathroom. Israeli hostels are really, really nice--nicer than most of the hostels and some of the hotels that Sarah and I stayed in this summer. We ate dinner and breakfast at the hostel; but meals here are a little different than back in the States. Let's just say, for Sunday morning breakfast, I had a salad (this hostel was the only place so far I've seen salad dressing that wasn't just olive oil and vinegar), cinnamon toast crunch, brown bread with strawberry jam, orange juice fresh from the tap, and sinfully delicious chocolate cake. I don't think I've ever had salad and chocolate cake both for breakfast. Meals here generally offer more things that look like they belong at a Lutheran potluck--maybe vegetables, maybe fruit, maybe noodles or some sort of legumes, mixed up with a bunch of random stuff and mayonnaise. We also get served a lot of this Jello-like substance. I try to avoid that substance as a general rule. But the food at the hostel was pretty good. One night, as I was putting food on my plate, I kept getting more and more excited about the fact that I was going to eat this food in just a minute. I had French onion soup that I liked better than the stuff I had in Paris, strawberry ice cream, amazing brown bread, mashed potato pancakes, chicken something, and a salad. It was truly amazing. Everyone enjoyed that meal a lot.

Classtime along the shore of the Sea of Galilee

Enough about food. How about the Galilee? Well, I heard lots of people talk about how much they love the Galilee and how beautiful it is and all of this, before I came. It seems to be a lot of people's favorite region, especially those who aren't used to the pretty dry area around Jerusalem to the east and south. I was not one of those people. I just didn't really like it as much as the dry land. I think part of that is that we are between the dry season and the rainy season right now, so we're getting hamsin, the hot, sandy, dry Arabian winds that really obscure any view. If you notice any of my pictures looking really hazy, it's because of the hamsin. I think I'll like Galilee better when I go back with my parents, because that will be right in the middle of the rainy season, so the rain will have washed out the air a good bit.

We saw cows of Bashan! Actually I saw some earlier, on my hike in Yehuddiya, at the beginning of the year with the big cliffs.... there are pictures on an earlier post about that hike. There were cows of Bashan there too, grazing in the ruins of a Byzantine village. Read Amos 4:1 about the cows of Bashan--Amos is talking to women who live in the region of Bashan! It's pretty great. Only a few verses after that is the classic "Go to Bethel and sin" reference (Amos 4:4) that all Northwestern students love (Bethel is our chief rival on many levels, and they are literally just up the road from us about a mile). Anyway, we were seeing real cows, although I'm sure we saw women there also.

My brain is starting to get fuzzy... I was up really early this morning for my volunteering, so I think I'll go to bed soon. Here's an idea: If there's anything I mentioned in any post, or a picture or really anything at all, that you have a question about, make a comment on my blog and ask!

Quick funny story: There was a student here at JUC a few years back who didn't really know much Hebrew, but knew the word for "perhaps," and would insert it into conversations periodically if he didn't understand, until he could catch up with the person. So one evening he headed down to the Kotel (the Western Wall), and was going through security to get in. He was asked in Hebrew, "Do you have a weapon?" You can go in with a weapon, if you have a license--all new Israeli recruits have to have their gun with them at all times, I guess, so we see a lot of guns around the city. So they just ask "Do you have a weapon?" And of course this guy has no idea what they just said, so he responds "Perhaps!" I know the guy made it out alive; I'm guessing the security man was able to figure out that he had no idea what he was just asked. I do my best to avoid such circumstances.

Well, I'm off to bed! Don't forget to post a comment if you have a question.

Shalom!

On Galilee... agin

Here are some more pictures! I just got back from a 4-day field study in the region of Galilee, and it was great--but one of the best parts was on the way back, when I realized that arriving in Jerusalem felt like coming home!

Let's see if I can capture a few highlights: Swimming in Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee to all you non-locals) at 6 in the morning; standing on an extinct volcano and looking off into Syria; standing on Mount Gilboa (where King Saul was killed... read 1 Samuel 31) and realizing the importance of the fact that the Philistines took Saul's body to Beth-Shean--I'm starting to process what I'm learning and draw conclusions, figure stuff out, and it's so cool; and hiking first down, then up these sweet cliffs in the Arbel pass. These field studies are so incredibly intense, I think I retain maybe 20% or something embarrassingly low, but I am learning and getting a general picture of what this land is about and I love it!

Tell Dan.

A big butt on the lake


Me being Indiana Jones, crawling into a cistern


Pretty flowers!


The Jordan River

The cliffs of Arbel


More Arbel


Completely ignoring a "Danger! Do not enter!" sign. There was a fairly recent rockslide behind the sign.

More Arbel... agin


The Mona Lisa of the Galilee (mosaic) which I like better than the original Mona.

Great-aunt Ruth who had a beard.


A cardo, a main north-south city road


Destruction! Caused by an earthquake that destroyed Beth-shean.

On Galilee

I don't have time or energy to write right now, so I'll let some pictures speak for me.


At Caesarea


Ruins of Herod's palace at Caesarea


Sideways, but I don't know how to fix...


Crab!


More ruins and water


Just had to go...


In a Roman aqueduct. Standing horizontally.


Jezreel Valley from Tell Megiddo


Jezreel Valley from Nazareth Ridge


Jezreel Valley


Nazareth

On comfort

Hello everyone!

I have no new pictures to show today, but I am leaving on Thursday for a 4-day trip to the Galilee, after which I will definitely have new pictures up!

This will be a quick blog because I'm pretty tired and want to go to bed, but I just want to give a quick update. I went to McDonald's tonight! I admit it... I don't have to be proud of it, but there it is. I really wanted to get some food that I recognized, somewhere that I could choose what I wanted to eat--and Mickey D's was the answer. My friend Zach and I went into the New City; he went to Burger King and I went to McDonald's, and we met in the middle for a nice little evening picnic on the street. It was very exciting, because I really love the city, and especially at night. So that's the other part about comfort that I want to mention. I just feel more and more at home here, and it's really exciting to me. I am really looking forward to this weekend trip, and looking forward even more to being here all year and being able to experience so much more than just three months. I'm pretty happy about my life here, let's be honest. I'm also realizing as I blog how much tireder I am than I think--I was just working on a paper, which generally saps all energy from my brain pretty quickly. I have about a 45-minute attention span, I have discovered... and after a few 45-minute sessions, I am starting to make less and less sense. So I think going to bed immediately if not sooner is my plan of action. Good night all!

PS The moon is super beautiful tonight; if I wasn't so tired, I would take a picture of it and post it here!

On Field Studies and Safety

Everywhere I go in Jerusalem, I see 18- and 19-year-olds with assault rifles, or whatever you would call them. Maybe M-16s... And let's be honest, some of the people look like they're twelve. A friend of mine explained that the new army recruits are required to "babysit" their gun, to have it with them at all times, even if they're off duty. So it's not at all uncommon to see family walking around, or a group of friends together, all in street clothes, with one or two of them carrying really big guns strapped to their backs. Definitely adds a different flavor to the atmosphere. It's not really safe for girls to go out alone at night, or even small groups of girls without any guys, because we've been having trouble with suspicious persons on the road down to the Old City, looking like they are wanting to mug anyone who comes by. The other night a group of maybe 20 JUC men went out on a patrol around midnight, with bats and pole saws and just about any kind of "weapon" they could find, to make sure that the people there got the point that we don't want those people around. They all really enjoy their protector roles, I think. JUC's neighbors have also been kind of nasty, actually lighting a few garbage fires outside the classroom building. No damage was done, and we cleaned up the area to make sure they didn't have anything more to work with, but it's just another situation that the administrators have to deal with. My point in all of this is that the only time I feel unsafe in this country was with an American behind the wheel driving us to Beit Jala! My roommate Janell and I get a ride with JUC's director's uncle, who is probably a hundred years old, but he's the principal of the school where we volunteer on Tuesday mornings, and we both feel the same way about him--that he should not not not be driving! I'm not going to lie, I was just hanging on for dear life as we barrel down the hills and straddle any and all available lines and never ever have anything beside lots of acceleration and lots of braking. We're just grateful for the free ride, but if it were up to us we would rather drive ourselves!

So I just got back from a 3-day field study. We were focusing on the Shephelah (the foothills to the west of the Judean hill country), the Negev (a dry region to the south), and the area around the Dead Sea. We saw lots of really sweet places, like Masada, the Wadi Zin, Avedat, the Makhtesh Ramon, Qumran (Dead Sea Scrolls, Essenes), En Gedi, and more. So fun. I feel like I'm growing my big-picture idea of what Israel is all about, how the land works and why things are the way that they are. It's really good. I'm getting more and more ideas of where I want to take my parents when they come to visit. I actually get to plan a part of our trip as my final project for my Physical Settings class (the class with all the field studies). I could say a lot more about our field study, but a picture is worth a thousand words, right? So here's a taste of what I'm doing.


Mount Ebal (right) and Mount Gerazim (left)


Roommate Janell and I in a cave



Makhtesh Ramon... aka the Superbowl


Looking out onto the Negev

Hey family and friends!

On a Field Studies trip

I am sitting in a coffeeshop, Cafe Aroma, just outside Jaffa Gate. I'm here with Janell, one of my roommates, for the fast and free internet. One of the exciting things about Jerusalem is the fact that it's basically a wireless city--there's this Jerusalem Unwired network that covers just about the entire New City, so I could go up to Ben Yehuda (big street, lots of shopping) and sit on a bench and check my email. Or whatever. It's nice because the internet at JUC is kind of hit-or-miss, with a heavy emphasis on miss. So we're here to get some work done and have a little snack, it's a cute little place. There are some great coffee shops here with fantastic people-watching. Right now I'm doing some more people-listening than people-watching; the guy behind me is on his phone talking in Hebrew, with his wife adding her two cents every once in a while, and I'm picking up a few words here and there. I think they're planning something for next Tuesday. Fun stuff...Cafe Aroma is in a pretty ritzy mall area, lots of fairly expensive shops; we had to go through a metal detector and have our bags searched to get in.

I feel like I should have more to say, but really I just don't. I'm pretty tired right now, but doing well. The past few days have not been anything out of the ordinary, I don't think, except that this week is Sukkot so there's a lot going on in the city and a lot of our classes aren't meeting. There was a huge parade in the New City on Tuesday, but I wasn't able to go see it because I had class. It was a Christian parade, with Christians from all over the world who had come to Jerusalem for Sukkot marching as a country, I think in support of Israel. It was a big deal, lots of roads closed--I think there were like 10,000 people involved. We have our first overnight field study this weekend--we're going to the Negev and Dead Sea area, something else too I think but I can't remember. We'll be gone for 3 days; I think we'll all be pretty tired afterwards. Field studies are great, but they are pretty draining. Next semester I won't be in Physical Settings, which has the most field studies, so I'll have weekends that are actually free, and quite a few 3- and 4-day weekends as well. I'm hoping to get out and explore a bit more with some of my friends.

Speaking of next semester, I got my major curriculum changed, so I am officially allowed to stay here. In fact, I'm officially required to be here, because the courses that are in my major are here at JUC! Both of my advisors are really excited for me; they apparently had a conversation about me saying that neither of them would mind being in my position. One of them spent a semester at JUC during his undergrad, and the other one lived in Israel for seven years after he finished school. My new major curriculum is not only really exciting, but it's also a lot more focused than before, which is good. Now I'm just waiting for the financial aid information to come through. The only problem with this plan is that I have mostly gen eds when I get back, so my senior year I'll be taking classes like Comp II, chemistry, psychology, etc. I get to be the senior in all the freshman classes. It'll be a good time...

I'll put up more pictures after my field study--keep an eye out for them!

Shalom :)