Tunnel Vision

Yesterday we spent the morning going to Hezekiah's Tunnel! Before we could go in though we got to watch this sweet 3D movie about the City of David in biblical times. This is me, Chelsea, and Care showing off our sweet glasses we had to wear. My favorite part is Cate's eyebrow :) Let me tell you, that movie was quite an experience, but it actually wasn't as cheesy as I thought it would be. 

CHACOS, CHACOS, CHACOS! Look how many people are sporting their chacos on this trip! :)
Woohoo Hezekiah's Tunnel!
Being able to go through the tunnel was an amazing experience! Can you believe that people in biblical times had the genius to dig this tunnel to bring water into the city and maintain safety within at the same time. We made it to the end! Woohoo!
After Hezekiah's tunnel we just went out into the Old City on a mission, but totally open for adventure. We came across this church that was so beautiful inside with so many paintings up on the walls. There were paintings of saints and also stages of the last days of Christ's life hanging up. We had to wear these gray skirts to be able to go in too. I don't know if you can see it in the picture though.
This is where, supposedly, Christ teaching about fitting the camel through the eye of the needle occurred and this was the eye of the needle. I think I probably could've fit if I'd tried :)
My favorite painting up there was the last one, the resurrected Christ.
Then we happened upon the original portrait of Czar Nicholas, Anastasia's father, in the same church because the Czar and his family would stay there when they came to visit. There was also the family portrait beneath this painting and his wife's portrait was on the other side of the room!
Then we were lucky enough to make it up the tower of the Church of the Redeemer which had beautiful views, but was full of graffiti. There were all sorts of emails up there, but this one was my favorite. It's sad that such a beautiful church and one dedicated to Christ's life and ministry has so much graffiti in it though, even if it's up inside the tower. 
As we were walking back to the Jerusalem Center I got this picture of the skyline at sunset. It was so beautiful!

Blood, blood, blood!

Yesterday night I gave blood for the first time! I did try freshman year (last year), but I'm young for my grade and it was before my birthday so I couldn't without parents permission since I was still only 17. I was nervous about it, so like anything I'm nervous about I started laughing, which really confused the people taking my blood. I don't like needles, but I figured that I would just look away as usual and it would be fine. Plus, the blood I give could help save someone's life one day. If I was in that situation wouldn't I be so grateful for people who gave blood even though they were nervous about doing it. The only reason I was nervous is because I don't like blood and I've heard all those stories about people fainting or whatever after. Luckily though it all went smoothly and I don't even have a bruise on my arm from the needle! I didn't have my camera with me last night, but here is the sticker I got! :)

My roommate got a picture of the paperwork, which was all in Hebrew. Luckily they had a translated version that we worked off of though all of us answered no to basically all the questions anyway.
Earlier in the day though I went out with Chelsea, Cate, and Marianne. We just went into the Old City to explore some sights and kind of made a big loop. It's fun though to just get out at all on any day though no matter what you do. There is always something new to discover in the city. 
One of the places we really wanted to go was Hezekiah's pool, but we found out after much searching that it was nothing special. One of the shop keepers let us go back in his shop and look out his window at it. He also had the newspaper article below hanging up about how people just dump trash in it now. It was really disgusting. He also had pictures of water it looked like in its better days though and it was beautiful! Hopefully one day it will change back to that so it's worth looking for. 
The day before yesterday I also went out around the city. We were going to find this Italian Jewish Art Museum, which ended up being some really old artifacts from Italian Jewish synagogues in like 4 rooms inside some random building. I don't know if it was really worth going to, but it was an experience and they had the chair there that was used for the first circumcision. Definitely the highlight :) haha. 

It was drizzling in the morning and then on the way back we saw this beautiful rainbow! I wonder if they have leprechauns in Jerusalem. It took me back to Kindergarten when we made pots of gold and traps to leave out over night before St. Patrick's Day to try an catch leprechauns. 
Here are some random pictures now. Up near where we exchange money there are these manikins outside this store and I love it because the one girl's face is smashed in. It also has this megaphone hanging around it that is continually shouting who knows what in Arabic. Between this girl and the megaphone I don't know who would want to go in that store.
One time we stopped to get fresh pomegranate juice, which was delicious, and this sign was hanging in the little falafel shop, so my roommate got a pic of it. I really want a tile like that!

Sabbath Scrabble

Last Shabbat we decided to play scrabble! It was so fun that we're going to make it a tradition and so we have Sabbath Scrabble. It helps the 3 hours between when church is out and when we eat go by faster since we don't have lunch on Shabbat. The group consists of Nycole, Shamra, Jacob, and me. I didn't think I liked scrabble, but it's actually a lot of fun and a fabulous sabbath day activity. It's calm, but at the same time it's intense because you have to think a lot. 

This was the board at the end of our second game last Sunday. It's not filled all the way because we went to dinner and ended it. I took a picture though to document how Shamra got 36 points off of spelling "sex"! Come on now, three letters! Ridiculously amazing! I can't remember who won either of those two games though.
Then this week I won our first game! It was awesome! Here is the breakdown of the scores: Nycole 94;  Me 139; Jacob 107; Shamra 88. The word I put that threw me ahead of everyone was "quake". But before I could put quake, Nycole put "raper" in. Let me tell you, we whip out all kinds of words. I don't know if our scrabble games are sabbath appropriate since during our second game today I put down "grope" too. You have to use what you get though. Nycole won our second game today with 90, which was another short one because dinner time came around again. 
Another exciting thing happened last night. It was the last 2 games of the JC volleyball tournament. That is my team below. There was huge drama because the people who organized the teams didn't know that I knew how to play volleyball and our team ended up being kind of stacked. Luckily though we didn't get split up because I mean I know how to play, but I'm not good. We were one of the last 3 teams though and we played first last night and ended up losing, so we didn't progress. It's actually good though because if we had one then we would've never heard the end of it. Elyse, who was holding my camera during our game got this sweet picture. 
Then I stayed and watched the two teams fight for the championship and got some good pics. This was definitely one of my favorites. 
This is another one of my favorites. Each team had one guy it. Stephen was everywhere and in like every picture he is way off the ground. I think Chris is trying to slam it down in this one and Stephen is blocking. 
THE CHAMPS! Stephen's team ended up winning the JC Volleyball Tournament. They were the team we played last night. They called themselves the "awful falafels" and after their cheer one time in the championship game Nycole yelled, "I eat falafels for lunch" :)

Anyway, that's about it! Volleyball is kind of the thing to do around here and you can usually find a group playing in the gym just about every night. It's so much fun because we get everyone to come no matter the skill level!

want an update?

Last Shabbat, Saturday, we enjoyed a beautiful sabbath afternoon outside journaling and reading, etc. The weather was beautiful and the sun was out. Too bad it seems to be getting colder now though instead of warmer!

On Wednesday we went on a field trip to Mt. Herzl and Yad VaShem. Yad VaShem is the Jewish Holocaust museum and it's one of the most amazing ones. We had a really good tour guide and I love the museum, but it was so crowded that day. The design of the museum was really well thought out and everything seemed to be symbolic. Every time I study or visit a museum about the Holocaust I am always blown away. It's so hard to comprehend that one person can cause such terror in the world.
On Sunday we ended up having a free day, so I went out with Amy, Rachael, Tamarra, and Emma. We first went to a Lutheran church service at the Church of the Redeemer in the Christian quarter of the Old City. This was the courtyard of the church, which I thought was so beautiful and all the plants are crazy and over grown. 

It was great going to a different church service. I love going and learning about other religions because I think it's so interesting what they believe and how such main religions split into so many divisions.
When we stopped for lunch Tamarra and I decided to get a crepe on Ben Yahuda Street. It was HUGE, but so delicious. We got nutella, crumbled cookie, and crushed walnuts in it and together we couldn't even eat the whole thing!
We basically walked all around on Sunday from 8:15am to 4pm. We went to Mea Shearim during our walk, which is the ultra orthodox Jewish area of town. They have a huge sign about dressing modestly before you enter, which we already knew before we started down the main street. We had long skirts, long sleeves, and high neck lines. We made it down to the end of the main street and decided the fastest way to the next place we were going was to back track. We started heading back and all of the sudden this orthodox Jewish man starts yelling behind us and walks across the street. There was an old man with a cane he was walking toward and the old man was yelling back at him and almost hit him with the cane, so we thought that the Jewish man was yelling at him. Then he passed the old man and kept walking toward us yelling, waving his arm, but not making eye contact or even looking the way he was walking as he was coming toward us. Then he spit at us and it almost hit Tamarra's foot! He was shooing us back the other way and so we started back, but the old man across the street was yelling at him and waving his cane at us to just continue. We realized that the old man was defending us! But, since we had no idea what the Jewish man was yelling in Hebrew and he kept getting closer to us we waved to the old man to thank him and kept walking back the other way. 

Our next stop was the German village. Oh we found the coolest little bakeries and I tried the best pesto I've ever had in my life. If there is one thing to know about the Merkley family, we always have tortellini, pesto, and hot sauce in the fridge/freezer as an easy delicious meal. So that was fun.

Then we were on our way to a church and we took this path through this beautiful garden below. It was great and we were having fun taking pics and then Emma all of the sudden looks over and takes off. Tamarra had fallen off of this rock wall embankment that was probably 5 ft and was lying face down by a huge boulder. I think a loose rock slipped out from under her. Emma went into nurse mode right away and luckily Tamarra hadn't hit the boulder. We thought she was unconscious and expected to see blood turning her over. Turns out she had twisted her ankle, though not too severely, but she was still in a lot of pain. We got her up and called the JC security for a taxi, so as we reached the top entrance of the garden this taxi came around right at the perfect time since it had just picked up another group in the same area. 
Now I take you to yesterday, Thursday, afternoon. A whole group of us went out since after morning class we had the whole rest of the day free. You have to take advantage of those huge blocks of time when you can. This is the group of us that started out. We went to the Russian orthodox church, the Church of Mary Magdalene first. Since we didn't have a guy with us we didn't end up going the short way through the Orsen Hyde gardens. Instead we tried to find our own shortcut which was an adventurous idea. 
We scaled down this rock slide to get to another path below after we reached a dead end on our original path. This picture makes it look way more intense than it actually was though. I mean it was a little bit scary. 
Then we ended up going through this Christian cemetery. It was actually really beautiful. With little worn down paths winding through it. We came upon a pack of wild dogs too that scared Suzie. She started running away, but then they started running away from us. 

I had to take a picture of my favorite sign on the way up to the church. They portray hands really awkwardly here. I thought these flowers were beautiful outside of the gate. 

This is a picture of the church with those beautiful golden onion domes!
Me outside the door to the church. 
There was another beautiful cemetery at this church too. It was even more beautiful than the one we wandered through. 

After that we walked and saw what I think was Herod's daughter's tomb or something. I never really found out. It was kind of a random stop. 

Then we went to Dormition Abby. It was so beautiful inside! They had the most amazing mosaics and I couldn't stop staring at them and taking pictures. We got there 10 min before they were closing, which was really lucky! Look at all this detail in this mosaic!
Then we wandered through the Armenian quarter of the Old City and we stopped in this little grocery store and found tortilla chips for the first time since being here! Here are Aubry, Emma, and Alisha. Aubry was definitely the most excited about the chips. 
To get some energy during our outing we stopped at the best falafel place by the New Gate. The pitas were fresh, the falafel was fresh, and it was so delicious for only 7 shekels! Figured out in dollars it was $1.75 for the most delicious lunch I've ever had. I love falafel!
Finally, we went to the pools of Bethesda. That was amazing, but FYI there are no pools :) haha. We went in the church that is there and the sound was amazing inside! There was a group of about 7 of us and we sat there and sang some hymns. It was definitely my favorite part of the day. No one else was inside the church either. There were like 2 groups of tourists that that came in and out, but that's it. I wish I could put a video up that I got because it's so beautiful!

That's it for now! Tomorrow is Shabbat (aka Sunday in the US)

superstitious?

So it's really hard to keep up with everything that is going on over here. Earlier this week we went on a full day field trip. Even earlier we went to Jericho! Right now in Old Testament we are finishing 1 Samuel. I need to go down and get my field trip manual to check on all the names of the places we went though before I write them up here wrong and embarrass myself. It was so fun though. We tried to slay Goliath, we got in the middle of an Israeli army training field trip reenactment thing, and we went spelunking, and sang in caves. 

I have never really gone caving before in my life and the one we went in was really short, but really small. At one point after going through this little tunnel you came out to this room where they used to keep doves and the little tunnel continued once you got up this wall that was probably 7ft. Luckily we had boys there that helped us up and we all got through it. Let me tell you, the "birth canal" was super tight and we all got really really dirty. 

This week we were pretty busy school wise! I didn't really leave the center for like 3 days in a row and I didn't even feel like I'd accomplished anything. We had a web search assignment due for Musallam's class, a ton of reading for Ophir's, a record 22 chapters for Old Testament just for one class period, and a midterm for Skinner's class. It was good though! I'm feeling better though with all that done and I don't think I've ever really been so studious in my life! Everybody else is so studious I feel like I'm so behind even though we still have a week left to do assignments :) Oh BYU overachievers.....haha, no, I love it. We'll see how everything turns out and how I did on everything.

I had an interview to be an RA for next fall/winter semesters on Wednesday night. I can't really tell you how it went. There were like one or two questions I didn't answer so smoothly, but the rest went well I guess. I can never tell. I always get so nervous though before interviews because it's like you have 20 min to sell yourself to a potential employer. How on earth do you do that?! Especially over the phone. That just really bugs me because I'm not good at selling myself. My roommate told me to smile while I was talking because you can hear it through the phone. It really works. I would love to be an RA because I think it would be fun and a fulfilling experience helping girls enjoy BYU as much as I do. We'll see though March 13th how it went. I figure that if it doesn't work out that there is a reason I was not supposed to do it and if it does then I'm so excited for fall!

This was the best Friday the 13th I've ever experienced in my life. We had a crazy dance party last night. You were supposed to dress up all crazy. We tried to, but it's hard with limited clothing. My make up looks normal in these pics, but I thought it was intense in real life and enough especially because I don't really wear make up that much. Below are some pics from the night. Me, Carly, and Chelsea all wore a pair of Chelsea's genie pants too so we coordinated. 

Oh so then after the dance party we got lured out to check out this "cave" that Josh and Matt said they'd heard about on the JC grounds. So me, Chelsea, Chelsey, and Nycole headed out with them and found it. We didn't have flashlights and were using phones and cameras. The stair down were really steep and the door I think from the bomb shelter came out about half way down. Anyway we get down there and are looking around these rooms. Then a flash goes off and Nycole and I start screaming because we saw legs to a body along the wall. We get all freaked out and run up the stairs. Once at the top though we decide we have to go back down because we probably just freaked ourselves out. We go down and are very cautious and we turns out Josh had a flashlight that "started working again" and we shine it and sure enough a body with it's head covered by white cloth and we take off running back up the stairs screaming! Turns out it was just Jeff sitting there. We kind of suspected something was up, but it was so fun to be scared! Sometimes I just love it when you get that crazy adrenaline rush because you're so scared and your heart is beating uncontrollably fast. Being Friday the 13th made it so much better too. After we all come out from down there we decided to help the guys get more girls down there. It was pretty easy getting people to come. They did another group after that too, but I headed to bed. All in all a fun day! Now I told Chelsea we have to think of a prank to get them back, but I don't know scary ones so we have to brainstorm. 

Today for Valentines the guys gave every girl a rose, aaaawwww. They did some singing valentines too, which were pretty funny. I didn't have any pink or red to wear, but luckily I bought a pink scarf in Egypt so I accented my black and white outfit with that. 

OH the elections. Our Judaism, Zionism, and the State of Israel class teacher Ophir filled us in on the election that happened this week and politics in J-ru. He doesn't really fully understand how it works because everything is more complicated in Israel. Even though they had the elections they probably won't know for sure how anything turned out for like 3 or 6 weeks. In the election though I think there was something like 32 parties that ran! CRAZY! I actually understood it more than I thought it would, but it would take a while to type. When a more finalized situation happens I'll probably write more though! 

Anyway, that's kind of the update. Sorry for all the pics in the previous blogs below. I was just excited about all those pictures and couldn't help myself!

Oh and today I spent the afternoon outside on the grass in the beautiful sunshine and also playing scrabble, which was way for fun than I thought it'd be! I was actually winning at one point! Also I was introduced to a new game, Spaz Uno. It's really fun and I was so bad so I had a huge stack of cards, but my brain can't process colors so fast :)

So much more to love

There are many more and I had to restrain myself because I found all these old pics I thought were all moved onto my hard drive and I just love pictures!

I love Valentine's Day - especially when I was a senior in high school and we did singing valentines.

I love my FAMILY!
I love roomie photo shoots! Especially when it is freezing cold outside and we can't coordinate the leg lift :)
I love pretending to be gangsta gangsta and trying to making up dances to songs from Step Up.
I love awkward pictures, especially from dates. 
I love doing things out of the norm or catching people being out of the norm. 
I love snow! And snowboarding, skiing, and Brighton!
I love open mouth pictures!
I love going home to Virginia! (and of course my dog Winston)
I love this poster I scored at TJ Maxx!
I love decorating for Halloween!
I love going to college in Provo and being close to the mountains.
I love it when people think strands of hair bushed back make it look like they have hair still. 
I love camping right outside my apartment at the end of October in Utah and only making it until 3am before heading back into the heat of my apartment. 
I love C'ville friends, downtown, and dumplings! mmmm delish....
I love high waisted pants!
Thinking of creative ways to show my roommate how urgent it is that she buys TP when it is her turn to and we're out. Collecting leaves and putting a note up that says, "Since we have no more TP and paper towels will clog the toilet, I took the liberty, while I was out, to collect a variety of leafy, natural substitutes that don't cost a dime. Take your pick! I would recommend the pine needles to add freshness, just careful of the ends. Oh, and they're a little dry and crunchy, but it's winter. Enjoy! :)"
I love making sushi for Sushi Sundays!
I love pretending I know what the 8o's were like and dressing up for anything with 80's theme AND getting sweet deals at DI.
I love our fish Chris Farley from last semester that was the only surviving fish out of the four we bought from Walmart. I think he's still alive too! I always knew he was a winner!
I love awkward jumping pictures and my freshman friends now on missions.
I love it when jumping pictures turn out really well!
I love reuniting with womb friends. Or at least we told everyone that we were at the hospital at the same time though we're 6 months apart :)
I love doing pranks with my roommates. 
I love playing messy games!
I love my 3 best Virginia friends and dancing in the rain barefoot!
I love late night trips to Denny's and their desserts!
I love The Flat crepes in downtown C'ville!
I love when BYU football is doing really well. 59-0 vs. UCLA. YEAH!
I love school spirit for homecoming during football games!
I love LIFE!