Dome of th Rock

It took a lot of work to not get any asains in this picture
My secret society friends. Ask me about it when I get home

Some of us rushed over to the Dome of the Rock the other day right after breakfast. It is only open in the mornings and we have class most mornings so on the days we get a morning off, a lot of us students go there. The Dome of the Rock was much smaller than I had expected and other than a bunch of asain tourists, we were the only others ones there. Here are a few pictures from the quick trip to the Temple Mount...

Yom Kippur/Olive Picking

Nathan, me, and Andrew getting ready to go to The Great Synagogue

Appartenly this is holiday month for the Jews. Just last week they had Rosh Hashanah (their new year). On Rosh Hashanah several of us went to the Great Synagogue and took part in the services. We had to dress very modestly (floor length skirts and elbow length shirts for the girls, and the boys had to wear kippas ) and once you are in the synagogue, the men go in one way and the women another. I did not know what to expect at all, so it was really interesting to just jump in and experience it. The services were held in Hebrew, of course, and The Great Synagogue is one of the few in the world that has a choir that sings all of the scripture that are being read for the services. The rest of the worshippers follow along in the Torahs and rock and sway back and forth as they read along. I am not quite sure why they do it, but they do. I just stood in the back and listened as the choir of all men, and occassionally one young boy, sang beautifully. After about an hour of watching the service, me and a few of the other students snuck out. The streets in West Jerusalem were absolutely empty. It was so weird walking around the usually busy streets. Only one store was open...McDonalds. I got me a huge hamburger and fries and I have never been happier with McDonalds. Rosh Hashanah happened to fall on the last day of Ramadan as well, so the Muslims were celebrating that day as well. We walked through the Old City on our way back home, and it was like it was a completely different city. There weren't near as many vendors, and the were tons more young people out walking the streets. Everyone was all dressed up. Something they must do for the end of Ramdan is give their children play guns. All of the little kids were pointing their pellet guns at us and either pretend shooting us, or really shooting us with pellets. I now understand why so many parents won't let their children play with toy guns. It was kind of scary to see all these little Arab children with guns that looked so real, even if they were just toys. That night it was like the town never went to sleep. Music was blasting, lights were everywhere, and parties were definitely going on. I wanted to go check it out so bad, but couldn't for some obvious saftey reasons. The week from Rash Hashanah on has mostly been a bunch of school work and a few field trips, but tonight is the eve of Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement. Luckily we had our Jewish class today and our Jewish professor dedicated the whole 2 hours to educating us about Yom Kippur. At the end of class, he played a song for us that they will sing in synagogue tonight for the holiday. He got choked up and it was really neat that he would share something so sacred to him with us. I love it here! I am so blessed to be able to rub shoulders with all of these people and learn from them. After class and lunch, they hauled all 80 of us students outside and had us pick the olives from the trees lining the street to the Jerusalem Center. It ended up being a lot of fun and I think I threw more olives at people than I picked. We will pick more tomorrow, and then later this week we are going to press them to make our own olive oil. Today we are not allowed out of the center because...well, I don't know why...but I am kind of sad because I really would have liked to have headed over to West Jerusalem and gone to another synagogue and seen the city on Yom Kippur. I am sure we will find something exciting to do around here.

The vacation feeling is gone

I don't know why it hit me today, but I am sick of all these people. Okay, not all of them, but pretty close. And if any of my fellow students are reading this, I am sorry, but I am sure you are sick of my face too. Maybe it was the fact that we had an all day field trip again today, and the thought of spending one more minute on a bus was too much, but I was feeling especially anti- social. Luckily one of the nicest, and hardest people to ever hate, sat next to me on the bus. The first few stops on the field trip were to places I can't even remember the names of. I guess I should learn them because I know my Old Testament teacher will quiz me on them on Thursday. I know this is terrible, but I am really liking the Old Testament less each day. It is so wierd. After a few stops to places that are briefly mentioned in the Bible and have no significant meaning, we finally stopped for lunch. You probably guessed it, but after lunch I was feeling much happier! After lunch, we went to some caves and climbed around for a while. It was a blast! The boys were having to help pull the girls up a tiny wall. Being the Webb girl I am, I didn't want help. But I allowed them to do their manly duties and give me their hands at the top. When you get to the top f the wall, you have to scoot out backward through the "birth canal". You seriously have to put your arm above your head and scoot with your feet to get through. It was a blast! We all came out caked in dirt, but happy as ever. After playing in the caves, we finally went to a location I knew has some significance... The Valley of Elah, where David slew Goliath. We practiced chucking rocks with sling shots, and I have come to the conclusion throwing them is much easier. I loaded my pockets full of rocks to bring home to Dad (his one request) and then made our way to the top of a near by mountain to look down at the valley. The field trip ended up being great. We got home just in time to eat quickly, load up into taxis, and go to some of the local branch members homes for FHE. We don't know Jeusalem outside of the Old City very well, and I guess our taxi driver didn't either. He dropped us off at the wrong place and then took off. The member ended up having to come find us and pick us up. When he pulled up in his big Yukon with XM radio playing, I could have cried I was so happy to see something that felt like home. The family that had us over for FHE is from Arizona, but the father works for the Department of State. His wife is hispanic, and for dessert she made us homemade chips( she actually made the chips) and salsa. Praise Heaven Above! I have been CRAVING chips and salsa for weeks. I could have kissed them I was so happy. They had two bright little boys who stayed up and played games with us. Going to their house really was a blessing. All day I kept thinking about how much I missed just being around kids. I spend my days at school in Idaho studying about kids, and when I am at home I get to love on the nieces and nephews, so it is hard to not have any contact with kids for this long. Just being able to sit on the floor with the boys and have them be on my team for the game made my day. Even grumpy days are good ones in the Holy Land

Hiking Sinai

All 80 of us students on top. This was our 'silly' picture
1 .a.m. Bang Bang Bang! "Good Morning! Prepare for your departure." I don't believe I have ever been less excited to wake up. Those hotel men came and woke us up WAY to early. I rolled out of bed, put my jeans, jacket, and headlamp on, and I was ready. I easily could have slept another 40 minutes and been fine. Because we had time to kill, my roommate and I went and layed by the pool and looked at the stars. We eventually went and picked up our sack breakfast (3 rolls, a hard boiled egg, and a bag of chips). As many times as I have eaten crap at 1 a.m. I couldn't force myself to do it this time. A short drive later, and we were at the base of Sinai. I had been a little worried about this hike because, well, exercising is not something I perfer to do in my spare, or for that matter, structured time. I was surprised at how many people got up this early to hike up to the top of the mountain. As we made our way up, all the bedouin men kept trying to sell us camel rides. Camels are smelly, grumpy animals. I got snapped at by three just on the way up. Right as I started the hike up, a girl from my group named Heidi came and asked me a million questions and we ended up talking the whole way up. She is an exercise science major so she totally loves this kind of stuff. I don't think she knows it, but she kept me going at a good pace and made the trip up fun and short. After about 2 hours of hiking, 750 steps, 2,285 meters, and one bag of pretzels later, I made it to the top. It was still dark when I reached the top but I found some of my friends and sat by them. Just as I was sitting down, my friend accidentally spilt her water bottle on a European couple snuggling below her. He kept yelling and yelling at her saying "You must understand, you need to be careful! You need to put the lid on your bottle! You must turn your lights out!" At first I thought it was kind of funny, but when he didn't stop after 5 minutes, I was getting annoyed. Then my friend came by me becasue she was embarrased and felt bad. The Webb blood in me began to boil. The headlamp dad got me was the crown jewel of the hike. It illuminted the whole path and blinded anyone looking in my general direction. Just to irritate the man more, I flipped my headlamp on full power and looked right at him. This sent him into another bout of complaints. I just laughed. Then another one of my friends nudged me and said "Mikael, be nice." To this I replied "Moses would just drop it is someone spilt water on him." then the guilt hit me. I was in a holy place, on top of the mountain where the ten commandments were recieved, and here I was being spiteful. I turned my head lamp off, apologized, and decided to just let it go. For the first time since coming over here, I was freezing. We all were. It was also the first time we could all snuggle up and not feel guilty. You would think none of us students had ever had human contact before. Since we are not allowed to even give high fives in many areas, let alone hug, snuggling for warmth was so much more than snuggling for warmth for many. Then the sun began to rise. It was absolutely beautiful. If there were one thing i could change, it would have been less people up there. After the sun rose, our religion professors talked to us for a few minutes concerning the importance of where we were and what mountains represent. We sang a few hymns, and then made our way back down the mountain. A group of us started talking to some Kenyan's on the way down. They were very kind and it was so fun to become at least a little bit familiar with another culture. When we got back to the hotel, we were allowed to swim for a while before loading up for the long drive back to Jerusalem. And a long drive it was. Although I was not ready to leave the adventure of Egypt behind, I was ready to step back into a modern country again where I can drink from the tap.

Mosque

The Citadel

The last day in Cairo. I really was not excited about the end of Egypt coming soon. As gross and grimey as it was, I was loving every minute of it. On this day , we went to visit several Muslim mosques. The first one we went to was the Citadel. It was beautiful on the outside and inside. There were carpets lining every inch of the inside, and we had to take off our shoes when we entered and hold them as we sat in a circle and listened to our tour guide tell us all sorts of facts I can't even remember now. After the Citadel, we went to another mosque where we were the only people there. We got to climb a little tower and look out over the courtyard and the city below. It really was a sight to see. Before I knew it, we were back onto the buses adn driving towards Mt. Sinai. I tryed writing in my journal on the bus ride, but the only sentence I could write before getting frustrated was "If this bus wasn't taking to me to exciting places, I would burn it to the ground." One loooooooong bus ride later, and we were at a dirty little hotel just below Mt. Sinai. We knew that we would be getting up to hike up the mountain at 2 am, but there was just too much fun going on to go to bed. There was a little bedouin tent on the hotel grounds selling all sorts of fun trinkets and playing music. A bunch of us went down there and hung out with the bedouins. They had pillows to sit on and drums to play on, so we had fun playing around. My roommate and I finally went to bed around 10 to try and get a few hours of sleep before the big hike in the morning.

Mummies!!!

I know I only have one picture of this day, but that is seriously all I took this day. If you could have seen how gross we all were you would thank me. After being woken up at 5 am on the train to eat breakfast (which I did not touch) and get get off the train at 6, we went back to our hotel in Cairo to eat a real breakfast, attempt to clean up in the hotel restroom bathrooms, and have sacrament meeting. We weren't allowed to check into our rooms until much later, so it was going to be another day without a shower. Although it was Friday and none of us had church clothes, we were able to shut ourselves in one of the hotel's dining rooms and have sacrament meeting. For Islam, the holy day is Friday, and since were were in a Islamic nation, we held our holy day on Friday as well. At first it was hard not to laugh as I looked around the room at the scraggly bunch we were, and when our doctor/branch President got up in his t-shirt with Egypt embroidered across the front. But when there is a spirit of sacredness and respect, the spirit is present. Several of the students had been asked to prepare talks ahead of time, and we had an excellent sacrament meeting. I think that this is the first time I have had something other than sliced bread for the sacrament. We had pitas. Some of the cooks and servers peeked their heads in and watched with curios eyes as this loud group of haggered American tourists came together to worship for an hour. It really was a fun and neat experience. After sacrament, we loaded back into the buses and went to Egyptian Museum. There were so many amazing things to see in the museum, but because of poor management and the way it is run, it is difficult to really enjoy and see it all. The building is dark and definitely not air conditioned. Tourists are packed into every available space. There are not many labels on any of the artifacts, so you really have no idea what you are looking at. We did have a tour guide taking us around and showing us some of the most important things, but my headset broke when we got there so I couldn't hear her. We were allowed to wander around on our own after our tour guide was finished talking, and most of us payed extra to go into the mummy rooms. I believe there were somewhere around 22 mummies. This was definitely my favorite part of the museum. All the Pharaohs we had been talking, learning, and even joking about in our free time (yes, we are that nerdy here and it is okay) were right there before me. One of the most surprising things was how nice their teeth were! I wish we would have been allowed to take pictures so I could show you. After the museum, we went to the Cairo Bazaar to do some more shopping. I didn't know it was possible, but I did not want to shop. I don't think any of us did. We were gross, timred, and hungry. Most of the shops were closed anyway because we got there just as the prayer service in the mosque just outside of the shopping area was beginning. I did find a ton of Egyptian turquios that I fell in love with. Everytime anyone sees turquios now, they come find me and show me. They have tons in Egypt! Next on the to do list was eat at the hard Rock Cafe. I was looking forward to a good ol' burger and fries for days! Unfortunately, we got the wrong waiter. He couldn't get our drink orders straight, and even though our teachers had called ahead of time and arranged for each of us to have burgeres, our waiter somehow forgot my table and never brought us food. We kept waiting and waiting, and pretty soon I looked around and noticed everyone else was done with their food and I hadn't gotten mine yet. Then the music got real loud and all the waiters came out and started dancing for us. I was NOT a happy camper. One of the boys at my table tryed to tell another waiter, but he was too busy dancing to care. We had to go tell one of our professors and he had to get the manager before we were given the time of day. I decided to suck it up and join in the dancing until my food came. I tryed to shoot the dirtiest looks I could when our waiter came to tell us they were making our burgers, but everyone else at my table was so nice about it I felt bad. After lunch, we were finally allowed to go back to the hotel and check in. As soon as we could, we all got in our swimsuits and jumped in the pool. It was so hilarious to watch all of the other tourists watch us. One man could not stop laughing at our game of Marco-Polo. Before long, the boys were contructing human towers in the pool. My first thought was, "They are going to make us stop soon. This is such a liability hazzard." And then I remembered... we were in Egypt! All the tourists had their video cameras and phones out taking pictures and video. Somehow, with the combined power of boys and girls, a group of students built a tower five people tall. We were all screaming and cheering while everyone by the poolside laughed and watched the crazy Americans. I am sure we were a sight to see. When the pool closed, we all went back and showered and decided we were all going to dress up in our newly purchased Egyptian clothing for dinner. At dinner we had a blast taking pictures as we walked in, and pretending we would actually wear these clothes again after that night. Some of us girls even did the dramatic eye make up and tryed to look like the Egyptian beauty Queen Nephertiti. Too abd everybody doesn't know I really am Nephertiti...reincarnated.

Temples and Trains

My Egypt roommate Rachael and I in our disgusting train car

Luxor Temple



A scarab beetle carving at the Karnak temple



At the Karnak temple

This day began with a boat ride up the Nile to Karnak temple. Once again, an amazing structure build by genious means. The Egyptians new how to make everything so much larger than life, and somhow much of it is still standing thousands of years later. Everything from the pillars and columns. Once again, there was temple symbolism all over their carvings in the walls. After the end of tour, we were given some free time to run around and take some pictures. We then took carraiges (yes, those are still a highly used form of transportaion here) over to Luxor temple. Luxor temple was not quite as big at Karnak, but just as impressive as all of the other buildings we have visited. Outside of the Luxor temple there are rows of Shpinx creating a path towards Karnak temple. Back when the temples existed in all of their glory, they were connected by a two mile walkway of Sphinx. How fun it would have been to be able to walk that past! There are now buildings and homes blocking the connection between the two. One of the strangest things to see in both of these Ancient Egyptian temples were the signs of Early Christian influence. The faces of many of the Egyptian writings were chipped off by the Christians and paintings of Holy scenes were painted up alongside all of the Egyptian writings. In Luxor temple, There is a mosque and signs of where a Christian church was built inside. it contains three major civilizations places of worship. After Luxor temple, it was back to the hotel for free time. I didn't feel like battling the Bazaar again, so I stuck around the hotel. As evening time came, we all gathered in the hotel lobby and socialized until we got on the buses that took us to the train station. As soon as we ariived at the train station, I knew we were in for an undesired adventure. The only train I have experienced before is the train in Durango. A short, clean, opren train car for a scenic ride. This train looked like it had been to Hell and back one too amny times. As we loaded into our sleeping traincars, I have never felt so out of my comfort zone as when I tryed to figure out how I was going to ride all night in this train back to Cairo without touching anything. You know your in trouble when the bar of soap in the sink says "Good Luck". My hand sanitizer bottle went from about half full to almost empty by the end of that train ride. Luckily for me, I has a roommate that was as free spirited as any person could be, and she made the stay in the train as little of a fuss as possible, and kept me laughing the whole time we were awake. Because we has been kicked out of our hotel rooms earlier in the day and had to ride the overnight train, all of us looked like train wrecks. No showers and a night on the train from hell can do that quickly.