Unfortunately, I write to you after waking up at least a half an hour early. Noooooo. I already wake up ridiculously early in this place but today was particularly disappointing. My head is not happy with this new schedule. But I have arrived in Jerusalem! I guess I will give some highlights thus far. The airplane wasn't too bad surprisingly which is really great. The trip to JFK I had a tv so I watched some friends. The girl next to me wanted to watch hers but her volume control was busted so she had to hold the ear bud about 2 inches away from her ear for it to be a normal volume. I felt kind of bad. Oh well! The airport at JFK was really big. We all piled on this bus and took probably the longest route possible to get to terminal 3, I'm fairly sure. Then some kid standing across the way from me kept mouthing the words "how are you?" even though he was only like 4 feet away. I gave him the thumbs up. Always a good go to. The worst part of JFK terminal 3 was the lack of tasty food and the nasty pigeon that flew over my head and almost gave me a heart attack. We had to go through security again and then we all piled onto a GIANT 747. Those planes are pretty sweet though. It took FOREVER to take off which was rather unfortunate but after almost dropping my suitcase (and maybe actually dropping my suitcase...) on my face about 3 times and forcing the other girl next to me to braid my hair, we took off.
It still didn't seem real the whole time we were flying, especially since I was sleeping in the most awkward positions possible the whole time. Apparantly I was sleeping on the girl next to me (my bad!) but desperate situations call for desperate measures. We finally arrived in Tel Aviv after that 10 hour flight!! Tel Aviv is right on the coast which is kind of cool but otherwise we didn't see too much of it. We piled on the bus and I saw my first palm tree since I was 12! That was exciting. The landscape is very unique here and I love the architecture of normal buildings and houses. It is very plain, using straight lines, boxes, etc. I love that sort of thing. When we arrived at the BYU Jerusalem centre I couldn't believe my eyes! They handed me tasty juice and it was like a heavenly tropical oasis. I was just nonchalantly drinking my juice and admiring a fountain when my friend suddenly points at my hand and yells "BUG!". Luckily I didn't panic, but, being in a foreign country and all, I was a little concerned. Also given the enthusiasm put into the yelling of "bug" gave me some inclination to think the thing was huge. Turns out it was just a small gnat. Yeah. Thanks a lot Jay.
We took a small tour of the centre which is just amazing. I was able to pick my favourite bomb shelter. Definitely NOT the one that is the laundry room, it smells funny. Jay kept on asking what we do if the bomb is in the bomb shelter. At the time it seemed ridiculous but now I'm beginning to wonder what happens in that case. Ha.
My room is really cool because the door opens up to an open air hallway. This is true of all the lower floors because this building is built into the side of a mountain. And when I say mountain, I mean average sized hill. But still, given the fact that it is the Mount of Olives, I suppose that's pretty cool. You should all probably take the liberty of googling this place so you can see the building. It really is 8 floors. The stairs are killing me. Man I'm in bad shape for my age.
Every meal I overlook the city of Jerusalem. Wow. The dome of the rock is the most obvious landmark but you can seriously see it all from here. The scary part of eating on the balcony is all the stray cats. There are seriously zero dogs here but a TON of stray cats. They hang out in trees and I'm afraid one of them is going to jump on my head. Apparantly a bunch of girls watched a kitten fall of the balcony yesterday. Creeeeppppyyyy.
We took a tour of the city together and now we are pretty much free to do as we please. The other day we just traipsed (lovin' this word as of late) around the old city, checking everything out. There is so much more I could say but I will leave it at this since I'm hungry and it's almost breakfast time. I live for food. Miss you all but this place is sweet so not really that much!
