Passover

Today is Passover which is a good holiday. It celebrates the Jews leaving slavery in Egypt over a feast with the retelling of the story, lots of symbolism represented by different foods and lots of wine. The story goes that leaving Egypt there wasn't time for the bread to rise so in solidarity with the ancestors many stores in Jerusalem do not sell bread/yeast products during this week. Making the supermarkets look a little like a construction site or a haunted house with the lights on.

Sea to Sea

Did this backpacking trip with three other guys across almost the entire state of Israel. Mediterranean to Sea of Galilee. The hiking only took about 3 days and was a total of around 65 kilometers. Imagine walking from California to New York, it would take alot longer than 3 days... This really gives a perspective on how small Israel. An interesting thing about the trip was how much the scenery changed over how small a distance... from mountains to valleys, big trees to small bushes, grass areas to rocks, etc... We also ran into alot of cows

pictures...thick brush along the trail-mixed in with the flowers were these really spiky purple flower plants, cow, hippie british couple we met one night,sleeping outside, crusader ruins

Half Full

Just finished the first half of my time out here. Now its a count down instead of the count up. This trip has really given me a new insight on time. I am away for a finite amount of time, that can be slow or fast. In the morning it feels like time is frozen and by night I wonder where the day went, and to a lesser degree this is true with months and weeks. Being abroad seems like a hiatus rather than fully in the present. I think about my present days but also the future which is built on the collection of presents or the past. Someone told me that "home travels with you" and I believe this is true. If a glass is half full but untouched for long enough the water evaporates. Enjoy the present but look forward too... maybe when the water is gone you can get some juice... if that makes sense?

Going backpacking for a four days... backpack is really heavy, mostly water.

Stones

Jerusalem is a city built out of stone that today has building codes that requires all new structures fit in with the city's stone motif. This means even the mini-mart at the gas station will have stone tiles on it. Looking back over my pictures I'm amazed how many are of different stone buildings, stone walls, stone streets.... in fact I think I'm well on my way to coming back home with a full digital rock collection.

Heres a picture of another part of the western wall (not the part people pray at) half of this wall was underground until archeologists dug it out in 1967. I was amazed in how good condition the road was.

2nd pic is of how they make the stone looking structures today (there really just tiles)

Big Ancient City Model

The archeology class I'm taking only meets once a week but we met today also to make up for the class we missed on Purim. We had a field trip to the Israel Museum that has this huge outside model of "second temple period Jerusalem". These ravens were walking on top of this 1:50 scale city, so they looked like huge monster birds.

Daylight Savings

Daylight savings happens in Israel but it was a confusing to figure out when.

Its not the same day as in the US and instead of saying when it is, another day is given as a reference. Additionally, there seemed to be a historical lecture with each website that talked about daylight savings. Below is the wikipedia abridged explanation of daylight savings...some of the other explanations were a few paragraphs long.

Maybe milk and honey but certainly not the land of the simple.

I think the time change will happen out here at March 26th.

old rocks

Standing on a 2000 year old stone---

also i think i'll be able to make the pictures bigger from now on

my brother informed me all rocks are old....this is true... I guess this one was mentioned because people used it in ancient times?

Calm down

So Israel is in the National news again for Palestinian-Israeli disputes. There are 2 issues

1) Israel approved new housing in East Jerusalem

2) The Hurva Synagogue is being rededicated since its just finished being rebuilt.

I can see why the building in east J is an issue but the anger over Hurva just seems like an excuse to get angry. The Hurva Synagogue was destroyed by Arabs in 1948, it was a war, but rebuilding should be expexted. I don't know the history or politics well enough to go into it. But I do know the whole Israel/Palestinian issue is complex and the solution requires not getting mad at each other over any and every little thing. Today there was a little yelling match between between pro Israel and pro Palestinian supporters in front of the University. Non of the throwing rocks and lighting things on fire that happened a little in the old city, students are too smart for that... Despite the news life continues as normal.

Religious Wedding

I friend from middle school invited me to her cousins wedding in Jerusalem. She told me we couldn't sit together because it’s an orthodox (Jewish) wedding and the men and women are separated. I decided it would be an interesting experience and went. Interesting it was-- but for me it was not. The service was very short but was not very inclusive.. all the men praying for a few minutes around the bride and groom, women and men divided standing around. After food and dancing which was fine. I chose to stay a spectator. I sat next to a British orthodox guy and I asked him alot of questions, for ex... why do the religious not get tattoos but smoke cigarettes, difference between orthodox and Hassidic.... It was good to talk with this knowledgeable mate and his noticeably English accent was fun. Between buses and walking it took me a long time to get to and from the event. Jerusalem is on no sort of grid so buses take a long time and go slow. I think I want an alternative non-religious wedding outside in a beautiful place with shade, not now though. The bride at this wedding was 20 and the groom was 22.

Hike through Judea

I went on this 2 day, 1 night hiking trip. We hiked 28 kilometers along the Israel National Trail, the full trail goes all the way from the top to bottom of the country. Hiking the entire trail takes about 1.5 months. The hike I was on was kind of historical. Along the trail were remnants of Roman roads and grape presses. The guide, who was not religious, told us bible verses that accurately described the area, he said the bible works as a historical book. Proof the bible was written by man? We also went into these caves that people had stayed in during the Bar Kochba revolt a thousand+ yrs ago. Overall, I was most impressed by how green this area was. Parts definitely felt like western United States and a little northern California.

Mosque- Tech

Muslims have embraced basic technology to support religon. Every Mosque has green lights on a tower so it can be identified at night. Also these towers have speakers for the call of prayer. These calls to prayer happen 5 times a day. The prayer is in arabic and can be heard from pretty far away. The picture during the day is in Israel, the night shot is one I found online... I think of a mosque in Syria.

City of David

I'm in this class called Geography of Jerusalem through the Ages. The "through the ages" bit makes it sound like something from Harry Potter, I know. Anyways, we went on this field trip in class today to the city of David, which was were Jerusalem was first built before the existing old city. We went on a tour through these old water tunnels. The story goes King Davids armies took the city by sneaking through these tunnels. My teacher said that would be impossible because the rocks would have been really steep and slippery and it would only take one kid dropping rocks down to prevent an army invasion.

Jordan

Wow... the last 2 days were an amazing experience. I went to Jordan with a 3 other international students. We stayed with a Bedawin in the Wadi Rum desert and saw Petra. I have many stories and pictures I can share, here are some outline notes, that can be filled in later.

Being in the middle of the desert so far away from everything was breathtaking. We walked through the border check at 8pm, from the border we got a ride to Wadi Rum where a bedawin drove us in his 1980's toyota 4runner through the desert to a tent. He would turn the lights off while he drove so we could see the outlines of these mountains.

After driving around the desert in Wadi Rum we went to Wadi Musa, the small town next to Petra. Woke up at 6:30 to get to Petra before the tour groups that drive in. Hiked through the mountain ruins at Petra and then went back to Jerusalem via Eilat.

Legos

Legos are one of the best toys made, perhaps the best. This mural is made entirely out of legos. Located in the international school I've passed this master piece many times over the last few weeks.

Purim

First of all Happy to be in the Month of March.

Purim is like Israel's version of Halloween. It was raining and hailing this weekend, which seemed to dampen this holiday. After walking around Jerusalem and seeing only a few people in costume I decided to try going to this Purim party event that had been promoted for the last week. The event must have been the only thing going on that night because the box office told me it was sold out and there was huge crowd in front of the entrance. As I was wondering how I was going to get in I saw a man dressed as a ballerina sprinting around the side of the building. I decided this was my ticket and followed. Sure enough someone was holding a side door open for him and I rushed in after him. Once the initial excitement of my entrance wore off and after walking though this grand theatre filled with too many people, garbage, cigarette smoke and bad techno... I decided to leave. I was inside this all night event a total of 17 minutes.

My roommate the next morning told me he didn't get in because the promoters over sold the event. I told him it likely wasn't that fun anyways.

The highlight of my night was seeing a street sign dedicated to rabbi Martin Luther King.