Quick Update

Hey everyone! This is a quick update of one of the days here in Jerusalm. I do believe it was yesterday which was a Monday... I think. I lose track of time here. But don't worry this is just short blog so you can get an idea of what's going on here. I'll be more specific later.

Today was really nice because we were able to sleep in. Something that was desperately needed because I am definitely not used to walking around so much. Also the boiler here was fixed so we had hot water this morning that was another bonus.
This morning there was free time in the morning since our day started late so Miss B., Kathlene and I went to the Garden tomb. That was really interesting, I wish we could have had it more to ourselves because there was this huge group of tourists from somewhere in Europe. They weren’t the nicest people and were really loud. But luckily they were mostly leaving by the time we got to the actual tomb. It wasn’t what I had pictured but it was still interesting to go there. After that we went back to the hotel and
We were all sitting in the waiting room after breakfast waiting for Nadia to come so we could go on a tour of the Islamic sites in the Old City and she showed up. Sadly we couldn't go on the tour because we don't have a permit yet. So we have to wait and see if we can get one at all. I hope we do because how many times in your life will you be an American in the Holy Land with a chance to go into the Islamic sites? For me maybe only this once.
Instead of that we went to the Rockefeller Museum and that was cool. It allowed for time to myself, just to think and be alone. Something we don't get a lot of. IT was also cool to see everything they had there. The Greek inspired stuff was specially interesting because I am really into Greek mythology.
After that everyone but Miss B. went onto the walls of the Old City. It was awesome to walk the ramparts and to imagine being in ancient times. I feel bad for Nadia because at one point we had to walk on metal stairs suspended over nothing. They were connected to the wall and everything but they were over empty air. And it was one or two stories up and poor Nadia is afraid of heights but we talked her through it. The whole thing took an hour or two. We started a Damascus gate, walked to Lion's Gate and back again. Then we headed Jaffa Gate. I'm pretty sure that's where I got sunburned because there was no shade whatsoever. But it was so much fun to be up there and to see the city from a different angle.
We then headed to lunch and ran into a bunch of tourist groups at the restaurant we ate at. That was semi-annoying because one I hate huge packs of tourists and two the price of the restaurant was really high because of them. But I guess that’s part of the life in a huge historical city, sah?
Anyway after that we still had about an hour of free time left so we went to Shaban’s, a store that is really fair and most of the BYU students go to because he is so nice, in the Old City. Nadia really wanted to see what we, the students, had been talking about with Shaban so we went and shopped there. I got this really cute backpack thingy because I hate looking like a tourist with my camera and money purse hanging over my shoulder. For some reason no matter where I go I just can’t stand that look.
After a while in Shaban’s we realized we were a bit late for Arabic class so we booked it to the building. We were late but not so late that the teacher left. We had a really good class. Mostly on simple sentences that we could use around the city and how to answer them. It was really really helpful. Then it was free time again because class was something like three hours today. It was supposed to be five but we went through our lesson really fast.
For free time the students went back to the hotel and just relaxed for a while, and the teachers went to dinner. Well we got hungry too so we went exploring. Someone decided not to go to any of the restaurants we had gone to before so we wandered for some time. Though somehow no matter what street we took we always ended up back at the hotel. Finally I had had enough so I went back to the hotel with Adam and had some snacks my wonderful mother had packed. Josh and Kathlene wandered some more before finally going to one of the regular restaurants. And that pretty much sums up the day. Goodnight!