Okay, time for an update. I haven't finished telling you about Jordan and Eilat yet but other things are happening! I'll press forward now and go back later. We are not locked down in the center anymore. On Tuesday we were allowed outside again! In the words of Talfeek we were advised "just be careful, use your judgement, keep the cell phone with you, charged; make sure you are in lower gate before dark. In general avoid isolated areas in the Old City and crowded places in West Jerusalem, as always, bus stations and bus stops are off limits, just use your judgement, we can't be everywhere at every time." Everyone was really excited to get outside although some made themselves stay in to study for out big Old Testament final which was the next morning. I decided to go out in the city. We went to a pizza place for lunch on Ben Yehuda street (it was good but I burned the roof of my mouth on my cheese pizza (jews don't have pepperoni pizza)), got ice cream and then came back to the center early to study for the exam. It's really funny to be around here the night before a big exam. In the words of Bro. Seeley it turns into 'mass histeria'. Everyone tries to get in the best study group and wants to know, did you look at this part, are we supposed to do this?...etc. Well, I shouldn't say everyone is hesterical some are very chill. Some students study by themselves and some are so chill they don't study at all. Some students don't study until about 11 at night when they break into histeria and stay up all night. Everywhere you walk around the building you can't help absorb more information. "Abraham came from Ur?...Ezekial during the exile, was it Jeroboam or Jeroachin or Jeroakin or Jaaah!.....?" Sometimes maybe absorbing mis-information... "Job, Psalms and Proverbs and Ecclesiastes song of solomon isaiah jeremiah lamentaions ezekial daniel hosea joel amos...." sorry I got carried away. The Old Testament books primary song wafted around for an extra 10 points.
I ended up going to bed at 1:30 and got up in time to be to the test at 7 am. Room checks were administer during the exam. As roomates we ran out of time to clean so we didn't get cookies. Our room was pretty clean anyway though. The test went okay. It had like 80 questions, two short essays, one long essay. We had from 7:30 til 9:30 to take it and we could come a half hour early at 7 if we wanted. I started at 7:15 and went full blast til 9:45! If nothing else exams are the best study sessions known to man. The classroom was utterly silent. I learned a lot while taking the exam.
After the exam a lot of people took off. We organized a later group so we could take a little nap (Iwas tired). When we finally went outside was a gorgeous day! One of the best so far. Spring has definitely sprung. We went to the Armenian quarter of the Old City and then on to mount zion (the south end outside the wall) where we went to Dormition Abbey, the Upper Room, and King David's tomb, none of which I have been to yet. I noticed that the city was much more crowded than before we went to Jordan. Brother Seeley told us today that it's because this Sunday is Palm Sunday. I'm so excited to experience that! I'll have to put up some pictures from yesterday because the city was especially charming! I love the blue sky contrasted with the alabaster limestone buildings and the blossoms and poppies are out, it's lovely...
I want to tell you about an especially interesting thing that happened while we were in the Upper Room. There was a group of Asian tourists gathered when we walked in. They were taking pictures and their guide was talking to them. We weren't paying much attention to them and they began singing a hymn together, it was nice enough. Soon their hymn singing started to get louder. As they sang they raised their hands up and started to pray. We didn't think this was too out of the ordinary. We were over in the corner reading out of our Michael's Jerusalem guide about the history of the upper room (the room looks much like a mosque nowadays, probably what it was last). Until the praying just kept getting louder and louder and more intense. They started garbeling jibberish words, yelling, and wailing. All of them were doing different things, but making as much noise as possible. You'd think they were at the peak when another lady would wail out on top AHHAHAHBHUudfjkdlwiewre! or whatever. It reminded me of the professional mourning woman that are hired to mourn at funerals in tonga (If you've ever seen The Other Side of Heaven) except all of them had worked themselves into a frenzy. Us over in the corner didn't quite no what to do with ourselves (I took a video of it). Just as the Asians started to calm down a group of Nigerians came in. I wanted to hang around to see what they would do. Hoping they would sing or something. Heather was freaked out so she left. The Nigerians came in and immediately started to spread out and individually sing/pray. There was one guy near me who was praying pretty loudly (it was in a different language) and they all started to kneeled down. We had to leave at this point to catch up with the rest of the group. I'm glad I got a video of because it was intense. Chris told me later that the Asian group we saw were probably Evangelical Christians 'speaking in tongues'.
Anyway, today we had class. Our 347 teacher's wife is having a baby so we watched a movie. It was called 'Salah Shabbati'. It's a comedy about Oriental and Ashkenazi jews immigrating to Israel. It's really funny. It was great to hear everybody laughing in class. I know everyone so well that you can pick out people's laughs and you can almost predict what they are going to laugh at. I didn't get to see the end because I had to leave early to go to Hebrew class(I'll have to rent it later). After lunch we had a field trip where we learned about the Separation Wall. Danny Seiderman a lawyer from Jerusalem came and gave us a lecture where he explained why Jerusalem is the way it is today. It was an excellent presentation. When I say excellent I mean excellent. Every word the guy said I wanted to write down. He explained everything with just the right words and analogies and stories. The man was like a good book in human form. I seriously could have listened to him all day.
After the field trip I practiced violin, studied, had dinner, went to choir practice, studied, wrote on my blog, and now I'm going to bed!!!
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