City of Davy Gravy

Yesterday we took a field trip to the City of David. After just having read about David in the Bible for my Old Testament class, it was amazing to put a picture with the stories I’ve learned about for so long. The city is on such a huge hill, it makes total sense how David could see Bathsheba… scandalous. I loved it.

My favorite part of the day was wading through Hezekiah’s tunnel. Hezekiah built a tunnel under the city to run the water from the Gihon springs to the Pools of Siloam. The water was pretty brown, luckily it was so dark I didn’t find that out until the end, and it went up to the top of my thigh. It was a blast! At one point, Brother Wilson commanded us to turn off our flashlights and walk through in the pitch black. YEAH! It was so fun. Luckily, there weren’t any rats either… to the best of my knowledge. Then we saw where the Pool of Siloam probably was. I LITERALLY WALKED WHERE JESUS WALKED. We got to walk on the steps that were around the pool at the time of Christ and most likely, He would have walked there as well.
So the water was pretty low here, but you can see how high it went by the dark line located on the upper thigh of my blue jeans. It was awesome.

A Little Me Time

So one of my favorite things to do is to look at postsecret.blogspot.com each week. I don't remember every week but sometimes it makes for a few mins of fun. The concept is that people send in a secret written on some picture found in a magazine or anything they think describes their secret and they send it in on one side of a postcard to the owner of this blog. Then each Sunday he posts new secrets. I've submitted a few myself but never made it on... *disclaimer, if you're going to look at it, some may be inappropriate, quickly move on to the next* I thought this one this week was hillarious and is soooo something I would do. It's like living your life in a movie, its fun, trust me! So, just a quick post not involving Jerusalem to share this awesome secret of my long lost best friend somewhere out there!

I LOVE THE DOME OF THE ROCK!!!!

Some friends and I finally made it to visit the Dome of the Rock. I've seen it everyday since I've been here and have been dying to see it. It is quite a magnificent building. The Dome of the Rock is located on Mount Moriah and is built on top of a huge rock where Muslims believe that Abraham almost sacrificed Ishmael (we believe it was Isaac). So it was pretty cool to be there as well.

So I learned about the Dome of the Rock in my humanities of Islam class this fall and got to see pictures of the inside, amazing. But pictures are not as cool as the real deal. Can I get an amen? So I really was dying to the inside for my very self, and I think as a humanities major, I should be given more consideration to get inside. I confidently walked right up to the man standing outside the door and he said, You Muslim? and I said, No but I... Then you can't get in, thankyou for visiting! DANGIT. Shot down. I even asked a tour guide to go talk to him and he got no further than I did. Don't worry though, its not over until the fat lady sings. I have connections in my branch here so I'm hoping to get in that way. I'll keep ya'll posted on what happens with that.

I'M A PHOTOGRAPHER

So my roommates are photographers. Moon is in the photography

program and Richelle will get into the program in April. They take amazing pictures everywhere we go and I've been pretty jealous so today Moon gave me a lesson on how to take pictures and then we practiced around the old city. Here are some of my creations... (though they may not look all that great, its my improvement that matters!)

Yad Vashem

Yesterday we went to the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. It is the Holocaust museum of all Holocaust museums. The museum was a large triangular shaped building, representing half of the star of David. Only half the star is represented to show how the Holocaust had left the Jews, dehumanized and broken. The beginning of the tour took place above ground, representing life, specifically life before the Holocaust. Then the tour takes you underground for the Holocaust years and then you end up above ground again where life after the Holocaust was shown. The first thing we saw was a projected collage of film clips taken throughout Europe in the years preceeding the Holocaust. There were two beautiful little girls waving into the camera, the most adorable girls with big bows in their hair and precious little dresses. Just as I realized that they were about Ellie's age, the tour guide reminded us that these girls did not live to see the next decade. I knew it was going to be a long tour at that point. The biggest thing I learned during the tour was that all of this horror was caused because Germans put their trust in a man, Adolf Hitler, who promised (and succeeded) in pulling Germany out of a depression. A bad economy... ring a bell? Because these people had no where else to turn, their children were hungry, so they were loyal to an evil man. It made me really think about the decisions I would make in desperation, which made me so grateful that the church tells us to be prepared for an emergency.

On and on we walked through the exhibits of the museum, moving through history. I am such a girl and am thereby affected by different things than most people. Shoes. Shoes got the best of me. There was one room that had a whole pile of shoes under the floor with a glass you could stand on and look down into. As I looked at the shoes, I began picking out the ones I thought were cute. I could just picture a girl dressed fashionably with shoes that I would love, being told to strip and get into the gas chambers, and never returning to get her shoes. I can't explain it, but through looking at those shoes, I understood that these were real people who never did a thing to deserve what horrible things others inflicted on them.

My favorite memorial was a room dedicated to the children who died. It was a room filled with hundreds of mirrors, and pitch black with one single candle burning in the middle of the room. The tour guide said the mirrors made the candle reflect about 5 million times. It was so beautiful. On the speakers in the room, childrens names were being read with their age of death. It was such a peaceful room, I actually loved being in there. After the emotionally draining museum, this memorial was so calming and beautiful.

Freaky Friday

For Friday the 13th last week we decided to have a freakfest party here at the Jerusalem Center. As ya'll hopefully know by now, my roommates and I dominate at any dress up events. We got really into this whole scary party and our room transformed into the dressing room fit for Guns & Roses. I did the hair and Moon did the makeup. I'm pretty certain there is a hole in the ozone layer above our bathroom due to all the areosol used to create hair masterpieces. My best work was Suzie Skinner's mullet. David Bowie would have been proud. I dressed up like a dead baby doll... and I was pretty creeper. It was AWESOME! My lifelong goal of being a creepy rocker was fulfilled. The black lipstick was my favorite part. The dance party was pretty fun but nothing beats dressing up for it! Friday the 13th is my new favorite holiday. I love JC parties!!!!

A Lil Bit a This and a Lil Bit a That

Egypt Night/ Night of Nefertiti
Apparently after our trip to Egypt, some people just couldn’t let go, so activities committee planned a night to show off everyone’s souvenir purchases… little did these people know that my purchase made theirs look like cheep Chinese-made stuff. Not really but mine was pretty amazing. Moon, Cate and I gave each other Egyptian nicknames while we were in Egypt so I decided to use my dress bought in Egypt as a costume for my namesake, Nefertiti. Bryan jumped on my awesome scheme and dressed as Nefertiti’s husband Akhenaton. Moon was my makeup artist, which completed my ensemble. Everyone looked AMAZING! I’m pretty sure we became Egyptianized while in Egypt. Bryan and I walked the runway in the fashion show and I won “the most suggestive” award… oops. (That’s not what I was going for Mom and Dad). However, we decided that we should take full advantage of this award and take Biblical pictures of Potipher’s wife and Joseph. I think we’ll be contacted by the church soon for the use of our picture…

Pita Murderer
Who knows how these things get started?! Bryan, Shelby, Richelle and I were having a peaceful lunch on Sunday, discussing how we eat waaay too many pitas here, one thing led to another and we decided to have a pita eating contest for dinner. Weren’t we just saying we eat too many? Hm… Anyway, we spoke with Jimmy the chef about having an ample supply of pitas for dinner. With a skeptical look on his face, he agreed to have a separate batch prepared for us at dinner. Of course, I can’t do anything without dressing up for it, so Richelle and I suited up for battle ten minutes before dinner began. (Embarrassingly, we forgot that Bishop Burton is staying at the Jerusalem Center… he definitely saw us in our sweet outfits!). With war paint under our eyes and marathon numbers taped to our shirts, we rushed into the cafeteria to the song “Eye of the Tiger” while Moon announced our fighting names. Richelle, aka the Pita-nator and I, the pita murderer, sat down to a table full of pita and two boys looking up at us very afraid. I’m still not sure if they feared our pita eating or were just afraid of how we looked, but nonetheless, the games began after hands were shaken. The rule was that there had to be something on the pita, so I loaded a plate with peanut butter and honey and lightly dipped my pita into it from time to time. I tried the whole dipping it in water thing, with the hotdog eating contest as my guide, but that is NASTY! Hot milk was a little better… only a little better though. Finally, at pita number 8 I started slowing down. The branch president came over to cheer us on so I took another… I have too much pride to quit. Then on number 10, the Jerusalem Center Director came over to make us stop. I think he was embarrassed since we had Bishop Burton staying here. I’ve never been so happy to be stopped from an activity. Who knows how many I would have eaten for prides sake. The final tally was Shelby- 15, Bryan- 14, Richelle- 11, and me- 10. Richelle could have won it though. She was slower but she has total endurance, plus she only weighs about 110 pounds and the skinny ones are always the fighters! So in total, we four ate 50 pitas. Dad has been sending me e-mails threatening to fix pitas and hummus when I get home, maybe in 2 and ½ months I’ll be ready again… maybe.

Israeli Elections
My blog is properly named Miriam’s Shenanigans, because that is all I’ve posted in a while! Yesterday were the Israeli elections for the Prime Minister/ Parliament. Richelle and Moon saw t-shirts for the elections the other day, so we decided to find some to buy. Now, when we three put our minds to something, we don’t give up easily. Yesterday the weather turned chilly, while the wind blew hard all day and it rained/hailed continuously. Nothing could stop us from our journey though! We got a cab to West Jerusalem and began our hunt after picking up a scrumptious brownie filled pastry from our favorite shop… did I mention they have good food around here? T-shirt shop after t-shirt shop, rejection after rejection, we started to get down trodden. Finally we stopped in to see the Canon store people, because my roommates are good friends with them, and they told us to walk about 5 mins north on Ben Yehuda Street to some headquarters. After just about getting blown away by the wind, a total Mary Poppins experience, we found this shady looking place with campaign posters galore. So we waltzed all up in the headquarters of this man running for Israel Prime Minister, stuck our heads right into his office and received immediate attention from the secretary. She asked if she could help us and we said we’d like to buy some shirts. Having already gotten many strange looks, we got another one from her with a “why?” attached. I started getting slightly nervous that we were about to get into trouble until she continued with “why buy, I’ll give it to you for FREE!!!” We all cheered and she cheered too! People began sticking their heads out of offices and glaring, some old man even growled at us but then laughed ha… weird. Our new friend promptly returned with posters and t-shirts for us. We went outside the headquarters and were about to take a picture when some woman walked up and explained that she is from a newspaper in Texas and asked if she could take our picture. I guess we’re just dang photogenic because I have no idea why she would come to Israel and get pictures of Americans. So off we went, back to the cab, soaking wet and redeemed in our excursion with the treasure of unique t-shirts. Upon further investigation, the candidate, “he who shall not be named”- not because it’s bad but because I don’t know it, is kind of a communist. So I pretty much don’t want him to win at all, but doesn’t that make it so much cooler. I have a corrupt man’s campaign t-shirt from Israel… don’t get jealous ya’ll.