A first glance of the city..

Well, even though its the close of Friday, I haven't had time to log on and fill you in all everything we've been doing.  Thursday was a great day, we went on a 4 hour tour of Jerusalem in the morning, and it was awesome.  We got to see the layout of the old city, visit the various sectors, visit Jaffa Gate, head to West Jerusalem, and just have a great time.  We got to meet our religion and history teachers, and they seem like they will be really good.  And we've spent a lot of time getting to know the various other students in the program as well.  It was really fun to get to know people, and just experience life here in the Jerusalem Center, which btw... is AMAZING!! It's basically a resort, kinda like Hogwarts, except for the middle east.

Friday, we had classes in the morning, Old Testamant, mostly about Abraham and Isaac, and then we had our first Ancient Near Eastern Studies Class, which we talked mostly about geography in, which was great.  We then got to meet in our committees for the center.  I am the chair of the Talent Show committee.... it will be so hard, i just don't know how to put on a show!! haha.. NOT!! We are having a variety show, in October, and a formal Talent Show in November, along with a really fun slew of crazy activities along the way.  Like tonight, we had an opening social and dance here at the center, and it was AWESOME!! I got to teach everybody the 'Waka Waka' dance by Shakira, and we dance it all as a group, and its soooo fun!! Everybody loves it.  We decided we are going to dance it everywhere we go, like Egypt, Jordan etc.. wherever we go... I mean this song healed a world!!!  It was so fun.  I love having such a small group (under 80), so that we can all get to know each other and basically become a huge happy family.

It is Ramadan right now, so Muslism fast from sunrise to sunset, and have a 'call to prayer' every 5 hours or so, which they blast on speakers throughout the entire city.  It wakes us up every morning at 4:30, and at first I hated it, but now I just love it, because of the cool experience it provides us. It was the last friday of Ramadan, so the old city of Jerusalem was completely packed, and that coupled with the fact that tomorrow is the Sabbath, made it basically unable for us to travel into Jerusalem today, but that's ok, we've got 4 months.  One day in the cener here and there won't kill us, it was so much fun.

I am loving it, every time I stare outside of the huge windows, I can't believe i'm ACTUALLY HERE!!!  It is such a cool experience, I never want it to end, and wish everybody could come here and enjoy it!

Ps.  This is my crib.....btw....