Serving, Picking, Drinking...busy busy busy

Sorry I've been posting so frequently recently...just trying to do one post per week but since Egypt and school work set me back, they've been coming up pretty close together. Don't worry, after this I am caught up :) I've just been busy, busy, busy.

Horray for Humanitarian Activity!! Here are some of us in the garage of the JC, putting together hygiene kits for the local hospitals and charity organizations to hand out to the community. They include washcloths, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, combs, etc. The students do this particular activity every semester and the locals LOVE them! There is an increasing demand for them so we were determined to do super well this semester. In the past, their goal has been 1,500 kits per two hour session, but usually were only able to get 1,200 assembled. For our first session, a couple weeks ago, we surprised everyone with 1,590 kits done! We were super proud of ourselves, but not completely satisfied. So this past week, we all worked like machines and broke the JC record of 1,600- students of the Fall 2010 Jerusalem Center cranked out a whopping 1,750 hygiene kits within two hours!!! Yes. And its only going to get better.

Finally a picture of the Dome of the Rock and Western Wall. I've been a few times but never been able to snap a picture. We were able to go during THE most important holiday of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur. It was such a unique experience to see this whole square, chuck full of people all dressed in white, praying, singing, and dancing. Since it was such a sacred holiday, no pictures were allowed. :( So here is what it looks like on a typical Sunday morning. Not as cool, but still beautiful.

Mostly every Sunday is a free day (Saturday is the sabbath here) so those are the days where we go out into the city, catch up on hw, laundry, and whatnot. One of our classes requires us to visit a whole list of museums, historical sites, etc. within Jerusalem to visit on our own. We stumbled upon one of these in the Jewish Quarters of the Old City. Inside, it had a replica (or rather a poster) of Hezekiah's tunnel which we were going to visit the very next day! We were super excited because we really wanted a picture, but they highly recommended not bringing your camera on that field trip (b/c of water damage done to cameras in the past).

Well, as you can tell, the water level was only up to my mid-thigh. So I totally could have brought my camera. Kind of upset about that. Oh well, its ok. I just had this girl in the program who had a water camera take this very fashionable picture of me in the real Hezekiah's tunnel. (Check out the difference between those two pictures haha gross) Anyways, I thought it was an ingenious idea to wear shorts under my skirt, hike it up and tie it in a knot to keep it dry. That way, I could just untie it and bam...dry clothes. It was a good idea...but not as trendy as I originally thought :) At least it makes for a fun picture.

It's finally the season!! The Center has a bijillion olive trees so the grounds crew needs help picking all the olives, which we were more than happy to step in. Probably one of my favorite activities at the Center. Next week, we get to mash and press them into oil which the Center actually sells to the community! So much fun. (And its pretty special...only the students during the fall programs get to do it)

Olive pickin' buddies- Bekah, me and Talia. (Where are you Hannah?)

Even though its not the right time of year for it, (pretty much the only Jewish holiday which doesn't happen during our program) we were able to have a 'mock' Passover Seder meal, headed up by our very own Judaism professor, Ophir! It's basically a dinner with a bunch of reading, reciting, and singing before (and during/after actually) of which we all were able to participate in. It took over 3 hours for the whole ceremony but it was so cool. 

Part of the symbolic dinner is drinking lots of wine, which of course we switched out for grape juice. You recite a bunch of sections from the Torah and drink after each recitation; you end up drinking 4 glasses of juice...which is a lot. It's a good thing we didn't have the wine :) You actually aren't allowed to fill up your own glass so here is my waiter, aka Beej, serving me up another round.

Shout out to my hip hoppin' friends out at BYU! Saw this in the Old City and just had to take a picture...