ali in wonderland: orientation walks! (with pictures!)

hi guys!

little preface- this post is a huge email to my mom, so sorry if there is anything personal that doesn't make sense to you. i was hesitant to post it because it's sooo freaking long but whatever. this also acts as my journal so i will be including a lot a lot of detail. here we go!

It is 10:15 here and I just got out of the shower. My roommate ariel is asleep and everyone else is still out studying. Our first day of class is tomorrow and we had a decent amount of reading for ANE (ancient near eastern studies). That is our heaviest class and it lasts our entire program.

So shortly after posting my first little blog entry I went and got breakfast. It was great. There is lots of cereals, fruits, some weird extremely liquid yogurt, French toast, eggs, and various breads and pita, which is always out. There is also a European table that has meats and cheeses like you would see at a continental breakfast. There is a nescafe machine that has hot chocolate, hot milk, sweet hot chocolate, and this bizarre drink that I guess is unique to Israel. I tried it and it was NASTY. Everyone else seemed to like it. It tasted like a bad accidental combination of hot milk and sugary medicine. It is really thick and is white, but not like pure milk white, it is kind of gray and soupy. Ew. So gross.

Because it is summer we get to eat outside and the view is absolutely beautiful. All the roses are blooming and they are my favorite. Along the backside of the center all the landscaping is roses and olive trees. It actually reminds me a ton of nana and grandpa’s house in las vegas which is nice, it feels kind of familiar to me and I cling to that because this place is definitely very foreign.

While we were eating we also had our first encounter with the resident cat. She is pretty thin and not the prettiest kitty I have seen but she is sweet. I think people have started calling her Gia. I haven’t fed her or petted her yet and all the faculty have really been pressing that on us but I think it is too late. Hahah. I guess cats are protected here so they are everywhere.

After breakfast we had a quick orientation meeting (AGAIN) in the ‘forum’ which is the less fancy auditorium on the sixth floor, where the classrooms are. The seats are orange and it has a large stage. It’s also next to a bomb shelter. We have ANE in there and I get the feeling I won’t like that room much. The other classrooms are so nice. It really does feel like the center was built yesterday and we are the first students to use it. The building’s condition is unreal. We had a quick rundown on things that we have all heard a million times. Honestly since I have been here and been in some six hours of orientation I haven’t learned a single new thing. Everything they talk about is included in the packet that you are required to read when you apply for the program. Oh well.

After orientation we met on the first floor (the floor furthest down the mountain, closest to the bottom of the kidron valley) for our orientation walk. I am starting to get to know people better, and one of my friends made sure I got in the group with our old testament teacher, dr. belnap. I am glad we went with him because he was extremely knowledgable and could tell us a lot of historical things about what we were seeing. Some of the tour guides were just the facilitators wife, etc. although they have been here a lot and I think they are great people im glad I had someone who studied the area like dr. belnap. (btw- dr. belnap is here with his family. They live in an apartment on the first floor and have 4 kids. They range from ages 4-13 and go to an international Anglican school ran by the church of England. They are super cute and gets TONS of attention. Their mom is also super sweet.)

We walked down the kidron valley and then back up towards the old city. The layout of Jerusalem is insane. I don’t know why people settled here cause it’s literally a bunch of hills. Hopefully this means I won’t gain any weight because holy crap, all we do is walk uphill. I was always taught that settlers chose valleys or something flat ya know? So yeah, it is definitely not the typical layout of a American settlement.

I forgot to say, before we set out dr. woods warned us that if we saw casually dressed men ‘stalking us’ not to worry, it was security. There are about 4-6 men (and one of their little sons today, he was probably 6 and thought he was a bad a and was super cute) that follow us around. We split into about 10 groups of 8 so we could travel more efficiently and they move between us. I guess they knew our exact route because they were never far away but they were never walking with our group for too long. It seems like they are very aware of the surroundings. Its cool.

Before we got to the old city, which is a lot further away than I thought it would be, this random arab guy came up to dr. belnap with a bag of bread. He was Palestinian and definitely not with our group. I was confused with how he handled him. He handed him the bag of bread without greeting and called him “brother belnap” as he handed it over. Like I said, so confused. It turns out this was one of our security guys and they had bread for all of us and will just approach us like that all the time. I love that he called him brother belnap. The bread was an oval shape and kind of looked like a pretzel but not as dark. It was covered in sesame seeds but the texture was more like a baguette, but it was very sweet. It came with two little rolls of paper. Inside the paper was a mixture of spices that you dip the bread in. it has a fancy name but I forgot it. It was mostly oregano and salt and was very good. Dr. belnap said a lot of the cities will smell very strongly of that stuff because it’s all over the ground; it’s very common. We sat on the steps of Damascus gate ( I think??) which was really pretty, and ate our bread. Then went into the old city!

I have another funny story. Before we went into the old city we started being approached by these old men. My group was the first one out so it’s not like they had seen the byu kids coming in front of us, they knew we were coming. I was super confused when he casually greeted dr. belnap and started whipping out business cards. It turns out these are the olive wood carvers located outside the old city. The three that approached us today cater especially to LDS customers. They were all very convincing when they said they were the ‘world famous shop’ or they ‘had the best prices’. It was so funny and kind of cliché to have these old arab men with thick accents trying to convince you to come to their shops. They made sure each one of us got business cards (very professional looking ones, I might add). They had maps of Jerusalem so you could properly locate their shop, and a “10% off discount” guarantee if you showed the card. The second shopkeeper, Omar, literally drove up to us, pulled over in the middle of a very crowded street and started handing out his card. He was very well dressed and spoke good English. Apparently he is the one all the apostles get their nativities from ( I have heard this from people back home, not him). The last man, Ali Baba (lol is that real life?) was waiting for us outside of the church of the holy sepulcher. Like I said, no idea how they knew exactly where we would be. I guess ali baba was featured in the special on KSL during conference so he has had a huge spike in business recently. I might buy from him just cause his name is ali baba.

So anyways- the old city. It is like an old roman city, enclosed by huge stone walls. I don’t know what I was expecting but inside reminded me of the markets we went to in Thailand and Senegal. Very crowded, unorganized, some booths had lots of total junk, lots of smells. I guess I was anticipating something more European and quaint. It got more that way in the Christian quarter (we entered in the islam quarter).

Of course there are TONS of churches, mosques, random chapels in normal buildings, etc. one of the first places we went to was the Austrian hospice on via Delarosa. This translates to something like ‘trail of pain’ and is the traditional site of where jesus carried the cross. Keep in mind this trail has been changed three times, so it’s not terribly accurate, but it’s a cool concept I guess. There are 13 or so ‘stations’ along the trail that mark happenings of jesus’ walk to Golgotha or calvary. For example, one of them is where he stumbled, and there is a large stone where it is believed he left a handprint as he steadied himself. It is very worn away and a totally diferent color from everything else because so many people have touched it.

There are lots of pilgrims (mostly greek orthodox, from what I saw today) that come to interact with the sites. The Austrian hospice was built to house pilgirms. These days it has a cafeteria where you can come in and rest for free, and rooms you can still rent. The interior was pretty and very European which also made me feel a lot more comfortable. (it’s funny how all of the sudden western European things are ‘home’ to me, thank you London and mom). It has a beautiful view at the top which is probably my favorite so far. We weren’t allowed to take pictures today because this was supposed to be a brief tour just to introduce us to the area so I didn’t get too much.

After that we walked through a lot of stuff, and I know I am skipping a ton.. he made us walk through the butcher’s street which was nasty but It reminded us that the old city isn’t just a tourist site, people survive off of what is carried there. We eventually made it to the church of the holy sepulcher, which I had no idea was such a big deal. Holy. Freaking. Crap. It doesn’t look like much from inside but it is a big deal. The church holds what was golgoth (where christ was crucified), one of the sites that is believed to be christ’s tomb, and more. There were tons of pilgrims that were interacting with this stone… they put oils on it everyday and they were literally rubbing every part of their body on it. I can’t remember it’s significance but it was something big. Dr. belnap said it was chill to touch it but said the church had no stance on whether it was legit or not.

There are tons of chapels throughout this church, which is jointly managed by the catholics, greek orthodox, Armenian, and I think two more branches of Christianity. One that I thought was especially interesting was this glass window that revealed the original bedrock from roman times. It is directly below Golgotha. It had a giant crack running down through it. Orthodox tradition believes that this crack was made from the blood of Christ running down through the ground to the grave of adam. They believe he was buried directly below where Christ was crucified. It was all very symbolic of conquering death and rebirth and was so interesting. I had never heard that story before. I hope I explained that decently well. I thought it was so interesting.

So I would say the church of the holy sepulcher is mostly greek orthodox so it has all these silver lantern things hanging everywhere and lots of incense. It is neat and super, super pretty. Very dark, very similar to a European cathedral. I was a huge fan. In the middle of this huge domed room is a huge 1^st century BC tomb that is believed to be the tomb of Christ. There were HUNDREDS of people in line to get in this tomb. They had police barricades set up. Super reverent right? The churches here definitely aren’t policed/regulated like the ones in Europe, which is kind of interesting to me because these should be the most sacred… right? Interesting stuff.

-side note- we also passed by the garden tomb but didn’t go in. traditional Lutherans and protestants accept the garden tomb as the tomb of Christ, although it wasn’t discovered until the 1800s and actually predates Christ by 200 years. this doesn’t totally discount it, it is not unusual to re-use tombs. Christians (Mormons included) like this site because it is an actual garden and fits our expectations much more. The church of the holy sepulcher definitely doesn’t!!

After this we started to make our way out of old Jerusalem. We dropped down into an area where they have excavated it so you are walking at the level where the roman walls are. This was cool again because it reminded me of London; they did this in one of the museums there. The Roman Empire is insane when you think of huge it was. WOW. In this area there were also a ton of really cool art galleries that I will definitely go back to. This area (Christian quarter) also had all the cool pottery, widows mites, and legit shops. I am anxious to back.

We exited through zion gate and climbed up the hill towards jaffa gate (I think?) these two gates have been modified recently so that cars can drive through. On our walk we had a beautiful view of west Jerusalem. It is so different from east jeru which is mostly Palestinians. I can’t wait to go over there. It was mostly destroyed in the wars of the 1900s so it is all new buildings and very European. There is also a new mall near jaffa gate. Dr. belnap explained all the middle eastern countries are very proud of their malls because it shows they are becoming advanced/westernized. Often when you are a tourist, the guides/locals will want to show you their newest mall.

Vans met us and took us back to the center. It was awesome not to have to hike back up there.

We had lunch, which was good as always. After that, more orientation. We were all so tired, but I’m guessing after tonight there’s no way we won’t be acclimated because they made us stay up. It was so dumb, like I said. More repetition of stuff we have known since we signed up.

Today we also met with our committees. Each student not only has a church calling but also a committee calling for the center. We really help this place run. Committees involve things like mail and linen, service (that’s me), activities, out of Jerusalem activities coordinator (everyone that leaves the city for the day has to coordinate with them), and more. They sound low key but they are actually really important. For example, a bunch of the nursing students are ‘bus docs’ and are in charge of first aid for each group when we are on field trips. They have special fanny packs they always carry around.

Today our apartments also met with the branch presidency. Dr woods (my fav) is the branch president. Dr nickel, the programs doctor is the first counselor. I am a huge fan of him, he reminds me of president Larsen. He is a big dude that wears one of those big silver rings on his right ring finger. He talks exactly like Pacha from Emperor’s New Groove (I would make that comparison). He is a retired ob/gyn which also made me feel more comfy. The second counselor is a guy that works at the US consulate. I forgot his name but he seemed like a cool guy. He is the only one that doesn’t live here at the center.

This mini meeting also forced me to learn a lot about my roomates. We met bailey, the red head from Hawaii at orientation. She sleeps next to me and is super cute. She just finished her freshman year so she is young. She is cute sweet girl, but turns out she is way into dirtbiking! How cool is that. Daniella is the girl from Colombia. She is studying applied mathematics at Idaho. Her parents are both converts and her dad is actually in the area 70 for Colombia or whatever that general area is. How cool is that. Ariel is only 17 and graduated high school when she was 16. She is a genius and is studying neurobiology or something. She was susie’s roommate back in provo so I kind of already knew that about her.

We had dinner (so much food, omg, pray for me) then had a get to know you activity in the gym. It was fun. The activities committee total organized it and they do a good job. The gym is huge, almost a full size bball court. It was a good time. I took three different naps today and almost fell asleep in class multiple times. It’s been a LONG day.

At some point in there we were also shown the video they show tourists when they come here. It’s funny cause it’s all about provo and make it sound super legit. It’s funny. but it’s actually true. Provo is legit. The church is legit. That is one thing I have felt overwhelmingly every time I walk into the center. The church is LEGIT. We have a powerful presence here in Jerusalem and that says something. To make an investment in a community like this is to make a statement. It is impressive, to say the least. Another overwhelming feeling I have had is that America truly is a ‘new promised land’. Of course being here you can tell it’s something special and obviously jesus walked here. But, at the same time there is this weird pollution to it thanks to all the turmoil, violence, history.. It is hard to explain. It is sacred, but it is old. Something kind of hangs over it, I guess you could say. I feel like Jerusalem is still waiting for redemption. When I am in the states and interact with sites (church history, or even just being in salt lake) it feels so hopeful to me. I love it. It is pure and clean and ready for the future. I feel like Jerusalem has already had it’s moment and everyone is hanging onto that instead of looking towards the future. Maybe my perspective will change as I am here longer but for now those are my feelings. America is something special. It is the ‘new Jerusalem!’

thanks everyone for the sweet texts and the encouragement to blog! it is a little scary to share so much with everyone but it is fun to share it with friends who appreciate it :) text me! seriously. i miss people. my phone connects to wifi and i get imessage for free as soon as i walk out of my room. love to all xo!