July 6-11

Sorry it has been forever! First, here is a post from a couple of weeks ago, which I meant to put up earlier, but didn't:

On Monday this week, we went to Bethlehem! I have to admit it was a little bit of a disappointment for me. Well, I was expecting that it would be, because of course a large Palestinian city currently near the border of the West Bank is not going to be the same as the village that was the setting of the Christmas story. I still enjoyed going, though. There is a 6th century Church of the Nativity there, and it's built around the remains of an even older church. From there, you can go down into a cave that they say is where baby Jesus was born. It was so neat to be there. While we were in Bethlehem, we also got to see the cave of St. Jerome, an early Christian who translated the Bible into Latin. This one was less decorated, so it helped us get a clearer picture of what the nativity cave might have looked like 2000 years ago. (The real nativity cave is operated by Orthodox churches, so it's very ornamented with tapestries, icons, incense, etc.). It was a great trip overall--I wish I could go back and visit again before I leave, but we unfortunately can't do that since Bethlehem is in the West Bank.

There are a couple of important Russian Orthodox churches here on the Mt. of Olives that are only open from 10-12 on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. This week was the first Tuesday that we didn't have class at that time, so my roommates and I and a few other people all left Tuesday morning to explore them. We dressed super modestly (including covering our hair), because the Russian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox churches appreciate it, and we'd heard stories about students not being let in even during times when the churches were supposedly open. It paid off--we got to see both places. They were so beautiful! The first one was the Russian Church of Ascension, a convent at the top of the Mt. of Olives that marks the places where Christ ascended into heaven after meeting with the disciples. It was a beautiful convent, very peaceful and quiet inside. Nobody spoke English, though--we wandered into one chapel where a nice old Russian nun was sitting, and she communicated to us with hand motions that she wanted us to take some carpets off the floor of the chapel and beat them outside. We were pretty excited about that, and there were 9 of us, so we could do it pretty easily. Once they were off, she showed us some mosaics in the floor of the chapel that were made in the 2nd or 3rd century (I can't remember), and then she gave us some flowers from a shrine on the floor! (The picture below is of me and my roommates with our flowers right outside the chapel.) The nun was really a friendly lady and looked so excited to see us--I was a little sad that we didn't have any Russian speakers with us (there are some here at the center).

After that, we shot an impromptu Fellowship of the Ring scene, since we realized there were 9 of us and we had scarves to use for costumes. Then we walked to the Church of St. Mary Magdalene. It is probably the most striking church on the mountain, because it has 7 golden domes at the top and looks very Russian--I loved it! 

The next day was exciting because we had an Oscars Night here at the center! It was basically a film festival, and lots of people had been working on making movies throughout the summer. It was such a cool event! The activities committee laid out red carpet in the lobby outside the auditorium, got 2 guys to dress up and be bouncers, and recruited some people to be paparazzi and take pictures of everyone the whole night. They also got Isaac to play jazz piano music out in the lobby (he's another music major), and everyone was supposed to come dressed up as movie stars. We all milled around out there before the show started, and it just felt super classy and elegant. Everyone really got into it! There were some amazing costumes, considering most of us here only have about 5 outfits that we have been recycling the whole summer.

The films were all great, too--some of them were really major projects! I was in one, though, that was only 14 seconds long. When we had been back in Jordan, our group had gone to visit a mosque where they required all the girls to put on these long, black, hooded shrouds in order to come in and visit. Naturally, some of us noticed parallels between these shrouds and certain costumes from certain fantasy films... So, Cary came up to me and asked if I would do a scene with him where he would be Luke Skywalker and I would be Emperor Palpatine. I couldn't pass it up! We just shot a really short scene which involved me zapping him with the lightning bolts that come out of Palpatine's fingers in Return of the Jedi.

Well, somehow, this clip got submitted to the film festival, even though it wasn't a real movie, and everyone was so surprised to see me playing a villain that I got the best actress award for the night! I still have my Oscar--it is a water bottle covered in tin foil. :-)

The next day, we went on a field trip to the Temple Mount, where we got to see a lot of the Western Wall (and the southern wall) from the time of Christ that has been recently excavated. We saw the corner of the temple where Jesus stood when Satan tempted Him to jump off (we're pretty certain this is the exact spot). We also saw the front steps of the temple, and got to walk around on the ancient streets down there. It was so neat! I really love being around the temple mount--in many ways, I would say it is the richest spot in Jerusalem (or at least the most contested).

The Sunday after that, I went with a group of 10 to visit the Knesset--home of the Israeli parliament. We took a tour and got to go inside the chamber where they hold meetings. It was exciting! But it made me kind of homesick for the Capitol Building in the US... That day, we also walked through Mea Shearim, which is a neighborhood in Jerusalem for Ultra-Orthodox Jews. I felt a little guilty walking through there, because they have huge signs at the entrance to their neighborhood saying that tourist groups are very offensive to them. (Plus, you have to be super modestly dressed to go in, but we were.) There wasn't much to see, since we weren't really welcome and didn't feel like we could linger anywhere in the neighborhood. But at least we got to see what the people there looked like--the whole place had an old fashioned feeling.

The next day, we left on a trip to the Galilee region, and I just got back from that yesterday! I will update (hopefully soon) about that trip. It was wonderful!