Over and Out, October

Gethsemane with my girls

        I am always surprised as I think about my weeks here in Jerusalem.  All the sudden, we are nearing the 2 month mark.  Slow down pretty please.  Time passes so slowly, yet suddenly zooms by.  October is nearly over.  When in the world did that happen?  It helps that we are insanely busy-this week had to be some sort of record.  We had a ‘recovery’ day after our trip to Turkey. 

I put this in quotes because a free day means that us students pack it full of crazy activities.  We ran into the city and hit the ground following Turkey running.  Despite the stress of classes and midterms, we accomplished a lot this week.  It’s so strange to think about what I did on Tuesday, and say “Oh yeah, that’s when we picked olives to make our own olive oil.” “No, Wednesday was when we went to the Pool of Siloam”. "Okay, was in the Jewish or Armenian Quarter?"   It’s just weird to say.  Surreal almost. We had 5 or 6 field trips this past 2 weeks which may have topped some of the things that I put down on my bucket list.  Monday was difficult, but worthwhile.  Professor Yardin walked us through the Holocaust museum, which is always a thought provoking experience. The quotes and testimonies really hit me hard and wiped me out-it was an emotional day.  

Olive Picking, like a boss

          Wednesday we hiked through knee high freezing cold water down the narrow shaft of Hezekiah’s tunnel, headlamps and all.  That was an interesting experience-I tried not to think about the thousands of pounds of solid rock over my head.  The tunnel took about 25 minutes to walk through, splashing through the darkness, ducking my head and twisting around a couple tight corners.  It was a very cool experience.  And by cool I mean awesome. Also something worth noting was our olive picking afternoon on Thursday.  Students grabbed buckets and bags and headed off into the grounds of the Jerusalem Center to the olive trees on the property.  Ladders and lots of olive throwing fights led to a fun afternoon but not exactly the yield we wanted.  Haha professors had to supplement, but we had lots of fun.  That following Monday we mashed the olives in our very own olive crusher, stone, wheel thingy and pressed it in two different olive presses.  That was a neat experience-I’ll never flippantly toss olive oil in a pan, being involved in the process made me realize how difficult a procedure it was. 


          Maybe call it the halfway point, but this week was a little bit of a process in it of itself.  Possibly it is because we had sometime to reflect on the intensive refining process that is to make olive oil.  It was a surprisingly easy analogy to life in some ways.  It’s harder than I thought to be away from my solid support system at a pivotal point in your life.  Penciling in a time to call or skype is rough, “hi family, can I maybe schedule a time to discuss my life with you?”  Though difficult, it has allowed me to rely on myself a bit more and grit my teeth against that sometimes disassociating feeling between my life in Jerusalem and Provo.

Sometimes field trips provoke tired modeling

          Sappy personal reflection aside, this week’s top achievement had to be snorkeling in the Red Sea.  Moses parted it, I snorkeled it. And was it cool.  The water was extremely salty but crystal clear.  The salt content was so high that you could float a dead man’s float in your stomach, no problem. It was super buoyant, but happened to take the flavor out of my potato chips.  Eh, small loss.  

There was a point when I was finished snorkeling and just lying on the sand, with headphones in my ear, beachy breeze blowing my hair into some fantastic curls, chatting with friends and sipping a coke.  It was perfect bliss.  Hey, a day at the beach can fix most anything, can’t it? The drive back continued that theme.  Watching the sun set of the desolate desert of Israel created the most beautiful picture that couldn't have been captured by any camera.  It was a moment where you had to sit and soak it all in, because no matter how hard you try, you can’t describe it to anyone.  And it was beautiful.

Jerusalem. 

   I've had a few of those moments, where I think to when I’ll be leaving and the swarm of questions from all those at home, asking what Jerusalem was like.  And I don’t think I will be able to answer.  I was walking down the cobbled, quiet streets of the Armenian Quarter one afternoon, perfectly content.  The sun flitted through the trees making a dappled pattern on the smooth limestone, where a breeze hinting of autumn riffled some leaves that are just starting to fall.  It was indescribable, much like many other experiences I have had here.  A picture can’t capture it, words can’t really do it justice.  You just have to stop for a minute and try to capture it for yourself, because you can’t really share something like that.  And sometimes that’s okay to do.