Fat Kid Post-Jerusalem Treats

Jerusalem definitely has a few things right in the sugary treats department.

Just let me introduce you. 

Babettes Waffles.

Babette's is a little hole in the wall local hangout that sells the most amazing waffles.

The waffles themselves are good but then they top them with your choice

of carmel, chocolate, cinnamon cream cheese, berries, whipped cream, basically anything delicious you can think of. 

Yes, they are fantastic as they sound. 

Now, if you wanted to take the dessert waffle up a notch (or five) you could stop by the one of the gelato shops. Gelato by itself was always delicious, but combining it with a waffle makes is pretty much unbeatable.

As incredible as this treat was, we could only justify splurging on the extra calories on it once over the summer.

Totally worth it though.

Our waffle had white chocolate melted all over it, was liberally sprinkled with white and milk chocolate chunks, and on top of that came 3 types of gelato and whipped cream. 

It was pretty intense, but completely amazing!

I seriously think they should open up one of these dessert waffle places in Provo. 

It would be a hit in my opinion.

A favorite every day treat for the students of the Jerusalem center was the shekel pop.

A little store right across from the JC sold a wide assortment of popsicles for the killer price of only one shekel (the equivalent of a quarter). 

Seriously, there was nothing better or more refreshing after trekking up the massive hill to the center than a strawberry coated ice cream popsicle that was oh so conveniently priced and located.

I may or may not have stopped to get one almost every day. 

Final Friday Service Project

After finishing up finals on Friday (hallelujah-this semester was a killer) 

a group of us went over to the children's hospital in East Jerusalem.

Every semester students from the JC paint a mural on one of the

hospital's boring white walls to liven up the environment for the kids.

Our group decided that this was definitely a worthwhile tradition to continue :)

The more artistically gifted members of the group outlined jungle animals

out for us and the rest of us decorated them to our heart's content.

Melissa and I creatively beautified this lovely alligator.

We had an absolute blast,the mural turned out amazing,

(The finished project was much better than these pictures show), 

and the kids at the hospital were adorable.

It was the perfect way to spend my last Friday in Jerusalem.

Especially because we ran to a bakery afterwards to pick up one last loaf of challah bread :)

Masada and the Dead Sea

Our last out of Jerusalem field trip was to Masada-and let me tell you they saved the

hottest for last. Words cannot even begin to describe how brutally hot it was.

It was so hot, in fact, that they actually let us wear shorts.

That NEVER happens at the JC. It was a big deal. I felt like I was the Wicked Witch of the West melting

into a little pile of sweat. Graphic I know....I'm sorry haha but its true.

Masada was still awesome though, despite the heat.

Masada was the last Jewish settlement taken over by the Romans. 

They were able to defend their city for so long because of its location-the top of a high plateau.

The Romans got around this by building a huge ramp up to the settlement.

The Jews of Masada saw the Romans coming and knew that their dismal fate was imminent.

Rather than waiting for the Romans to capture their city and sell them into slavery,

they decided to commit mass suicide.

By the time the Romans reached the top of the plateau, the entire population of Masada was dead.

Ruins were all that was left.

Crazy.

Desperately searching for shade as we melted in the sun

The remnants of the Roman siege ramp

We descended down Masada and went to take a dip in the Dead Sea.

Swimming in the Dead Sea is an absolute must for anyone traveling to Israel.

Swimming in the Dead Sea is.....an experience. The water is not at all refreshing, the salt content of the water is so high that it stings like crazy, the mud smells like sulphur, and you feel grimy for days afterwards

but the feeling of complete floating is amazing!

Seriously, I tried as hard as I could to sink but it was hopeless.

So cool.

After rinsing off in some fresh water and attempting to get rid of the salt residue

coating our skin, we went on a hike to the Ein Gev waterfalls.

It was absolutely beautiful and totally worth the 110 degree hike :)

Our last stop of the day was at Qumran.

This cave was where they found the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Sister Brown the Creeper

You should all be very grateful for this post.

It required me to sacrifice a great deal of pride to post these pictures.

However, I think documenting this aspect of the JC experience is well worth the sacrifice.

Sister Brown is one of the funniest women I have ever met.

She seems innocent enough, but don't let that fool you.

She gets a kick out of taking the most awkward candid pictures of every JC student-she has a talent for it actually. She is amazingly sneaky-you never see her coming but she always catches you!

She actually went undercover last week and snapped photos of one of the JC couples kissing on the lawn-from multiple angles! Haha I think the National Enquirer  has found their next top paparazzi photographer

After every field trip she emails every student all the pictures she took of them throughout the day. This is quite hilarious because in every single picture, you look awkward, angry, tired, or just completely out of it (haha she really does have a talent for capturing us in our most flattering moments as my lovely display of photos shows) and I am pretty sure no one is ever going to actually use these pictures for anything-except for a crazy blog post that is.

Shepherds Field

So I may be guilty of jumping the gun of my Jordan posts. I realized that I forgot to blog about a few things Pre-Jordan, so here comes my catch-up...

The week before we went to Jordan our class went out to shepherds field, a huge field overlooking the entire city of Bethlehem, and had a live nativity program.

It brought back so many memories of Christmas Eve every year-

Grandpa determined to play the role of the donkey, Dad organizing all the kids behind the scenes, Rob reading the part of Samuel the Lamanite with his usual gusto, and me playing the role of a shepherd or a wiseman (sadly I was fired from my annual part of the angel about ten years ago when I outgrew the costume, which really is a shame because I loved dancing around in that dress. I mean it had gold sparkles, loads of tulle, and a giant bow!) 

I must say though that this nativity program may have topped them all-even the ones when I still fit into the sparkly angel costume.

We played all the usual parts

Mary and Joseph

the shepherds-the Emmett kids made fantastic sheep

The Wise Men-they forgot to bring any gifts to the program, so my gold bangles saved the day and made a great substitute haha

our chorus of angels, but for some reason I don't think the original choir wore aviators 

It was amazing to imagine what it must have been like to be on that field about 2000 years ago on the night when the Savior was born-to see the star appear in the sky, to listen to the chorus of angels sing, and to go up into the city of Bethlehem to find the newborn child. 

We sang all the Christmas hymns, had some beautiful musical numbers, and an incredible lesson from Brother Brown. The spirit was so strong and the whole experience is something that I will never forget.

Jordan Wrap-Up

I really did love Jordan.

It had a different feeling than any other country I have been to in the Middle East (all 3 of them haha).

It was cleaner than Egypt and more peaceful than Israel.

My expectations were far-exceeded. 

I also learned a few things that I was not expecting. 

1) Arranged marriages are still at large and the Jordanian culture is very different than ours. One day on the bus our tour guide told us the story of his arranged marriage. When he decided he wanted to get married his family found a girl from a suitable background (confirmed by weeks of private investigation), they went to visit her family's home. After the girl, fully veiled of course, served him and his father tea they signed the engagement contract and agreement. The wedding was a few months later, and by wedding they mean two separate celebrations taking place in two separate rooms for men and women.

The most shocking part of the story to me was the popular Jordanian custom for the couple's wedding night. Both the groom's mother and the bride's mother accompany the newlyweds back to the apartment and wait on chairs outside of the bedroom until the groom comes out and tells them that 'he made it'. They apparently do this to offer support and make the couple feel more comfortable. 

Haha call me crazy but I am pretty sure having my mom right outside the door would not be  all comforting! Like I said though, very different culture! It was so interesting to hear about an arranged marriage from someone who had actually experienced it! (This story was about his first wife-he is allowed to have four though so is contemplating getting another soon)

2) That wonderful people exist all around the world. During my time at Jordan I met some of the nicest, friendliest people who were so welcoming and sincerely happy to have us in their country. Seriously, everywhere we went the locals smiled and shouted "Welcome to Jordan!". It was awesome.

3) That I am so blessed to be a woman born in America. I take this for granted all the time and being in the Middle East has made me realize that I really am the luckiest girl in the world. One night when we were at the mall in Jordan, I sat there people-watching and got so upset about the way some of the women were being treated. Nothing too dramatic was happening, but as I watched some men yell at, slap, and dominate their wives for doing something as simple as trying to comfort their crying child, I got genuinely angry. I know it is another part of their culture and a social norm, but all I can say is that Heavenly Father knew what he was doing when he sent me to Utah instead of the Middle East. I don't think my nature would have allowed me to be so submissive-I can't handle situations that I believe are unfair. My heart really does go out to all the women living in harsh situations in the Middle East and I am amazed at their patience and kindness despite less than ideal circumstances. 

4) That crossing international borders is not easy! It took us almost three hours to get back across the Israel border-and that was even with us being able to skip a line. 

5) That Jerusalem really does feel like home. Driving up the hill to the center, walking through the beautiful grounds and into the arched front doors was such a relief, even after such a short time away. I remember doing the exact same thing back in April-walking through those arched doors, feeling so overwhelmed, and having no idea what I was getting myself into. I had no idea how much I would come to love this building and this place.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, and overload of feelings on this post! 

Day Four

I cannot believe how fast our time in Jordan flew by. Four days went by in a blink.

Our last day started off with a visit to the New Amman Mosque-the largest in Jordan.

Most mosques we have visited require that women cover their heads with a scarf. This mosque, however, was a tad bit more strict. In order to get in we had to wear a black hooded robe

Yes, we kind of felt like death-eaters. 

It was actually pretty fun though, and luckily we were the first visitors of the day so we got the freshly-laundered robes, which was in and of itself worth waking up at the crack of dawn.

Me, Sister Brown (one of my favorite people here), and Melissa rocking our robes

all of the stylish JC ladies!

Our next stop was the citadel of Amman and National Museum. The citadel was basically another smaller set of roman ruins and the museum was very interesting. They had lots of antiquities, statues, and even some of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

posing at the Temple of Hercules 

Our last stop was Bethbara, the baptismal site of Jesus. This site is more accurate than the site run by the kibbutz in Israel, because bible scholars believe Christ was probably baptized on the Jordan side of the river. They have a beautiful (and air conditioned) church on site and you are actually able to descend into the water. It was too muddy and gross for be to brave totally immersing myself, but I did put my feet in :) All three religion professors here gave us amazing lessons about baptism here and it turned out to be my favorite spot of the day-even if it is not the exact location where Christ was baptized.

The spot where they believe Christ descended into the water-the river has shrunk in size over the last 2000 years so the supposed exact spot is now on dry land

Church of Bethbara

Holy water used for sprinklings

the Jordan River