Crazy Days! (an old email)

So, I'm home again. It's hard to believe and is more bittersweet than anything, but it's true. 
I posted a slideshow/video I made on the Journal. Click this to see it.
This is the last email I wrote home. I wrote it on the way from Galilee back to Jerusalem. I just thought I'd post it...with pics this time.

December 4th
Hey!

Well, I'm on my way back to home...my second home. We just left Galilee this morning, and I feel like I've left a kind of home. 

I've had many adventures this past week since my last email. In fact, I started an email the other day but didn't finish it, and my list of things to write about has been growing and growing.

I'm now on a two hour bus ride back to Jerusalem, so I think I'll just write whatever stories come to mind. This may be a crazy email then...but then again, It's all about crazy days. What else can you expect?

To start off with: Christmas carolers. So, last Sabbath (after I finished my advent on the beach) three guys went around to some of the rooms and sang "O Holy Night." Ben told Maren and I, so the three of us crouched behind the bushes and watched as they caroled to the block of rooms behind ours. It was funny to watch. Dean had his guitar, but Drew and Lincoln (my home teachers), for lack of real instruments, used rocks and a fallen palm branch. Lincoln kept beat with his rocks while Drew made swishing sounds with the branch. They ended up seeing me and  Maren and Ben listening to them, so they didn't actually carol at our door. Oh well. The funniest part was what I heard the next day. So, they knocked on one of the guys' rooms and only Micah was there. Micah's...well, let's just say he's an interesting character. Later that night his roommates got back to the room only to find a large puddle of water on the front porch. To their inquiries, Micah said matter-of-factly, "A few Christmas carolers stopped by. Don't worry. I took care of them." let's just say that I was speechless when I heard about it. (Random tangent: struggling to type on my iPod, I misspelled speechless with speachless or something like that and the spell check suggested "soda bless"...what on earth is a soda bless?)

To continue with my storytelling that resembles a pouring rainstorm: we had two bonfires this week on the beach at our resort. They were quite fun and brought back many bonfire memories. :) Both were hilarious too. We had s'mores (Dad, my spell check just suggested snores...don't know which one is not in keeping with the program most: smokes or snores on the beach), had story tellers, and sang songs at both. You know, typical bonfires... 

The first bonfire was particularly funny, though the second one had our class clown telling us an interactive story with Brother and Sister Jones (the grandparents of the center in many ways) warding off dragons and strange people with their magical music conductor wands and true love and our Palestine professor, Bashir Bashir, complaining about the 'over-generalization' and the 'problematic' issue they all had just found themselves in.

But the first bonfire on Sunday night started out with Sam and Dean explaining how they ended up being in charge of that bonfire...a story that had us all rolling in the sand with laughter (figuratively). Apparently Sam and Dean both "had dreams" about going to breakfast unshaven (all the guys are required to shave everyday) but the decide to risk it...and then hear an "unnamed faculty member" tell them quite seriously that he wants to talk to them. He told them after many nerve racking minutes, "you're in charge." If I thought that I couldn't laugh harder before that, I was wrong, cause from the outskirts of our circle came Dr Whitchurch's voice, "Sam, Dean, I need to talk to you later. I had a dream too."

As for Monday... So, guess what I did on December 1?

Something completely mind blowing to my Rexburg born and raised self: swimming in the Sea of Galilee.

I don't know about you, but the concept of swimming in December is crazy to me!

And it was chilly. But hey! It was the one chance I got to swim in the Sea of Galilee. Not passing that up. And I loved it! It was, of course, not salty (I've tasted one too many salty seas this trip), it was really sandy and soft (a comfort after that waterfall hike we had when it was so rocky I could hardly move), and it was shallow a long ways out (so I was able to go out far without worrying about my swimming skills...not that I'm a terrible swimmer, just that I'd rather not test it. I do love back strokes). There are so many sea shells too. All week I've been collecting sea shells, enough that I'll probably not collect any more these next two weeks, no matter how many pretty ones I see.

 Class on the beach before our swim. :)

After the swim, watching the sunset.

Also, we had FHE combined with three other families and attempted to play Capture the Flag on the beach. That was quite an adventure! The flags were glow sticks and they saw us put it in the middle (we were allowed to hide them) so Dean, who was our flag guard, ended up putting it in his pocket and shortly after plant it right on the front line border between the two teams underneath a sign.

Then, after that game sort of failed, we dispersed and I found myself with a huge group of my classmates on someone's room's porch, playing a game I bought just before coming here, listening to music, watching everyone play with each others' hair (including the guys, who humbly submitted to Danielle's and Abby's will), and sharing "gossip" about Drew and the frogs he kissed a few days ago who should have turned into princesses by now. Poor Drew...he had to leave his frog princesses behind.

Oh, we also watched the new Star Wars trailer. Matt was able to pull it up on his iPad. It looks cool! Of course, it's hard to follow up episodes 4-6. Should be interesting. I did think the new light saber with the cross guard was interesting: reminiscent of swords. 

Speaking of swords, past week, on the bus ride back to the resort after a long field trip (I've had a lot of those these couple of weeks), I started to doze off. Chadwick was occasionally remarking on sites we passed, but everyone was pretty much out, me included. That is, until I heard "Crusader" and "castle" in the same sentence. Immediately I was sitting up, wide awake. He had pointed out a castle ruin on the hills and added that we would go to another crusader castle to explore on Tuesday...which we did! :D

In fact, I wore myself out at that castle so well that I'm still tired and still don't  have much energy for anything, no matter how excited I may be for it (e.g. The next day, yesterday, I was so worn out that my classmates actually had to ask if I was excited to see Acre with its Hospitaller fortress and Templar tunnel (a dream come true to see!).

But Nimrod's Fortress...such a great castle! Particularly since I've been dying to see a crusader castle all semester and I had felt rather castle starved. I mean, it's not nearly as epic as the castle we went to in Wales in 2010, but to have a good castle to explore was refreshing. I'm surprised my classmates aren't more afraid for my sanity after seeing me in the rain on Mt Arbel and at Nimrod's castle. But I'm also happy that they all not only accept and respect me but also love me and what they call my enthusiasm for life. Sometimes I wonder who they think I am...but I do appreciate it.

My favorite part of the castle was storming in. We were given an hour of free time from the moment we were off the bus (or at least my class...the other class had Chadwick who gave them a five minute lecture first. Archaeologists... :)). So, we got off and then a ton of us started running up the ramp yelling "charge!" Then, at the top Jordan started a story of how we had to fight off the enemy and an evil queen, at which everyone else insisted that they needed to make me the rightful queen (since they all know how much I love castles and the Middle Ages). From then on I was (and in some cases still am called) Queen or Lady Katherine. We stormed the castle, fighting off invisible enemies, took brief detours into towers "needed" for our siege, etc. I loved how much everyone got into it. I was shouting "to the keep! To the keep!" and everyone else was acting it out. We ran up the entire length of the castle in 10-15 minutes. It was great! After the keep, we all split up and I ended up exploring with Maren and Ben (who caught up to us at the keep). I must admit I would've enjoyed hanging out with different people, but I'm happy that I was able to spend time with Maren and Ben. They really wanted to explore the castle with me and watch me thoroughly enjoy every moment and every nook and cranny. There were spiral staircases, a "secret" (small) staircase down to a cistern, and levels after levels of archers' stations. I felt like I was transported back in time to my nine year old self. It was seriously the best day ever...though I've had a lot of those here. :)

 Besieging the castle!

 Yep. There went ten years of my life as far as maturity goes.

 To the keep!

 Lincoln fighting off the enemy.

 Underground cistern.

 Spiral staircase.

The "secret" staircase to the cistern.

That was, of course, the highlight of that day, but The rest of the day was great as well. Maren has a funny dream which she told me as soon as I was awake, so I started the day laughing my head off with Maren and Amber, my Galilee roommates. We went to Tel Dan, which was incredibly beautiful (at least I think it was that day)! Of course, it was also pretty muddy. In fact, I considered titling this email "A Muddy Affair" or "Muddy Interactions" considering how muddy it's been. I've accepted that all of my pants are stained, or at least caked, with mud.

After the castle, on the way to the Syria overlook (we overlooked Lebanon at Tel Dan. How many countries can one see in a day?), the other classes bus had an awkward occurrence. Let's just say that Dr Whitchurch chuckled when he got off our bus only to see several head hanging out of an empty space where a back side window was supposed to be, all exclaiming, "We didn't do it!" The window had fallen out and they had to have a duct taped window for the rest of the trip.

Well, my iPod's battery just died as we entered Jerusalem. So I'm now attached to the wall in my "dormitory." I have never felt so happy and relieved to return home...but sadly this place is only home for two more weeks. :(

On a happy note, there are Christmas trees up in the center! :D

Well, I think this is enough for now. I better run up to dinner. (oh, dinner in the Oasis! There's nothing like eating at home...)

Wow. I forgot how loud the call to prayer is. :)

I'm not quite caught up in my story telling, but i covered the big stories.

Hope life is going well for you! Wish you all could see these places with me!

Hope you enjoyed my ridiculously long email.

Love ya all!

Lady Katherine