Rumor Mill.

The Jerusalem Center is fun for so many reasons.

One of them being the constant rumors that fly.

All the couples, all the other various drama, etc. There isn't a day that goes by where we don't talk about a couple that has broken up/gotten back together/looks cute together/seems complicated/etc.

WELL. Today, someone started a rumor about me. And now, it's payback.

Here's what went down:

I was walking around the Oasis (our cafeteria), and Thomas comes up to me and says "I hear that you and Josh are hooking up." To which I respond "Oh, really? Who has told you that? haha" He tells me that it was infact Jared Ludlow. aka Junior. (Sidenote: I'm not really sure exactly what hooking up means in this context. As in, I don't know what Junior/Thomas meant when they said this).

Thomas then sits at our table and we start talking about it and Nicole mentions that while in Galilee, Junior told Nicole that he thinks I'm only after Josh for the physical aspect of the relationship. WHAT? haha

Apparently what he (or she) meant is that I'm only after him for his looks. When I heard that, I thought something else but something was obviously lost in translation. haha

So he thought it was his duty to spread this rumor around. That's fine, we can handle it. This is obviously forcing Josh and I to work as a team to get him back. And we've already come up with something... potentially wonderful.

Oh these next few days could get rather interesting. :)

Rumors are the best.

ALSO, despite popular belief, (including younger teenagers within the building), the whole Josh-and-Danielle thing is a joke. Some people might be taking it a bit too far... But it's fine, we can play along just fine. See, just a joke:

(And last post of November. Where has the time gone?!)

Basketball Revamped.

After Galilee, we thought that basketball was going to start in tournament form. But it didn't. We had another game on Sunday which was perfect because it gave us just enough time to get our team uniforms. :)

Friday, we went out shopping for 2 hours (because that's all the time we had!) and then

We unveiled our uniforms at our game and let's just say that the crowd loved them.

After winning our game (we're now 3-0), we decided to take some team pictures.

Look no further:

(and I apologize, these were all taken POST-game when we were all sweaty. Next time we'll be cute.)

Smiling picture. :)

Top row: Coach Junior, Kimberly, Lizzy, Elyse; Bottom Row: Suzy, Kaylie, Me!

Funny picture.

Typical Muscle picture.

Baller shot.

Let's just say, the JC didn't know what hit them.

JCLDS.

Today at our announcement session, Mr. Hayat informed us about JCLDS.

Which stands for: Jerusalem Center Last Days Syndrome. (hahaha oh he is so clever).

But he kept talking how people start getting a little crazy at this point because we leave so soon and so we try to cram everything we can into our last days. He says not to worry about doing everything because we've already done SO much. He says to just relax and keep seeing stuff and doing what we want but don't freak out because it'll be fine if we miss a couple of things on our checklist.

We know that we've been reaching the end of our time but now that someone high up has said it, it makes it that much more real... AND scary. We basically have no time left. Which is really not true but it sure feels like it. Good thing I've taken advantage of every opportunity to go outside. Except right now, that doesn't count.

But I went out on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and even today. Wow. haha we are also in the Old City on a field trip tomorrow and then we have a free day Thursday. So I will go out 7 days in a row. That's unheard of.

It's good though because I feel like I'm taking every chance I have to spend in the city. Although, my legs are definitely feeling the hike up the hill to get home... haha but it's worth it. :)

In less than 16 days, we'll be in Vienna.

And in 21 days, we'll be back in California.

HOLY MOLE.

I can't even believe it.

The last days are upon us.

dun. dun. dun.

(I feel weird not posting a picture so here is a GORGEOUS sunset over the Old City from yesterday):

p.s. Exciting news of the week: My former employer emailed me yesterday informing me that they want me to work for them again this winter! Guess who is going home to a JOB?! This girl. :)

Shopping Spree.

Ever since we were driving back home from Galilee, I've been feeling like I am running out of time in the city.

So I've obviously taken advantage of it, every chance I get.

Friday, I went out in the Old City with my basketball team to get our team uniforms (which turned out great, another post on that to come...). We can't go out until 3 and we have to be back in before 5 so we only were out for a short time but it was perfect.

Hours in the city: 2.

Saturday (Sabbath), after church we headed to the Orson Hyde Garden and also to the Garden of Gethsemane. It was so great.

Hours in the city: approx. 2.5ish.

Yesterday (Sunday), we had a field trip in the morning in the Jewish Quarter and then we got to stay in the city. So we headed to West Jerusalem and went shopping and basically ate our way through the town. Falafel, donuts, peach-y O's, plus some treats to bring home. :) It was a delightful day, except for the fact that the lightrail got shut down (because someone got hit...) so we had to walk allllll the way home. :(

Hours in the city: 8.5-ish.

Today, we headed out bright and early. At 8. Whitney, Ben, Annaleah, Nicole and I. And we went straight to the Dome of the Rock. Finally. And it was SO worth it. I don't have pictures at this very second, so check back but we took some super artsy shots. And some super fun ones. So that'll definitely be posted soon. :)

We then headed over to Aladdin's to get some more money (which at the time we didn't know how needed it would be...) We dropped Whitney and Ben off with another group and the three of us headed on our way. Got our money and then headed back to the Jewish Quarter to go to a museum because there was supposed to be a free english tour... but we missed it.

So we turned our day into a shopping day. And we were mighty successful. A shopkeeper basically read my mind and thus, I got my necklace with my name in Hebrew. And we basically checked tons and tons of stuff off our list of things to buy. When we got home, we thought that we were done shopping but now we have reconsidered... and we have more things to get. But we are almost done and the end is definitely in sight.

We might've blown through more sheks in the past two days than we have the whole trip. And if not, it sure feels like it. It's strange how spending 300+ sheks in one day wasn't that big of a concern. Because we have so many fun new things. AND because they aren't dollars! haha

But I love our purchases and after we get a couple more things, we'll be all set.

And that'll be a good feeling. :)

Catching Up.

Blogging right now is completely overwhelming because I am so far behind.

And usually I tell funny anecdotes about the crazy happenings in the Jerusalem Center.

But at this point, I don't even know where to start. I want to upload lots of fun pictures but I don't even know where to begin.

Argh. This is so frustrating. hahaha I'm so sorry.

So here are a couple of quality shots to give you a little taste of the good times in Galilee.

With Lottie and Robin in front of the Sea of Galilee. :)

Reenactment of this picture (the one at the very bottom of the post) but this time in Megiddo.

p.s. look how spouse-y we are: Josh is wearing my jacket (and he wears it better than I do...). What's mine is his. :)

With our chameleon friend, Pascal. :) SO cute.

Ben, the kid in the orange shirt behind me, found him and Pascal became our new friend. He even changed colors a lot. So cool.

First roommate picture ever! Nicole, Danielle, Jessica, Catie. Taken in Akko/Acre. And we coordinated pretty well I would say. :)

Hello Mediterranean Sea! With Lizzy and Devin. :)

Okay, that is all. For now. More to come later.

Peace & Blessings.

Oh yeah, and I love Christmas.

<3

Back. To. Jerusalem.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are now back in Jerusalem.

And Galilee was the bomb.

Seriously. So much fun. And so much craziness.

Busy class schedules, hectic field trips, lots of bonding time, buckets of rain and finally some sunshine and lots of fun. :)

I'm sure I'll post a lot more about all our shenanigans and pictures and such but right now, I'm exhausted and I don't have the energy to do anything. Except go to bed. haha

But yep, we are back and we are are being thrown into school and craziness again.

Yippee. :)

p.s. I have been craving falafel for days so hopefully that is lunch tomorrow. :)

Love Galilee. :)

For Shmack:

Here are the pictures I was telling you about that we took just for you. :)

If you don't understand what we are doing, here is a hint:

"To the ________, to the _______".

GOT IT?!

We're so cute.

Also, these pictures we taken in Troy, Turkey. And it feels like we were there about 450 years ago. It was quite strange going through the pictures to find these two....

(p.s. if you really don't know what we're doing, it's "to the windoooooow, to the waaalllllll".)

Lightrail Adventure.

Tomorrow we leave for Galilee.

10 days of non-stop classes, field trips and of course, fun.

I have a take home quiz due our next class (which is Wednesday), a paper due on Friday and lots of readings and other quizzes interspurrsed between that. Plus field trips every other day for the rest of the week, for the most part. And then also all the next week.

Things are going to be super crazy in the next coming days.

Which means no witty blogs posts, sorry team.

We did have a super fun day today though.

Our stellar group of Charlotte, Nicole and I recruited Junior and the four of us had a crammed day of adventure. Involving the YMCA, The Knesset, doughnuts and using the lightrail which was the biggest adventure of them all!

Nicole, Lottie, Me, Junior. :)

We walked across the entire city, which was quite the trek.

We watched President Ohman play the Carillon (tower bells) and that was super cool. We also got to ring the bells to strike noon. You know, like when they ring the bell twelve times to tell everyone it's twelve. Yep, we did that. And I did rang it the twelfth time. So great.

Adam, Charlotte, Pres. Ohman, Me, Junior, Allyson and Nicole in front of the bells.

Lottie, me and Junior in front of the real bells in the tower.

We also walked to this random windmill and then halfway across town and through a cute little neighborhood. Where Junior is going to live when he moves back. And we also saw another random windmill. It was really fun to just walk around a new city and be friends with Junior. He was so committed to our group; I'm so proud of him.

Fun little windmill.

We then went to the Knesset where we met this cute little Australian man. And then 28 other Jru-ers showed up so we were basically the entire tour. It was super cool to see the whole building and see where the Legislature comes to life.

We love our headsets.... :/

Inside the Knesset. Desiree, Me, Nicole, Lottie.

After that, we tried super hard to ditch our ginormous group but it didn't really work too well. We took the lightrail to the doughnut shop and then we ditched our group. We got some doughtnuts, got back on the lightrail and then we meandered back to the Center. It was a super fun day to hang out with our fun little group.

Except now we have to study and pack and get already to leave bright and early tomorrow.

Here we go.

p.s. The light rail was such an adventure because up until last week, we couldn't use public transportation. But now we can and the light rail is brand new so it's also free! :)

Music-less.

My dad keeps complaining about my embeded music on my page (that all you fellow Jru-ers don't even know about) so I just removed it.

Apparently his computer keeps restarting mysteriously in the middle of the night so they get woken up to all my fave music. I am only removing it temporarily.

SO hopefully you can all live without T-Swizzle, JB and the other friends who sing to you when you visit my blog.

40 days and they'll be back up. :)

Anddddd on that note, time to get back to my paper.

I hope you'll all make an 11/11/11 11:11:11 wish today like I did this morning! :)

Question. Or 10.

I've reached the point where I don't want to do homework anymore.

And I think I know why:

My brain is used to a 13 week semester. And they are trying to make me work for a 16 week semester. I should be basically at the end and yet, we have 5 weeks left (really we have 4 but that seems too close to the end so I'm saying 5). Aka I am doneee with school. But we're really not. Infact, we JUST started New Testament. Ohhhhh Boy. I can do it, I can do it.

Instead of studying today though, I've blogged way too much, watched way too many videos on Youtube (see, the world doesn't want me to study because it let me unintentionally hack the system!), pinned everything I saw on pinterest, etc. And Little Lottie should be up here in about 6.54 minutes and we're going to watch Modern Family. Finally. Juuuuuuuust kidding. It isn't working! :( Boo. We got it to work! No worries! Although we couldn't watch episode 1... but we watched a couple quality episodes. :)

Have I really studied for my Judaism final tomorrow? Nope.

Have I even read all the prompts for the Islam paper due Sunday? Nope.

Does BYU Library think I'm currently not a student and won't let me search the library for books for my site report? Yep.

Have I seen my husband at all today? Nope.

Have I done my reading for New Testament on Thursday? Yep.

Have I even started thinking about what I'm going to write my New Testament paper due Friday about? Nope.

Have I played more basketball in the past 5 days than I have in the past 5 years? Yep.

Did I wash my hair with body wash instead of shampoo (on purpose) today? Yep.

Do I need to start being productive with my whole life? Yes.

Have I figured out what to do with my recent life? Nope.

Basketball Showdown.

I don't even know where to begin with the basketball story...

Maybe I should give a brief update on my injuries first?

-My eye is becoming a pretty nice green and purple color now. It has been noticable before and I've been showing it off a little bit but today, tons of people have asked me if I had a black eye. They thought that it was from our intense game last night but nope, it was from my abusive husband/fiance(?) on Friday. It's cool though, I secretly (or not so secretly I guess) love war wounds.

-My finger is.... well, it's getting better. Haha it was feeling much better on Sunday but then we had another super intense practice and guess what I did? I rejammed it. hahaha so it was in a lot of pain on Sunday night. I had the doctor wrap it up last night before our game and it worked beautifully. And it's still pretty purple (as in my entire finger) and a little swollen but it doesn't hurt that much. Which is good. And I played basketball again this afternoon without reinjuring myself. Woot.

Okay. So our team did pretty well last night. There was a major injury in the first half of the game. My roommate Catie had a tooth to forehead collision with Lizzy on my team and it ended with a pool of blood on the floor. And stitches for Catie. Poor girl. So that was a pretty exciting incident that caused.... mayhem. Catie is doing pretty good (based on the circumstances) and Aubrey subbed in for their team for the rest of the game.

We won 26-20 which was pretty good for our first game. There are obviously things that we can work on but we're pretty happy with it. Our coach did an outstanding job. And it was almost more fun being on the sidelines watching the game and listening to Josh and JJ's commentary on the game. They were really fun.

After the game though, another team decided that they needed a coach too (unfortunately, I was afraid this would happen...) So they persuaded Josh, our assistant coach to switch teams. We were obviously a little upset when he told us that he resigned. And I gave him a pretty hard time about it because he's leaving his wife's team... But he says he'll still cheer for us... he's just their coach. Or something. It was pretty upsetting because it was really helpful having both of them as coaches.

I'm going to try and recruit someone (Charlotte!) to be our team photographer and take pictures of our game and team so hopefully in a couple days, I'll have some pictures of our very professional team. :)

A bunch of the basketball loving girls wanted to play this afternoon and so they recruited me to play. It's funny because no one knew about my basketball past. haha so I was a little bit of a surprise yesterday. I always knew I had it in me. The only issue was that in basketball, you aren't really supposed to be super aggressive and so... physical. But it's hard to switch from playing whole-D in water polo to playing good basketball. I might be a little too touchy but people keep telling me it's alright. We played 3 games to 11 and it was really fun to play with a bunch of people who knew what they were doing and we got a pretty good work out.

I went and took a cold shower and just let the water pour over my face and when I got out of the shower, my face was still red. I'm going to get into good shape from this. haha

Our next game is tomorrow and it should be intense.

We also have about 4500 papers and finals and such. It never ends.

Oh, and did I mention that next week we'll be in Galilee? Time is going by so fast!

Battered from Basketball.

We've started a powederpuff basketball league here in the Center....

My team of 6 decided that we should start practicing asap so that once games roll around we're actually good.

We held our first practice tonight with our two coaches: JJ and Josh Ludlow. hahaha

Practice was pretty successful except within the first few minutes, I jammed my right ring finger. And then I proceeded to play basketball on it for the next hour or so. Definitely a good idea.

We were also scrimmaging and I was guarding Josh and he went up for a shot and then his elbow came down pretty hard and my head happened to be right below him. And there was a pretty hard eye to elbow collision. I'm semi-hoping that I have a sweet bruise from it tomorrow. But I know that it'll make him feel really bad. He actually did feel pretty bad about it. But I've been hurt playing sports before and it wasn't nearly as bad as being punched in the face that one water polo game....

So I have a massively swollen finger and a brewing bruise on my eye. Tomorrow could be good.

The worst thing about having a finger that isn't functioning properly is how hard it become to wash your hair. And I neeeeeeed to shower and wash my hair sometime before church tomorrow morning. It will be great.

Time for bed so that I can rest up my poor body.

Basketball was really fun though. Our team is going to be great and we obviously have the best coaches available. I'm excited.

The Golddiggers make their premire on Sunday Monday night. It'll be great.

Sigh of Relief.

Old Testament is officially DONE.

We took part one of our test yesterday (which was a little brutal) and then tonight we took part two. Which was an in-class essay with a prompt that we've had since our first day in the class. We worked alllll day preparing for it and then we took it. It was a little bit brutal but we are done! Oh and it was really fun that two pens died on me while I was taking the test. Good thing I had just gotten my pencil back from Sam or I wouldn't have been able to finish my essay.

Ahhh. It feels SO good to finally be done. All that hard work will hopefully pay off. Although I only need to pass the class... but I still want to do well. haha not that New Testament will be that much easier but the book is like half the size so I guess we've got that going for us. :)

Tomorrow we have out last Judaism class (besides our final sometime next week) and we also start New Testament! How ridiculous. We are now going to be Huntsmanites.

It also means that the semester is THAT much closer to being over. We have next week and then we're in Galilee for two weeks and then we have 3 weeks and then we LEAVE. Luckily, we will be down to 2.5 classes (because field trips doesn't really count) so we'll have plenty of free time to explore the Old City and be out of the Center walls.

Yay!

And not going to lie, I am actually really excited to be home. It'll be sad to leave Jerusalem and all my friends here but being back home will be so nice. :) A room I don't share with 3 other people, none scheduled meal times, no homework for four months, and CHRISTMAS, yep, I can't wait. :)

p.s. it is currently POURING rain outside. I can hear the rain hitting the roof and echoing through the building and I am on the 6th floor. Which means that the ceiling is two floors above me. Insane. Love the rain. :) Although it did cause basically the entire city to lose power. Good thing we have a super speedy back up generator that restored power in about 10 seconds. Although it would've been kinda fun to have no power...

And now my friends, it is time for bed. :)

November.... how?

Ladies and Gentleman,

How is it November?!

This means that we go home NEXT month. Ahhhh! I can't handle this. But this week has been so wonderful. Seriously.

Except for finals that are happening. I had Old Testament part one yesterday, which went alright. And then tonight at 7, we have part two. Which is an essay. Which I am not excited about. Mostly because our prompt really doesn't make sense. So obviously I am blogging instead of working on that. :)

We went to Bethlehem/Herodian on Tuesday which was a stellar field trip. More on that to come. But have a couple of warm up pictures. :)

Nicole, AnnaLeah, Me and Charlotte outside the Church of the Nativity.

Joe(Ludlow), Charlotte, Me, Josh (Ludlow), and Desiree at the Herodian.

Yesterday, we went and got money and then wandered through the Old City. We (Nicole and I) went with Charlotte, Suzy and Junior. It was a fun group, except all the secrets and whispering between Junior and Suzy. haha We got back to the Center a little after 4 (which made Junior late for his Arabic final, oops!) and then after a little studying and dinner, we went back out into the Old City... at night! So exciting because that isn't allowed. haha but we went to the Night Spectacular at the Tower of David Museum and it was super cool. They use all the walls to show a history video thing in LIGHTS. It was impressive. And then we wandered around West J. and got some delicious waffles for dessert. We got one with vanilla cream and berries and then the other with cinnamon cream cheese and oreo cookie crumbs. SO yummy. :) After that, we came home and went to bed. Yesterday was a super good day out of the center.

Oh yeah, and Josh and I might've tripled the number of pictures we have together after that field trip. haha mostly because I kept letting Charlotte and Joe use my camera so they got quite a few stalker pictures.

Exhibit A:

It was funny because they were constantly trying to get the camera from the other one. They even settled on a 5 minute system. I told them that they reminded me of Nallie who are 10 and 12. They were fine with that. hahaha oh children. Luckily for Charlotte, she is on every field trip with me and luckily for Joe, his mom has the same camera. haha What a wonderful past few days. :)

Time to study for realsies.