Flying Solo... and arriving!!

Well my mom sent me an e-mail showing me all the spelling errors in my last blog. I suppose you'll all have to live with my primitive writing skills. So Jerusalem is pretty amazing... I keep looking out the windows of the Jerusalem Center and seeing the Dome of the Rock on the temple mount. Back in Yakima we have an empty field and an orchard in my back yard.... here we have the Dome of the Rock. Today we went on a brief tour of Jerusalem just walking through the old city. The highlight was probably the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Also it was neat to see the Damascus gate- the old one is being re-opened of a sorts (it's in a big pit) and the current one is about 50 feet above the one used in Christ's time.  The trip was only brief... and we had some security follow us on the route because it was Friday and so there was a greater security need in the Old City. Other than that we've pretty much just been doing orientations with many things. The food here at the center is great- I'm going to have to be careful if I don't want to gain weight.
My flight here was pretty unique. First off they assigned me a different group to travel with then the ticket they bought me. So then they had to reroute my flight so I flew directly from Salt Lake to JFK in New York. I was supposed to meet up with my group in New York. I got to the gate and didn't see anyone, though. Well I had a ticket to Tel Aviv and so I figured I'd get on the plane. It turned out the group I'd originally been assigned was delayed and missed the connection- so they had to stay the night over night in JFK, then still had to take the 11-12 hour flight to Tel Aviv today. I was really lucky to be rerouted so I arrived on time. I was actually the first student to arrive in Israel, and I flew alone so I felt pretty legit. Haha. Anyway, the people here are really cool, I'm going to have to work to get to know everyone.
The academics here will be challenging. But we have some highly qualified teachers. From BYU there is a New Testament Scholar, an Egyptologist, and an archeologist. From the teachers not from Utah we have an orthodox Jew and a Muslim teaching modern middle eastern studies, and also local professors teaching Hebrew and Arabic. I think one of the prettiest things so far is hearing the call to prayer several times a day. Yesterday, when we arrived, there was storm clouds over Jerusalem with lightning going off, the call to prayer at the same time, and a spectacular view of the Dome of the Rock- it was pretty cool.
On our tour some of the shopkeepers saw us and hurried to introduce themselves. One's guys card said "This is the Place." I think he's used to some Mormon tourists from Jerusalem. Hey! I sat by a lady on the plane and told her I was going to study at the Mormon University. Turns out she totally knew where it was and had been here several times to the concerts they hold in the main chapel. She was a secular Jew. In front of us was a family of Orthodox Jews- I stopped counting after 12 kids.
Well I have a lot of exciting things ahead of me, it should be fun!!!

Here we go!

Alright, well here I go starting my first blog. I'm pretty sure the point of a blog is to put everything personal about yourself online for anyone to see. Sounds like fun. Well, here goes. The last couple weeks have been crazy! I got a call about a month and a half ago from the BYU Jerusalem office here in Provo, Utah. I had contacted them earlier about going to BYU Jerusalem in the spring/summer but they had told me there wasn't any room and I shouldn't apply. However, they called me, and said that they'd had more people drop out then they expected and that if I wanted to go, I had the weekend to decide. Well I thought about it and realized it was something I'd always wanted to do here at BYU but had always found excuses not too. Well, long story short, I called them back and told them YES! I had to do a lot of paperwork at the last minute and had to change my plans for the whole next year, but I know it'll be worth it! I leave Wednesday morning, will be flying to Detroit, then JFK, then to Tel Aviv in Jerusalem! A 20 hour trip! Well, hopefully I figure out something to do with all that free time. I only know one or two people who are going, so this should be a way different experience.

While in Jerusalem I'll be studying the Old and New Testaments, Ancient and Modern Middle Eastern Studies, the Jewish and Arab cultures, as well as taking a field trip class and a one credit Conversational Hebrew Class! We'll be traveling around Israel as well as Jordan, as well as Turkey! Usually we'd travel to Egypt and see tons of things there but with all the upheaval there recently we'll be going to Turkey.

I have no idea how much I'll update this blog, hopefully once a week would be cool, but I have no idea what it's going to be like! If you need to get a hold of me you can e-mail me since I won't be using Facebook while there. If you can log in as one of the "followers" of the blog so I can get an idea of whose following it! Wish me luck!