Exhaustion and Weekend Craziness

I am so exhausted. The past few days have been full and crazy and good. On Friday, after lunch, I went with some girls to the market so they could buy some nuts and dried fruit for the hike today. The first shopkeeper we spoke with didn't speak English, so he pulled a guy off the street to translate for us. For the second, I thought to ask if he understood English, and he answered "kt'sat." (A little) Actually, it was more of a hand-wave that communicated the same thing.

Then we went to the Old City to withdraw money for the hiking trip that was today, and I bought a new skirt from our shopkeeper friend Sheban. He's an awesome friend of JUC, and we go to him to change money, get tips on how much stuff SHOULD cost (most shopkeepers expect you to bargain, so prices are much higher), and he always gives us juice when we come. ^_^

Upon arriving home, I got recruited to play Ultimate Frisbee. It was an awesome game, but I did an awesome dive... right into some gravel. Ouch. So my leg is nice and scratched up. One part of it doesn't look too good, so I'm keeping an eye on it to make sure it doesn't get infected.

Friday night we had Shabbat dinner. ^_^ That was fun. We said blessings over our grape juice (grape juice squeezed fresh from the grapes picked on campus... it was yummy), challah, and sang some songs (including Hinei Ma Tov and Shabbat Shalom. I had to hold back from dancing to Hinei Ma Tov). It's a nicer dinner than usual, so that was nice.

Saturday was another field study. We left at 7am and went all around Jerusalem - and I mean AROUND Jerusalem. We went up on the Mount of Olives and looked down on Jerusalem and then on the Wilderness, checked out a couple churches, and went to ... I can't remember the first place, but we went to Bethlehem and Ramat Rachel. I'm not sure how I feel about Bethlehem... It's an Arab community, and it had a much different feel than Jerusalem does. It was kinda odd.

This morning... my alarm was set for 2:45am. We went on a hike at a place called Nakik haShachor - Black Canyon. So we had to be there at 7. It's in the Golan Heights on the north-western side of Israel (if you're looking at Israel, it is to the east of the Sea of Galilee, but not by much), so we had a 3-hour drive and had to leave at... yeah. 4 in the morning. It ended up being an AWESOME hike. Our guides told us that it's one of the most difficult and most fun hikes in Israel. Wewt. We went rappelling down waterfalls, jumping from rocks, and in general, spent a good time in the water at the bottom of the Canyon. Rappelling is still kinda scary, even though I've done it a couple times before. So I am suitably exhausted from the weekend. I need a day of actual rest before starting the week. :)

Hebrew is going well. Only thing - I want so badly to learn how to speak and communicate in Hebrew, but I realize that this is pretty much the only place on earth where Hebrew is spoken. And I love it so much. :( I'm learning how to recognize some words, verb endings, and to some extents, noun endings. Still very rudimentary, but I'm getting there.

So overall I've had a pretty good week. I've spent a lot of time praying on certain issues. Last night I sat up on the roof, looking over Jerusalem while dark clouds rolled in with a very strong, cold wind, and praying. (No, it did not rain).

Pictures are soon to come! I did not take pictures at Black Canyon because we were in the water a whole lot and I need to take care of the camera. But other people did, and I hope to commandeer some of their pictures. *grin* But I do have a ton from field studies. Yay.

Bleh. It's only 7:30pm, and I'm exhausted. I get to Skype with my family tonight later, so I have to stay awake to see them. :)

Laila tov! (Good night!)
-Sarah