J-Ru:1.

I suppose I should be better at blogging more frequently so that my posts aren't 30 years long. I will work on that.

After "sleeping" in Holladay last Monday night, we woke up at 3:30 am to get to the airport by 4:30. Which was rather funny because the airport was COMPLETELY deserted when we got there... But we got our itineraries and checked in and got to our gate where our little group of 10 hung out for far too long before our flight took off.

That flight took us to Atlanta.

Once we landed in the ATL, we got some lunch (Chick-fil-a, obviously) and then sat around again. We then got on another flight that took us to JFK.

That flight was pretty uneventful except for our connection was fairly close and that was worrisome and there was a medical emergency that they had to deal with on the flight before we could get off which made things more stressful.

Luckily, our two gate were just across the way from each other so we got off one plane and got on another.

This plane was going to take us to Tel Aviv and it was crazy. It was a super full flight and there was lots of drama. Security guards and passengers getting upset and then rearranging the seating on the flight.

Nicole and I both were assigned middle seats with me the row in front of her but luckily, there was a family that was all throughout the plane and they had three really small kids so they rearranged our whole area so Nicole and I got to sit together. So lucky. :) The flight was pretty good, we mostly just slept and rested.

Once we landed in Tel Aviv on Wednesday afternoon, we found out from some other kids on our flight that all the other students (who were flying US Air) were stranded in Phoenix. So there were only 30 of us arriving that day.

(Their connecting flight from Phoenix to Philly was cancelled so they were stuck and at first they were told it was going to be a week before they could get on another flight...)

We got through Customs and got our bags and then found our professors all waiting for us. Once we all got there, we loaded up the bus and started our journey to Jerusalem. By this point we were exhausted and not feeling good so we just drove. When we got to the Center, we got a little snack and then we went to our rooms.

Nicole and I are roommates and our two roommates were still in Phoenix which was nice because we got to decide how everything in our room was going to be. We had a little free time in our rooms and then we had a tour of the center and dinner and then brief classes (which were basically only there to keep us awake). After that, we went to bed.

The next day, we went on an Orientation Walk and then we had lots of boring Orientations and just kinda hung around in the Center.

Friday, we went to the Israel Museum (which was super cool) and then to the Garden Tomb. These were two "special" field trips that we went on because we were still waiting for everyone in Phoenix. Friday night though, the first group of 16 arrived from Phoenix and our roommate Catie got here.

Saturday we had church and then just a rest day which was nice. (More people also arrived.)

Sunday we just had a free day but since I started feeling kinda weird on Friday afternoon and it got worse on Satuday and Sunday, we just decided to stay inside and do homework (because we had a lot of reading to do). I also took a nice little nap. :)

We tried to go to bed early but when we got back to our room, we found that we had a new roommate so we had to talk to her. Her name is Jessica and she is Canadian (so I obviously love her). She's super cool but kinda shy. After we talked to her, we went to bed. Unfortunately, I felt awful last night and even though I was in bed by like 11, I couldn't fall asleep until like 2. And even then I was in and out. Definitely the worst.

Especially since we had a field trip today.

I woke up this morning and didn't feel all that much better but I sucked it up and went on the trip. We went to a bunch of overlook locations which was kinda cool but I totally wasn't feeling up to it so it was pretty lousy. Luckily we got back from it pretty early so we just got to chill before lunch/class.

Classes officially started today and they went pretty good. It was weird only having class for 50 minutes instead of an hour. But I think I'm really going to like Brother Ludlow's class (Ancient Near East) but hopefully they'll all be good. :)

Right now I am not feeling good at all so it's hard for me to do homework but I know I need to. I just want to go to sleep and wake up feeling better. The hardest part is that I don't even really know what my symptoms are. I have a sore throat but it isn't a normal sore throat yet I know I've had it before. Argh. This is super annoying.

Well, that is all.

(The last student arrived here at the Center at 4am last night so we are all here now!)