After an exhausting day of travel, today was amazing! After having a good breakfast we all headed to the forum for an assembly reviewing our orientation and listening to information about security and housing. Let me tell you, the leaders here are amazing! My parents know the couple who are in charge of the hosting committee, which I was placed on. So I am excited to work with them and It's always nice to know a few people while traveling outside of the country.
After the orientation meeting we were split up into smaller groups and so began our tour of East and West Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a beautiful city. It's very hilly and the architecture of the buildings is gorgeous. The culture here is very unique. Everyone is very modest and pretty friendly. I am excited to get a better feel of the city as we have more field trips and free time to explore.
Funny story... so as we are heading down the Kidron Valley, there were a bunch of crow looking birds flying around in the sky. I noticed my arm got warm and looked down and, of course with my luck so far, a bird pooped on me. Awesome, right?
Nasty bird poop... not to mention it was on my roomate's
shirt I was borrowing because of my missing luggage!
Freaking out!
Anyways we went around the old city and visited a few of the gates like Herod's Gate and Damascus Gate. We entered Damascus gate and went through all of these markets. It was so fun to see the difference in culture from the United States and of course to look at all of the artifacts and different things they sell there. We also got to visit an Austrian hospice that had a view of the entire city on top. It was gorgeous. We also went into the Church of the Holy Seplecture. After touring around in East Jerusalem we headed to West Jerusalem. West Jerusalem is a lot more modern. We did a little shopping and got some Gelato. Jerusalem is gorgeous and I can't wait to get to know the city a little bit more!
Mmmm... Gelato! Our first purchase in Jerusalem!
It was a great first day.
View from the Jerusalem Center
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