Noah's Ark- all for you Dad!

Ok so blogger is kind of dumb and so just to warn you now, all of my pictures are out of order. But hey at least I am providing pictures for you all to look at, right? Well since I last wrote, a lot has happened. That usually happens when there is a weekend thrown in the mix. On Saturday we had church and such, which was great as usual. And then Sunday was our free day, which was such a fun one! I started my morning with a large group of around 18 people and we attended a Lutheran church service at the Holy Church of the Redeemer in the old city. One of the girls in the program is Lutheran, so it was fun to attend with her. The people there were very welcoming, and everyone attending was American, which was pretty cool. My favorite part was all of the cool songs that we sang. Definitely more upbeat than most of our mormon hymns... :) You can see a picture below of this.

After church we headed over to the biblical zoo, which was awesome! There were a bunch of cool, exotic animals in the zoo- and Noah's ark was there as well! Once again pictures below. We then spent the rest of the day and night in West Jerusalem. If we stay in west Jerusalem, we are allowed to stay out until midnight, as long as we get a taxi back home. So it was my first time staying out at night, and it was awesome! West Jerusalem is simply beautiful, and much more modern and European looking.

We started out in the Shuq (spelling?), which is a big market place and is awesome! It is mainly for food. So we bought some pastries which were freakin delicious by the way and then walked around and got some Shwarma for dinner. Shwarma is a lot like falafel, only it is meat instead of falafel. They have this hunk of meat on a rod that is being roasted all day and then they carve off some slices and put it in your pita with the toppings of your choosing. I have some hummus, spicy sauce, pickled cabbage, french fries and other stuff that I don't really remember, but it was delicious. I still think falafel is better though.... :)

We then shopped around all of the posh shops without buying anything really. And just had a lot of fun! I can't believe how expensive some things here are. Example: A bottle of nail polish remover here is around 35 shekels. That is about $9. Yeah.... A bottle of nail polish remover in the states is around $1. Crazy right? So beauty products are highly expensive, so hopefully I don't need some while I am here...

We also had our field trip yesterday- which was the city of David- or ancient Jerusalem. Interestingly enough, the city of David isn't even inside of the old city today. We saw the ancient ruins of tombs and David's palace, or what many people think was his palace. Then we went inside of Hezekiah's tunnel! Which was soooo cool. It was an underground tunnel built to get water into the city. And there is still water in the tunnel, so we got pretty wet, but it was still a lot of fun. Outside of the tunnel was the pool of Siloam, which is where the man born blind washed his eyes after Jesus put mud on them and was healed. This is one of the few places we've been that Jesus would have definitely been. The stairs into the pool are original stairs, which is such a cool feeling!!

Anyway- that has been my past few days, and it has been awesome, as always. Here are the pics!

Travis, Lee and I in West Jerusalem on Sunday night.

Me inside of Hezekiah's tunnel. It is pitch black down there, thus the use of my head lamp.
Loie and I with our hymn book after the Lutheran service.
Loie and I at the zoo
Me in front of Noah's ark.

Travis and Loie at the Shuk- once again don't know how to spell that. Also don't know why this is underlined... but I guess blogger has a mind of its own.

Travis, Loie and I in front of the penguins at the zoo