Monthly Archives

February 2009

Jerusalem

Bugs. Goliath. Samson. Caves.

9 February 2009

Wiiiiicked long field trip today, called the Shephelah FT. We left at 8 am and didn’t get back until 6. But we went to where Samson of Samson and Delilah were, and we went to the spot where David and Goliath happened, and we went to sweet caves, and crawled through caves. Oooh, and I bought little I ♥ Israel colored pencils. But not only that, but I got some excellent pictures of bugs here in the Holy Land.

pretty little baby flower
Marianne and I. I love that amazing girl. Behind us on the hill was where Samson lived, and he would come down to where we were and party it up. This is in Beth Shemesh.

I miss flowers in my hair so badly, but I’ve always got the parrot earrings. They never let me down.

Big ol’ ant carrying something pokey to the green.

another ant carrying the goods

weirdo bug with antlers/pinchers
Millipede! Ah!!!

just chillin’ in some ruins in the Sorek Valley I think, that Samson probably chilled at too

headless

Next stop: Lachish. more ruins. This is me and the most lovely Cate.

Stefanie Tanner, another amazing JC-ite

Feet!

in a chalky cave tomb thing

gotta love those cave photo ops

cool peeps posing it up
So at this place, there were these signs hanging in the trees, and I don’t understand their purpose.

more weirdo freaky bugs

huge creepy beetle… ahhh!!!

heart carved into the chalky cave

I love trees.

At the Bell Caves, where we stood in a circle and sang hymns. I love that hymn singing.

more cave posing… what good looking boys.

There was this random Mona Lisa thing, so I just had to stick my face in there. Cool beans eh?

Next we went to the Valley of Elah, where the David and Goliath story took place. “Now this man was giant.”

I love wrists.

Stefanie building the Goliath statue so that we could fling rocks at it with our little slings, just like David.

At Micah’s cave… crawling through little passages.

Then there were all these pigeon holes after going through the passage way. Thanks to my sista sista for the flashlight by the way. It was a life saver.

Then you we had to climb up the wall with the help of pigeon holes and fine young men… kinda scary.

Here’s Jayne! The last part of our spelunking adventure involved shimmying out on our backs in the tiniest little passage way ever. It was slightly frightening, definitely. It’s called the birth canal.

After I successfully made it out of the birth canal… yay! So happy to see the light of day again.

That spelunking in Micah’s Caves will most definitely make you a wee bit dirty.

Yep, we’ve got some laundry to do.

We have the coolest field trips around here. I loved going to where David and Goliath happened. It was way cool. I loved being where the Philistines came back and returned the Ark of the Covenant. I loved taking pictures of bugs. I loved the I ♥ Israel colored pencils I bought today. I loved Brother Wilson guiding us around and bestowing upon us some of his great wisdom. I loved crawling through the caves. I loved playing with the coolest peeps all day. And of course, as always, I loved coming back to the JC.
Jerusalem

Jericho is ooooollllllddddd

5 February 2009

Another field trip day! Today we went to Jericho, the oldest and lowest city in the world. It’s 11,000ish years old and 850 feet below sea level. We saw a wicked old tree and the oldest manmade stone structure, and we went to a monastery where the rock that Christ was tempted at, and we went to the site of Herod’s Winter Palace.

 
Kara and I at this wicked old tree that has significance that I don’t remember.

Reading the Jericho story at Jericho. Whoa, these field trips are the coolest.

The oldest man made stone structure that is like 10,000 years old or something.

Moon and Chelsea living it up in Jericho! Yay for Bible stories!

I bought some love nuts too, aka sycamore nuts. But my oh my they were wicked good. I could go for some right this second. Mmmm… yummy!

At the Quruntul Monastery, where we had to dress very conservatively and they told us to cover our heads too, but I don’t know how necessary that one was.

 beautiful artwork inside the monastery

They believe this is the stone where Christ was tempted by Satan when he was fasting for 40 days. It’s so cool being here.

view of JERICHO from the monastery on the mountain side

Behind us were a bunch of caves where the people at the monastery would go and seclude themselves and kind of rededicate themselves to the Lord.

Matt 360ing at the site of Herod’s Winter Palace

more desert wilderness


Field trip today was cool. I went to the oldest and lowest city in the world, which is the coolest of cool. And the love nuts I bought today were so exceptionally delish. Love me some love nuts. 

Jerusalem

Egyptian Party!

4 February 2009
Egyptian Night at the JC, which basically means wearing anything you bought in Egypt and wearing more eyeliner that you ever have before. It was fabulous of course.
    
This is the Chelsea and the most beautiful Heidi. As you can see, I didn’t buy anything in Egypt but scarves pretty much, ok, and a couple bags of course. But for my Egyptian Night fashion, I created an outfit out SEVEN BEAUTIFUL EGYPTIAN PASHMINAS.
    four lovely ladies showing sweet Egyptian dance moves

   the mighty pharaoh… wearing his JC linens

moi and Allison, notice the eyeliner, love it

The most fabulous residents of room 410!

  Lauren and Nycole in their grand mumus of Egypt. You know I love a good mumu every now and then.
   Pharaoh and one of his lovely concubines
   the Egyptian party crew!
Jerusalem

Bible Zoos and Dead Sea Scrolls

4 February 2009
We had a free day all day today! Hooray! So we went to the Biblical Zoo today, which is really just a regular zoo, with Bible scriptures on all the little plaques. Then we went to the Israel Museum, where Brother Skinner told us all about the Jerusalem model of 66 AD and Jerusalem in Jesus time, and we also saw the Dead Sea Scrolls there. What a fabulous free day today!
     
chillin’ at the zoo with the cool kids

monkey!

11:11 at the zoo… MAKE A WISH!

girlies being tigers with the tigers

By the way, I don’t know how I feel about zoos… that poor tiger in the tiny little caged area, with people just looking at it through windows. It is cool being able to see all of these amazing animals though.
Dearest Marianne and I, being fishies with the fishies!!!

The bears were so teeny tiny, nothing like the big beastly Alaskan ones.

cool kids with the bear sculpture

There was a map showing where the animals lived and look at what Alaska looks like. It looks like a little nothing piece of land, when AK is really this huge beastly area of amazingness.

Rafikis! Yahoo! I love these fun animals.

Lemur Land/Zoboo Land: “I was leaping along. Leap… leap… leap… leap… leap…” Who remembers the Kratt Brothers and Zoboomafoo?

Ryan and I in the bird house! I wish little Natalie were here in the birdie house with me. 

Blue skies… sunshine… blossoms! A happy day here in the Holy Land.

Shelby crawled through this little tunnel and then his head popped out in this little dome so that he could get a better look at those meerkats. 
Guess what these are… NAKED MOLE RATS! One of the world’s most interesting little creatures.

And this little number is a capybara, another incredibly interesting creature, and not the prettiest one.
here’s me and the funny funny flamingoes

This is for you favorite twins…

This is the gift shop at the Biblical Zoo… shaped just like Noah’s Ark. Gotta love this place.

We left the zoo and there was my favorite car, a 1991 Subaru Loyale!

   

ISRAEL MUSEUM
     
There is incredible replica of Jerusalem in 66 AD. It is the best one ever, and it is on a scale of 1 to 50, and Bro. Skinner told us all about it. He is just so full of knowledge and he told and showed us everything about the last few days of the life of Jesus. It was amazing to see and to understand more about. 

This is the SHRINE OF THE BOOK. Inside is the Dead Sea Scrolls. I saw them. Wow. Oh my goodness there is just oodles of history over here. 

I love free days.
Jerusalem

Mail Party

2 February 2009

Speaking of being back at the JC, I would’ve loved to have had a package waiting for me upon my arrival. But sadly, no one knew my address, because I didn’t tell anyone. But I shall do that now…

     
For love letters and fun envelopey type things, and perhaps small boxes and the like:
     
BYU Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies
Chelsea Owens
PO Box 19604
Jerusalem, 91196
Israel
    
For packages that do not contain things too incredibly expensive, like electronics, since we have to pay duties:
      
Chelsea Owens
BYU Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies
Located on Mt. Scopus
Near Augusta Victoria Hospital
Jerusalem, 91196
Israel
     
Keep in mind that my birthday is coming up on March 15th, so you should think about sending things sometime in the near future. Oh I am so excited to receive mail. Many mahalos peeps. 
Jerusalem

Home Sweet Jerusalem

2 February 2009

I am so happy to be back at the Jerusalem Center! Yay for the JC! Oh my goodness I am just so happy to be “home!”

Reasons why I am so happy to be back at the JC:
~drinking out of the water fountains
~brushing my teeth in the sink
~having clean clothes
~not living out of a backpack
~shopping in the Old City with normal shopkeepers
~eating the delicious food of the Oasis
~having internet
~being in my bed
~calling my wonderful family
~having my genie pants back
~wearing my slippers
~not feeling like death
~being on my computer
~sleeping with Simba again
~partying with my roomies
~having less garbage all around
~using better toilets
~not having to pay for toilets
~having access to all of my earrings
~again, just talking to my fam
Don’t get me wrong, it was amazing being in Egypt and being able to see everything and learn all about it, but it is always so nice to be home. Oh how I love the JC.
Favorites, Jerusalem

Mt. Sinai

1 February 2009

What do you do at 2 am? Well, when you’re on the Sinai Peninsula, apparently 2 am is when you wake up, so that you can go hike Mt. Sinai for the sunrise. That’s just what we did.

After 3.5 hours of sleep, we had a little 2 am wake up call and got ready to hike the mountain. We started at about 3 am, when it was so incredibly beautifully starry. I love the stars so so so much. So it was quite magical, except for the fact that I was still sick and coughing up a storm. Needless to say, I was one of the last few people to make it to the top, along with the other sickies and cripples. But I started feeling better the farther we’d go, which is weird. I guess I just needed a goooooood dose of the great, beautiful outdoors. Being sick, I still had a bit of a difficult time hiking up to the top, but then to realize that Moses hiked up that mountain eight times or something, and as an ooooold man, I couldn’t complain much. And there were other people much sicker than me hiking that day. Either way, hiking is the greatest.

A pile of people huddled together at the top of Mt. Sinai, trying to stay warm. It was soooooo cooooooold, mainly because it was so windy, and you can’t escape from that wind.
The sun starting to rise….

Another pile of us people. I was a human blanket for Matt and Lisa. Oh my goodness it was soooooo cold.

The sun has risen!

You know I love a good sunrise here and there, especially on top of Mt. Sinai.

just chillin’ (for real) at the top

YAY FIJI! There were some rocks where people had written their names and stuff, and this person was from Fiji. Gotta love those Fijians, yes you do.

Hiking down… long hike.

Along the way there are all these Bedouins offering camel rides, and Marianne and I decided we’d take their offer. WE RODE CAMELS DOWN MT. SINAI!

beautiful nature

Marianne and Mohammed and an extra camel. By the way, I had no camel guide. My camel was just cruising along down the mountain. He knew the trail fabulously of course, by it was a wee bit scary at times because the camel would get so close to the edge and the cliff and I’d be like, “Whoa, Camel, scoot over.” It wouldn’t. But thankfully I didn’t fall off the cliff.

Do you see the 10 Commandments? Yeah, me neither, but they’ve gotta be here somewhere.

Here’s the 16 year old guy named Mohammed that was helping another guy named Mohammed take Marianne and I down the mountain. He was pretty cool. He told me to take a picture of him.

He took a picture of me too, and my little camel! I love camels so much. They are the crazies animals. As you can maybe tell too, my pants had ridden up excessively to my belly button and were super high. My jeans turned into high waters big time during this amazing camel ride and it was slightly uncomfortable, but so amazing. I LOVE RIDING CAMELS!

Marianne and I paid $15 each, with tip, for our camel rides down Mt. Sinai and it was so worth it. It was definitely my most favorite part of the entire Egypt trip and such. We were just having so so much fun. And it was good to give the Mohammed’s some money, because people here do not have opportunities like we do to make money. It’s so crazy. But Mt. Sinai was amazing and the camel riding was simply marvelous!

We left our hotel near Mt. Sinai at about noon and got back on the bus. We drove a few hours to the border and after we got through the intense border crossing back into blessed Israel, we were just hanging out at the Red Sea waiting for the other people.
This was my second favorite part of the trip: taking my shoes off, rolling up my pants, and stepping into the Red Sea, which was unexpectedly warm. I just miss the ocean so so so much, so my little toesies were so happy playing in the Red Sea. I loved it. I love the ocean. I love the Red Sea. And I love being back in Israel!
Sunset on Mt. Sinai, sunset on the Red Sea. I am living the good life.