First tour in Jerusalem!

Okay - now for a bit of information about Jerusalem!
The Jerusalem Center is amaaaazing. It is eight stories and has a cafeteria called the Oasis, a gymnasium and workout room (which I really should use soon), women's and men's dorms on the 3rd and 4th floors, classrooms, a couple of auditoriums, an art exhibit, a computer lab, a game room with a snack bar...the list goes on! And that's just inside the center! The best part is the view. There are windows everywhere and you can look out on the city in all it's glory - it's fantastic. I haven't taken any pictures yet, but I will soon! When I'm done with this post, I'm going to go out on the balcony and play around with my camera. I'm pretty excited.
Yesterday we had a walking tour of Jerusalem! We went out in groups of 6 or 7 and wandered through East Jerusalem, the Old City, and finished in West Jerusalem.
Sadly one of the first things I noticed when I walked out on the streets was all of the garbage! Holy smokes! The city cleans the streets every now and then, but up against the houses there could be an awful lot of garbage.
East Jerusalem is the Arab/Muslim side of the city, so the women wore scarves that covered their hair and wore clothing that covered their whole body. The men were bare headed though. When we got to the top of the hill, we walked through some streets known as the Safe Triangle. Our tour guide, the branch president's wife Sister Ohman, explained where it was safe to go and where it was not safe to go. We were also told to keep our pockets empty and our bags at our front so that we did not get pick-pocketed.
After East Jerusalem, we went to the Old City. The Old City is surrounded by a wall and there are several gates to go through. The Old City is definitely my favorite. It's cool seeing all the vendors and what they have to offer. We weren't buying anything yesterday because it was mostly a tour to get us acquainted with the city, but quite a few of the vendors recognized us as BYU students and shouted out a "Hello BYU!" I guess BYU students really do have a reputation to maintain here and we have to be careful to keep it up.
We exited out a gate on the opposite end of the Old City and came into West Jerusalem. West Jerusalem is the Jewish side, so we saw men wearing the little hats called kippahs and women sometimes wearing scarves in their hair but tied turban style instead. West Jerusalem seemed much more modern and reminded me of a lot of big cities in the U.S. We got there before our buses did, so my group bought ice cream with the money the Center gave us. Boy oh boy do I love ice cream!

The rest of the day was spent struggling not to take a nap, which I successfully accomplished! We had a few more orientation meetings and then did homework. I went to bed pretty early, but sadly I woke up at 4:55 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. Jet lag is tough stuff! Hopefully I sleep in a little later tomorrow.
Today was also our first day of classes! I had Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies. So great! I'm absolutely loving the classes because I get to learn so much about the Bible in so many ways. It's great.

Well, I love you all and I hope you're doing well!
-Audryn-