Jerusalem is...

AMAZING!

I'm seriously obsessed with this city. I'm in love with the view from the center, with the markets, and falling in love every day with the food.

Let us start with the view. I can see the entire city from almost every room that I'm in. The chapel, my room, the classrooms, the cafeteria, and various other balconies. Last night the moon was huge and a burnt orange color. It was beautiful and added to all of the other lights of the city.

The markets are so fun too. We went on a walk yesterday and the entire time we were going through the (very crowded) markets the shop owners would ask us if we were Mormons. I'm not sure if they can tell we're the Mormons because we're a large group of white loud college kids or because we have bright green backpacks for our water- but both are dead give aways as to who we are.

So the food- my personal biggest strugglem, as a lot of you know. You'll all be glad to hear that I'm actually finding myself a fan of the food here. There's a really delicious spread here that's really good on pita. It's basically seasame seed butter but with lots of sugar and probably some honey in it. It kind of tates like a Nature Valley oats and honey bar. They feed us all kinds of food here at the center so we're never bored. Today when we went out to the city we got some shawarma and it was delicious. It's kind of like a gyro but the American version would probably be a burger. It was a pita filled with veal, chicken, and lamb shaved meat and humus and then I added the yogurt sauce which is like a cucumber-y garlic-y sauce that's really delicious. The next thing to try is the local falafel! In short the food is amazing- the brownies are like fudge, the ice cream tastes like marshmallows, and the yogurt tastes like pudding. Thank goodness we walk everywhere.

In other good news: I bought a camera!!! Now I just have to get over my fear of charging my computer and upload them. I may have to go to the Hebrew University next door to do that.

Also please email me! I'm having a wonderful time here but I still love talking to people from home. I will get pictures up ASAP- I realize just reading about Jeru is kind of boring when you can't see it.