Bear Lake & a Joke

 Instead of posting about Utah Lake like I always seem to do (sorry!) I am posting about Bear Lake.
And I like Bear Lake a whole lot more.

 Every trip includes Tennis, shakes in the town, swimming, and card games.
Thanks for letting us borrow your kids, Kirsten.

Paradise I tell you.

P.S. Here is a joke I heard over the weekend from my little sis:
Why can white girls only hang out in odd numbers?
Because, "I can't even"! 

Nostalgia

 Somehow I managed to do everything I wanted to do in DC during my 72 hours I had there.

Cray cray, I know

Although I do have to say it was pretty odd when I got to my hotel room and realized 

I had it all to myself. Naturally, I slept in the middle of the bed and tried to take up as 

much room as possible. I've slept on a twin bed my whole life! so the king was awesome :)

Everything about DC brought back nothing but good memories for me. 

I coud list a million things about it to you all, but I'll spare you those lovey-dovey details. 

On the day these pictures were taken I took some SJ time to walk the monuments.

They're all so beautiful and, of course, monumental.

My favorite one is the Jefferson Memorial (the one with the Dome),
and I have about 50 pictures on my camera to prove it!

 Stay tuned for DC Pt. 2

The Mediterranean Sea and other events

We're home! Galilee was a great time, but I was missing on Jerusalem. There is something about the JC that feels homey to me now. Seeing the Dome of the rock peek over the hill is the same feeling I get when I'm driving home from a long vacation and see the "Y" proudly shining on the mountains back in Provo.

Yesterday we went to Caesarea (an ancient city on the coast off the Mediterranean Sea). The second we got out of the bus I ran to the sea and touched it with my finger (so I could say I touched the Mediterranean Sea, right?). It was actually kind of a difficult experience seeing as I didn't want to get wet. The water would come and we'd touch it then run away as fast as we could. Oceans are great.

I'm excited to live out the rest of my three weeks in Jerusalem.
There is still so much to do in this great city before I leave!

Turkish Delight

Just in case you guys were getting sick of pictures I made a video from our week in Turkey

Enjoy!

Turkish Delight from Sarah Jane Curtis on Vimeo.

Turkey, overall

Hey friends, I'm home!

I'm so used to the Middle East that experiencing a taste of Europe was
quite enjoyable. Everyday the kids and I at the center become more and more obsessed
with each other. I don't know what I'm going to do when it comes time to leave the
Jerusalem Center. 

The world is an amazing place. Every part of it has something beautiful to offer.
Every culture brings something new and exciting. We're all just a bunch of people going
about our daily business under the same big sun. I love it. 

Now it's back to the books; luckily it's nice enough that I can do my homework outside.

I call it a Turkish Delight

Ephesus

Assos

Riding up the tram to a site

Magnum bars...where have you been all my life?

Looong bus rides through the country of Turkey leave me with a couple of options.

1. sleep

2. read

3. make a fort

4. get everyone to make a music video

I was getting sick of options 1 & 2 and we didn't have blankets for option 3,
so I went with option 4. 

(music video to come)

We've done SO much these past two days it is impossible for me to document everything.
 Everywhere we've been has been beautiful.
Yes, I've seen a lot of Roman ruins,

but the combination of the people, weather, sites, ocean and nature have left this girl feeling happy.

Istan"bowl"

 

 Its a tan bull

Instant bowl

Istan "bowl"

Its a bull

It's a never ending pun-fest...

GUYS. I love Turkey. What is this country and where did it come from?

Before this moment in my life the only thing I knew about Turkey was that Memet Okur was from here.

One of the things I noticed after my first day in Turkey is that there are as many mosques in Istanbul as there are churches in Provo. The mosques are lovely too. We went shopping in the grand bazaar and I got some beautiful bowls. We visited the Blue Mosque, took a ferry across the Bosphorus Strait, and ate some real good Turkish Delight. 

Oh Turkey, you're so much better than just Thanksgiving.


Oh and P.S. we bumped into some tourists from China today.
We caught them trying to sneakily snap some pictures of us (something I relate to...story of my life...trying to secretly take pictures of people). We welcomed them to our group and had a nice photo shoot. 

Turkey

source

”Travel is the best antidote to prejudice, bigotry, and ignorance.” -- Mark Twain

Tomorrow the kids and I are headed to Turkey for a week! 

Get excited.

Good times in Jordan

Jordan far exceeded my expectations. I was thinking, “Cool. I’ll get to see Petra and the rest will probably be kinda cool too”. Um, yeah. I was very wrong. The rest was much more than just kinda cool.

I took a ton of pictures. I wish I could share them all, but I could only pick a few so that I wouldn’t bore my blog readers with pictures that probably all look the exact same to them. Your welcome. However, I’m still going to end up sharing tooons of pictures. So bare with me here. 

We left on Monday. Luckily, every one got through customs without any trouble and we made it to the country of Jordan! We went to Mt. Nebo (no pictures I took were worthy of making this post) then to Madaba. Madaba is believed to be the place that John the Babtist was beheaded.

  

We drove to our hotel and we were greated by camels, flute players, Orange Juice and bread. First class treatment…not bad.  After dinner the chefs, staff, and students threw an unexpected dance party to the beat of Jordanian drums.

We woke up bright and early Tuesday morning and began our walk to PETRA! We are talking one of the seven world wonders here. One of the best parts? There were camels. EVERYWHERE! I love camels. I just love ‘em. Interesting fact: camels can growl; who knew?

On Wednesday we went to the King Abdullah Mosque. All of the women had to wear scarves to cover our hair and had to wear cape/dress things. We learned about the religion of Islam. It was interesting to see how similar their religion is to mine, but so different at the same time. 

Highlight of the day was Jerash. You are probably wondering, “What is Jerash?” (I say this because that is what I was saying until I saw it). Jerash is one of the best reserved Roman cities. They gave us some free time to “rome” the streets of Jerash. The weather was perfect and I felt like I was living in the Disney movie Hercules. 

Oh yeah, I also ate one of THE best pitas. Hot, fresh, delicious, topped with hummus. I was pretty much loving my life. Until I ate so many I felt like my life would soon be over due to hyperpitaness (a disease common to Jerusalem Center students; right, Doctor Chapman?).

 I went to a safeway on Wednesday night and bought oatmeal! Living without Oatmeal makes me miss America, but on Thursday we were fed KFC…a reason for me to remember why I don’t miss America.

Thursday morning we went to downtown Amman to a Roman Theater. We sang hymns as a group. After that we headed to the Jordan River.  The Jordan river was very muddy, flies were flying around, and the scenery wasn’t too picturesque. But Brother Harper reminded us that it is a good example of Christ descending below all to the lowest point in the world—typologically and literally—from a state of perfection to something as common and lowly as a muddy river.

So now it’s back to reality. Actually, no I don’t think I’ll be back to Reality until April. Now it’s back to normal life in Jerusalem (which means school tomorrow). Luckily we have the weekend coming up J

Props to who ever made it this far and read everything.