Just a quick update

So just as a disclaimer.. I'm new to this whole blogging thing, so I really don't know what I'm doing. :)

With that said, figured I'd post a little update. I left Salt Lake 5 am Tuesday morning and got to the Jerusalem Center around 5:30 pm Wednesday evening. I'm still adjusting to everything, but I'm absolutely LOVING it.

Yesterday we took a quick tour of the city to get acquainted with everything. We went through the markets, stopped by the Austrian Hospice, the Church of the Holy Sepluchre, explored West Jerusalem... and so much more! (I can't recall everything :X )

This morning we had our first day of classes, which were awesome. It is a little hard to concentrate when the whole wall is glass and you can see the entire city, but it's also pretty tight when your Old Testament professor can point outside to something and refer to what he is talking about. I'm stoked to learn about this culture and more about the Old/New Testament and truly just take in everything that this area has to offer!! 

This afternoon we had free time so we all took off to the city to explore. We went and did the Via Dolorosa, which is what is believed to be the walk that Jesus Christ did while carrying his Cross. Every Friday you can go and follow the Friar fathers (monks), so that is what we did. They would stop at each of the 14 stops and talk about it in a few different languages. It was so awesome to go and see all different people from everywhere around the world come and worship in their own unique way. There were so many ministers of different faiths, and just people in general. I wished it wasn't quite as crowded, but it was still an AMAZING experience. It's been unreal to walk that path and to recall the events that took place there. It's just so crazy to think that I was walking exactly where Christ had walked.

After we finished that we went exploring a bit more and came across Queen Helen's Cistern, which is like a well deep under the city that has been there forever! It was almost cave-like and you had to take a skinny stairwell down. We had a fairly large group at that point so we sang "how great thou art" because we were told the reverberations were amazing... and BOY WERE THEY!! It sounded like nothing else I've ever heard. (Plus it helped that we have a lot of vocal performance majors who could spice it up a bit) So yeah, it's been pretty awesome!! I definitely want to go back there. Taking the time to think, worship, sing, or anything else is such a neat experience and there spirit is so apparent during those moments!

 Tomorrow (Saturday) will be our first Sabbath here... so can't wait for that!!