May 2, 2007

So the flight was relatively uneventful. I think I sort of saw the ocean, but it was really cloudy and we were really high up. It was pretty cool looking. I had a window seat, but I was right at the front of the wing, so I could only see parts. Plus, when the sun finally came up, it reflected very brightly upon the wing and about blinded me. However, as we got near unto Tel Aviv and I could finally distinguish land, I assumed that the blue stuff next to it was officially water, not sky. But then again, is the Mediterranean considered ocean? Hmmm...

The poor flight attendants... apparently this was a really hard flight for them. Everyone was so rude. At one point, one was coming through to pick up our trash and the lady sitting a seat away from me handed the attendant her plate and said "Thank you." Seems simple enough, right? The flight attended stopped in her tracks, looked over and said, "Thank you for saying thank you. You're the first one this whole trip." Then she talked about how she thought one other trip was the hardest (I forget where to, but I think it's somewhere in India maybe?) but had been proven wrong because this one was by far the hardest one. Then she added, "Thank goodness for all these college kids. If it weren't for them, I think we all would have lost our minds." Ahhh... how sweet! But seriously, I felt so bad for the poor attendants. It was confirmed when we were leaving the plane and another attendant told us, "Thank you so much. You guys were great. Really. You don't know how great you guys really are." And also, as they were telling us over the intercom that the flight was over and welcome to Tel Aviv and all that jazz, they added, "And we'd like to wish our BYU students good luck on their study abroad."

We were met by Bro. Merrill, his son, Matt, and Bro. Whitchurch at the airport where we squeezed into two busses. Now I understand why they only wanted us to bring one suitcase. Even then, we had to stack some in the aisles cuz we ran out of room. The drive to the Center was amazing. It was all uphill. I've got some great pictures of architecture. And I had fun pretending that I could read Hebrew. :) haha! Isn't that a joke... We got to the Center, and holy hannah, can I just tell you that it's gorgeous? There are 20,000 rose bushes. Not to mention all of the other landscaping. Then you walk in. The building is so clean and gorgeous. There is limestone everywhere, and wood that complements everything. First things first—Dinner. You have to have priorities. :D I had the fish—brought down from the Galilee. It was really good. Then there were veggies and breads and I can't remember what all else. Except for the dessert. Oh my. It was sent from heaven. We're not exactly sure what it is, but our best description ended up being something like, "Key lime pie, but w/o the crust. And lemon, not lime. In a cool whip/ice cream fashion." That probably makes no sense, but just trust me on how good it was. Then it was off to orientation. Here they welcomed us and introduced us to the faculty while all of us tried desperately not to fall asleep. Mostly in vain. Then they split us up into our two different religion classes (we all have the same classes except religion. That's split up between Bro. Merrill and Bro. Whitchurch. I have Merrill.) where they gave us the brief version of the syllabus, gave us homework, then gave us little fanny packs with headsets in them (you were right, Carli) to wear on field trips. Then, even though we were all falling asleep, they refused to let us go to bed. Rather, we split up again and went on a tour of the Center. It is really neat, I'll give it that. But when you're that tired, and walking through 8 levels of stairs, by the end, you're simply ready to go to bed. Then, I'm down on the 3rd floor (keep in mind that you enter on the 8th level and go down to the 1st level) and the elevator only goes down to the 5th. So they had brought our luggage down as far as the 5th level, but we had to carry it down from there. And we weren't allowed to roll our luggage across the chipped limestone. So we literally had to carry it. Luckily, we have amazing boys in our group, and they carried luggage down for all the girls. Finally, it was time to unpack and go to bed. Oh, but don't forget to do all your homework first!