June 23, 2007

Travis' blog

New feature: Anything in bold is an addition by Travis. :)

The morning started with what's becoming tradition: alarm starts going off just past 7, I hit snooze until 7:20 when I finally give in and say, "Hey Travis, it's 7:20." Then hit snooze again until around 7:30 when one or the other of us finally gives in and gets up. Then it's off to breakfast. The only difference in breakfast this morning was the milk being slightly colder. Yesterday we'd gotten a note on our key to see the reservation desk the next day, so, seeing it open, we went in. Turns out that the office is Sunday, which is when we were going to leave for Egypt, so our reservation ended. So basically, she wanted us to pay off our bill today. Not having enough money at the time, we asked when she closed. 2 pm. Hmmm... That was going to be rough with church being 10-1. We assured her we'd work it out.

Back in the room we started our next adventure—helping Travis not stink. Now there is a project. ;) With only what he was wearing on the plane, all the sweat and dirt have started taking its toll. I'm not sure why he hasn't taken me up on my offer of boys t-shirts... The worst is actually his socks. I think they're supposed to be white. They look more... gray and orange. Gross. So, he got in the shower, clothes and all, and started cleaning up. "actually, I took my clothes off but I didn't expect her to know that, we're not that close" Having no laundry detergent, he used shampoo. Ha! Then came time to dry his clothes. We had about a half hour. He stayed in the bathroom with my hair dryer to get his underclothes and pants while I stood on my bed with his shirt in front of the fan hanging on our wall. Needless to say, by the time we had to leave, his shirt was a very cold damp, his socks were still wet, and his pants were sopping. Then we started off our trek across the Kidron Valley to the Jerusalem Center. By the time we got there, all but the seams of his pants near the top were completely dry. He picked good clothes for this climate.

One thing I realized today that I've taken for granted while on the program is the doors on the first floor of the Center. If you can't enter the Center from the bottom, you have to walk up and around a huge hill. It adds on another good 15-20 minutes of steep hill. I looked at the gate and stairs with longing for probably the first time ever. Usually I get to the gate, look up the stairs and think, "Ugh. I don't want to climb more stairs." I guess it's all a matter of perspective, eh?

We got to church just in time. Everyone else was pulling up in their cars and taxis. We had time before church to talk to several of the couples, and the other students and their families that have stayed in Jerusalem for a few days. Travis finally got to meet the Huntingtons. That was fun since it was they that followed Travis' travels all over the world with me, followed second only by the Lees. Church was really good. It seemed to be focused a lot on marriage, dating, divorce, etc. I was surprised at how well Sacrament and Sabbath School tied in together. Because the branch was so small today (being in between groups of students, plus, most of the tourists left after sacrament) we only had a two hour block. That actually worked out quite nicely because it gave us time to jump on the Internet, check my email, post yesterday's blog, and download some upgrades for my computer. Turns out my Photoshop is too old, too, so the new plugin still doesn't work. So we still can't see Travis' pictures on my computer. Pity, really.

We caught a sherut back to the Old City and went straight to Aladdin's (pronounced All-a-deen) to get money. (The rate is up to 4.23 shekels!) For the record, after all the getting lost yesterday, I went straight to Aladdin's today. With everything open, I recognized it again. Haha. :) Then we came back to pay our bill. We asked the lady at reception if we could send a fax to the airport to try to find Travis' baggage since they weren't answering their phone. She let us, then after hearing Trav's sob story, she even called for us so she could listen to the message that we couldn't understand. Turns out that, according to the phone message anyway, they aren't open on Saturdays. So we decided it would be pointless to keep calling today.

We hung out in our room for the next few hours, reading, talking, pretending to sleep and eating our lunch—leftovers from dinner last night. Supplemented with some Club crackers that I had brought from the states and had forgotten about until I packed to come home. I'm kind of glad I forgot about them, because peanut butter tastes much better on them than on onion crackers.

Finally we decided to head back out for another adventure—finding the Dakkok travel agency. With the clues I had been given from our phone call yesterday and the address, I led us straight to Dakkok. And by straight, I mean, I found the corner that it was on. Travis was the one who finally found the Dakkok sign hidden in the other signs. Good eye, Travis. We went in and talked to Willeka. She was very helpful and not helpful at the same time. She made several phone calls, trying to find Trav's luggage. We basically discovered that no one knows where they are. However, another of Dakkok's clients flew in on the same flight that Travis was supposed to fly on, lost their luggage, so they went straight to Egypt w/o luggage and are coming back tomorrow, hoping to find their luggage here. So Willeka has been trying to make sure it gets here. Supposedly, the bags have been sitting at JFK and should be on a cargo plane leaving tonight. We've got our fingers crossed that Trav's bag is with them. She's also looking into a Nile cruise tour down to Aswan. Depending on cost, we might do it. Apparently Aswan is really gorgeous. However, it's also three days, so that cuts into Travis' biblical photography time. I get the feeling however, that if we go, he won't be disappointed by the photos he'll get down there. I don't know, though. I've never been there. She also told us different ideas about how to get into Jordan and how visas work and such. But, other than that, she didn't really give us any organized help about how to get places, where to stay, if there's a group we could hook up with, or anything. She just told us that we could do it relatively inexpensively, good luck, and have fun. Joy. Well, it'll be our next great adventure, I suppose.

Back to pictures. This was another fun night. I like touring the city much better this way, actually. Instead of having certain sites we have to see, we instead just go with the flow, go to sites as we feel like it, while taking our time to get there. It's nice to stop here and there to take a picture and really soak in the city. We never did that before because we were always on such a tight schedule. :D (Go ahead and laugh anyone in Bro. Merrill's class. :D) But we had such limited free time that we took advantage of every moment we had, then as soon as we were done, it was back to the Center as fast as possible to do homework and/or eat. But now, we eat when and where we please, we have no homework to get back to. When we're done touring, it's time for bed. Usually really early. I mean, Trav was asleep by 9:30 tonight. I'm sitting here listening to him snore as he sleeps. Hehehe.

We started tonight at a photography shop. I encountered it for my first time just a few days ago on our last trip as students into the Old City. Tricia had bought a picture there, but it was too big for her luggage, so she wanted the mat trimmed down. Instead, he just gave her a new picture in hard cardboard w/o a mat. But looking at all the black and white prints and all of the fun cameras, I decided to take Travis. He enjoyed it, but spent more time debating on if the prints were original prints or printed digitally. It was entertaining because at the beginning, the guy swore up and down that they were all printed from the original negatives. But by the end, after listening to Trav's shrewd observations, he admitted that his son has started scanning in the negatives and making prints from that. As we left, we found a really nice restaurant called Amigo Emil.* The first thing to catch our eye was the menu. After dinner last night, we've become much more aware of places to eat. Seeing a menu, we decided to stop and look to see if it was any good. Pizza for 25 shekels (5 less than what we got it for the other night). Oooohhh... cheeseburger, fries and a salad for 30 shekels. Not bad. Being in the mood for American food, we decided to try it. Plus, the restaurant looked very nice and clean. Bonus points. Upon entering, we realized that we had underestimated it. It was beautiful. The walls were made of stone instead of being plastered over. It was decorated with black and white photography from our friend across the street that we had just come from. The decor was beautiful, and, turns out, the food was quality to match. I had been a bit skeptical about finding a cheeseburger in the Old City... sounds questionable to me! Very non-kosher. Turns out I was right. It really was cheese, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't hamburger. It couldn't have been.

When Travis started taking pictures inside, it drew the attention of the owner, so we started talking to him. The guy was incredibly nice. He told us how he had gotten the store and about the food and plans for the future. I asked him about the food, but he admitted that he bought the burgers from somewhere else, he didn't prepare them there. So I still don't know what they were made of. And the cheese was... accer? Or something like that. Apparently it's a local cheese. (Any of my dear friends with developed research skills (*cough *cough... you know who you are), I would be greatly appreciative of you finding the real name for said cheese. It's white if it helps... it's still white, even if it doesn't help, actually.) Then another bonus was the dressing. Lemon and olive oil. Oh my, it was sooooo good. So mom, part of Christmas Eve dinner (I'm simply assuming that I'm going to be in charge) will be a salad with this dressing. Heck, let's mix two dishes and do the salad from Jimmy's with this dressing. So, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and mint with a lemon dressing. Finally we looked at the time and, realizing that we wanted to be across the valley for sunset pictures soon, we left. After we paid, we realized they only charged us for the price of the dinner, even though the menu very clearly stated on every page... in bold... that the price did NOT include a 10% service charge. They were so nice that we felt guilty, so I pulled out 10 shekels and went back in to pay it, but the guy refused to take it. We argued for a bit, but he won. ~sigh.

Our hurry was quickly interrupted by an antiques shop with coins. Travis really wanted to find a Widow's Mite, so we decided to stop. It wasn't the right store, though. The guy was Palestinian, and although he was located in the Christian quarter, he had no idea what a widow's mite was. His coins were old, but not old enough. Once he realized more of what we wanted, he told us where we needed to go. He even wrote down the guy's name, his name, and gave us detailed instructions on how to get there. Seriously, who says that people here are sketchy and untrustworthy? Oh sure, they all want to take all of your money, and there are pick pockets, but really, there are so many people who are genuinely good and simply want to help. They give me a much higher opinion of the people of the world. If there are such good people in the midst of one of the most fought over cities in the world, in a country that is considered highly dangerous, then this world hasn't gone to pot as much as some people would like us to believe. Sure, there are evil people all over, but there are even more good people. The evil people just make a bigger bang and make it into our papers. Why can't we have a newspaper that prints stories such as this guy who was willing to send us to another shop in order to find what we wanted? It's something little, but it's something good. Someone really needs to start a newspaper filled with all the good things of the world. Never print the tragedies—we've got enough of those—just the good things that happen all over the world. I think we could easily fill up a newspaper with that. And it would be so nice to read something uplifting in the news for a change. Ok all my PR, Comm, etc. majors... there's your next project. And when it takes off and makes you really rich, all I ask for is a lifetime subscription. Perhaps for my family as well. :)

By this point, we had accepted the fact that we weren't going to make it up to the 7-arches observation point for sunset pictures, so we decided to instead start scouting out spots. So we headed for Lion's Gate, looking for shots of the Center and of the Jewish graveyard. On the way, we found one of the Stations of the Cross that we hadn't gotten a picture of before, so we stopped to take it. This Palestinian boy was sitting in there talking to a girl and started talking to us. He asked us if we were Catholic or Protestant, so we answered Mormon. He lit up. "I've seen many Mormons here lately." I told him that I had been part of the group at the Mormon University, but they had all gone home and I had stayed. So he asked me, "Do you believe in Jesus?" Oh no. I can see where this is going. But I figured that was an innocent enough question. I just had to watch where I was going here. "Yes, I believe in Jesus." "Do you believe He is going to come again?" "Yes." "Why hasn't He come yet, then?" At this point I looked at Travis, having no idea how to answer this in a situation where I couldn't talk about the Gospel, so finally I just answered, "Well, I suppose that's something you're just going to have to ask Him." "Travis talked during this conversation as well" He laughed and told me he liked my answer. He then told a story about helping a priest through the city and asking him the same questions. The priest's answer was simply that it wasn't time for Him to be here yet. He respected that answer, so he liked my answer because it was similar. He then told us about his Grandma's answer. "Actually, this was his mother, his grandmother was already dead. I also liked how he answered the question, "where are your from?" he said from his mother." I like his Grandma already. First, the woman is 99. She sounds like a spunky woman. He had asked her all the same questions. She answered the same for the first two, but for the third said, "He has come back. I saw Him in the West Bank. But the Israeli government doesn't want to give Him a visa." HAHAHAHA! So, we've now promised this boy that if we see Jesus in the West Bank we'll tell him hello from Mr. Oooo. (To pronounce the name, think monkeys... or Tarzan.) We kept going. We got to the Pizzeria place right by our hospice. The guy knows us by sight now. At this point I got a little confused and said we needed to backtrack and Travis said that we needed to turn. So the guy asked us where we were going and we told him Lion's Gate. He agreed with Travis (blast), but then warned us to be very careful down there. He said it with such sincerity and gravity that it shocked me. Wondering what was going on down there I asked, "Why?!" "Because there are two lions waiting for you." Oh man. He really got me on that one. Stinkin' people who can keep such a straight face while saying such non-sensical stuff! (For those who don't know, Lion's gate got its name by the lions carved into the gate.) I mentioned to Travis later that there are four lions down there, but Travis informed me that only two of them are waiting for us. [rolls eyes]

Outside Lion's Gate we looked at the Center for about 2 minutes, then headed down to the Jewish Cemeteries. While Travis took pictures of the Church of Mary Magdelene and the cemetery, I sat down and started reading about Absalom's tomb and surrounding areas. We meandered down a bit for better views, I realized I had been bit by something so I have this huge bite on the front of my ankle, then we kept going to the southern wall. I taught him a bit of history to make up for the photography lessons he had taught me. (Today was polarization, focal points, distortion... and I don't remember what else.) "framing and distortion was actually perspective." We went back into the city at Dung Gate, through the Western Wall. Technically the Sabbath was over (the sun had set) but there were still people worshipping, so we watched for awhile. Then we headed back.

Once back, we talked for a bit, decided to make a tradition of listening to a bit of Harry Potter 6 here and there to prepare for book 7 coming out, then Trav fell asleep on top of his blankets while I wrote in here. It's probably been an hour since I started writing... yup. This post certainly is long. :) Bedtime for Tianna!

*On Al Khanqa Street in the Christian Quarter. I would highly suggest it if you're in Jerusalem! It was delicious! If you enter at Damascus Gate and take the right fork, it's on one of the streets to the right, before you get to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. It's on the right hand side of the street. Right across from a photography shop. But be careful, there are two photography shops on that street. It's the one that doesn't have the giant cameras on display outside. Rather, it has a display of small cameras inside the store.