Just Another Day

This is a picture of the view from my balcony. It's several images stitched together, so it's not perfect, but it's pretty good and sufficient to make you all jealous.

They sure keep us busy. I'm ready for bed by 8pm. I have to pace the floor to keep myself awake as I finish my reading every night! We have to get up around 6am since breakfast is at 6:30, immediately follow by classes at 7:30. At least that is how it is on many days. We are discovering that classes and meals and trips are kind of random and subject to change at any time. We don't have a MWF/TTH schedule like at the university. Since we have field trips in the middle of the week usually, our schedule changes to accommodate wherever and however long we are gone. Shabbat (or the Sabbath) is really the only weekend day we get, and we observe it on Saturday since for most of the city today is a workday. I thought it would be weird going to church on Saturday and having school on Sunday, but it's really not. Every day is just a day. It doesn't matter which day is the Sabbath as long as you respect it as the Sabbath. We don't worship on Sunday because Sunday is significant, but because that is the day we choose to make our Sabbath.

Yesterday was Saturday and we held church here in the auditorium which overlooks the city. The view is one of the best in the city, if not the best. I'm in the student choir and we had our first practice in the morning and then sang in the meeting an hour later. We did pretty good too.
After church several groups of students went out to visit several of the local sites that are open on Sunday since they are either state owned or run by Christian groups. I went to the Garden Tomb, one of the couple of places that claim to be where Jesus died, was buried, and was resurrected. It was really neat. You're walking though the city and then suddenly there is this sign pointing--> Garden Tomb, in the middle of this crazy city mess. A coalition of British Christian churches has developed this little area into a beautiful garden. It's like a little oasis of peace. When you enter it you can't even tell you are in a city. We took the tour this first which was very informative and I'm looking forward to going again sometime.

Today we have classes. They are usually first thing in the morning leaving us lots of free time in the afternoon for free time and homework. So much reading! It's hard to budget our time between work and play. Sorry this is long. I don't like reading long ones, so I'll keep them shorter in the future.