Do I *have* to be creative with this tonight??

You wouldn't think I'd be old enough to be losing my memory, but I sat down to write this post and could not for the life of me remember anything I did this week after girl's night. Luckily for you, though, I've told Chris what I've been up to throughout the week and he was able to refresh my memory, so I *think* I remember it all. No promises for the quality of this post, though--my brain is definitely not running at full capacity right now!

On Monday, I'm pretty sure I did service. Yep, I think that was it. I was planning on going into the city (or maybe I was planning on staying inside to write an essay and take a nap--it seems to be a moot point, anyway), but there was supposed to be a group of 4 people going out to serve at the Princess Basma Center for Disabled Children that day, and only 1 person had signed up. Being the chairman/coordinator of this whole thing, that left me running around for 30 minutes trying to get people to sign up so we wouldn't have to cancel last minute, and in the end I could only find 2 other people to go, so I went myself. It really was a lot of fun! You go there, and it's a group of about 10 children with their moms. The ages probably range from 2-6 or so, and they all have some sort of disability (mental, physical, etc.). For the first 15-30 minutes we weren't completely sure what to do: they started out throwing balls to each other, and then they sang some Arabic children's songs together, and neither of those activities seemed to require our help (especially since they all had their moms with them). For the last 30-45 minutes, though, they pulled out Legos, and it was fun building things with the kids. :) I mostly played with a little girl named Shema who was probably about 4 years old and who couldn't walk. She had these long curly pigtails that were so cute, and she knew all her body parts in English (as her mom had her demonstrate to me). She talked almost completely in Arabic, though, so mostly I just smiled and agreed with her when she said things.

There was one little boy who was hilarious, though! Well... in a way. We dumped out the Legos in front of the kids, and this cute, chubby little cross-eyed boy with glasses who was probably about 3 years old immediately started making guns and shooting us. He kept marching like a soldier, too, and sometimes he'd march so enthusiastically that he'd lose his balance and fall down. At first I wasn't really sure what to make of it, but then I thought of my brother Jordan who didn't have weapon toys when he was little, so he'd make guns out of hockey sticks and bow and arrows out of clothes hangers, and decided that it's probably just something that all little boys do. His story is a little sadder than most little boys, though, because he came from Gaza, and I guess he and his mother are refugees. He kept shouting things at us in Arabic, and though his mom said that most of it was just little-kid gibberish, there was one point when she told us he was saying, "Hold up your hands above your head and ask for peace!" ...So I guess I really don't know what to make of it all, but he was very cute.

On Tuesday I went to the Church of the Flagellation and the Sisters of Zion convent. Umm... the church was very pretty. Actually, the courtyard was beautiful. There's not much else to say, though. We were going to go out for pizza in West Jerusalem, but one of the girls in our group was expecting a call from her boyfriend, so we had to go back instead (and let's face it, I really can't begrudge her that!).

Today we had a field trip to Hezekiah's Tunnel, which was a lot of fun! Hezekiah's Tunnel was built to give Jerusalem a water source during a military siege because its main spring was located outside the city walls, and there's still water running through, so we got to wade through it. It was another one of those activities that are probably not good for the claustrophobic, though, because my height's pretty average and I still had to duck through a lot of it, but we enjoyed it. :) We even turned off our lights during parts of it just because it was a lot more exciting to try and navigate it through the dark (though in hindsight that may not have been the best plan--I think I bruised my hand when it suddenly decided to make a 90 degree turn. It was worth it, though!). The tunnel leads to the Pool of Siloam, which has been excavated out so you can see the actual steps that Jesus and his disciples would have walked on. It's one of the few places where you can actually say that you walked where Jesus walked, which was really quite incredible.

After the field trip I went with a group who was going to the Dome of the Rock, though we stopped by Schindler's grave first (the one from Schindler's List). His grave was pretty easy to recognize--it was the one *covered* with stones. Tradition here is to put a rock on a grave instead of a flower, though I'm not sure why. I've heard it's because flowers wilt while rocks pretty much stay the same over time, but I think there might be a deeper meaning to it than that. I might be wrong, though. Yeah, so after the cemetery we hit the Dome. The Dome is only open to visitors from 12:30-1:30, and you're not allowed inside the building itself. It was cool to walk around and take pictures, though. Really, what I thought was the coolest part was knowing that we were walking on the Temple Mount. Sometimes I really wish I could see the temple there instead of the Dome. Apparently the Temple built in Herod's days was 1/3 higher than the Dome is today, and it probably would've been a really impressive sight. Darn those Romans...

Once we'd been kicked out of the Dome, we mostly meandered around the Old City. I got some pizza (finally!), and a wicked sweet t-shirt with six Coca-Cola bottles done Andy Warhol-style (with Hebrew writing, of course!). I'm wearing it right now, in fact, and I have to say that I am stylin'. I'll have to show you a picture sometime. :)

Speaking of pictures, I still need to go through the obnoxious process of borrowing somebody's computer to move pictures from my memory card to my USB drive so I can then post them to the blog... so I don't have pictures right now. They're coming, though! Hopefully this weekend before Jordan (oh, P.S., we leave for Jordan next Monday).

That's it from me. Good night!