Wednesday, January 4, 2012

So my blog isnt working properly, its all still in hebrew....weird! i have tried everything!!! so i guess i will type this and then post it later. I had a great time driving with my cousin David and then staying in his apartment before the meeting. David is such a chill guy! Then at the orientation i learned a ton more about what to expect from the trip. I got the impression though that the entire purpose of scaring us into being obedient to the programs rules. I also got hte feeling that the group before us, like in the fall, was a bunch of helions! They also pulled us four group leaders in front of all of hte students and made sure eveyone knew who we were. Kinda funny though-we were never trained or even walked through what was going to happen through the entire travel there anymore than anyone else on the trip. We were just there in case something bad happened to be the guy the airline talks to, to work things out. So when we got to each point to the trip people would look to me and say with their faces "now what?". Ha! i dont know! so most of the time i just made it up as i went along, and it seemed to work....we're here right? So the flight: super long-for one. i got up at like 5:30 and its 9:30pm here and i still havent slept a wink. Im not really tired though, i guess thats not really that surprising coming from me. So the first flight was 4 1/2 hours to new york, then there was a 6 hour layover in New York City, then the flight over to Tel Aviv was actually pretty short than usual it was 9 1/2 hours rather than twelve. I guess we had a very strong tail wind that just got us there faster. it was on a 747!!! the plane was HUGE!!  That last flight was filled with so many interesting people, the kind of people i hope i will get to meet and undersatand more. there was like at least 4 movies that played: MoneyBall, Crazy Stupid Love, and two others that arent really worth mentioning. i spent most of my time reading my book. It is an interesting experience being the only one awake in the cabin of the plane. Not going to lie, i was tempted a few times to play some hilarious pranks on some of my fellow students but...i didnt. I filmed almost the entire experience. ok, so when we got off the plane i thought it would be cool if i filmed the entire experience getting out of the airport, going through customs, getting my baggage, and then stop it when we met our bus driver to jerusalem. i was going to fast forward in the movie the parts where i wasnt doing anything and stop and show stuff along the way. So im having a grand time waiting to go  through customs, meeting random people throughout the way, having fun and all! Then its my turn and i walk up to the customs agent with this dumb camera pointing at her and then all hell breaks loose and everyone starts asking me why im filming the custom agent!!! they take my camera and delete the long 20-25min video of getting off the plane. i felt so retarded-that should be such a brain dead thing to think about. Also i made two israli friends while i was on the flight. One was this kid named daniel from the israli army who is going to georgia tech, i might meet up with him later when we go through tel Aviv again. Then i met this hilarious guy while i was waiting to go to the bathroom. his name was azim. I really wish you could see how expressive he was with his voice! it was so easy to laugh with him. i was telling him why there was such a large group of americans going to israel, i explained that we were mormons from the "mormon college" in jerusalem. then he started asking about what we believe and then i told him we couldnt tell him anything other than we believed in christ. IT WAS SO HARD TO TURN HIM AWAY LIKE THAT!!!! I taught a couple muslims on my mission and i came pretty close with a few of them but its going to be really hard to turn off my "missionary" mode for these next few months. anyway so he says to me: "how many people are in your group?" 83. "How many are girls?" 50. "Heeeey! thats good for you my friend! you can get alot of action while you're there!" haha! it was about then i had to go back to my seat and i didnt see him again. Also he kept pointing to one of the girls in my group and calling her my girlfriend. it really didnt matter how may times i corrected him, she was my girlfriend. and that is that! haha! After we got through customs it was a 40min bus ride to the jerusalem center. Ill tell you more about the center tomorrow but one thing that really surprised me about the whole thing: It is SO GREEN here! its so breathtaking. The teachers said its only green like 3 months out of the year and we get abhou two of those months!!! pretty cool eh? ill tell you guys more about everything tomorrow.

2 comments:

  1. hey handsome, sooooo glad you made it there safely. thanks for the trip travel log. Love you MOM

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  2. Davis, we are all envious of you on this trip! What an amazing opportunity for you to immerse yourself in their culture and to walk where Jesus walked! WOW! Make the most of it! We are all praying for your success! Eternal love, Dad

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