I went to bed last night at 9:00 on accident. "Wake me up in an hour" I told my mom, and then I felt like I had been hit by a bus and I went and climbed into my own bed and woke up at 4:30 this morning. I couldn't sleep.

Naturally I went to gchat and found another who was suffering from jetlag! Lovely. She ended up calling me and we had a beautiful chat as the sun rose for her in Arizona over the desert, and for me in Oregon over the enormous douglas firs. Just a few days after we watched the sun go down every night for four months over Jerusalem.

Love you Anna!

(picture of Anna taken by me at the Tel-Aviv beach at sunset)

temple at karnak

something you HAVE to do if you ever go to egypt.

deal?

so, i know this is kind of an old song, but oh my oh my. this is what i listened to while i was at the temple at karnak. mmm. listen while you look at pictures.



sorry michael!!! credit to him for this song too :)

(thanks to elissa for this pic!)

this place really is amazing. and i always try really hard not to use that word if i can help it.

guess it can't be helped.

my favorite picture of the semester thus far that i talked about before:

so lucky. i have no idea how everything else is blurry except for that child and his face. i'm in love with this picture. i took it at the western wall while we waited for the jews to welcome in shabbat.

also, it looks like a lot of the next posts will be weighted heavily on the photo-side... hopefully that's okay. if i have anything brilliant to say, i will let you know. haha

black & white and antique: the way to make any picture in the old city look legit.

so. here's the deal...which half of you already know because you have been at the jerusalem center...

pictures take forever to upload at the center and lauren was really nice to help me last post, and this post i am at hebrew university, where my online picture thingy is NOT blocked. but, these trips won't be THAT frequent, so i'll have to post smaller pictures and you can click on them to look at them bigger!

but for now, indulgence is in order for some of these huge pics...(yep mommy, pics.)

at dome of the rock:

old city streets:

some cool graffiti and some dad getting his trash kicked by his children





roof of a building in the old city



prayers stuck into the western wall:



so, pointing my lense at children. my favorites:

hebrew girls learning to pray at the western wall:


at the western wall (it's behind me):



yep, i was following them around:



cutest palestinian kids that waved and sang to us and asked us our names and told us they loved us. cutest. children. ever.



palestinian kids dancing during a soccer break or something. we watched them conspicuously from the rampart walls for a while:



more palestinian children/teenagers:



pretty girls in the group:
i'm thinking of selling this to canon.

Old City Pictures

that's what this post is.

i went with two other people who had huger cameras than i and we meant to go together so we could take pics.

unfortunately, i think three hundred million people had the same idea before me. palestinian children know how to yell, "no picture!!!"

we had fun taking turns taking pictures of narrow alleys and getting out of each others way, and apologizing for stepping into shots, and sprinting to catch up or wait, and staying in too tight of a group because we were scared but we were also claustrophobic.

on the upside, a merchant told me he loved me.

So...today Rachel and I decided to have a photo shoot.

I made her bring her point shoes.

Rachel is my little sister who is sixteen and makes me nervous when she's driving but I try so hard not to act nervous and try to be supportive because I hated it (and still do hate it) when my sisters get nervous when I'm driving. But she actually is a pretty good driver. And she's kind of good at ballet. Today in Eugene it was freezing and foggy, and we had talked about doing a photoshoot yesterday or the day before or something. We decided it would be really great to take some pictures in the fog, so I made Rachel wash her hair and change her clothes after we went running and I also made her bring some old point shoes. We both felt awesome because we felt like Rachel was a real model, braving cold and discomfort like the models on ANTM. Her fingers were so numb that it was almost impossible to tie the knots on the ribbons of her point shoes. And her toes were completely numb. But it was so much fun I think for both of us to pretend we were at a real photo shoot! We were so cold at the end that we jumped into the car and then jumped into the hottub. mmm

And also, I was taking pictures of Rachel, and I think I may have said at one point: "Rachel, I am so jealous that you can make your body do that!" and then I remembered she has been practicing making her body do that for about the last eight, nine, ten years? or something? Take a look...

Thanks for a fun day Rach!

clear skies and a wheel to sit behind

on monday, all of my friends had finals or studying monopolizing their lives, so i decided to strategically run into people in the library. i couldn't believe i couldn't find anyone i knew on all five floors, and usually i see way too many people i know there while i am dressed in sweats. (mother-this is not that often.) anyway, so i settled down behind a table, pulled out my computer and earbuds, and settled down with a furrowed brow to...write on my blog. yep.

when i woke up tuesday morning, i decided the library was out. and when i walked outside on to 500 n, it was the most beautiful december day, and i seriously was skipping down the sidewalk, smiling so huge because it was so pretty. i could finally see the mountains and the sky, and the snow was still white. i made whitney go on a drive up the canyon with me. my grandparents were so nice to let me borrow their huge white van! i missed driving while i was in paris. the metro is fun, but public transportation starts to get annoying sometimes, and i was starting to want to be able to drive places when i wanted to go there...it was nice.

also, lucky whitney for being with me in pretty places when i have my camera. people will think i'm obsessed with you or something...

(yep...that's my jacket.)

also, look who greeted us on our way up to sundance. I don't think i've ever seen this many deer in utah ever:

some things to drool over...

chatsworth

my favorite estate i've ever been to.

i guess some people think it was jane austen's inspiration for pemberley

and they used it in the 2005 film verion of pride and prejudice.

i've never seen a place so happily situated






the only sad thing was that it was having restoration work done:



i did my best with my imagination to make it go away, as well as using the cropping tool on iphoto. but really, it was a good thing that the grounds were not under reconstruction. now that would have been a real misfortune. would it not?

had to get some documentation that i was there.