western wall pics

before sunset:



a random day not on shabbat, looking through the fence:

my roommates, corina and lindsay

lindsay and i having to share a chair to watch the men because they were all dancing and singing, while the women were mostly praying. except for the american jewish girls there for birthright

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

Shabbat at the Western Wall

I will have pictures soon. One of which I can't stop looking at, so yeah. you should all be excited.

So awesome to go, except the men's side looked more fun while they were dancing and so happy for shabbat. I said "shabbat shalom!" to a random woman, and she said it back. we found some american girls there for birthright who showed us some songs and we held hands and went around in a circle and pretended like we knew a tiny bit what we were doing as the sun set and the whole open area was so charged with emotion. Then Lindsay and I were seriously TICKED that we hadn't gotten any candy while we were out in the city. we SPRINTED and got some at the last second. so worth it. candy already gone.

oh hey!

So I wrote my family's christmas letter this year, and I haven't hardly talked about the fam yet on this thing, so this could be a bit of an introduction. Also, I liked it, and a lot of you are not on my mother's christmas letter list. (Corrine, don't laugh at me. Laugh with me please. please.) Also, don't miss the pictures i posted in the post below just because this post is long.

Dear friend,

I sit in the bedchamber of my apartment, fourth floor, back right room, in the 11e arrondissement of Paris, composing this letter in response to the news I have received as of late in our family. After spending a significant amount of time in England, my friends have told me I have acquired a manner of speech similar to the Regency Era. Although I cannot hear it myself, I only know that my friends think so. The weather is presently quite dreadful, but I assure you that yesterday was indeed a charming day. As it was my last day in Paris, the sunny weather and blue skies were a pleasant surprise whilst I strolled for the last time near the river, telling myself I was silly, scarcely holding back tears. As I have related to you in previous correspondence, I have very much enjoyed living here for the duration of the season.

Although congratulations are in order for the reception of her driver's license, I must give my condolences to Rachel. While her license means to her that she is now free to roam around the relative area of Eugene, most prominent is the fact that she must now drive herself to each engagement and other errands, spending all too many hours watching the road, while before she could employ herself with other amusements whilst riding as a passenger. I also look forward to her performance as the Sugar Plum fairy in her youth ballet academy's performance of the Nutcracker. I have often remarked at the gracefulness of her feet and the easiness of her smile.

And Lauren, how I long to see her. Why, it was only the other night when I corresponded with her and we spoke of both our homecomings. Can you believe it was just this last Spring that she completed her studies at the university? And we were all so thrilled at her accomplishment, although I must say the commencement ceremony was rather dull, but charming, nevertheless. And now how inconvenient that she lives in Washington, D.C. But I suppose if she says it suits her, then it is for the best. I daresay she may live there for quite a while, seeming to enjoy its diversions and company. I suppose I shall just have to devise a way to visit.

It is strange to think that Cami is just a few hundred miles north of me, enduring few hours of daylight this season in Finland. How she does work so very hard as a missionary there. Why, she has been there a full six months! I am delighted to hear that she continues to work on her proficiency at the guitar, and has been to such exotic places as the North Pole. How I am excessively diverted by her stories of teaching, meditation and service.

I do believe Jess and I stand on opposite sides of the world. How very strange, really. I fancy she is amusing herself and everyone in the vicinity whilst she rides her bike in water reaching her thighs. Fancy opening your door to a missionary and seeing them drenched from head to foot? But I dare say the exotic Malaysians are quite accustomed to such attire. Although I do miss her dreadfully, it is nearly four months until her return, which brings comfort to my poor mother. Jess seems to be working tirelessly and has become quite attached to the Malaysians.

I am glad to hear my mother has once again taken up the post of seminary teacher for these few years. Her nights are cut short as she prepares lessons and teaches those dear high school children. I can't wait to accompany her on her promenades about the hills and trees with dearest Ellie, our lovable canine companion these past two years. Why, it was only last summer when we went on runs on Prince Edward Island with father, Lauren, and Rachel as well. What a charming trip that was. I think of it quite often.

Father continues to be busy, so I hear. Although he does seem to invent time to idle around the golf course on occasion, between working and being the dearest of fathers. When I was lately in London as part of my stay in Paris, he and my mother accompanied me to the countryside, where we enjoyed lovely strolls and tea with clotted cream and scones. I cannot remember a more pleasant time, nor a place I would rather be.

The hour is half gone! I must away to the airport. I await the Christmas season, which I trust will be very enjoyable although it will be quite some time before a reunion with each family member. I am glad to hear of those we have been able to form more intimate acquaintances with, as well as those with whom we have just met. I await your reply, but until then, I bid you a Happy Christmas. Or as the French say it, Joyeux Noël!

Emma

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.

weird things, exciting and smart things.

photo by Camilla Combs, used without permission...I found it on my computer when I was cleaning my desktop...this is in Dingle, Ireland.

one weird thing: I am wearing a watch. I haven't worn a watch consistently since I was in about seventh grade. I did not wear a watch last semester and basically relied on the metro to know what time it was. And when it was really necessary and I was somewhere other than the metro, I would ask strangers. It seems weird now that I can know what time it is any time I want. I have found myself looking at my watch all too often. We'll see how I feel about this whole watch thing in a few months. But, I decided that it is part of my new year's resolution to become a responsible adult. The two most prominent features of this being that I keep a clean room, and keep control of my finances.

one exciting thing: I should have written this on life time goals, but I've always wanted to have a flexible enough schedule to give up my ticket on a flight and get a free flight somewhere else. And it finally worked out! At first I thought I would be spending the night at a hotel and flying tomorrow morning, which would seem pretty awesome to have my own hotel room, but I got a later flight instead, which is less lonely. So I spent a lot of time in the Las Vegas airport, and had kind enough grandparents to come pick me up at 10:45 pm (thanks!) and now I am trying to figure out what to do with my now $244 of Southwest money! Yay! That means a trip to a wedding if someone gets engaged, or maybe I can go to Yosemite with my family, or maybe even visit a sis in DC or a basically sis in NY! the latter would require more amounts of money though...so that probably won't happen. But isn't that exciting?? I got to watch how seductive the Vegas Phantom of the Opera show is over and over, and I got to sit next to a weird lady who drank two cups of coffee with three packets of sugar and two packets of cream in each one, and drink water in between and did weird hand things. it was kind of scaring me.

one smart thing: with a lot of hours to kill at the airport, I figured out that I have taken almost 30 planes in the past year. That's a plane a day for a whole month if some of you can't do math--that's kind of a lot, right? I realized that getting a good night's rest before a flight really isn't that advantageous. Waiting at airports and in airplanes really sucks, so if you're fully conscious, the only advantage is that you can fully appreciate your sucky situation. Because you really don't need brainpower to do anything at airports, I've found it is nice to be in a kind of daze the whole traveling time. Then you sort of don't realize that time is passing because you're basically asleep on your feet, and then you don't really remember how much time you killed looking at pictures over and over and putting people's names on all of the pictures with the "names" application on iphoto... Plus it's way easier to sleep on the plane.