Landed but not quite grounded

I made it safe and sound. My flights were long, but not too long. There were cartoons on the flight, but not enough. And there was a Will Smith movie, but it was Enemy of the State.

Israel is nice. I've been here long enough now to get over the jet-lag and I'm starting to feel pretty OK. I haven't had a chance to really see too much of the city yet, because of jet-lag, not knowing where things are yet, wet/soppy weather, classes, etc. Oh, speaking of wet and soppy... it snowed today! Apparently Jerusalem only gets snow about once every 3 or 4 years and it snowed only a few days after I had arrived. It's been pretty nice.

I did get to go to the city once, but it was kind of a sweeping, walking tour. We saw a few things like the Upper Room, the Kotel (from a distance), the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and the Cardo, but we have a formal class field study on Sunday, so I'll get to learn more about that stuff in greater detail. I'm hoping to get to spend a day in the city soonish. I just hope the rain lets up a little bit in the next couple of days. In the "mist" of this rain, I've been occupying myself with coloring in my Penguins on Parade coloring book.

Check it out:

I've been feeling pretty good. I'm considerably homesick, probably more homesick than I've ever been before, but I'm dealing with it pretty well I think. I've only been out here for several days, but it's that knowledge that I won't see anyone that I know for another 3-4 months that gets me.

My classes are pretty nice. I'm taking the following:
Physical Settings of the Bible
Jewish Thought and Practice
Islamic Thought and Practice
History of the Church in the East

A little bit about them. Physical Settings of the Bible has its ups and downs I think. The "ups" are that we get to travel all over Israel and learn about different places where big things happened. We'll go to the Old City, the Shephelah, Benjamin, the Galilee, Jordan, and a bunch of other places. The "downs" are that the class is kind of tedious. We have to do "impression journals" which I think are a little bit elementary and silly, but who knows? I might enjoy them. Class time contains a lot of superfluous almost interesting information that isn't absolutely related to the lecture at hand. My hope for Jewish Thought and Practice and Islamic Thought and Practice is that I might better understand where disharmony lies between the two. I know at some point in both classes, I will get to hear about each party's respective view on the separation wall and similar issues. I'm a big believer in that in order to achieve peace one really has to first understand the lack of peace. Jewish Thought and Practice is doubly appealing to me in that I aim to learn more about my heritage and to embrace it further into my current faith. History of the Church in the East is another nice class that will teach me about the harmonies and dis-harmonies amongst a body of people with each other, other Christians, and other faiths.

I miss you all very muchly and I'm planning on putting up pictures once I take them. If the weather isn't camera destroying, I'll certainly bring it with me in the following days.

-Daniel