Seis de Mayo!!

Yes, yes, I know, it's not quite what you would expect, but since most of the cinco de mayo in Mexico happens on the 6th here, that's when it is celebrated here. The chefs even made us mexican food for dinner, although all the food still had the middle eastern spices, so it wasn't quite the same, but it was pretty good none the less. It was actually pretty funny when we found out that they were cooking Mexican food, it started a whole revolution among the activites committee and now we are having a fiesta tonight in honor of our Mexican friends. Oh the things we do!

Today was greatly entertaining. One of our classes was canceled this morning and so we had just enough time to go to the Rockefeller Museum before lunch and Hebrew class. The museum was full of a bunch of little trinkets that didn't have explinations for them, all separated by their time period of course. It was still really amazing to see all of the little things that people would spend the time making back in the day, all of the talent that people had too. They also have a fragment of skull that comes from the oldest found man, who is about 250,000 years old! It was in pretty good shape considering! There were actually some really cool sarcophagi there from all over the worlds history, along with this giant stone foot. Pictures were not allowed in the museum, but I did take a couple of the Egyptian stuff just for you Emma! They had a bunch of relics that where clearly Egyptian in origin, but had been found in digs in Isreal area. It was quite the collection, that's for sure!

The afternoon was spent skipping the studing that I probably should have done and going instead to the west side and trying to see the Tomb of Kings. This is supposed to be one of the big things to see here in Jerusalem, but they changed thier hours without telling any of the guidebooks, and so it was not open when we thought it was going to be. The darn kids that have that place as a backyard were not any help either, so instead we went to the St. Georage Episcopal church that was across the street and enjoyed the great gothic style chruch that is was. It was a good break from the byzantine that we normally see, and the wood work was great. Not to mention we found this little hidden spiral staircase that didn't really go anywhere (we coudln't open the little metal door at the top) but it was fun none the less because is was so small and we had to use our flashlights to see to get up that far! It was an great church to say the least, and as far as everything goes, i'm pretty stoked to see all of the churches around here.

The next stop was one for the books, I actually got a McDonalds icecream cone in Jerusalem! It was the only reasonably priced thing there at 1.9 shekels, the meals were like 30 shekels (almost $8)! and that was just for the base burgers, nothing fancy! It could be because it is kosher meat, and that might make it's cost up the whazoo, i don't know, but i don't think that i'll be getting a happy meal while i'm here, that's for sure! And that was pretty much my day, i don't think that there is much else to it. The mexican party was fun, there was a great dance afterwards, and so it really did feel like BYU!

Oh, and one more thing, there were some fireworks going off in the city, here on the East side, and they told us before that for parties, especailly at weddings that fireworks were popular and would happen, so we wern't nervous or anything. The second time they went off me and a coupld other guys went on our porch to watch, and one fo the security guys was walking by and he said, "don't worry, don't worry...it's not the war, it's not the war!" and then just walked off! I tell you what, our security guys here are funny, they are fun to play with and great for asking questions about the city. Anyway, i have to go read the Bible... so much reading to do, and so much time to do other things!!