It has been a while...

So between catching up on sleep from the Turkey trip and trying to learn the material for three midterms (Old Testament, Hebrew, and Judaism) it has been a fantastic but crazy week.

Yesterday, a group of us went to Tel Aviv (which is a modern city-skyscrapers and all....that is on the coast) to the beach.  This beach was beautiful.  It is on the Mediterranean Sea so the water wasn't too bad, and the sand was not rocky at all.   I planned this excursion to celebrate me officially turning 20 years old.  Woot woot!  I'm officially out of the teen years.  So I thought to start a whole new decade properly a beach trip sounded perfect:)  All of the girls and I set up in a gazebo on the beach and stayed there all day.  For dinner, we met up with others from the JC (Jerusalem Center) for hamburgers at a place called "Moses."  I've seriously been craving a cheeseburger which you can't find in Jerusalem really because it goes against Jewish Kosher rules!  It was worth it even though it cost about 20 bucks (around 54 shekels)!  I didn't get too sun burnt but I know lots of people are hurting today.  Yeah for sunscreen and aloe.

I'm in the process of writing about the Turkey trip which is taking forever, but I'll post it soon.  Don't be too excited because it might end up being a novel in length.

Here are some pics though from the trip!

Sara (my roomie for this trip) and I by the Trojan horse from the movie "Troy"..maybe Brad Pitt touched it haha:)

Aegean Sea

In the Blue Mosque

At a Sultan's Palace

Mosques everywhere!

The Bridge that connects Asia to Europe

Cruise on the Bosphorus 

At Troy....fyi that is not the real horse from the story...

At Assos in the temple of Athena

Flowers at Pergamum...known in the scriptures as the "throne of Satan"

This theater was cool because it was vertical instead of horizontal across the hill

Caught in his PJs

Ephesus!...probably one of my favorite spots that we went to

Ephesus:  with the Library facade in the background

Hagia Sofia