DU Does the Holy Land

So, before I tell all you in blog land about my adventures in the West Bank the past two days, I want to talk about last weekend. I had been feeling pretty homesick about Denver and all of my lovely friends there, but luckily I was about to get a little piece of Denver in Israel because the wonderful Katrina came to visit from France! I hadn't seen Katrina since the very beginning of the summer when she came to visit me in California and we had a great few days visiting Disneyland, the beach, and all of the exciting things Irvine has to offer.

Katrina arrived late on Wednesday night, but we still ended up staying up until 3AM just chatting, catching up, talking about all of our adventures abroad thus far. Despite how late we stayed up, we woke up at a reasonable time, and set out for the Shuk HaCarmel. The Shuk HaCarmel is the big market in Tel Aviv and probably one of the biggest markets in Israel. You can literally find ANYTHING at the Shuk, clothes, food, household items, you name it, you can probably find it at the Shuk, and for pretty cheap too. We wandered around the shuk for a while, going back and forth and back and forth getting little gifts for Katrina's friends/family, things for ourselves, and mostly just looking at every little thing they had there. After we had seen everything, we left the Shuk and headed to the only other thing you HAVE to go to when you're in Tel Aviv, the BEACH! Of course there are more things to do in Tel Aviv, but since Katrina and I only had one day, we had to hit the highlights. Katrina was so stoked to see the beach and swim in the Mediterranean, it was really fun to see. One of the great things about the Med, especially at the end of the summer, is that the water is pretty warm, at least it doesn't make your feet freeze when you go in. We chilled at the Med for a while before needing to head back to the train station and make our way back to Beer Sheva.

Back in Beer Sheva we had dinner with Sam and Abby before starting to get ready for our Halloween Extravaganza that night at Adam and Kristina's apartment. The party could only be described as ridiculous. Of course everyone was in costume, anything from a 1920's garden party attendee to a panda to a stereotypical Israeli couple. Without including the nitty gritty details, the evening ended with a lot of drunk people, a broken Dora the Explorer pinata, and some stitches. Yep. Stitches. Don't worry he's okay, but what's a Halloween party without a little injury?

Friday morning Katrina, Joey, and I woke up, got our stuff ready for the weekend, and headed out to the bus stop to catch the lovely 470 to Jerusalem. Oh Jerusalem. I love that city, and it was especially fun seeing it with Katrina who had never been before. We couldn't see much on Friday since things were starting to close and we wanted to make it back to Joey's before Shabbat started and public transportation stopped running. We relaxed, had Shabbat dinner with some of this friends, and stayed up playing cards, listening to really random music, and eventually watching Boondock Saints before crashing.

Saturday: our day walking around Jerusalem. So since it was Shabbat, we had to walk everywhere! It ended up being pretty nice though, even though we did a lot of back tracking and walking in the same place we had gone before. In just a few hours of walking we managed to see the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, King David's Tower, the Arab Markets, 4 different gates into the city (Damascus, Dung, Zion, and Jaffa), and most of the 4 quarters. I'd say we accomplished quite a lot. I wish I had picture to share with y'all but they are all on Katrina's camera and I have yet to get a hold of them. After walking around a TON, we returned to Joey's place, ordered dinner, ate with his roommate Adam, and just hung out like we had the night before.

Despite it being unfortunate having to say goodbye to Katrina again, it was such a great weekend, with a little piece of DU following me to Israel at just the right time. We had some great conversations, had a lot of fun, and got even more excited for when we would all be reunited with all of our friends again in Denver in just a few short months.