Jess in Jerusalem

Party like you're in Jerusalem

Last weekend I had my first night on the town in West Jerusalem (West J as we call it). A group of us meet outside Jaffa gate. It ended up being a ton more of us that anticipated so we broke up to go to different restaurants and then to meet up for gelato. I joined the Italian group and we headed to a little hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant right off Ben Yehuda street. We sat outside and people watched people walk past. Our food took forever to come (an hour and a half) but it was fun to just sit and talk and the food wasn't half bad either. Although, I probably wouldn't go back again. We met up for gelato and made future plans for a mall trip. West Jerusalem is very different than East Jerusalem and the Old City. It is very modern and has a mall with even an American Eagle (or should I say Israeli Eagle - ha ha so funny)! So yeah - great night out!! We had to taxi back because of some of our rules about walking through parts of Jerusalem at night, unfortunately, or else I'd be going out all the time! This picture is of some of us after gelato.

3 words. ARAB CULTURE NIGHT. I could not stop smiling this whole night!! At 5 pm we all got together in the forum where they had the a father and son come who read the Call to Prayer over the speakers for all of Jerusalem to hear. They performed it for us, along with reading the Koran and showing us how they pray. What an amazing experience. They didn't speak English so our Arabic teacher, the one and only Ayman, would translate as we asked them questions. These men have the entire Koran memorized. They are amazing and so dedicated to their faith. Such an example for that.

6 pm came along and it was time for our FEAST!!! I already feel like we have a feast every day at the center but I mean we really, really had a feast. TONS of food, along with music and our Arab outfits. Our chef here is awesome. He used to cook for the king of Jordan....THE KING!!!! He's also the nicest man. So pretty much dinner was a ton of fun and everyone was super happy.

Me and one of my roommates Jacque at dinner. LOVE this girl.

 Partying as the Arabs do!

 Arab garb photo shoots for dayyyzzzz

 Room #405. The hottest girls in the center by far ;) In case you can't tell I was going for the Princess Jasmine look. Did I capture it?

After dinner we had DANCING!!!!! They blasted the Arab music and taught us some cultural dances. Afterwards we let loose and went crazy dancing to the Arabic jams. Suuuch a blast.

So yeah - we like to party around here. I haven't been very adamant about snapping some photos of our every day adventures we have here in the center in between surviving midterms but I will be posting some soon!! We like to eat chocolate pitas {free in the Shekel Shack on Saturday nights - whooop}, watch movies {Last night I suggested we watch a movie, can you guess what it was? FLIPPED. Of course. Everyone loved it. Of course}, play ping pong, play Rummikub after dinner, sit on our balcony and talk, and do lots of other fun things. Don't get me wrong, we do work around here. We work a lot. Too much sometimes. Yet I'm finding time to live my life the way that I like to, and that's doing something fun and being happy whenever I can!