I almost peed my pants.

Well folks, this post is coming straight to you from the Jerusalem Center! First things first, this must be prefaced by saying I am extremely tired so don't get your hopes up that you'll be reading something clever. To do so will only result in your severe disappointment. Also, as a disclaimer, this blog has potential to be entirely boring to anyone but me. I'll try to make it interesting and not let it turn into too much of a travel log, but I'm also using this as my journal, so consider yourself warned.

Flying to Jerusalem wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. Am I dead tired? Yes. Are my ankles severely swollen? No. At least, not yet. See? Not that bad of a trip. For the flight to Denver I was tired from not sleeping at all the night before (literally), so I zonked out almost instantly. I feel a little bad about that because Meredith, a fellow student, was trying to chat and ask the obligatory get-to-know-you questions, but it wasn't happenin' on my end.

The flight to D.C. was when the near-disaster threatened. I got a Jamba in the Denver airport and happily gulped it down like always. Then I had a lovely flight, spent mostly listening to music and sleeping. I woke up from my nap when the pilot had turned on the fasten seatbelts light and said they were getting ready to land. A few minutes later I realized I HAD to go to the bathroom. The Jamba had run its course and was ready for exit, immediately. I didn't dare get up from my seat since we were landing any second, so I just tried to focus on remembering if I had packed any extra clothing in case I didn't make it. That's how bad it was. The possibility of needing extra clothes was extremely real. We still weren't landing so then I focused on counting to 24, over and over again, until we landed. I chose this number because I wanted to remind myself that I'm 24 and should therefore NOT PEE MY PANTS. Apparently it worked since I was able to make it. The second we finished taxiing I jumped up and pushed my way forward to the plane bathroom. There is NO way I could have waited any longer.

Wow, I'm really rambling. I'll try to summarize. The flight to Vienna and then Tel Aviv were not too eventful. Before we flew to Tel Aviv we had to go through security again right at the gate. Never done that before. And then when we got to Tel Aviv, one of our students is Canadian, so going through customs, or whatever it's called, took him a lot longer than the rest of us. The bus ride up to Jerusalem was amazing. Brother Chadwick, one of our professors, told us about a few of the places we were driving past. He said that you can barely drive a mile in Israel without passing some type of significant place where something important in the Bible happened. We drove up through the mountains on a fairly windy road, and then finally got to Jerusalem about 40 minutes later. I had no idea it was SO hilly.

When we got to the Center, Kelsey, the sweet girl I was sitting by, said she couldn't stop her eyes from watering. For some reason when she said that, mine started watering, too. It's just so hard to believe that I am TRULY in Jerusalem of all places. WOW. When I was younger I always hoped I would travel a lot when I was older, but I never imagined that I would go to Jerusalem. Ever. For some reason, it was never on the list (neither was Hawaii, for that matter). Funny how life turns out, isn't it?