Rotterdam

My first Saturday in the Netherlands was spent where I truly originated from - Rotterdam - the city Oma grew up in (and without her I wouldn't exist!). It's a pretty modern city, since most of it got bombed during WWII. The day I went also happened to be the day of an international carnival - so the city was packed. The carnival was interesting, loud, and longgggg. It was quite impossible to escape the blaring music of it or the crowds, but definitely added to the excitement of being there, and resulted in some crazy pictures! 

Centraal Station

My favorite part of the day was going through the market. It consisted of hundreds of tables selling anything and everything. A fruit stand next to an antique seller next to a table full of iPhone cases next to clothes next to fish. The girls I was with bought SUPER stroopwafels, one even had chocolate on it! All of the fruit and cheese stands gave out free samples, so obviously I was pleased ;) It was exhilarating walking through! 

The city hall - Oma and Opa got married here!! 

fruittttt ;) 

yummmmm

I also really enjoyed the harbor full of boats, which you could go on for free! I've always liked boats. 

Another note on the familiarity of Holland - the smellsssss. The poignant smell of raw herring when you walk by many food shops, the smell of cows/cow manure that permeates everywhere except for the center of Amsterdam, the sweet smell of fresh, hot stroopwafels, the smell of fries (with mayo of course) and croquettes, the smell of canal water (almost like the Charles)...

one of the few Dutch traditions I will NEVER take part in!

back.to.my.roots.

After having such an amazing start to the summer - it was hard to believe that the major part of my plans hadn't even started yet. But before I knew it, I had safely landed in Amsterdam, and begun the adventure of living in the place where I originated from. I've been here less than 36 hours as I am writing this, and I could already talk about so much! I'll try to start from the beginning…

Saying goodbye!

I left Boston June 13th at 9:30 pm. By this point, traveling and airports felt too comfortable. After an hour of journaling, reflection, praying for a daring heart, safety, and a greater ability to trust God to get me to my house in Amsterdam safely, I then fell asleep for the remainder of the flight (no surprise there). After a quick layover in Iceland - a country a definitely want to visit again sometime - a slept the rest of the way to Amsterdam. The only think I remember from the entire flight is "We'll be landing in 20 minutes."

Landed, got my bag, got some euros from the atm, and then headed to find a train. Had to ask the information booth twice how to buy a ticket and then which train to get on, but made it to the right one relatively easy. I almost missed my stop because I didn't realize you have to push a button for the doors to open (#stupidamericantourist). I then got on a tram, but couldn't figure out how to pay for it, so took a free ride to my stop. Guessed a direction to walk in (only had to turn around once), while praying I'd end up on the right streets somehow…and 2 hours after I landed in Amsterdam, I was home safe in a beautifullllll house. My roommate Carolyn, another MIT student, had already been here for a week. But, she left me the upstairs room, with a big bed, a sunny room, and an attached shower - welcome home ;) 

My street!

View from my window. 

My wonderful abode. 

Balcony attached to the kitchen.

After settling in a bit, I headed to the grocery store. Was tempted to go crazy and buy a couple boxes of hagelslag, stroopwafels, dutch candy etc…but contained myself, for now. Absolutely nothing in that store was in english - so had some fun guessing what I was buying! 

:D :D :D :D

After being in the Netherlands for only a few hours, it already felt very comfortable. Things were surprisingly familiar from when I was here 11 (?) years ago. I was aware of more of the customs/food than I thought I would be (I guess my family is pretty authentic). And I don't stand out as much as I did in Kenya/Israel. Most people even start speaking Dutch to me first! AND I went for a run, and other people were running! Not as much as in Boston, but people didn't look at me like I was crazy. I even found my own little Narnia through a sketchy gate...

One out of the many things in the kitchen that are exactly the same as things  in my moms/Aunties/Omas house.

hello summer 2013!

Here I go - back to this whole blogging thing! Before I start talking about my current international adventure, I'd like to recount the first few weeks of my summer. 

Shortly after taking my last final on May 25th, I headed home after some frantic packing. The next two days I spent at Oma's house down the Cape, with Antuan, complete with kayaking adventures, chipotle-seeking, a yummy lobster dinner, a run in the rain, and finally watching Les Mis. T'was quite delightful - a summer started at the Cape can never be a bad one (even with rain). 

The following Saturday, Antuan and I joined over 30 other students from Boston and around the country for a two week Cru summer project. Cru is an international Christian ministry that I am involved in on campus, which is passionate about connecting people with Jesus. I had an amazing two weeks, getting to know a phenomenal group of people, getting to know myself more, and getting to understand the Bible and God's calling for my life to a whole new degree. The project was filled with deep conversations, but lots of silly shenanigans as well (see pictures below). I'd love to tell you more about it - ask me sometime! ;)

I then had a few good days home to catch up with people, pack, spend time with my family, and prepare for the next journey awaiting me...

 "Bless the Lord, O my soul,
    and all that is within me,
    bless his holy name!
 Bless the Lord, O my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits,
 who forgives all your iniquity,
    who heals all your diseases,
 who redeems your life from the pit,
    who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
 who satisfies you with good
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's."

-Psalm 103:1-5

Back at the Institute!

Thanks to everyone who has been reading this over this past month! I really do appreciate it, and enjoy writing the posts for you all.

I am officially back at MIT, after a good last week in Israel, a long but relaxing flight home, a weekend retreat down the Cape, and lots of unpacking. My classes start today - which means I probably won't have much time to post for the next few months. But when school dies down again, and I pursue more crazy adventures outside of Cambridge, I will be sure to be back :)

"Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together! I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears...Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Bless is the man who takes refuge in him!" -Psalms 34:3-4,8

Pita and Peanut Butter

I ended my last post with "crazy adventures planned for this weekend". Well, part of the reason why those adventures were so crazy was simply  because there was very little planning that went into the weekend, or at least not very wise planning. Bridget and I decided to hike the Jesus Trail - a 60km hiking trail that "follows the footsteps of Jesus". So with a simple map and a quick check of the bus schedule, we planned to hike from Tiberias to Cana or Nazareth. Note: We both acknowledged the stupidity of this plan going into this weekend, and decided to fully embrace the crazy adventure that would result.

I title this post with "Pita and Peanut Butter" because that was the fuel that made this weekend happen. We started the weekend off with a grocery shopping trip where we bought all the food we would eat for the weekend: 15 pitas, a jar of peanut butter, a bag of carrots, 4 oranges, and 8 apples. In addition to food and ample water, we packed all the warm clothes we had and a toothbrush, and began our journey.

 

Thursday afternoon we first took a bus to Tiberias, a city on the Sea of Galilee (well technically we missed our bus and then took a nap in the sun at the bus station and went out and got some shawarma for dinner). Once in Tiberias, we took another bus further up north, and got off at a random stop. Our first goal was to find somewhere to sleep. We figured we would sort of camp, aka find somewhere in the woods to sleep, one - because we could (the weather said it wouldn't drop below 50 degrees), two - to add to the craziness/stupidity, three - to save money, four - why not? We happened to get off at a kibbutz that had a fancy tourist hotel next to it. So we sketchily crept through the hotel property until we ended up at the end of a pier that jutted out into the Galilee. It just happened to have two metal benches at the end of it - obvisouly where we were meant to sleep that night. It was absolutely gorgeous - a bright moon, lots of stars, mountains all around the sea, no bugs, and a club down the road playing "Adele" all night haha. It was cool to read the story of Jesus walking on water on the Galilee as we sat there, and to gaze at the many mountains that Jesus could have escaped to before feeding the five thousand. I didn't ever think I'd be sleeping on the shores of the Galilee, where Jesus spent so much of his life.  Hotel guests definitely came out to the pier a few times after we had laid down to sleep, and a fishing boat passed by making all kinds of noise. We surprisingly were never kicked off or told to leave. Around midnight, we both were freezing, so we moved to the beach where there was less wind. Despite getting up every few hours to run around and do some jumping jacks to stay warm, we slept rather well. Before the sun came up, we woke up at 6am, and began our hike.

The Jesus Trail was absolutely beautiful - and confirmed to me that Israel has the most varied landscape in a small area than anywhere else I've ever been. We started hiking through vineyards (and picked up some free orange-lemon-grapefruit like fruits on the ground to add to our food supply). We shortly were hiking up a mountain, with ancient caves and a gorgeous view of the Galilee and the boats of fishermen on it (like the disciples!). Then we passed through farmlands, woods, muddy rivers, a kibbutz, even the road. We hiked rather quickly, and took very few breaks, thus our few stops to eat a pita with peanut butter were almost heavenly. You'd think after eating copious amounts of peanut butter every day of my life I'd be sick of it by now…especially since thats mostly what I've been eating in Israel. We ended up hiking around 15 miles in 10 hours (from sunrise, to sunset). Right before sunset we found a little hill to camp for the night. After eating another pita, and putting on all our clothes, we went to bed around 5 pm, hoping to get some sleep before it got really cold.  

An ancient synagogue.

Bridget trekking through muddy streams.

The snake I ferociously killed...or found dead on the side of the rode.

Around 8pm, we both woke up freezing, and quickly made the decision to not even try to sleep through the night. We could either hike all night to stay warm, or find somewhere else to sleep. Luckily we had stopped near the rode, so we started walking that way, until we found a gas station. Once there, we started calling hostels, and ended up finding a "camp lodge" that would pick us up for free and had HEAT. It was run by a family, who were so kind, so loving, and so shocked that we called them at 9pm on Shabbat, but they graciously welcomed us in, offering us tea, a warm shower, and a cute little heated tent-like thing on their goat farm. Bridget and I couldn't have been more ecstatic or grateful.

Oma, I figured you'd appreciate this one :)

We slept in the next morning - completely exhausted from the day before, and not wanting to leave the family and farm at all. Around 10am, we started hiking again though, and made it to Cana, the place Jesus turned water into wine, early in the afternoon (it was only about 5 miles). Instead of hiking to Nazareth, we decided to take a bus. Nazareth and Cana are both completely Arab cities, so we stood out a lot more, and wearing shorts and a t-shirt didn't help. It reminded me a lot of Mombassa, Kenya though, so I was pretty comfortable. Once in Nazareth, we visited the largest church in the Middle East, and a few other famous sites. We then just hung around there for a bit, until the one and only bus back to Karmiel arrived.

More of God's beauty that randomly landed on me!

The largest church in the Middle East.

Watching the sunset in Nazareth as we waited for our bus:

"May the glory of the Lord endure forever;
    may the Lord rejoice in his works, who looks on the earth and it trembles,
    who touches the mountains and they smoke! I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
    I will sing praise to my God while I have being. May my meditation be pleasing to him,
    for I rejoice in the Lord." -Psalms 104

All in all, the weekend was fantastic. I grew a lot closer to Bridget, got to see way more of the country by foot, met some amazing people, and felt pretty accomplished after hiking 20+ miles. The good points definitely outweighed the few points of misery; I wouldn't have asked for it any other way.

I also came to understand Luke 12:22-34 in a whole new way:

"And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on.  For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you."


Almost becoming like a sparrow, with no storehouse of food besides the few pitas on our back, or a lily of the field with only what few clothes we could carry, it was a journey of completely trusting in God to take care of us. And He did in ways that I could not have asked or imagined. We ended up having just enough food for the trip, just enough money to get home on the bus, just enough water before we would find a place to fill up, two benches and a warm tent to lay our heads for the nights, sunny weather, no getting lost, safety, and a full moon as a night-light. How thankful I am to know that I don't need to worry about anything, not the food I eat, the place I will sleep, or my entire future, because God provides.

Week 3: Yav Dashem, Haifa, teaching.

On Sunday, instead of teaching, I joined the 11th grade class on a field trip to Yav Dashem, a Holocaust museum in Jerusalem.Overall it was a good day - I got to know a lot of the students better which is something I have been hoping for. But it was definitely a day that required a lot of patience - driving on a bus for 6 hours with crazy Israeli 11th graders is no easy task. It didn't help that I hadn't taught any 11th grade classes yet, so I didn't know any of the teachers or students. Since the students had never seen me in the teacher role, they viewed me with little respect/as their equal. They followed me around, translated everything for me (even though all the signs in the museum had English and Hebrew), and had me sit with them on the bus. The museum wasn't too different than the one in Washington D.C., just more from the Jewish perspective.

Monday was a regular day of teaching. However, now that its week 3, the teachers (who are Israeli thus  they are disorganized and never really know whats going on), have forgotten when we are teaching for them. So its become more and more common to walk into a class and be a surprise to a teacher, which means we usually just end up observing the class. Not quite as fun, but not complaining too much. It is funny to watch teachers constantly switch from English to Hebrew and writing left to right then right to left as they work through problems on the board.

Tuesday was election day in Israel! Nothing has changed since Jesus' time - to vote, you still have to go back to where you are registered/live (that's why Jesus was born in Bethlehem and not Nazareth). So everyone gets the day off - which meant another day of exploring! I went to Haifa, a city built on Mt. Carmel, just south of Akko. I started my day by checking out the Baha'i Gardens and shrine (Baha'i is a  religion that apparently has over 5 million followers, I had never heard of it before though). The gardens were absolutely beautiful. I then met up with Mika, the girl I teach with, and we went to the beach together. And because it won't be warm enough to go to the beach in Boston for quite a while - we both swam (ALL Israelis thought we were crazy). We then visited another church, and Mika headed back to Karmiel. I however went to a family's house for dinner that some friends, including Kathleen, had connected me with. I had never met them before, but they were MIT alums who moved to Israel after they graduated in the 80's (Mr. and Mrs. Coop, they didn't remember knowing you, but who knows). Like my short stay in a home in Tel Aviv, it was such a pleasure to be in a house, to meet their kids and their pastor (they had him over for his birthday), and to have a delicious home-cooked meal (with chicken even, and a grand dessert of brownies, chocolate mouse, whipped cream, and chocolate chip cookies that were almost as good as Oma's). It was interesting to talk to them about what being Christian was like in a Jewish state, something I have obviously thought a lot about since being here.

Mika and I

Thats it for now - more crazy adventures for this weekend planned, so stay tuned :)

If you have nowhere to sleep, then don't sleep.

This weekend was quite the ADVENTURE! By the end I was amazed at what can happen when you put some crazy college students together in a foreign country (mom please don't freak out about this post, I skyped you once I was home safely and you said yourself I looked great!). It started with a goal to go to two places called Ein Gedi and Masada, and to swim in the Dead Sea. The original plan for the weekend involved a two day trip, with a night in a hostel near Masada, the main purpose being to wake up close to Masada so we could hike it and watch the sunrise from the top of it.

HOWEVER, when we called the hostel the day before the trip (another outcome of traveling with all college students), they were completely booked, as was every other hostel and hotel within a 100 mile radius. So we met up and tried to figure out a solution. I adore sunrises, and was determined to keep that in the works. Bridget and I also were completely willing to sleep in the car or to camp somewhere, but the other 8 people weren't so thrilled. And then I came up with a solution that reveals too well that I go to MIT (and that I've learned too much from my dad and his ability to forgo sleep to plow during those crazy snow storms) - if there is nowhere to sleep, lets just not sleep! We all stay up for p-sets, and I would say a sunrise hike > pset. I knew there was a solution to every problem…executing it was another issue, but we got everyone to agree to the plan, and at 7:30am the next morning, we were on our way.

Destination 1: Nahariya ---> Rosh Hanikra
Along with 5 other students staying at Ort Braude, I headed to Nahariya by bus, where we picked up two rental cars and groceries for Shabbat, when everything would be closed. We had to get rental cars because all public transportation shuts down on Shabbat, and  and it made getting to the Dead Sea way easier. We then headed to the most northwestern part of Israel - Rosh Hanikra. Rosh Hanikra is basically a cliff that you can go on top of to see a beautiful view of the Mediterranean. It then has "grottos", or little tunnels through the rock cut out by the water that you can walk through. It was absolutely beautiful, and walking out on the rocks and getting a little wetter than intentioned by a big wave was great!

"Above the sound of the surging water, and the mighty waves of the sea, the Lord sits enthroned in majesty." - Psalms 93:4

You can even see the Lebanon border (the fence in this picture) from where we were standing!

Destination 2: Nahariya ---> Tel Aviv
We headed back to Nahariya to grab some lunch, at a popular chain cafe in Israel called Aroma. Since I've been cooking on my own, and since kosher restaurants here either serve meat or dairy, I had had meat only 3 times since being in Israel. A chicken sandwich never tasted so good :)
We then drove about 2 hours to Tel Aviv. Driving down the coast as the sun set over it made it quite an enjoyable ride. As did the fact that I was driving a car at least 15 years newer than my car at home - with working blinkers, windows, doors, air conditioning, and brakes even! It was also pretty crazy to look down at my speedometer and see it say that I was driving over 100 kph. I now know that means I was going about 62 mph, but not knowing that made it seem way faster. Side-note: Even though we had to get the rental cars under two people who were 21, Kathleen and I were the only students who were willing to drive through a foreign country (I was actually very excited to). But rules in Israel were meant to be broken; it added to the adventure of it all. After some skillful parallel parking in Tel Aviv, we crashed at the hotel that the other MIT students were staying in. After getting dinner out (things actually stay open in Tel Aviv on Friday nights, even though the rest of Israel has shut down by this point). We then proceeded to have 10 people sleep for a few hours in 2 small hotel rooms. I fell asleep around 11 pm. When my alarm went off at 1:30 am, it was go-time. We all got up surprisingly quickly,  Kathleen and I inhaled some coffee/tea for caffeine, and we were off.

Destination 3: Masada
Driving to Masada was great - the roads were completely empty, I was completely awake, and the ease of navigating through Israel was much appreciated. At one point we hit the thickest fog I've ever driven through - couldn't really see anything but the tail lights of Kathleen in front of me as we inched slowly along. Luckily that didn't last too long, and the rest was smooth sailing. We passed lots of "camel crossing" signs along the way, although we didn't get to see any camels. And we didn't end up in the West Bank by accident! Once we got into the desert area, I felt like I was driving on Mars. We couldn't see much more than what our headlights were illuminating, but we could tell that there were huge mounds of orange dirt all around us. We passed a sign that said we were at sea level, and then the elevation quickly dropped. Like driving down a Colorado mountain pass, I didn't have to use the accelerator at all through the curvy roads headed towards the lowest place on earth. At 5:15 am, we successfully pulled into the Masada parking lot - even had time to take a 20 minute nap!

The stars at Masada were beautiful. We were literally in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. Masada is a plateau in the desert, where King Herod decided to build palaces for himself around 31 BC. It was sieged by Romans around 70 AD.

We started hiking around 5:45 am, when it was still very dark out. The darkness made it actually feel like we were on Mars (not that I would mind that at all). We made it to the top around 6:30 am. I retreated off on my own to spend some time in prayer as I watched the sunrise.

"O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens…When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?" - Psalms 8:4-5

Once the sun had come up, I spent some time walking around the ruins, marveling at the history of it all, and how much was still standing after 2,000 years. I proceeded to casually lie down in the warmth of the sun and wait for the others…and ended up sleeping for an hour.

Our group eventually hiked back down, enjoyed some nutella-banana sandwiches and a pomegranate for breakfast, and hopped back in the cars.

Destination 4: Ein Gedi
Ein Gedi is a national reserve and beach just slightly north of Masada. We dropped half of our group off at the beach, and then proceeded to the national reserve for another hike. As we hiked up the "wadi" ("Wadi is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley." -Wikipedia), we saw many waterfalls and springs, that we happily dipped our feet in. It was literally an oasis - one of the only places in the desert with water and vegetation. We even got to see the cave that David may have hid in when Saul was trying to find him and kill him. Came across this a few days before we left for Ein Gedi randomly as I was reading the Bible:
 "My beloved is like a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of En-Gedi"

 -Song of Solomon 1:14.

Destination 5: Dead Sea
Swimming in the Dead Sea was possibly one of the weirdest things I have done. I didn't believe Kathleen when she said it was so salty that you couldn't even go under in it or that you wouldn't want to spend a long time in it, but she was correct. The Sea is 33% solid matter, can't support any life, and though it looks like the ocean, its not. A lot of the rocks in the sea have this thick encrusting of white salt on them, and the water looks oily almost. Even your skin feels slimy when you are in it. You pretty much can't 'swim' in it - you have no other option but to float. It was difficult to make yourself vertical in the water! I thourougly enjoyed it, was laughing at the ridiculousness of it the whole time. I think it was the closest feeling to no gravity I will get to feel before I'm actually in space. :)

Destination 6: 'Home'
We left the Dead Sea late in the afternoon, and then proceeded to drive to Tel Aviv to drop off the students living there. Got some more tea in their hotel, and then headed off to Nahariya to drop off a rental car, and then finally back to Karmiel. 10 hours of driving across Israel in one day - absolutely worth it :)