Call to Prayer

So everyday, five times to be more precise, there is a Call to Prayer over loud speakers that echo through the whole city. It is a Muslim practice that calls Islamic members to prayer. I absolutely love it, since the Center I'm staying at is on the East side (predominately Arab Muslim side) of Jerusalem I hear the prayer very clear. It is a long chant/singing prayer and it as it echos through the valley and through the City walls and narrow streets I feel very entrenched in a different culture. It is the perfect soundtrack to the things that I am seeing. The 4am call to prayer has not awaken me from my sleep yet and I doubt it every will because I have been so beat. We had our first day of classes yesterday, there was only two classes actually. First was my Old Testament Class. We had to read Genesis 1-20 before class and some other readings. The discussions in class were very good, and I was learning and being refreshed of things I read about on the plane ride over. My teacher is a very nice, down to earth, red headed, stubby legged, little voiced man who I really enjoy. After that class was my Near Eastern Studies class with Professor Stratford. Professor Stratford is a slightly balding young-middle aged man with small circular scientist/small clams attorney glasses, he has an ex-high-school-football-runningback-who-could-have-played-in-collage-but-went-on-a-mission-and-got-married-and-now-gets-really-intense-during-any-church-sports kind of body build. He is an expert on archaeology, ancient writings, middle eastern history and geography. He is well humored and also enjoyable. Both courses that I have attended thus far are with white LDS members from America, more specifically Utah. I look forward to my classes with my two non-member professors, one is an Israeli Jew and the other is an Palestinian Muslim. On a side note, one thing I admire of the center is that they employ both Palestinians and Israelis, which they are numbered with about 5 other institutions or businesses in Jerusalem that practice this. I think it is awesome, some of the locals that work here, in which I have chatted with, are really nice and have very clever and classic dry humor. One in particular I feel like I could have a good laugh with once I get to know him. Yesterday We had free time after our classes, I was super tired and jet-lagged still, but I knew if I slept I would have not got up until midnight with no hope in a good nights sleep. So I put on my shoes and went on an adventure with 3 other students into the city. It was sweating like a whore in a church house as we traversed down the hill then up the hill to the Old city, I was fashioned with shoes, jeans, and a t-shirt and for those who know me well, the second listed item on my body creates a phenomenon with my physiological makeup that could fill a two liter bottle with sweat and fry an egg on my lower back. In short, It was hot as hell. We went to a money changer, who on our first tour of the city was on the corner with a stack of business cards and a smile that said, "I love you Mormons and your business pays my bills." The administration says that they have never told those men (plural because there was 4 through our whole 4 mile walk that knew we were coming) the dates of when the new arrivals come, but they always know when our first tour of the city is, this I found amusing. We went to Aladin's money exchange, which is not pronounced like the Disney movie, its pronounced "Alla-dean". He was closing up shop early because it was Friday because of the Muslim worship that takes place every Friday. This worship is also the reason we are not allowed to go into the city until 3pm because if any uprisings or conflict will happen, it will most likely be during the Muslim weekly Friday morning worship. So as our small group walks past and learn that he was closing (literally locking the doors) we start to walk away when he calls us back, opens the doors, then proceeds to just have us write our names and how much we want to exchange, then hands us the Shekels. I was blown away at the reputation of integrity and trust fellow BYUJ students have build with this man. We tried to give him checks but he said he didn't have time and that we should come back Sunday, I was amazed. We leave the exchange as a group of 15 BYUJ students walk up, we tell them he's closed and he tells them as well, we lucked out. So we decide to go to the old city after I purchase a notebook that I needed for school. We entered in at Herod's Gate, one we didn't enter in on our first introduction tour of the old city. It is the Muslim Quarter of the city. There was fruit, trinkets, old and young men and women, trash, old men up on old patios smoking and playing what looked like chess. As I walked through I felt as out of place as a fat kid in a spin class. One of the highlights of this little stroll through the Muslim Quarter was seeing a small old fashioned barber shop, with an old guy straight razor shaving a guy as everyone in the whole shop was smoking. It immediately became a must do for my time here; to get my hair cut and a strait shave by a guy smoking and speaking Arabic to his friends who comfortably sit in the corner reading the newspaper with out a care in the world as we sit in the midst of one of the most Sacred, Conflicted, and Coveted piece of land on earth. This would be my kind of non-spiritual Jerusalem experience. So we also passed a billiard parlor with some younger guys shooting pool and old guys smoking and playing chess, This too, is what I would love to do, shoot pool and talk about rap music. I say rap music because while I was purchasing some Holy Land Chocolate milk and some British chocolate (yes they have some of my favorites) a group of young guys my age came in and I was talking to them, their English was very broken and one of them lived in Minnesota for a while, they were asking me if I liked rap music, I said yes. In the which, they started naming off some of their favorite rappers "snoopdogg (I told them of the name change to SnoopLion, they were a little confused), Biggy Smalls, Tupac (their fav), Dr. Dre, and a few more. I was really cool, I wanted to start singing Juicy to see if they joined in, I probably would have gained some sort of street cred after that, "hey, there goes that fat white American that raps!" Anyways, back on the stroll we went into the supposed spot where Christ was tried. I was awesome, there was an orthodox Christian ceremony with Fryers(?-they were dressed like fryer tuck from robin hood, I know very ignorant of me)they did three prayers, same prayer but in Arabic, Spanish, and English. They then leaded a procession that went down the supposed path that Christ walked from his trial to Calvary. They would stop at certain spots and say prayers, since we didn't have time we didn't go, but I plan on doing it later. We walked back chatting with a few people, one little kid was blocking us trying to sell us stuff, similar to Tijuana, MEX. This one kid strait up licked the arm of one of the guys in my group. I thought of my friend Ryan Ford who would lick people a lot when we were younger. The walk back up to the Center is one that, if it doesn't kill me...it will kill me. I had dinner and socialized for the evening.