Kyle's Expeditions

I made a new blogspot named "I Discover Life" idiscoverlife.blogspot.com. Let me know what you think of the name. I welcome suggestions =]

Is it dead here or is it just sea?

Last Friday, Tom Meyer, a fellow student at JUC, mentioned to me that he shrewdly obtained a free pass for him and three of his friends at a spa in Ein Gedi, right off of the coast of the Dead Sea. Tom is a journalist and a phenomenal Bible verse quoter; he used the former to his advantage, telling the people that he may do a review of their spa if they allowed him to come for free with three friends. It worked very well. When we arrived, he pushed to get a free meal as well. He said to the manager, Moshe, "Do you want to see a magic trick?" Taken by surprise, Moshe agreed and was shown a magic trick involving the number 4016. At the end of it, Tom said to him, "I'll teach you the trick if you give us free lunch." It was a failed attempt, but hilarious nonetheless.

Tom, Craig, Joel, and I started our day in the luxurious, sulfuric bath inside the resort. It smelt absolutely terrible. However, all of those failed attempts as a child and young adult to float were finally redeemed. The water was warm and thick but not anything beyond what you would expect water to feel like. Mind you, this is still just the indoor pool. We journeyed to the beach, where the excitement truly began.

You ever wonder what it would be like to see snow on the ground on a hot day? To be able to make snowballs and play in it? Well, that is nothing like the dead sea. It is more like a sheet of bumpy, jagged ice, ready to do nothing more than to pierce your heel at the drop of a step. "Hey, let's go in without our sandals on, it won't be so bad under the water," we thought. Yeah, right. It was just as terribly painful under the water; the glossy, hardened salt was still bumpy and hit pressure points that I did not know existed. Once I put my sandals on, it was smooth sailing, almost literally. It is a challenge to stand up without treading water with your arms. Ridiculous isn't it? The lukewarm water plunges your body into a more relaxed position, almost as if it is saying, "Take a load off, welcome to Lay-Z-Sea." I loved it. We took many pictures that you should view on facebook. It was an absolute blast, despite the painful beginning.

We went back up to the resort after our floatatious fun and soaked ourselves in Dead Sea mud. It was in what resembled a cauldren, filled with this ugly brownish gray muddy water. In the bottom of it was gobs of sludge that we intentionally grabbed to get the full experience. Hey, we had to make sure to exfoliate our skin, right? We showered off and moved on.

We had a lunch, for which, by the way, we did end up getting a discount. It was delicious, even with the sulfuric stench lingering in the air. Alright, I'm making it sound worse than it is. You get used to it rather quickly. After lunch, we just hung out and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. The salt really was like snow in some places. You could pick it up and play with it. You couldn't make a snow ball, and you really wouldn't ever want it to be thrown at you in a clump, but it was beautiful. For the pictures, just get facebook or go on your existing facebook and check it out.

It was truly such a tremendous blessing. I have never dreamt, or even dreamt of dreaming of such a blessed opportunity. God is good in the good times and the bad times. Fortunately, I had the "good times" today. Please pray that I rejoice in God's goodness even, and especially, in the bad times.
Grace and peace.

Stars and Bucks

Orthodox church buildings do not cease to amaze me. My "History of the Church in the East" class ventured into the Old City Jerusalem to observe Orthodox Churches. First off, the mosaics absolutely captivated me, putting me in complete awe. Particularly the Church of Holy Sepulcher (go figure). The supposed site of Golgotha was overcome with the beautiful mosaics scaling the walls and arched ceiling. Below, near the stone that they claim Jesus was buried on, there is another mosaic of the death and resurrection of Jesus. I looked carefully at this one, recognizing that there had to be detail even to the point of shading in order to effectively depict the colors of a robe and everything else. Simply awe-inspiring.
We went on to less extravagent looking sites, but equally spiritual. We visited a Coptic church father who was a multi-lingual, human encyclopedia (there are quite a few of those here). He gave great insight on the many misconceptions of the Coptic church, though I will have to research it myself to be able to explain any of it. You know how you sometimes here something, and you remember your reaction being one of affirmation and agreement, but you don't necessarily remember the content to which you agreed? I get that a lot haha. We also went to a Syrian Orthodox church building, but that was a little harder to follow. The father was less fluent in English, still impressive, however.

Today, Ben, Jodie, Molly and I went to Ramallah in the West Bank for a little visit. It was one of those random spontaneous events that I'm so fond of. When we had arrived, I instantly felt that I had just entered the wrong section of West Philly, only the guns were actually visible, and they happened to be AK-47's. I quickly became accustomed to it, as if I had a choice, and walked on with my friends. There has recently been some deadly activity in Gaza, which affects all of Palestine - including Ramallah. Stores were closing early in case of demonstrations, but we found this out later.

In the meantime, we went to a place that Ben was ecstatic about: Stars & Bucks. I kid you not, it was named Stars & Bucks. The name, as well as the signs (colors and all) plastered all over the place, were a complete knockoff of Starbucks. Ben let us know that it had been sued by Starbucks, but as he said, "What is Starbucks going to do? Come to the West Bank and say, 'Hey, you stole our name, we're sueing you." Good luck Starbucks. I bet your corporate executives and stock holders would love the West Bank. Anyway, I bought a massive ice cream sundae, unknowingly I might add. My friends bought some hooka, which, if you do not know, is flavored tobacco. It was pretty cool looking - basically, it's a bong (I don't care what they say, it looks like a freaking bong) with an apple on top covered in tin foil. After being nagged to smoke some, I finally ... ha! yeah, right. I don't smoke. We were sort of chased out after being there only 20 minutes. That's when we found out that everybody was closing up for the day at 3:40 in the afternoon haha.

We left and went on to the Shuuk (an outdoor supermarket with a thousand people shouting at you "Asherah!" meaning ten sheqels). I didn't buy anything there, but it was intense. By the way, there is a hair style here that I have dubbed, "The Metro Mullet." It is as hideous as it sounds.

Well that's it for another blog. I hope that you enjoyed. I miss you!