My Best Birthday...oh wait

Ok so I know this happened quite a long time ago - but it was such an awesome experience I figured I needed to blog about it anyway.
The date was March 22 - a Sunday, but more importantly it was Moon's birthday! An exciting experience to be sure. Miriam and I talked about the possibilities we had to celebrate, and came up with a few different ideas we could play out throughout the day. We actually had a field trip planned so let me just put a big parentheses in here (

Neot Kedouim was the name of the nature reserve we went to - where we had a guide who told us all about Bible living and everyday life. Some of the activities we participated in included herding sheep and goats, crushing herbs to make toppings for pitas, observing writing of a Torah scroll, making and eating pitas, lifting a bucket out of a well, and a few other activiites. It was really neat to get a feel for the countryside away from the city as well as learn about what people during Bible times did on an everyday basis

). Ok so we got back from our field trip and I needed to organize something - and quick. The sun was starting to go down already and we needed to make it through the Old City to West Jerusalem before it had done so - and accomplish some errands along the way. Our group was comprised of 13 people including: Kara Schumacher, Elyse, Miriam, Matt, Bryan, Ken...umm...I'm gonna look up the rest and insert them here later lol. It was a pretty great group though. So I ran out ahead a little bit with Bryan and Matt and ran in to Abdul's and sneakliy grabbed the ingredients for Cherry Pink (This AWESOME drink created specifically for apartment 410) we went in to Aladdin's and a few people ran down to Omar's, and then we rendezvoused (I had to spell check that word 3 times) back on the main street in the city. We made our way towards West Jerusalem and happened to stop by a certain dress shop on the way to the restaurant. The guys weren't thrilled with this but they willing went along with it. The best part was probably the fact that Bryan found a certain pair of pants at this shop as well - HA! So then we were off to dinner at this little pizza restaurant which was a lot of fun. Three more people joined us when we got there, Hayley, Josh, and Lindsey. We were the only ones in the small shop which was probably a good thing because we dominated most of the space. Everyone sang happy birthday to Moon and we all went around and said something that we liked about her. Dinner being a success - check. Dessert was inevitbaly next, so we took a poll and it was split between wanting gelato and hot chocolate cake - so we decided to go for both! People were starting to get worn down from all the activities and anxious to start packing for Galilee, so we decided to call a cab and start heading home. They told us 10 minutes, and about 30 later we called again - we got the 10 minutes trip several times before they actually showed up, so we made the best of our extra time. Right off the main street - Benyahuda - we started pairing off and waltzing! It was SO much fun - spontaneous and hilarious too. The best part was when some local Palestinian guy showed up and wanted to participate. He took turns dancing with each of the girls, but seemed to have a special thing for me, he grabbed my hand over and over again. If I could post a video clip on here I would, and it would include him attempting to do some sort of hip lift...I don't know it was kind of weird! Luckily the cab driver showed up before too much more dancing occured. Well...kind of. The ride back to the Center was kind of crazy as well - more dancing as always. Including a private show from each of the boys. HILARIOUS! Jacob Curtis was probably the most funny.
When we got back there were still a few things that needed to go down - one of which was a flash dance. Awesome right? So we put that on, although I'm not gonna lie, I kind of spoiled the surprise when I announced it to the computer lab right in front of Moon. It was still a good time, but I kind of wish someone else had put the music together cause I definitely don't have dance worthy music. A small cherry pink party was all that was needed to finish out the night - so amidst packing, writing papers, submitting applications, and the like we mixed up some Cherry Pink and called it a night. What an awesome day it was!