Centering in on the Center

So for the next four months I will be living in the beautiful BYU Jerusalem Center. I saw some pictures of it before I left but the center is so much more amazing in real life. I got the grand tour late on Wednesday night right when we arrived at the center. The building has eight floors on it, and the bottom five floors are living apartments. Each apartment has four beds and a bathroom, nothing terribly amazing, but the most fantastic part is each apartment has a terrace with an incredible view of the Old City. I wish I could take a panoramic picture of it, but trust me, we have an amazing view. Every morning there is a Muslim prayer call around 5:00 am and yesterday it woke me up. They have them five times a day, but for some ironic reason that is usually the only one that I hear. The showers hear are amazing, they have a mega strong pressure that almost hurts! We also have pomegranate and olive trees all around the center which is really neat.

The sixth floor has the Oasis which is our cafeteria. Generally they have a few different types of meat, a small salad bar, some sides, and then always have peanut butter and pitas and bread. The food is pretty good and lots of the dishes use unique spices and stuff, but they still have normal things like french fries and such. They have really good yogurt for breakfast. They also have these cubed chunks of tan something that is slightly sweet and tastes pretty good. I tried to ask one of the cooks what it was, but I didn't really understand what he was saying (I don't think he understood what I was saying). All of the classrooms are on the sixth floor, along with a large forum where we have lectures and concerts. There is also a computer lab and a few study rooms with nice flat screen tvs and games that you can check out.

There is also a secret bomb shelter on the sixth floor that has bathrooms and stuff, so don't worry I will be safe if anything happens. The laundry room on the second floor can also work as a bomb shelter. I think there is a whole tunnel system underground that we could escape through anyways, but I doubt we will ever have to use any of these things...

On the seventh floor there are administrative offices and then the eighth floor has a library with royal purple carpeting and a pretty good stash of books. There is also a learning resource center which they use for receptions and such, and a few other large rooms where they can show people a DVD about the center and show movies and such. The best room in the entire center is the auditorium on the eighth floor. It houses a huge and beautiful organ and three of the walls are pretty much made up entirely of windows. It has mega high ceilings, and the view with all of these windows is magnificent. We have church in there, and it is amazing to be able to look out over the entire city that hosts so many religious sites. This is an amazing building and has marble and limestone throughout it. I am so lucky to be able to live in this incredible place for a few months!