Hey look! I'm famous!

Even though I haven't set foot in Australia...

Australia Bahá'í History

Thanks Marjon for sending me the link (she's the one just below me on the right)! And hopefully I get to visit Oz sometime in this life of mine :)

It's been snowing in Alaska...

...and this is what I have here:


Not too shabby :) I have about 7 weeks left in Haifa, and while I desperately miss home, I'm trying to stop and smell the flowers too :)

Camping at Jordan River Park

This past weekend I had a wonderful opportunity to get out of the city and into some nature... so nice :) We went out to the Jordan River Park, which is close to Lake Tiberius. It was a quick camping trip, as we only stayed one night, but it was so much fun!

We arrived late afternoon on Friday, set up camp, and proceeded to get our dinner Feast ready. This camping trip had one component that I was all for--eating our way through the entire time :) We had gathered plenty of wood to keep our fire going that night, and pretty soon it was time for bed... and for the jackals to come out :)

At least I think it was jackals :) I never technically got out of my tent to check it out... because I'm SANE! For the record, jackals are actually pretty skittish of humans, so I doubt there would be any harm, but I woke up in the middle of the night, and I'm unsure why I did. But a few minutes later, something brushed up along my tent right by my HEAD! Needless to say, I was wide awake at that point, and the only one in my tent... so I lay there for a while, and a little later I could hear a jackal howl in the distance. Nothing more came by my tent (that I know of) and I proceeded to fall back asleep. I think I even convinced myself that it was one of my friends walking their dog, or something like that. But that theory was debunked in the morning, so I'm convinced I had a close call run-in with a jackal. That just sounds cool and dramatic :)

ANYway! Our full day on Saturday was a blast. We had a great breakfast (following our tradition of good food) and then a group of us decided to trek down the river IN the river. It was a lot of fun, and there was much mischief of some of the people on our trek in convincing others of snakes and the like, which made it that much more amusing. After we had packed up camp, we went to Susita, which is an old fort on a mountain that has been excavated. It's fascinating to see the columns and ruins of this old place. We stopped by a Baha'i cemetery that was on the way back that I had never visited before, and we said some prayers. Then we drove back to Haifa, plenty satisfied from our adventure. Enjoy the pictures!