Well,

Today I arrived in Nablus, a town in the West Bank, where I will be living for the next month. I am living in an apartment with 10 other volunteers who are all working for the organization "Project Hope." Our apartment is pretty amazing, a huge spacious old building with a terrace overlooking the rolling hills and the town of Nablus. The apartment we have now is the old office for Doctors without Borders, and it is great. I am sitting here listening to the call to prayer, which I am particularly fond of, as the sun is setting.

I spent the last two days in Jerusalem, which was a city unlike any other that I can imagine. It is so starkly contrasting in so many ways, it is amazingly multi-cultural, and relisiously diverse. I stayed in the Muslim quarter of the old city which was quite quiet because it was Eid el-fiqr (a holiday) while I was there. I visited the church of the holy sepulchre and the wailing wall, and ate many many falafel and saw many many Israeli soldiers (mostly in the muslim quarter, which I don't think was a coincidence).

The Palestinian people I have met have been so warm, welcoming and helpful which has really made my trip quite hassle free so far. I even had one man barter with a cab driver in arabic on my behalf, becuase my arabic is so hopeless so far and he wanted to make sure I didn't get ripped off! ( so nice! ) I spent last night on the rooftop of my hostel chatting (in broken arabic and english)with a palestinian family and their 2 year old son who was obsessed with playing the song "I like to move it move it," (dance mix 93?) on his dad's cell phone.

Tonight I am going to a palestinian wedding! I have been invited along with my co-workers to go, which should be great fun. I hope you are all well, you are in my thoughts.

xoxo Nicole