The Emily Formerly Known as ....

...you can fill in the blank in the title if you want...

So I'm back from cold Minnesota to cold NYC. WHY does it have to be COLD!!! You guys better not be outside tanning yet in Jerusalem.

So some pics from the trip: apparently their claim to fame over there is the "cherry in the spoon" piece found at the Sculpture Gardens. Interesting, though I couldn't quite put my finger on the relevance of it and any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

This is me and Sarah at a very cool and very large David Crowder Band concert (they opened for 3rd Day who I'm not so crazy about). But what I did realize at this concert, held in a huge auditorium with a few thousand people, is that America is blessed. There are so many Christians able to attend this and worship Jesus together in this huge place - and to cool music! And it happens all the time and all over the US (except really NYC for some reason, Christians are so scared to come here). But for me, it was actually a cool thing to be a part of it - I had forgotten what it was like. I was very happy that 3rd Day didn't really use the stage just to be rockstars, but they honestly shared a deep message about living a life for God and they ministered to hurting people also.

This of course was me finding an illegal piano, as I tend to do, and sit down and play it and then get kicked off. I think I only lasted 10 minutes before a security guard came and asked me to leave, "You're not allowed to play the piano, Miss." Oh well. I played the innocent card..."Oh, sorry. Well why is it sitting here? Does it ever get played?" He said, "No, it's only for show." Why would a piano be sitting there like that in the middle of nowhere and open for anyone to come and play it and THEN not be allowed to!!?? What's the point. If its just gonna sit there, why not move it to my house where it will be put to use?

You know they say that 90% of the money in this country is owned by 10% of the population....

I hope that last comment made sense. I thought it did at the time...

I'm in Minnesota

Hi. I'm in Minneapolis, Minnesota right now visiting my very good friend Sarah. I've known her for yearsandyears - and it's the type of thing where you can just pick up friendship where you left off...with lots of stories in between. Originally from NY, she moved here to study - Interpreting and Sign Language - and is now living and working in this cold forsaken state. Ha. Who would have thought.

Today we did lots of stuff and walk around as much as we could outside and drink coffee. There are many coffeeshops here for a reason. Already last night, we found ourselves randomly walking into a Kereoke place where of course, I immediately hooked myself up with a U2 song - "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For."

Just some thoughts about MN - I came asking the question, what came out of here? I'm still not sure, but hopefully by the time I leave I'll have a better answer. It's a cute place, friendly people and they aren't rushed or walking around panic-y like "New Yorkans" (as Shannon would say, tho he doens't read my blog)....

OH right, I think Prince came out of Minnesota. There we go. I think that's great - and when I leave maybe I can be The Artist Formerly Known As Emily. Awesome.

Pictures

Thought I’d add some more pics for the fun of it!


This is Anna's Farm...















Charlie's Angels if they were hicks...











Milking a cow, ever so carefully…An awkward moment for both of us..

The White House....

More travels...

Sooo more news from the NY front. I just got back from Lancaster, PA and Washington, DC. Driving my car is so nice and the countryside is really pretty. In PA I visited 2 friends I actually met in Jerusalem, Sara and Anna. Some of you over there may remember them from their brief stay…

When they arrived at the Embassy (where Sara was actually volunteering post-Feast in the bookstore with me), they were just finishing up their trip to Kurdistan and other European countries. And we still marvel at the fact that even though we
have lived 3 hours apart all our lives we had to go all the way to Jeru to meet! How cool is that.

So my favorite experience was hanging out on Anna's family farm – and just marveling at large countryside, barns, homemade everything and cows. Just like Little House on the Prairie. The whole time I felt like the city kid that they were taking around - giving me the real Lancaster experience and maybe sort of embarrassed when I’d stare and take pictures of the Amish buggy's. Hahaha. This past Friday morning, we went to a buffet for breakfast – a place like this is what America is made of. Serious amounts of such good food, and by the end we were just slaphappy and overstuffed….

After this, we took out the 4-wheelers on the farm and went nuts, as much as we could. At first, I was slightly spastic because it was my first time driving one, but man alive, it was so exhilarating and insane. Here’s pics of me looking totally country and rugged…or something like that.

Oh – so in the midst of my PA stay, I also went to DC for a few days to visit some randoms there – Nick, my college friend and Dave the Rave or Gave or Have or whatever we call him. I spent a day in DC seeing all the monuments, the White House, museums AND ....HaDag Nahash...a very awesome Israeli band. How random is that. As usual - a great show of such talented musicians. We talked to the trombone player at the end for a little bit too. So fun!