...and then it went BOOM!

What. A. Day!!! By 1pm today I had exercised had a ginormous breakfast, done my laundry, and finished all of my homework up to the day we get back to Jordan (friday). It was quite a productive day to say the least and it just got better from there. Around 3:30 we went into the city to exchange our money to Jordanian dinars and went to west Jerusalem for dinner. We went to this little Italian place and our group filled exactly every chair in the restaurant. The shop owners were the best! They knew one of the security guards that works at the center and comes to their restaurant all the time and they phoned him while we were there to say hello. Then they brought out the best salads I have ever had for all of us on the house. After we all got our food, they brought out this thin crust, veggie pizza appetizer thing on the house too! They were so so great to us. I got this tomato cream pasta that was so good and shared a pesto pasta with Hunter which was also extremely good. So we are all chatting away when we notice that the entire street outside is blocked off, there are army men walking back and forth, police lights going off up the street, etc. Obviously we begin to get a little curious and keep looking out the window wondering what's going on. We start joking around saying, "how crazy would that be if a riot was going on outside and we're all just in here laughing and enjoying the..."BOOM!!! I hadn't even finished my sentence before my chair and myself had a few inches between the two. Everyone screamed and the restaurant waiters had to reassure us that everything was ok. Turns out if any suspicious object gets left unoccupied the police blow it up. After we realized what had happened and had recovered from shock, we couldn't stop laughing for several minutes. Easily made for the best night yet! After dinner we went and grabbed some gelato before heading back to the Jerusalem center. Best gelato I've ever had. It honestly was the best night I've had since being here! We all kept saying how just completely happy we all were. It was a much needed feeling after this week. When we got back to the center we congregated in the Sheckle Shack to hear where McCall Smith and Tori Butler got their mission calls today! It was so incredible. McCall got called to Minneapolis, Minnesota and Tori got called to Sendai, Japan. It was easily the best day yet! Now I get to wake up tomorrow morning at 5 am to leave for Jordan. Life just doesn't slow down here.