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Feb 2022: Stanford. February was chaotic. We threw a jungle-themed party, decorating our house with vines that we reused weekly as "The Last of Us" ambiance. I played two basketball games per week and got into great shape before we lost in the playoffs. My class turned out to be a decent amount of work, which when combined with basketball, research, and Dnd, left me feeling very very busy. At the same time, I think I did a better job this quarter of meeting new Knight-Hennessy scholars and going to Denning house for lunches and homework sessions. Sergio passed his quals, which was very exciting, and we managed to have roommie time on Sundays despite my (our?) busy schedule(s). I'm excited to have more space to breathe next quarter. It continued to rain at Stanford, filling Lake Lag and covering Tahoe with snow while adding more things for me to pack (rain coat, rain pants) every day. (at Stanford University) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cp01Y_Uv1ud/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Feb 2023: Yosemite doesn't miss. Ashwyn, Savannah, and Natalie planned a lovely trip to Yosemite where we cooked together, played road-trip games, and hiked up the Upper Yosemite falls trail until it was too snowy for comfort. Plus, Ashwyn, Savannah, Tyler and I got to travel together again, bringing back happy memories of San Diego and the Middle East but this time with other people mixed in for new recipes, new jokes, and new stories. I feel so lucky to live close enough to Yosemite to go so frequently, it somehow always helps me center myself around what's important. (at Yosemite National Park) https://www.instagram.com/p/CpvgkMcPF1h/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Jan 2023: Rain. After taking a month off of research, I knew I would have a lot of catching up to do. And man, did I. I took a class, blood flow modeling, for the first time in 6 months and while it is perfect for my research, it did interrupt my routine. Physically, I'd healed from my minor hip injury of the spring and once again joined two intramural basketball teams. It's such a joy to get to play with my friends :) As I've been juggling this, Stanford had a series of legitimate rain storms (!!!) which prompted my roommates and I to watch an outrageous amount of TV. We had TV rotations for every permutation of roommates home: Vineland saga for Joey and I, Jujitsu Kaisen for Kanishk and I, Severance for Joey, kanishk and I, and White Lotus for us all. This made us extremely excited for the premiere of The Last of Us, a show based on my favorite video game of all time. Once the rain stopped, we had a series of social events as everyone decided it was time to come out of their holes and catch up after the break and rain. While I'm super busy, I feel so blessed to be back with my friends. Highlights: 2) Lab goodbye dinner for Elizabeth 4) Kat and her panda cake made out of cake (!!!?!) 5) POV: it's raining at Stanford 7) not pictured: Nikita teaching us to skate (at Stanford University) https://www.instagram.com/p/CogyGGfuuNT/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Dec 2022: DC Christmas. I arrived to a frigid east coast, with temperatures down to 10 degrees F. Because I was only arriving on the 23rd and my parents now live within an hour of my aunt and uncle, we decided to have our first Christmas away from upstairs NY. Our first trek was a valiant trip into DC to the air and space museum. We almost froze walking to Union Station for dinner but managed to get some cute photos in front of the tree. Karl and I decided that we wanted to cook our family's Christmas meal and made elaborate plans to bake pizzas for everyone. Our timing worked out great and we had a nice Christmas Eve of puzzle making, game playing and German Christmas Carol singing. The rest of break was a classic east coast visit. We washed cars and watched the eagles with my dad, we went on walks and made picture books with my mom, we ate Oma's delightful cookies, and Karl and I cooked, played basketball, and watched YouTube together. We had a second Christmas with Nana and a third with Ruthie, which were both very sweet. It was the perfect way to unwind after a long and intense time abroad. 1, 10: freezing in dc 2: Christmas eve dinner 3: Forst family car washing technique 4: forest walk 5: Nana banana 6: cooking in Fairfax 7: back breaking puzzle 8: beautiful east coast sunset with car 9: a farm in Southern Pennsylvania (at Gaithersburg MD) https://www.instagram.com/p/CnmzTkpPePh/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Dec 2022: Tel Aviv, our last day. I woke up (having not not slept much the night before) with a head cold. I floated through our morning at Lud--one of the few mixed cities in Israel--before spending my treasured moments of free time in Jaffa, the old city of Tel Aviv. I wish I had more time to explore and relax on the beach but my time Tel Aviv was delightful. There were cafes and restaurants everywhere, flooded with young people. Our last stop was a Ethiopian Jewish cultural center, where I had my first-ever Ethiopian food! After dinner, it was time to go home. 1-4, 6: Jaffa 5: Tel Aviv skyline from Jaffa 7: Bakery in Jaffa 8: Lud 9: Hip area of Tel Aviv 10: T&S one last time (at Tel Aviv, Israel) https://www.instagram.com/p/CnjIdw8OtvE/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Dec 2022: West Bank, Sea of Galilee, and Golan Heights. Our West Bank plans changed because of checkpoint clashes, meaning we had to take a roundabout path to Ramallah. But we couldn't complain because our new path was stunningly beautiful, with pale limestone hills dotted with olive trees at every turn. Unfortunately, we ran out of time to go to the city proper and instead went to a suburb to the north where we met with a professor. We next visited an eerily empty private city named Rawabi and met its founder before continuing on to the Sea of Galilee. That night we walked into the surprising warm sea and stargazed together, ruminating about the day. The next day we went to the Golan Heights, the mountain range that serves as the border of Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. We then went to a Druze city, where we had the most delightful home cooked food--Maqluba plus some divine rice cabbage rolls--before it hailed (!?!!) and we drove to Tel Aviv to sleep. 1: West Bank 2: Israeli side of the wall 3: Palestinian side of the wall, gas station with a super nice bathroom. 4: Clashes ahead at the roundabout where we were supposed to drive to Ramallah 5-6: West Bank at sunset 7: Sea of Galilee 8-10: Golan Heights (at West Bank,Palestine) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cnffm9jv883/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Dec 2022: Jerusalem with KH. Saturday night, the Knight-Hennessy group arrived. We began a whirlwind tour of Israel and Palestine, with meetings, tours, and bus rides from 6:30am until 10:30pm for five days. It was a firehouse of information that I'm still processing. These are my favorite pictures from Jerusalem. The Al-Aqsa Mosque instantly became one of my favorite buildings, up there with the parliament building in Budapest. Our first day was mostly about religion, retracing much of what Ashwyn, Savannah, and I had done two days before. I felt like a little kid who'd learned about a topic in school slightly before my friends--feeling special and cool as I talked about how the western wall was the western side of a mosque in the east of Jerusalem which was near the West Bank which was east of Israel. We had fantastic falafel for lunch in the old city before going to a book store in East Jerusalem. That night we watched the world cup game and celebrated with Kevin, who is Argentinian, after they won :) 1-4: Al-Aqsa Mosque 5: lunch with friends 6: East Jerusalem 7: City of David 8: Pretty ruin 9: Friends watching the world cup in the hotel 10: Jerusalem watching the world cup (at Al-Aqsa Mosque) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cnc6dFZP91S/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Dec 2022: Bethlehem. Saturday, two weeks before Christmas Eve, we traveled to Bethlehem. Bethlehem is a 40 minute bus ride south of Jerusalem and is an Area A Palestinian city. That meant that we left a very quiet shabbat-observing West Jerusalem and arrived to a bustling Saturday morning arab market. Bethlehem is a city etched into a mountain, with beautiful twisting streets and gorgeous views of the surrounding mountains and fields. We hiked up these winding streets to the Church of the Nativity, where Jesus was born, and imagined his parents breathlessly looking for a space to stay. We then went to a Palestinian refugee camp, which looked like a regular town, where we took a cooking class teaching us to make Maqluba. The class is a fundraiser for special-needs children in Bethlehem and Palestine at large. It is run by a small group of women, who graciously welcomed us and shared stories about their lives with us. I loved being able to share a meal with such a small group of people, it felt very intimate. After returning to Jerusalem, Ashwyn, Lillie and I happened upon a Christmas market in the old city and capped off a lovely and deeply moving pre-Knight-Hennessy introduction to Israel and Palestine with some superb hot chocolate and Christmas cheer. Our next adventure would begin in 3 hours. (at Bethlehem, West Bank) https://www.instagram.com/p/CnaOlGISNsh/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Dec 2022: Jerusalem, our holiest of holies. In Egypt, we often heard about different "holiest of holies," places where the essence of holiness and god(s) were meant to reside. Jerusalem is that place for us. The first picture is of the mount of olives and garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed before being crucified. It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. A middle picture shows the rock where Jesus was crucified. The last photo shows the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Western retaining wall. The Golden dome shows where the first and second Jewish temples were built (David then Solomon) and where Mohammed ascended and descended from heaven in his midnight journey. The western wall of the mosque is the current most holy site in Judaism, where Jewish people pray. We got to see all of this on Friday, which is a particularly special time for all three religions. For Christianity, we walked the actual stations of the cross with a Jesuit group, starting at the garden and ending at Jesus's tomb. Then we went to the Western Wall just before sunset to celebrate Shabbat with friend Sinead. As we were there we heard the call to prayer from the Al-Aqsa Mosque above us. It was deeply moving, the most beautiful example I've ever seen of people living, praying, and celebrating in harmony. (at The Garden of Gethsemane, Jerusalem) https://www.instagram.com/p/CnBHCdVLEaa/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Dec 2022: Luxor, East. The land of the living. The Tombs and temples of Luxor were larger but not as elegant as those of the Old Kingdom (near Cairo). More art was painted than carved, and there were rarely full relief carvings. Luxor was also a slower, more rural, more tourism-focused city than Cairo. I preferred the bustle of Cairo. My favorite part of being in Luxor was watching the world cup semifinal, Morocco vs France, in a cafe. (at Luxor, Egypt) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm_RKhHuftY/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Dec 2022: Luxor, West. The Tombs of the Pharoahs and the workers. (at Valley of the Kings, Luxor , Egypt) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm_PiGSOzjY/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Dec 2022: Camels. (at Saqqara) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm8SRDOu1lJ/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Dec 2022: Cairo. Cairo is incredibly energetic, with cars ignoring lanes, people ignoring cars while crossing the street and sleepers ignoring honking outdoors. There are snack stores everywhere and the snacks rock. Egyptians are [still] extremely good at building and they show it. Everywhere you look, there is construction: some active, many left intentionally unfinished to evade property taxes. Coming straight from the bay, where building a third floor is probably illegal, it was surreal to imagine so many people living in such a small area. (at Cairo, Egypt) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm8RUy5OTSc/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Dec 2022: Pyramids. The pyramids are breathtaking. What beautiful feats of planning, engineering and building. Going into the frumpy pyramid was exciting, strenuous, and a bit spooky. The wooden spiral staircase inside felt rickety, which along with the general tomb-y vibe made me feel in-touch with death. The great pyramids were not quite as warm as the less popular, smaller pyramids we visited on day one [day one is all the first pics including my selfie, the rest is day two]. They rise out of the dust like a mountain suddenly loading into a video-game, towering over everything in sight. Your brain can't really comprehend how big they are. It first thinks they're really far away but then kinda freaks out when you get close enough to place their distance from you. My pulse genuinely spiked at this point. Then you hit a point where you can't even see all of it and you calm down. (at Giza, Egypt) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cmzziw5v8nD/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Dec 2022: Saqqara. Our first day in Egypt was my favorite. We visited Saqqara, an archeological site some 6000 years old. It had the best carvings I saw in Egypt--incredibly detailed full-relief images. Unfinished, you can see how they drew to draft the carvings before outlining and then shaping the figures. The Tombs had massive granite coffins that defy logic. How did they move them? How did they carve them? We have no idea. (at Saqqara) https://www.instagram.com/p/CmzvnrbvVmO/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Nov 2022: extras https://www.instagram.com/p/Cmg0GW4O6Xy/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Nov 2022: Los Angeles with Justin (at Los Angeles, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/CmgyIXEOyth/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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