Old City Jerusalem

Sunday morning we got to sleep in until 7, eat breakfast at Neve Shalom and then head into Jerusalem. It took us a while to get there since sooo many people were heading into work and of course you have tons of tour buses. Adam has been our van driver this year and he did a great job of dodging the 7000 people who cut us off or came into our lane while texting ( did you know that the cell phone was invented in Israel?). Anyways, we parked close to Ben Yehuda street and walked into the city through the Joffa Gate. We went straight to Shabban's and exchanged money. Then we started shopping :). Last year Adam got upset with me b/c I talked to every store owner and looked at everything. I tried really hard not to do the same thing this year b/c if you make eye contact with them or smile then you have to go into the store and most of the time are convinced to buy something. Like I said, I tried :).

We bought some things from Shabban but also went back to our friend from last year who said "Heart of Dixie" when we told him that we were from Alabama. He wasn't too happy to see us this year, probably b/c he knew I was going to practically steal things from him. So then we went and made new friends with two other shop owners. Joseph, our new friend, showed us tons of fabric, jewelry and the deepest well in the Old City. Joseph designs and makes all the jewelry and his uncle and he own the store together. We ended up buying lots of things from them and going to get our friends so they could buy from them too! When we went to leave, he made us all zatar tea with honey in it and ended up giving me a scarf to say thanks for all the business. I think we will continue to use Joesph and Shabban for all of our purchases in the Old City.

We also ate lunch in the Old City and knew without a doubt what we would get...SPICY SWARMA from the Damascus Gate stand......oh my word. I just had some and I am drooling again just thinking about it!!!

After Jerusalem we drove to Bet Shemesh to do our grocery shopping for the week. This year we have to provide our own breakfast and snack. Adam and I already had nutella, some bread, pepsi and some graham crackers so we bought mixed berry jam, croissants, milk (3%, which is 3 more percent than I normally drink) grapes, and pizza flavored cheese puffs. The milk is okay, I have to hold my nose when I drink it b/c it smells like foot flavored coffee creamer but it taste fine. The jam is amazing, especially when you mix it with nutella!!!!

From there we came back to Neve Shalom for dinner and then Boon led us at Vespers out on the veranda overlooking Tel Aviv.