Jerusalem

So it's about 4am ish right now and I can't sleep so I decided to bring you all the update from yesterday.

We woke up in Tel Aviv yesterday morning, as I may have mentioned, and had stayed at Mike's uncle Mark's house. Here's another picture of Tel Aviv as taken from the balcony at Mark's ...


We got picked up by Mark's friend who also lives in the building named Eitan. Eitan drives a taxi and he was really nice. He took us to Jerusalem. Riding in the car was fun and a bit of an experience. As many reading this may already know, drivers are nuts in Israel. Eitan told us a phrase used often regarding drivers and people in general in here, "Mamzer Melech." Otherwise translates into, "Bastards [are] Kings [here]."

He was a little on the foul mouthed side. Talked a lot about politics. Eitan was a sniper in the Israeli army. He was wounded in the first Lebanon War in the arm and had to have operations. He became disillusioned with both the army and his country when, after he had surgery to fix his arm, the army burocracy forgot why he needed the surgery and proceeded to try and act as if his surgery was unnecissary and he needed to pay back the government he'd served so dilligently.

So Eitan left the army and refused to help Israel with anything it asked for. It was sort of sad. He said that ten years ago things were different and he didn't like what had happened to his country. He had a few choice phrases that I won't repeat to discribe the current administration in Israel, and he also seemed to have not so nice opinions of religious Jews in Israel (which I found interesting that he was so open about that because we looked somewhat frum enough to be dati at least). That and he told some fantastic jokes. All in all though, he was a really sweet guy.

But anyhow, he took us to Jerusaelem safe and sound and helped us find our apartment so we could meet up with the owner and take posession.

Our apartment is great! Exactly what we wanted. There's some issues with the kashrus of the utencils. I'm good with kashering the flatware, but the oven is a bit of an issue. See, there's no oven built into the kitchen. It's a toaster oven and from my experience, one can't really kosher a toaster oven. There's also a bit of an issue with the plates and some of the pots and pans that have teflon coating. It isn't worth buying new because we're only here for a month (unfortunately) but so we're going to have to figure out what we're going to do with a mostly treif kitchen.

We were going to cook this shabbos or at least get something and keep it warm on a blech but there is not so much of that option. We're going to figure it out today when we go back to the market, but I'm getting ahead of myself...






So yea, it's a beautiful one bedroom apartment. Wifi (which enables me to be publishing this now, btw) and air conditioning included. The internet signal here is actually much better than in Tel Aviv. It still has its quirks but it's pretty constant, which is nice. It's also up high and behind a gate, so it feels very safe.

We settled in and rested for a little bit before heading out to the market, which was down the street, for some lunch.

This is where I fell in love with Machne Yehuda...


This place is a foodie's paradise. Being a major foodie, it was love at first smell and commitment at first taste! So many things to see and eat. We walked through one area and saw almost an entire front half of a lamb. Now we HAVE to figure out a way to cook at the aparment! We explored for a bit and then came upon a shwarma stand where I had my first authentic Israeli shwarma.

I have to say and I mean this with no offense to Morris, but The Place ain't got nothing on Machne Yehuda. Especially when it comes to its shwarma. I had the works, chummus, hareef, chips, more hareef. It was a delightful kick to the face and oh my goodness was it awesome.

And to top it off, we went around the corner to this bakery Michael used to frequent when he was in Yeshiva. The place was swarming with bees all over its baked goods. At first I was apalled because if you see bugs crawling all over food in the states, you do tend to slightly freak out. That and my hate relationship (sans the love) with bees due to their propensity to sting me and put me in the hospital, I wasn't very keen on all of this. But Michael persisted and we baught a quarter kilo of this chocolate rugalach.

Holy crap. This stuff was AMAZING! I now understood why the bees were all over everything. It all was so sweet! And everything was fresh from the oven. Warm, soft, mushie, sweet, and packed with chocolate. I am afraid to admit this almost, but Michael asked me and it's true, this is better than my beloved Krispy Kreme!







We then walked down to Ben Yehuda St to see what was going on. We found the "kosher" burger king (under the supervision of the Jerusalem Rabbinate not Mehadren so we won't eat there) and we also found something else that was pretty cool ...













Yes, there is a Coffee Bean in Israel!! And, yes, it's kosher l'mehadrin! Only thing is, it turns out, drinks are around $10 US, or so Michael said when he looked at the price in shekalim.

Needless to say, we don' need no Coffee bean here. But I just thought it was interesting that there was one (Stacy, I think you were wondering about that, right?).

Anyhow, by this time, we were getting pretty tired. It was very hot out and we had walked all over. We decided to head back to the apartment for a bit of a siesta and to cool off. So we did.

It was a great idea. We turned on the air and went to sleep. Unfortunately, I woke up at one point with a charlie horse because I was dehydrated. This was a good lesson to have. It reminded me to be more diligent in hydrating myself. I had had a bit of an issue back in Tel Aviv with tap water. Basically, I had a stomach issue after I drank some. So now I've been sticking to strictly bottled until my stomach feels a little more normal but because of this, I'd not really been drinking.

At any rate, after our nap we awoke and it was about 8 or 9pm. We decided to head out again and do some people watching back on Ben Yehuda St.

This was a completely new site to behold! Everyone was there and enjoying and eating and partying.

There were guys playing bongo drums while a bum danced and women playing harps and street food and wonderful smells and it was fantastic!

It reminded me in a way of New Orleans, only better. So much was going on and we walked a lot in search of our next bite to eat and some entertainment.

We found a lovely Chinese restaurant and it was very delicious. More food photo:

So basically, after we ate again we walked around a bit more and took in more sites and sounds. In a few hours, we hope to do some shopping for Shabbos and iron out the Shabbos food situation and then head over to the Kotel. I'm very excited about that and look forward to our first Shabbos in Israel!

I'll leave this off with some more choice photos of Jerusalem night life.