Day Ten: April 18, 2006: Israel Trip
The Jerusalem Overview Tour
We started off the day with the huge unleavened breakfast and negotiating our stay for the next two nights here along with getting overcharged for postage stamps at the gift shop. At breakfast we saw some Muslim (?) leaders walking around in their robes and ordering people around. Then we were off to conquer the Jerusalem bus system. After much bickering and despair. I've found the central bus station only to find that the bus schedules were only available in Hebrew. Bus 99-the full fledged tour was available to stupid people like us for only 9 dollars. O well...so we did it first not seeing anything they were telling us about on our headphones and then finally getting the hang of it. We got off at Jaffa Gate and realized we had no clud what to do next. We saw bread vendors fighting with the police (why were they selling during the Feast of Unleavened Bread?)-it looked like the bread vendors prevailed and tourists happily were brying away (Dieter is still complaining that he didn't buy one-Matzah gets old quick and to tell you the truth biblically I just can't see the logic behind Matzah only, unless it's to save money by not having to buy good unleavened bread). As we moved on we had people asking us over and over if we wanted a guide to show us the city. We declined, sure we could find everything just fine. So we entered to Jerusalem souq (bazaar(market) and got lost in the endless flea market like stores. We stopped in a spice tent and met a man who could speak great German and English who even had a friend in HD. We bought hyssop (the bitter Passover herbs) so we can have that yummy part of Israel at home. We got some whole bean cardomon coffee as well. All great stuff... We ended up somewhere in the Jewish quarter which seemed very clean and organized. I started noticing the types of Orthodox Jews around me. Some were in satin black oriental like coats, Russian-like furry hats and of course on Shirly Temple curl on each side. Then the others with top hats (actually they were somewhere between cowboy and top hats-all black of course) and black suits with thin white stripes and the white tassles hangin out-usually no Shirley temples. Then you had the more relaxed looking ones: white shirt, tassles, kibbot caps and some with long "side burns", some not. Without exception, however, they all had a ton of kids-the average number was four. You rarely saw a Jewish couple without a trail of kids or at least a pregnant tummy. No birth control here! And the kids were all soooo cute. I found it all quite fascinating observing them as they interacted. We didn't get to have lunch there or look at the temple mount, just browse the Jewish, Armenian and Christian quarters. I still have a long list of things I want to see. This was just the overview day. We hurried back to catch our double decker bus 99 and continue the tour. We got to go to a few viewpoints overlooking the city. They explained the different Jewish neighborhoods, government quarter, museums, stadium, zoo, hospitals, mall, graveyards, memorials, you name it, we probably saw it. It actually turned out to be a pretty good and thorough tour.
Central Bus Station
After that we were back at the Central Bus Station where we finally got lunch: falafel (unfortunately with Matzahs), but with lots of yummy fresh veggies. The owner of the place had a shaved head, an ear ring and a very provocative t-shirt. One of his workers was an orthodox Jew in white shirt, kibbot, tassles, black with white stripe suit pants. I couldn't believe he would wear his nice clothes to work at a falafel place with such a crazy boss, but I guess that's the way things are in Jerusalem. After that we set off on a search for a new book for me to journal our days in (this one was almost full...the hard copy version of course), but everything in the train station closed at three. We still can't figure out these Jewish holidays! Luckily, we at least got a coffee for Dieter and trudged back to the hotel. Here we've been, me very happy to be relaxing and gathering strength for more sightseeing tomorrow. I guess we'll take a taxi in cause we couldn't figure out the buses or maybe we'll take the car? Dieter's already making a game plan as I sit here writing. Good night sweet hearts wll it's time to go...bo bo do di do...
I forgot to tell you...we got some great CDs at Tower Records in the bus station while waiting for the tour to start...Yippeee!
We started off the day with the huge unleavened breakfast and negotiating our stay for the next two nights here along with getting overcharged for postage stamps at the gift shop. At breakfast we saw some Muslim (?) leaders walking around in their robes and ordering people around. Then we were off to conquer the Jerusalem bus system. After much bickering and despair. I've found the central bus station only to find that the bus schedules were only available in Hebrew. Bus 99-the full fledged tour was available to stupid people like us for only 9 dollars. O well...so we did it first not seeing anything they were telling us about on our headphones and then finally getting the hang of it. We got off at Jaffa Gate and realized we had no clud what to do next. We saw bread vendors fighting with the police (why were they selling during the Feast of Unleavened Bread?)-it looked like the bread vendors prevailed and tourists happily were brying away (Dieter is still complaining that he didn't buy one-Matzah gets old quick and to tell you the truth biblically I just can't see the logic behind Matzah only, unless it's to save money by not having to buy good unleavened bread). As we moved on we had people asking us over and over if we wanted a guide to show us the city. We declined, sure we could find everything just fine. So we entered to Jerusalem souq (bazaar(market) and got lost in the endless flea market like stores. We stopped in a spice tent and met a man who could speak great German and English who even had a friend in HD. We bought hyssop (the bitter Passover herbs) so we can have that yummy part of Israel at home. We got some whole bean cardomon coffee as well. All great stuff... We ended up somewhere in the Jewish quarter which seemed very clean and organized. I started noticing the types of Orthodox Jews around me. Some were in satin black oriental like coats, Russian-like furry hats and of course on Shirly Temple curl on each side. Then the others with top hats (actually they were somewhere between cowboy and top hats-all black of course) and black suits with thin white stripes and the white tassles hangin out-usually no Shirley temples. Then you had the more relaxed looking ones: white shirt, tassles, kibbot caps and some with long "side burns", some not. Without exception, however, they all had a ton of kids-the average number was four. You rarely saw a Jewish couple without a trail of kids or at least a pregnant tummy. No birth control here! And the kids were all soooo cute. I found it all quite fascinating observing them as they interacted. We didn't get to have lunch there or look at the temple mount, just browse the Jewish, Armenian and Christian quarters. I still have a long list of things I want to see. This was just the overview day. We hurried back to catch our double decker bus 99 and continue the tour. We got to go to a few viewpoints overlooking the city. They explained the different Jewish neighborhoods, government quarter, museums, stadium, zoo, hospitals, mall, graveyards, memorials, you name it, we probably saw it. It actually turned out to be a pretty good and thorough tour.
Central Bus Station
After that we were back at the Central Bus Station where we finally got lunch: falafel (unfortunately with Matzahs), but with lots of yummy fresh veggies. The owner of the place had a shaved head, an ear ring and a very provocative t-shirt. One of his workers was an orthodox Jew in white shirt, kibbot, tassles, black with white stripe suit pants. I couldn't believe he would wear his nice clothes to work at a falafel place with such a crazy boss, but I guess that's the way things are in Jerusalem. After that we set off on a search for a new book for me to journal our days in (this one was almost full...the hard copy version of course), but everything in the train station closed at three. We still can't figure out these Jewish holidays! Luckily, we at least got a coffee for Dieter and trudged back to the hotel. Here we've been, me very happy to be relaxing and gathering strength for more sightseeing tomorrow. I guess we'll take a taxi in cause we couldn't figure out the buses or maybe we'll take the car? Dieter's already making a game plan as I sit here writing. Good night sweet hearts wll it's time to go...bo bo do di do...
I forgot to tell you...we got some great CDs at Tower Records in the bus station while waiting for the tour to start...Yippeee!
posted by Hannah's Music at 5:45 AM
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