Jerusalem First Day

We walked to the old city about a mile away. We saw many shops, on the way, selling women’s clothing, restaurants and shops selling Judaic things. The old city has a large stone wall surrounding it with entrances. The old city is divided into a Christian, Muslim, Armenian and Jewish quarters. We went in the Jaffa Gate which leads to the Jewish quarter. We walked around the Old City and saw hundreds of small shops along old stone walkways selling Judaic things and clothing. In the United States one may see only 1 or 2 such shops, other than New York City.

There were also many soldiers on duty with dogs and some with machine guns. On the way back to the hotel we found a restaurant with free Internet service that we plan on using, but we were too tired to make it back to our hotel, get the computer and then back to this restaurant.

We decided to eat dinner at a small but busy pizza restaurant near the hotel. The pizza was thin crust and good. I ordered a root beer with the pizza, but was served a malt beer. The waiter then said they did not have root beer and served me a bottle of lemonade with a glass, but the lemonade was warm. I asked for ice, but I was told they did not have any ice. Americans like cold drinks, but like Europeans, Israelis seem to drink their liquids at room temperature. Jackie was dozing off at the restaurant, so I thought we better get some sleep.

We finally got to our room at 8:00 p.m. Israeli time, 10:00 a.m. PDT. The TV had a few English news programs, but not CNN. One item of confusion with all the time zone changes was taking pills. I think I missed taking some of the scheduled medications. Hopefully this will get straightened out tomorrow. We decided it was time to go to bed.