Jerusalem Day 4 (Monday May 18, 2009 Evening)

(Sorry for the delay in posting. The Hotel Internet in Haifa did not work for me to post this blog)
We were unfortunately not able to meet my relative, Nomi Sela (Moses) last night. She was with a large group traveling to Jerusalem and they had traveled during the very hot day yesterday from Haifa. Jackie and I decided to go to the same very good restaurant, Al Dente, as we did the night before. We tried to get a taxi driver at the hotel to drive us to the restaurant at 50 Ussishkin Street. We had a funny experience in that I mispronounced the name of the street and the taxi driver did not know the small restaurant and did not know the street. I showed him the address in the Fodor’s guide and he still did not know the location. The driver conferred with 4 other taxi drivers and the bell man and finally they came up with the correct pronunciation of the street and the location. I realized later that they could only read Hebrew or Arabic and not the Roman letters in the English Fodor Guide. They were depending on my pronunciation to get the street name correct. We had another very good dinner. We ordered ravioli and were given a choice of sweet potato, spinach, or salmon ravioli. We were also given a choice of 5 sauces. We chickened out and chose spinach ravioli with tomato sauce.

After dinner we went back one more time to the Old City of Jerusalem and on our way back to the hotel we came across some Israeli people dancing to Israeli music. I took a video of this delightful event, but it is too big a file to post from the hotel.

Day 2, (May 15, 2009) in Jerusalem

We decided not to get a tour but to walk to the Wailing Wall and the Jewish Quadrant of the Old City today. The Wailing Wall is part of the second Temple built in Jerusalem and is a very sacred place. Security was even tighter than yesterday and we were blocked several times for going down streets that we wanted to travel. We eventually found out Pope Benedict was coming to the Old City. We did not see the Pope, but we felt his presence with all the security.

At the Wailing Wall there were a large number of men praying, some at desks and others just standing. The men had prayer shalls, tallis and hats or yarmulke.
Women had a separate area near the Wall, so Jackie and I had to split up. Jackie was required to wear a shall to cover her arms. We had to go through security detectors to enter the area near the mall.

The views from were interesting and historical. One could see the Gold Dome on the Rock, but were not allowed to enter the area on Fridays. This may be the place where Abraham almost sacrificed his son Isaac. This is also the area where King David made his repentance to the Lord and where his son Solomon built “God’s House”, the First Temple. One can also see the famous Muslim El-Aqsa Mosque.

We had difficulty finding the Jaffe gate from which we entered the city since many exits were blocked off by security to protect the Pope. We eventually did get out by the “New Gate” and had to walk around the outside wall to get to the Jaffe Gate and find our way to the hotel.

At lunch time we went to the café that had a free Internet connection to prepare our first blog update. In the afternoon, we returned to the hotel to get out of the heat and to rest or tired legs and feet.

In the late afternoon it had cooled off, like California, the Pope was gone, the security was reduced, and we walked back through the Old City. We decided to walk through the Christian sector to see the path that Jesus took with the cross. We found Via Delorosa, which is suppose to be the street Jesus took, but we did not see any markings showing the 14 stations. We did find a building that indicated it was the location of the birthplace of the Virgin Mary. We continued walking through the Muslim, Armenian and Jewish sections. In the Jewish and Muslim section there were some visitors, but most of the stores were closed and it was relative quite due to Friday night Shabbat (Sabbath). We were impressed how peaceful everyone was and how everyone from different religious beliefs seemed to be working together, but then we noted that at every major corner are at least 4 Israeli Defense Force (IDF) or police members patrolling to make sure it says peaceful.

Changing money without a fee is difficult. The major credit card companies now charge a fee of 3% on purchases outside of the United States. Money changers charge a similar fee as do the hotels. Local banks provide the best exchange rate, but are frequently closed or may only exchange currency on certain days and hours, leaving a visitor to guess if they can exchange their currency at a bank. We also found a money changing store that was temporarily out of Israeli Shekel currency and asked us to return later.

On Friday evening is Shabbat and I tried to use the hotel elevator only to be surprised the floor button did not work. I was told that on Shabbat the elevator automatically goes from the lobby to the top floor (11th floor) and then descends one floor at a time until it gets to your floor. This prevents very religious Jews from doing any work such as pushing an elevator button or walking up the stairs. I had heard of this before, but had not experienced this type of elevator previously. I am glad I was not in NYC with 60+ floor elevators.

We finally found one restaurant, Parasido, open for dinner on the Shabbat night near the hotel. It was very busy and had good food. We completed our meal and went to our hotel to rest and sleep, for tomorrow is another day.

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.