Yom Kippur and more...

As Oren and I sit here on Ben Yehuda, we give thanks for the FREE Internet! Actually, we are sitting at a Falafel/Shawarma stand, where we just enjoyed lunch! It turns out anywhere on Ben Yehuda St. you can access free internet! You won’t find that at Starbucks. The weather in the Jerusalem is getting cool. I wish I brought a sweater with me this afternoon. I am wearing jeans and quarter sleeve shirt and on my right Oren is only wearing shorts and a t-shirt! Because of the holidays, Jerusalem is crowded with tourist and locals who are off work. Here is a little about our last weekend:

Tel Aviv. Yes, Again! Currently, Tel Aviv is my favorite city in Israel. I love the Mediterranean. The beaches are beautiful and the water feels amazing. We decided to go back last weekend to see Karen, Gili and Maya, before they left for San Fran. Oren and I stayed at the Hayarkon 48 hostel! It was actually really nice and even had air condition. To tell the truth, any place is a luxury compared to Beit Canada! I won’t go into details, just trust me!!!

It is a blast to bring our niece Maya to the beach. She absolutely loves it! I remember the first day we took her their, she was afraid of going in. By her last day, you had to watch every step she took because became very adventurous.

On Friday morning we went to the Yafo market and then in the afternoon we went to Shenkin Street and the Shuk of Carmel with Gili and Karen. We had a lot of fun looking at the fresh fruits, veggies and art work! We didn’t buy much. I am more of an observer than a buyer!

IKEA of the Middle East : Oren and I were feeling a bit homesick in Tel Aviv, so we decided to go to a familiar place: IKEA. Actually, we needed a ton of household items for our new apartment. On Shabbat Ikea is closed. It reopens right after Shabbat every Saturday. This particular Saturday IKEA did not open until 8pm and it closed at 11pm. By the time Oren and I got to Ikea, there was a 25 minute line to get inside. The place was mobbed! Literally, it was difficult to maneuver yourself to look around. Anyway, it was an interesting experience. We bought a couple of household items, but not as much as we originally intended.

Yom Kippur in Jerusalem: This is what we were told to beware of on Yom Kippur: NO DRIVING, DO NOT USE ANY ELECTRICAL DEVICES OUTSIDE YOUR HOME, WEAR ALL WHITE AND NOTHING AT ALL WILL BE OPEN. This was indeed what happened! Oren and I took an observant route to Yom Kippur = watching people and how they act. The eve of Yom Kippur we walked around the community our building is in. The streets were empty of cars but plentiful of children. Since it is a law in Israel that no cars can drive unless you are army, police or Muslim, 100’s of children were in the streets on their bicycles. Think how much fun that would be if we were still kids? They spent the evening racing down the hills, congregating with friends in a local square or the middle of the street. Parents were out and about talking, as well. We did not see too many religious people. We walked to this place called the Haas Promenade where we could see a view of the entire city of Jerusalem, even one of the border fences. There, Oren engaged himself in conversation with a couple of police. He asked them how they got Yom Kippur duty. It turns out that one was a Druze and the other a Christian Arab. At the Haas Promenade we heard what sounded like gunfire. It turns out that it is Ramadan right now, and after the nightly meal the children go into the streets and shoot off firecrackers.

Oren and I were worried about entertaining ourselves on the holiday. We managed to do it. Besides taking several walks, we played scrabble and watched half a season of 24 on our laptop.

Oren report: I’ll try to point out some differences between Israel and the US on occasion. Growing up somewhere allows you to learn about all the little things you do not normally think about. How the post office works, where you can park, what typical bank fees might be, where is the best place to buy certain items and much more? Anyway, banks here charge their own customers to process checks you write or pull cash out of one of their own ATM’s. Its not very much, 1.21 shekels and as I write this it is about 4.29 shekels for 1 dollar. Another interesting thing for those of you who like fresh fruits and vegetables, in general they are much cheaper here. We paid less than 2 dollars for 5 big peaches and 4 plums. For those of you who do not shop much, I expect that might be 4-5 dollars. Also, Suzanne noticed something missing and now is dying for it…Broccoli. I heard that because it is not in season, its hard to find and more expensive.

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