One can only eat just so much schwarma...

Today we went to Jerusalem.  Alert Mrs. Michaud!

So I'm just going to flood the page with pictures and as much as I can remember.  Tomorrow begins the work week.  
This is in old Jerusalem.  Heading towards Church of the Holy Sepulchre !

Old city Jerusalem with friends :)

 Ok the serious stuff.
The tomb of Jesus.

This heart was naturally in the stone 
just to the left of the entrance to the
tomb.  I thought that was pretty cool.
Magnified. 

 More in the church.

 Yad Vashem
http://www.yadvashem.org/
Holocaust memorial and study
center.  The children's 
memorial was beautiful.  I took
a video and will try to post it to
youtube.

                          The area around Jerusalem reminds me of California or northern Arizona.

In the old city.  The gold is the
Dome of the Rock that has been 
in the news so much lately.
http://www.domeoftherock.net/ 

 Honestly though, there was not a hint of the violence we see on the TV news.  Can you imagine if every violent crime that happens in
Baltimore or Miami was reported?  Things do
happen but it is not the usual way of life as they
lead us to believe on TV.





My little piece of paper
in the Western Wall!!

 

More views of the old city.  It is quite hilly there= great views. The Dead Sea was not far- so that lent a bit of water vapor to the air.

 This is part of the outer wall.
The old city is a walled city.
These are bullet holes- I believe 
from the war of 1967 he said.

 So many different groups of
people have been here over a looooong time. It is evident by the construction. Ya see, more
recent construction is usually on top of the old ( Just like the law of superposition in geology.)
Each group also had a unique style of construction.  In many places in Israel they are digging down, excavating to find the oldest buildings.  Do you think you live in an old house in Maine? Maybe 1850?  Imagine this area- thousands of years old.  The narrow streets are made of rock smoothed over the years by thousands of feet.

I have one more video to post.  It takes a long time to load but it shows the shops that line the narrow streets of the old city. 

March 6, a doggy day and high fashion.

Gym and studies- they are a part of every day so I'll stop posting about them...

Walking around TLV find us new themes each day.

So here are some lovely outfits I'm trying to choose between for the first day of school next year.

On another note- cats and dogs have status here in TLV.  Dogs are allowed in the malls, stores everywhere.  A cat helped prepare my cup of tea yesterday.

 All of these dogs come to the sidewalk Friday mornings looking for homes.  :(  They come from a high kill animal shelter I believe :(.

Sabbath begins at sundown.  Shabbat Shalom.

Well.... WOW March 4, 2015

The only reason I know what day it is is because of the calendar on the bottom of my computer.

E and I made a huge attempt to reboot our sleep systems so we got up in the am Israeli time.  Now it is closing in to sleep time, but for most of you, you are psyched for lunch.  Lexi, sorry I can't walk you to lunch :(  and Alyssa, sorry I didn't say "bye".  No one was home when I went by.  ( No, That's not weird, we live on the same road...)  
 SOOOOOOooooo.... today was cool, literally.  A few drops of rain even hit us!!  E and I took a city tour- basically a bus that drives around highlighting all of the major sights.  I took many pictures, but am not sure what all of them are from.  The bus moved fast :)

So my WJHS peeps, the pics of you as " Flat Stanleys" will be posted back on our class blog.  What? You deleted it already?  Sigh... I am going to post them there because the rest of the world reading my blog doesn't need to see pictures of Super Jared diving head first into a pile of sand.  I'm on a Fulbright here... have to be respectable.  Each day I select a handful of you to come with me.  Look for the pics on our class blog...

Here are pics from today- OH and I got invited to a Purim party tonight, but not realizing what Purim really was before I arrived, I do not have the correct full costume, just a mask.  oh well.

You do not climb poles here...

Skyline of Tel Aviv from Jaffa

 JONAH and the whale... began in Yafo.

 ummm.... wings and Mexico. That's all I could figure out...

OK so this is cute.  This is the love bridge... You put a lock on the bridge with the person you love. Initials are on the lock.   Interesting...

 

March 3, 2015

1. We are not going to get over jetlag by sleeping until noon.
2. Let's talk about Purim.
First google
The festival of Purim is celebrated every year on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Adar (late winter/early spring). It commemorates the salvation of the Jewish people in ancient Persia from Haman's plot “to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, infants and women, in a single day.”

What happens?  Something between Halloween and Mardi Gras.   


"The result is a mad-cap party of non-stop craziness, which takes over pretty much the whole country for two days (Jerusalem and other walled cities celebrate a day later, meaning with some traveling you can double your Purim fun.) The streets are filled with kids and grown-ups wearing insane outfits, and there’s so much going on, one literally cannot avoid bumping into a party. Grab a bottle of bubbly, fill up your pockets with hamantaschen, and let your head go!"
www.chabad.org/holidays/purim/article_cdo/aid/.../What-Is-Purim.htm

This is a little taste of Purim..  It's getting loud outside!  uh oh!
We live in a very "happening" area...  

ok moving on-

3. Pictures of our "hood"

Can you see the bubbles?  They just blow into the street 24/7.  Well, I actually did not stay up and watch, so I am not sure it is actually 24/7.

Well, sometimes a bird is just a bird!

4. To round out the day, we did get some Vitamin D.  Now I have hours of homework to do.  I hope you do too :)

  

Can this still be March 2?

All I can say is that most people are nice.  Today's challenge was money. OK, shekels... check. Paper money and coins. Ok. But then there are these other coins... hmmm... the vendor at the Carmel Market (pic below) was unimpressed when I handed him these other, apparently worthless coins.

There's more-
Hungry at 10 pm, because our attempt to cook dinner was weak, we ventured out for falafel.  One funky eating place looked promising.  No English in sight.  I asked for falafel.  No falafel, but pita bread with steak and yummy additions.  Ok, I said price? 88 shekels.  Oops. We had heard about the 6 shekel falafel and left wallets at home.  No problem she said, 2 for 1 for Sarah.  So that was good.  We ordered takeout but when she yelled, " Sarah why aren't you sitting down?  sit down! enjoy!" We sat down. And enjoyed.

E and I walked all around Tel Aviv-Yafo today. I won't post any pics of the lovely Med.  No, we did not swim.  We put on a lot of miles and learned a whole lot about our temporary 3 month home. 

The port of Jaffa has been a port for almost 4000 years.  It's mentioned in the bible a few times. 

Awesome to have all of this in one place!

This evening we met our already helpful au pairs/tutors.  Amazing, talented, educated ladies.  I will try to get some skyping time with them and my classes. 

So here I sit with three pounds of olives.  In Israel you say what you mean.  No wishy-washy "just a few please", or else you end up with three pounds of olives!!  (That you tried to pay for with agorot.  Those are the "worthless" coins I mentioned above.)   oy!

Monday morning, March 2, 2015

Ok students of science ( and math of course).  YOU tell ME... is this beach weather?  No, I'm not complaining, I know it is subzero there in Maine...