The Mount of Olives

Today my mom and I went to the top of the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives is a large hill (mount) that has huge cemeteries covering its slopes. Most of the cemetery is Jewish, though a small portion at the bottom is Christian. This was the second time we walked up the Mount of Olives. We went up around a week in a half ago with Ellen. This time my mom and I decided to not cut through the Old City to get to the Mount of Olives. We walked around the outer wall of the Old City and then went into the mini-valley that is at the bottom the the Mount of Olives. In this mini-valley we saw a goat herder with at least 50 goats. Some of these goats weren't your typical looking goats; some had spots, some where black, and some were just playing odd looking. After taking a minor break in the mini-valley and watching the goat herder, we decided to continue our walk up. This time on our walk up, we decided to go in and walk through parts of the cemetery. We saw a few graves that had blue paint on part of them. We wondered what this meant and walked to one of them. At one of the graves that had a big blue rock on it, there was a Jewish man who was praying and spoke English. We asked him why a few of the graves had blue stuff on them. He told us the people in buried in them were important people. The grave that had the blue rock on it that we were standing in front of was an important rabbi from 300 years ago. We don't know who this rabbi is because he told us his name in Hebrew and we don't understand Hebrew. Once we climbed up to the top, we went to this hotel called the 7 Arches. When Ellen was here and we went up the Mount of Olives with her, we went into the 7 Arches because we needed a break and though it isn't a very nice hotel, it is basically the only place that you can stop at and take a break once at the top of the Mount of Olives. Mom and I went into the 7 Arches today because we wanted a break and because it was freezing outside, and the 7 Arches is heated. After we had had our fun at the 7 Arches, we decided that it was time for lunch seeing as it was already noon and we had to get down the Mount of Olives to get to a place for lunch. On the way back we decided to walk through the Old City. While we were thinking of places we could go for lunch my mom remembered that she had heard about this fabulous restaurant called the Village Green. The Village Green is on Jaffa Street, Jaffa Street is around a ten minute walk from the wall of the Old City. It was difficult to find the Village Green because everybody we asked about its location had no idea where it was. When we finally found it we found out that is was vegetarian and was all like salads, odd soups, and other healthy vegetarian buffet stuff. I really wanted something with meat, so my mom and I decided to go to the Thai restaurant that we saw up the street. The portions were huge at the Thai place, though the food was good, it was nothing like the Thai food that I'm used to. When we finished lunch, we decided to walk to Mahane Yehuda, the big farmers' market, to buy some food for dinner tonight. While we were at Mahane Yehuda my dad called and said that he was at the central bus station and that he could meet us at Mahane Yehuda in ten minutes, so we got to walk home with dad. Today was a fun day!

Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem is the memorial to the Holocaust in Jerusalem. It is truly an amazing and eye-opening place. The Children's Memorial was the exhibit that got to me the most. When I went inside the exhibit it wasn't like any other museum exhibit I'd ever seen. It was a dark room with hundreds of mirrors and just 5 candles. The candles reflected off the mirrors making the exhibit seem endless. While you walk through the exhibit a narrator's voice is saying the names of children who died, how old they were and where they were from. While my parents and aunt stayed for a few minutes but then were ready to move on, I wasn't ready to go yet. The exhibit really captured my feelings and made me truly realize what pain and fear these children had to feel. And why? Because of their religion. Something that they couldn't choose. Though my family doesn't know the names of our relatives that died in the Holocaust, we know they suffered because of something they couldn't control. Another exhibit that really amazed me was the Valley of the Communities. The Valley of the Communities is a 2.5 acre outdoor space that has 107 tall stone walls, creating room type spaces that connect to one another. On the stone walls are the names of over 5,000 cities that were annihilated during the Holocaust. Walking through the Valley of the Communities was fascinating and shocking. I knew that Jews died in many cities but I had no idea that the number was a high as 5,000. As I walked around the exhibit and read the names of the cities, I recognized a fair number of them. Greece had a wall or two, I had no idea that Hitler managed to have Jews killed all the way in Greece. After we were done with some of the exhibits we walked back to the entry building and talked to a man, named Yehuda, who we later found out was a Holocaust survivor. He was from Ukraine and managed to make it to Israel right after it had become a Jewish state. Talking to Yehuda really made me wonder what it would've been like living during a time like the Holocaust. Tons of people wanting you and your family dead. I could never imagine having people who used to be my friends, all of a sudden wanting me and my family dead. But that was how it was during the Holocaust. The Nuremberg Laws were passed to figure out who was Jewish. People were considered Jewish depending on what religion their four grandparents were. If a person had three or four Jewish grandparents, they were considered Jewish. But if they only had one or two Jewish grandparents they were considered mixed breed. In the beginning of Nazi Germany, mixed breed people weren't as hated as full out Jews. However, that quickly changed. When walking down to the Valley of the Communities you walk past a train car. The train car was one of the actual "cattle cars" that were used to transport the Jews from towns to the concentration or killing camps. Seeing the train was rather horrifying because it wasn't very nice looking and it was flat out tiny compared to the number of Jews that had to fit in it. Jews would have to ride in these train cars for days and nights. On the front of the car is a little platform that is higher than the rest of the car. A German soldier would stand on that platform to make sure that no Jews would escape, if a Jew did try to escape he would shoot them. The train car exhibit was a rather scary one for me. Everything at Yad Vashem is put together very tastefully and with lots of effort. That assures me that though the Holocaust is over, and that the new generation Germans are much different than the last one, the people and families who died and suffered in the Holocaust are not, and will never be, forgotten.

Kibbutz Hatzor

The last two days we spent at Kibbutz Hatzor with my dad's mentor and his family. A kibbutz is a community that typically works around agriculture. Kibbutz Hatzor has farms but also manufactures metal components. The honey that they make is delicious! Kibbutz life is very different than anything I've ever experienced. It was sort of like living at summer camp. There is a dining hall that we ate lunch and dinner at on Friday. However, the food at the kibbutz dining hall was a lot better than the food I had at summer camp. Partially because it was hot. I made my first Hebrew friend that was my age at the kibbutz. Hila, Jay (my dad's mentor)'s, daughter. She is very nice and lucky for me, she spoke great English! I look forward to seeing her again. Jay and his wife, Tzippi, have three kids, Etan, Nadav, and Hila. Hila told me, children on Kibbutz Hatzor start working in 7th grade. She works in the baby house. A kibbutz has everything that a person would ever need, or at least it seemed that way. There was a store to buy food and other necessities, the dining hall which also works for meals, a community gathering area where meeting occur frequently, a gym and many other useful features that I can't think of at the moment. Because we were at Kibbutz Hatzor on Friday and Saturday (Shabbat), the kibbutz wasn't running like it would during the week. On Saturday, mom, dad, and I slept in and had a slower start to the day. But in the afternoon and evening all eight of us went into Ashdod. Ashdod is a town that is about ten minutes away from Kibbutz Hatzor. Ashdod is on the beach but because there was a sand storm going on while we were there, we couldn't really see the beach. Also, it got dark shortly after we arrived in Ashdod. Ashdod is one of, if not the only, city that had everything such as, sewers, telephone lines, other plumbing, and other important foundations laid out on paper before it was built. Now there are lots of big tall apartment buildings everywhere. For dinner, we went to Idi, a restaurant on the marina. I ordered cheese ravioli in an alfredo sauce. It was very delicious! The blend of cheeses was very nice. The alfredo sauce was also delicious. It was definitely one of the best alfredo sauces I've ever had. It was nice and creamy without being to strong or thick. The ravioli and the alfredo sauce combined was a terrific combination and I would gladly order it again! Today, Sunday, we left Kibbutz Hatzor and around 9:30am because we knew we wanted to go site seeing on the way home. Our first stop was at a the Soreq cave. It is a cave that contains stalactites and stalagmites. Stalactites drip down and form stalagmites. When the two meet, they form a column. And if the column doesn't break, the column gets bigger and bigger. However, this process does take millions of years. The Soreq cave was discovered by accident. Excavators were blowing up the area and came across this cave. It is truly amazing that the explosion didn't blow destroy all of the stalactites and stalagmites. They are very cool to see. For lunch, we went to an Arab village called Abu Ghosh. Abu Ghosh is supposedly famous for their hummus. We have heard from many people that they have the best hummus in Israel. The restaurant we went to was good, but they definitely didn't have the best hummus in Israel. However, their salads were pretty good. Our meal in Abu Ghosh wasn't the best that I've had in Israel. After lunch, we walked around Abu Ghosh. There wasn't a lot to see though so we left and drove back to Jerusalem. These last few days have definitely been some of the more exciting days I've had so far in Israel!

Tel Aviv!

Today mom, Ellen, and I went into Tel Aviv today. My dad would've come with us but he was at a meeting. We used the bus system to get into Tel Aviv today. The bus rides went smoothly and we met this nice gentleman named Ariel. Ariel lives in Argentina but is visiting his family here for a month. Once we arrived in Tel Aviv we wanted to take Ellen to our favorite places from when we were in Tel Aviv four weeks ago. First we wanted to go to the Sheraton because it is a really nice hotel and they have good apples. The word in Hebrew for apple is "tapuach." While we were trying to get to the Sheraton we sort of got disoriented and ended up going out of our way North and sort of walked in circles. While we were wandering aimlessly, we saw this frozen yogurt store. Because we knew that we wanted to have gelato at my favorite gelato store later in the day, we all split a small frozen yogurt with mango, pomegranate seeds, coconut, and diced caramelized pecans. It was very good and the yogurt wasn't too icy. Frozen yogurt is often to icy, which makes it not so tasty. Once we finished our frozen yogurt and got oriented, we decided to walk to Maganda, a restaurant that is supposedly excellent. (My dad went there with work people and said it was fabulous.) Maganda was a good 30-45min walk away from the frozen yogurt restaurant so we started walking right away because it was already 11:15am or so. As soon as we sat down the waiter brought us a basket of fresh and fluffy pita bread, olives and pickles. It was very delicious. But from the menu, we ordered hummus, baba ganoush, and falafel. The hummus was fabulous; on top of it was fresh olive oil and tahini. It was definitely some of the best hummus we have had. I don't like baba ganoush so I couldn't tell you how that was. However, the falafel was amazing. The outside of it was crispy and topped with sesame seeds, and the inside was hot, fresh, and had some delicious seasonings as well. Maganda was definitely a plus. After lunch, we walked to Dizengoff Center. The big mall in Tel Aviv. As we were walking through the mall we met Shay Rozolyo. A nice young man, who works in Dizengoff Center. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting and talking to Shay. Once we were done in Dizengoff Center we walked to the Sheraton. It was good being there again. After the Sheraton we walked to Gelato Ice, the gelato place I love in Tel Aviv. It was just as good this time as it was every other time. I got Oreo and Ferrero Rocher. Yum! The sprinkles that they put on aren't like the sprinkles in America. The sprinkles at Gelato Ice are round and very crunchy. They are so delicious. Today was a super fun day!

The Golden Gate

Today, after skyping with Gabby :), my mom, Ellen, and I decided to walk to East Jerusalem again. We walked through the Old City to get the Damascus Gate. Because we got hungry when we were around the Damascus Gate my mom took us to the restaurant that she and my dad went to a few weeks ago. The restaurant was called Abo Ali. (Pronounced Abu Ali) The first impression of Abo Ali is sort of creepy. You have to walk down a dirty and grimy set of stairs. But once you make it down the stairs it turns into a normal Arab falafel restaurant. We didn't want to push our luck so we kept our hats on even while we were eating. The food was amazing! The falafel balls were small, but super crispy and hot. The hummus was also really good because they put extra garbanzo beans and olive oil on top of it. The pita was nice and hot and the pickles were fresh. It was definitely one of the best meals I've had here. Though my favorite meal was definitely the burger at Selina! After a good lunch my mom and I wanted to take Ellen to the restaurant we went to in East Jerusalem with the amazing fresh squeezed juice. The apple juice was just as good the second time as it was the first. :) After the juice we wanted to walk to the Gethsemane garden that is right in front of the Golden Gate. The Golden Gate is the gate where supposedly the Messiah will return. The Messiah is a different person/icon in each religion. The Golden Gate is completely barred up and nobody can go through it, so people can just look at it from the path 15 feet away from it. On the way up to the Golden Gate we walked through the Gethsemane garden. The garden is at the foot of the Mount of Olives and where supposedly Jesus and his followers prayed the night before Jesus' crucifixion. It is also where Virgin Mary was buried and was taken to heaven. Now, Gethsemane is part of a Christian graveyard. Walking through it was very interesting even though we didn't know all of this information about Gethsemane when we were in it. From Gethsemane we walked up to the Golden Gate. Standing in front of the Golden Gate was pretty fascinating because this is what 3 major religions are all about. They are about the Messiah returning, and the Golden Gate is where the Messiah is supposed to return. The Golden Gate isn't really made of gold, or at least the outer facade of it isn't. The way the gate is shaped it looks like a huge version of the Ten Commandments. Something that really got me was the fact that this is one of, if not the most important part of quite a few religions and there is trash and other litter all over the area and the cemetery right in front of and next to this supposedly holy gate. Unfortunately we only brought one camera because we didn't think that we would do all of the stuff we did today. And that camera ran out of battery part way through our adventures today so there aren't a ton of pictures. This was definitely one of the most interesting days that I have experienced in Israel. I hope (actually know) that we will go back to the Golden Gate (with a working camera!) more then once.

The Ramparts

Yesterday night my aunt, Ellen, arrived! :) So today was her first full day in Jerusalem and we wanted to do something cool and fun. This morning my mom, Ellen, and I walked to the big Safeway-like-market to get some food necessities for the week. (That was not the fun part.) After we got back from the market we all walked to Mahane Yehuda to do some more grocery shopping and to show Ellen a huge local farmers-type market. She found it very interesting and took many pictures. Because my wire for my braces came out of a bracket and was kind of barely holding on, we thought that we should go to an orthodontist, and luckily we asked my orthodontist for a sheet of orthodontists that we could use in Israel in case something like this happened. The orthodontist we went to luckily had an opening at 12:45 today and so we went. On our way from Mahane Yehuda to the orthodontist we stopped at a falafel stand to get some lunch. It was not the best falafel we've had, but not the worst either. After lunch and on our way to the orthodontist, my mom and Ellen went home to drop off the groceries and my dad and I continued on the orthodontist. We said that we would meet up in the Kardo so that we could walk the ramparts. The ramparts are the top of the wall surrounding the Old City, so the view is spectacular. My orthodontist appointment went fine and my braces are now back to normal! Once we met up with mom and Ellen we walked through the Old City and saw some landmarks but not the Western Wall, we knew that we would do that after the first rampart because that rampart ends at the Western Wall. The ramparts walk was amazing! The view was spectacular! Especially of the M0unt of Olives. On the slopes of the Mount of Olives there is a huge cemetery. On the top, there is a bunch of churches and the Mount of Olives Observation. Once we'd gone as far as we could on that side of the ramparts we walked back through the Old City so we could walk on the other rampart that goes into East Jerusalem. Though the look-out-type view wasn't quite as amazing from this rampart, the view of all of the houses and schools and other stuff in East Jerusalem was just as interesting. There was lots of trash, but we could also see how local, not very rich, Arabs live. Almost every house had laundry hung up on the roof. We didn't walk all of this rampart because it was already 4:30pm and some of the gates to get onto the ramparts were closing and we wanted to go to dinner, so that we could get back home soon. Today we walked 32,400 steps, a little over 15 miles!

The Kardo

My mom and I said good-bye to my dad this morning so that he could go to Alon Shvut, a Jewish settlement in the occupied territories. He was going to meet a computer teacher there. My mom and I felt a lot better once we found out that his bus was going to be bullet proof and armored. After that I skyped with Ella and we had a great time catching up. I also emailed with Gabby. While I was skyping and emailing my mom went off to Mahane Yehuda (the big farmers market) to buy some groceries for tonight and tomorrow, because nothing is open on Shabbat. Because I couldn't skype the entire time my mom was gone I also read and did stuff on Facebook while my mom was out. When my mom came back around 11:45am we had lunch. Lunch was pasta with cottage cheese, butter, and mozzarella cheese. It was really good and everything blended together well. I was thankful that we had normal pasta, one time we bought whole wheat pasta instead; it was gross. After lunch, my mom did some work on her computer and then we went for a walk in the Old City. We met up with my dad at the Jaffa Gate (the gate that we usually take to get into the Old City) so that he could walk with us to and so we could show him what we found yesterday. From the Jaffa Gate we walked south so that we ended up at the Kardo. The Kardo is in the heart of the Jewish quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem. There are ruin type stones all over it but there is a walkway with lots of shops in it as well, so it has been built up over the years. Thousands of years. While we were browsing through the shops we stopped at a shop that had hundreds of t-shirts. Funny ones, sports teams (mostly American), Jewish ones, and many other interesting categories. Because they were having a 3 for 100 sheckel deal we bought 3. One for my uncle that says Chicago Cubs in English and Hebrew. One that says Israel with a Nike swoosh and on the back it says Just Do It. And one for me, that has South Park characters (South Park is probably my favorite T.V. show) on it and says "Oh my God.... they kild Kenny...." Yes, the spelling of "killed" on the shirt is wrong. Killing Kenny is a joke from the show. After buying the shirts we continued exploring the alleys of the Kardo looking around whenever possible. There is a set of stairs that you can take down to get to a little lookout type point underground. It was cool being down there amidst the rocks, even though we weren't very close to them because of all the railings and stuff. Walking around the Kardo was fun and interesting and I would gladly do it again!