Food, Food, Camel, Food

After the long day with JNF we were exhausted.  We had originally planned for our friendly taxi driver to pick us up and take us on a 1 hour tour before dropping us off in the Jewish Quarter.  Instead, we called him the night before and asked for an extra hour of much needed sleep.  No problem!  So we slept in a little and then enjoyed some goodies for breakfast.  I had something similar to a cheese danish.

 

Then the driver picked us up for some final sight seeing.  We started up on Mt. Scopus, which is one of the 4 hills here in Jerusalem.  I wish I could remember all of the names of them, but I can remember this because we went there.  Hebrew University is located up here and it makes me want to go back to college just so I can go to school on a campus that has these amazing views. 

 

On side of the mountain overlooks Jerusalem.

 

There is even a synagogue up here.

 

 

Here is a view of the city.  The Dome of the Rock, which is a Mosque, really stands out.  It has the golden domed roof off in the distance.

 

Here I am with my grandpa and my aunt.

 

The view on the other side of the mountain is of the Judean desert, which is where we were the other day for the Dead Sea.

 

The next stop was to Mt. of Olives, which is another of the big hills.  Again, we have a nice view of the city.

The difference over here is that this is a big Jewish cemetery.

 

Here we have a view of the Mosque again.

 

Here is where the real fun begins.  This guy stands around with his camel, which is a total tourist thing right here, but I haven't been on once since I was 16, so I really wanted to get some pictures with him.

 

My grandpa gave the OK and I was on on the camel.

Look at me go!  Those things are funny moving on the way up and down.  It seems like it would be uncomfortable for them.

  

Then it was my grandpa's turn.  I love these pictures!  Go Grandpa!

 

 

 

My Aunt stuck to just posing.

 

Then we had a family picture with the camel.

Here are some more of the graves that I took pictures of as we were leaving this area.

  

On the way back we were able to see the Russian Church.

 

In front of that is also another church, but I can't remember what kind.

 

Then the driver dropped us off for the afternoon in the Jewish Quarter.  We picked a good day.  They do Bar Mitzvahs on Mondays and Thursdays, so we hit the jackpot for party time.

 

Welcome to the Jewish Quarter of the Old City!

I took a lot of pictures just walking around.

 

I also took a lot of pictures every time we saw food.  Obviously, being a dietitian, I was fixated on seeing how people eat there locally, although some you could tell was touristy and Americanized (like Burger King and McDonald's).  I loved all the bakeries, and there were a ton of those.  There were tons of American tour groups there, with kids (mostly those known as Birthright Tours), and those were fun to watch too, as I remember when I was on the same kind of tour.

 

 

More partying in the square.  My grandpa joined in the singing and dancing.

 

They had a group there selling packages to be sent to Israeli soldiers, so I bought 2 and so did my grandpa and aunt.  This sends them things that they need while in the desert, like sunscreen and socks.  I got a cool t-shirt there and enjoying talking with the people fundraising.

 

As we were walking around I smelled pizza and instantly was craving it.  Because it was kosher and dairy, I knew there was no chance meat would wind up on my pizza, and that was a good thing.  I got the olive pizza.  It was fantastic.

 

We walked around and did a little shopping.

 

Leave it to me to find a wine store.  They even had these fun liquors.

 

On the way in the area my grandma spotted this bakery and we knew this was where we would eat dessert.

Their food looked good too, but we had already eaten pizza.

 

Many of those bakery pictures above were taken here.  We grabbed a few items and then tried a little of each.

  

After that we took my grandma back to the condo to rest a little after all that walking around, and the taxi driver too us to the big market in Israel, known as Mahaneh Yehuda Market.  These pictures are amazingly insane.  Just take a look...you will want to go to Jerusalem just for this.

We obviously thought this was very funny.  A kippa, if you don't know, is the head covering that a Jewish male wears.  I think my grandpa bought like 6-7 of them while we were there.

 

Lots of spices!  Actually, we were there on a Thursday, which is usually busy because people are making preparations for Shabbat.

 

I am not sure what these are, either of them for that matter, so if you recognize them, let me know.

 

 

They even had lovely flowers.

 

Here they are again.  Any thoughts?

 

Fresh Pasta

 

Olives

 

Cookies

 

You can get an idea of how big this place was.

 

Giant loaf of bread

 

The cheese shop!  I loved it here.  I got many sampled before deciding on something to take back to the condo to enjoy with our wine.

 

Tea

 

Challah!

 

 

 

Halavah, which is a sweetened sesame dessert.

 

 

 

 

 

Pita anyone?

 

More olives

 

More cheese

 

 

 

This was a cute cafe as we were exiting the market.  I could have spent an entire day there and bought something from each vendor.

 

As the sun started to set, we headed over to the mall for some dinner.  The mall was directly across the street and contained many popular dining choices.

The mall is an open air style mall, and I loved the lights that decorated the walkways.

 

Dinner was at a place called The Spaghettis

 

Here we are, out to our last dinner in Israel.

 

My grandparents started with a nice salad, topped with sweet potato chips.

 

I could not resist ordering the hot mushroom salad.  It was super yummy!

 

My aunt took the salad that came with the meal.

 

We also had an appetizer, which was a flat bread with some tomato salsa spread and a tapenade.

 

For dinner we ordered 2 entrees and split them.  This is sea bream, which I think I mentioned the other day.  Notice that it came looking, well, like a fish, and um this was a little much for everyone (as right it should be when you are not used to it), so we sent them back to be cleaned a little, but they could only take off the head.  I took care of the bones in our fish and I think my grandpa managed just fine with theirs.

It was a delicious ending meal.  Can you believe that there is only one more day in Israel for me to post on?  I hope you enjoyed reading all of my posts on this trip.

QUESTIONS:  Have you ever ridden a camel?  Any other different animal?  Do you have a food market near you where you can do your grocery shopping?  Have you ever heard of a Kippa?