A day in the neighborhood

Even though Shabbat doesn't start until tonight, we decided we really needed a day of rest today. When we were at the Herzl museum yesterday, we were chatting with the tour guide, and she mentioned that most tour groups make the Herzl museum the last stop on their tour, but that most people (especially the teens) are so exhausted by then, they usually sleep right through it (which I can completely believe)! So, a "down" day to help us appreciate later activities seems like a good idea.

One thing Israeli grocery stores have
mastered is a huge selection of hummus!

It was also a great chance to discover a bit more about our neighborhood, which is very central in Jerusalem, and easy walking distance from a lot of cool stuff. We slept in a bit and then walked up Keren HaYesod St (around the corner from us) to King George St. About 5 minutes from our apartment, we found the Bezalel Art Fair which happens every Friday morning. Some cool handicrafts all made by the artists at the stalls. We also discovered the Klop Shop - the larger and slightly less expensive grocery store in the neighborhood. We wandered over to Ben Yehuda Street - A major pedestrian mall in the city. We had fun poking

Sylvia loves pizza!

around the shops, looking at Judaica and gifts. We had lunch at Big Apple Pizza, where we met a nice American couple who lives just around the corner from us here in Jerusalem. They gave us their phone number ("in case you ever need anything at all") and confirmed that the Klop Shop is a better choice than the Supersol ("whenever I see people with Supersol grocery bags, I wonder 'are you all millionaires?'"). After lunch, Sylvia napped in the stroller while we did some more window shopping down to Jaffa Rd, which has been built up a lot more it seems in recent years (maybe since the light rail opened along that road). We discovered the nice (brand new) Hamashbir (like the Israeli Sears) on Jaffa (as opposed to the old, run down one on King George) -- we had been wondering where Israelis buy things like pans and toasters, so that answered that question! On the way home we discovered an awesome playground (Gan Sherman) mostly frequented by Haredi families (ultra Orthodox) - so there were lots of families there with 6 or 7 kids under the age of 10!

Our street

  After a week in Jerusalem and especially after a    day exploring our neighborhood today, it feels like we are starting to get our bearings. Everything still takes a lot more thinking than life at home (part of the fun of course), but we don't quite feel like fish out of water anymore either.

 We came home to Jonah's favorite part of every day. Walking into the apartment, putting on the air conditioning, and watching TV! Our whole family has become avid watchers of Nick Jr. It plays an endless line up of Dora, Diego, Kai Lan, Blue Clues and a couple of other shows which are fantastic for learning Hebrew. When Dora repeats over and over "gesher, agam, givat givoha" (bridge, lake, tall mountain), you can't help but learn it (although when Sylvia watches Kai Lan, the only words she repeats are Chinese, so I'm not sure about that one!). After a steady diet of kids TV this past week, my Hebrew is coming back enough that I might be ready to move on to something more advanced (Disney Channel?)

If anything captures this trip so far, it's this photo of Abe
carrying the stroller up flights of stairs