July 15-16 2011
Hello from the Blog Brigade
It’s been an exciting past few days in Jerusalem. We began Friday morning with a spiritual trip to the Kotel. Everyone felt different about it but we all agreed that it was an incredible experience. After a walking tour of the Arab and Christian quarters of Jerusalem, we found ourselves in a traditional Arab market where we took our first swing at Haggling. For those of you that don’t know, haggling is the Middle Eastern art of bargaining for a cheaper price. It was tricky at first but some of us are getting the hang of it.
Friday night was our first Shabbat in Israel! We got all dressed up and headed to Robinson’s arch for Kabalat Shabbat services. It was beautiful out and also was awesome to see so many people gathering at the Kotel for Shabbat. We ate dinner back in the hotel and sang traditional camp songs while dancing in the cramped dining room. What a perfect Friday night!
We slept in (for 30 more minutes) and ate a leisurely breakfast in the hotel before most of us headed to services with Reconstructionist Jews from all over the world. A few of us stayed back at the hotel due to sudden and minor cases of some not-fun virus. (We’re all recovering well though!) We stopped after services at a park for some down time and relaxation. On our way back to the hotel we witnessed how safe the Israeli police keep this country, when a suspicious backpack was left in the street and they disabled any chance of it being harmful with a loud explosion. No one was hurt considering it was only a defense practice, yet some of us were slightly shaken by the noise.
Afterwards we had a well-needed and deserved long period of rest and free time in the hotel. Many of us went to another park close to the hotel for Frisbee and rest time in the sun. We ate dinner and after a great Havdallah service at the hotel we spent time on Ben Yehuda Street. There we found ourselves slightly overwhelmed with all the stores and people but it was incredible and a great taste of an evening in Jerusalem.
Stray Cat Count: 56 cats
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