Oct. 4 Internet, Old City, Galina and Scrabble

Rafi outside of Jaffa Gate

Me standing outside of Jaffa Gate.

Jaffa Gate from outside of the Old City
The shuk in the Old City.

Pottery shop in the shuk in the Old City

Beads in the Old City shuk

Shuk

An eatery in the Muslim Quarter.

Approaching Damascus Gate from inside the Old City

Damascus Gate from outside of the Old City

Rafi standing outside of the Old City walls.

Me standing outside of the Old City walls.

The next day Rafi and I awoke to a lovely day in Jerusalem! It felt wonderful to be in an apartment that felt as if we should be there. The bed, although smaller than the one we are used to at home, was much more comfortable than the previous one - it was not lopsided in any way. The bedroom itself is huge! We have so much room in here that we could host a small dance party. The balcony off of our bedroom is great and provides ample natural light during the day (but no light for late sleepy mornings if we keep the blind down). It was great to wake up to a space that was our own.

After breakfast, we decided to walk the few streets over to Galina's apartment in order to use her internet connection. When we arrived, we knew we would be the only ones there because Galina would not be in the city center until after 6pm and her roommate Avital worked ten-hour days. Rafi and I had made a checklist the night before, outlining exactly what we had to do online so it would go by much quicker. We each checked email and facebook and replied to important messages. We looked a few pertinent things up. I emailed a request to a nearby Conservative synagogue asking if there would be room for us to come to Yom Kippur services. After we were done, we locked up the apartment and snuck back to our new place where we put the computer back and had lunch.

When we finished our meal, Rafi said that it was time to ask the neighbor about using their internet. I was nervous! I do not really know why I was so nervous about asking this - even though I knew Rafi would be the one talking and I would simply be there for moral support. I guess it was because I thought it was a strange request to ask someone I do not know. We mustered up our courage and went to the next door outside of our apartment. I rang the doorbell and a woman answered. We introduced ourselves and told her that we just moved in and will only be here for a month. She seemed like she was in a good mood - very smiley and happy. Rafi asked her if she had wireless internet (which he knew she had because he had looked at the list of strong connections and her name was the name of the network of one of them). He then proceeded to ask her if we could use her network and password for the month we are staying here. She immediately went to write down the password and gave it to us, asking us not to share it with anyone. She was so pleasant and nice and we were so relieved! We decided that we should do something nice for her.

When we made it back to our apartment, we tried out the password...and it worked! Success thanks to Rafi Stern! We quick-checked our emails. I received a reply from Moreshet Yisrael (the nearby Conservative synagogue) saying that they would love for us to join them and that they have a balcony area for visitors and students who are not members. They also said that they put our names down for balcony seats. Yay! We have a place to go!

Next we walked to the Old City. We wanted to explore a different area. We had been to the Kotel many times but never really strayed from our usual path. This time inside Jaffa Gate, instead of going right, into the Armenian Quarter, we turned left and followed the Jerusalem stone streets through the gigantic shuk. We window shopped through the Christian quarter and a little through the Muslim Quarter, gazing at all the colors and souvenirs. The vendors and shopkeepers here are very aggressive - more so than in the other shuks I have been to in Israel so far. They really try to get you into their shop and do anything to try to get a sale. Rafi and I did not come prepared to buy anything (we did come with sheqalim, but not to make a purchase, it was just in my purse) so we stuck to our guns, so-to-speak, and did not budge even when an offer sounded temtping. We do not want to do any souvenir shopping until the end of our adventure when we know how much kesef we have leftover for frivolous spending. It was enough at that time, to simply look around at everything up for sale.

We passed by a man sitting outside of his shop. He stopped Rafi and asked him how to spell "clearance sale." Rafi said he could help (of course he would, :) the Scrabble-player). We followed the man into his shop and he had Rafi write the phrase onto a piece of paper. We talked to him for a while about basketball, the "Fact" that we were his first customers of the day, etc... He then said that since we helped him, and because we were so nice, he wanted to sell us something and make us a good deal. His shop mostly had jewellry some with ancient coins and roman glass, among other things such as scarves. I looked around to be nice, but I did not really want to make a purchase even though he was trying really hard and pulling out every tactic in the book. We ended up leaving empty handed after we told him that we were not making any purchases today.

After leaving the man's shop, we continued through the market. We had no idea where we were but it seemed like we were getting closer to the Muslim Quarter. There were more and more people in Muslim garb in this area and the music pouring out of the shops was in Arabic. We passed by many Arabic-language eateries selling things we could not identify, but that looked pretty tasty. At one point, Rafi and I passed by a couple of young Muslim boys. One shouted something into the air and Rafi and I both looked at each other with a slightly frightened expression. We had both thought that the boy had shouted something that sounded like, "Judea, judea!" and had thought they were saying, "Jew, jew!" calling us out like we were not supposed to be in that area. We were obviously being ultra paranoid though, for when we looked ahead of us a few feet, we saw an obviously Jewish man with tzit tzit and peos flowing in the wind as he walked by us. We were allowed to be in that area and we realized that the kids were probably not shouted what we had thought. It was strange that it was our first reaction though, separately and simultaneously.

We made our way up some stairs and toward the inside of Damascus Gate (the gate into the Mulsim Quarter). We exited the Old City there and began walking around and next to the outer wall of the Old City. It was neat to walk next to the old wall that was built in the 1500s (much later than the city itself was built). We walked for a bit and took pictures and made our way back to the City Center. We had plans to meet Galina before Scrabble Club in order to return the keys to the apartment. Rafi and I waited for her next to her apartment building at our weekly Shwarma joint, which was alive with business, as usual. We each ordered a delicious shwarma treat and began eating it as we waited. Galina made it and I gave her the keys while we chatted for a few minutes. She said that since the accident happened, she found out that her doctoral program will not be providing her with funding this year. She said that she is trying to work that out now and if all else fails, she might ask us to move back in so that she can get some extra money. I do not know if she will actually do this or not, but Rafi and I talked about it and we decided that we would say yes if she asked us to live there again. Even though the bed situation is not ideal, we could fix it. Besides, it had inexpensive rent and is in a great location!

Galina left and we finished our shwarmas. Scrabble club would be starting soon so we began our walk to the Scrabble building a few blocks away. I look forward to Scrabble Club as much as Rafi does! It is right in the middle of the week (with Sunday as the first day) and I look forward to talking with Lee. This time, since we had talked about Rosh Hashanah reciped the previous time, she brought along a few of her albums of recipe cards in case I wanted to copy them. Of course I did! I went right to work on the paper she gave me and spent the next three hours copying her recipes and talking with her. It made the time pass so quickly and my hand was so tired, but it was great! Now I have new recipes to try. She is going to being more next week too! Rafi won all of his games, as usual ;) All in all, it was a great, and busy day.