Tuesday June 30 Tel Aviv-Jerusalem

The entire reason we elected to stay in Tel Aviv these two days, believe it or not, (and believe it), is because Tel Aviv sponsors a once-a-week open air crafts market...only on Tuesdays.  While Marci didn't get there right at the 8:30 am opening (and she did ask what time it opened), we made our way over, in the heat and humidity once again, for a stroll through the crafts.  Mostly, Marc tried to find more cold water to drink; the girls wanted ice cream (and did some kvetching), while Marci sailed through the arts stalls.  Plan B: Marc sits in the shade with the girls and waits for Marci.  Plan C: Marc promises the girls anything and everything if they just hold it together.  We took a walk down a famous fashion street (whose name, of course, I've already forgotten) and got ourselves to a sit-down AIR CONDITIONED restaurant for lunch.   Thanks Cousin Donna for the recommendation.  Yeah!

After lunch, we headed back to the hotel, convinced the bellman that 5 large suitcases, 5 hand bags, and 4 people DID NOT necessarily have to add up to 2 taxis to get to Jerusalem.  "Put some on the roof," Marc suggested.  So, with a few suitcases strung to the roof, we were off, once again, for the Holy City.

This time, we're staying at the David Citadel hotel, at the base of King David St., overlooking the Old City (though our room overlooks a beautiful, if not so ancient and breathtaking, parking lot).  If all the tour groups stay at our last hotel, the Dan Panorama, this is the place of high society, and, no real offense intended, a whole lot of folks from some part of New York City or even Long Island.  Let's just say its a different mood in the lobby; especially when I asked the concierge what public bus to take to Emek Rafaim.  He had to look it up.  I guess there aren't too many people here who take the public bus....or ask for the location of the nearest self-service laundry...or whether there's a surcharge to make a toll free call from the room...or whether there's a restaurant open in Jerusalem on Erev Shabbat that won't charge the $75/person flat rate buffet that the hotel sponsors.  It's not all that bad, Rebecca asked for an extra blanket and it came right up!

At this point in the blog, and in the trip, Marci will post on her own.  This afternoon, she began the Wexner program while the girls and I began our week together in Jerusalem.  As Marci went poolside for the opening reception of Wexner, our friend Renee and her four kids came in from Bayit Vegan and we went out for dinner...SUSHI (which ALL of us were craving).

I even went out ahead, scouted a place, and made a reservation.  Our group of 8 arrived at the appointed time and I asked a rhetorical question in Jerusalem: is this restaurant kosher?  What about shrimp appetizers isn't kosher.  Cancel the reservation.  Renee, Marc, and 6, count them six, kids head up towards Zion Square in search of Sushi.  We actually found two Sushi restaurants, neither kosher, and continued on...with each treif sushi place telling us that the kosher one was terrible sushi and we shouldn't eat there. (Renee was NOT too happy about that!).  We did make it to Japaniki KOSHER sushi and indulged.

After dinner, we went back to Zion Square so the girls could go back to their favorite bookstore and game store.  

Exhausted, we came back to the hotel and slept.