Change of Pace

With Shabbat being today (until 6:20ish) we took a much slower pace, and it was needed. We had a very yummy breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage (beef) and hashbrowns and toast. The sausages weren't exactically what we are used to at home but still good. Then we headed up to the playground on Ramban Street that we visited frequently on our last trip. The children loved the chance to play and run and yell! They are quite shy around others, even at home, and more so here where they do not understand what is being said around and to them. After about 30 minutes of good solid play time we walked home and had lunch. Phyllo pastry squares stuffed with potatoes and cheese...oh yeah and some salad for our goodness :-)

Monkey went down for a much needed nap and we settled into the living room for a memorial service. We started with "Lead me Lord", D read the three daily readings, the memorials and then ended singing "Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem" (those are the children's two fav. hymns).

Princess then tucked into her own wee bed and we had about 30 min of peace, sipping tea and nibbling the last 2 pastries leftover from our complany on Erev Shabbat.

Noticing the time we got the girls up and out the door as this time we wanted to make sure that we got to see the Mt of Olives (a miss because of the sickies last trip). So off we went, merrily following (blindly following) the GPS. We were both a bit concerned as it seemed to be taking us away for Jewish Jerusalem to the East....Oy

Yep, we ended up in Silwan, again. This time though we were on such narrow roads that there was no way that we could turn around at all. The windows were up and the doors locked! It is amazing that the momment we drove a block from the Jewish area into the Arab area it was covered in garbage, and just basically disgusting. Says a lot doesn't it.

So we got through. At one point we were stuck still behind a bunch of cars and kids were coming up to the car...At the one point we were stopped and the kids were goofing off and one walked backwards into our car and then we had them yelling at us. Great here we are stuck in Silwan (again) with cars parked in front of us, cars parked behind us, no way to turn around and kids yelling at us....Yes I prayed our way through there. Oh yeah and a group of them had this horse tied to a rope and as a couple of them were holding on to the rope the other kids was beating it with a stick!

It was a huge relief to recognize that we were coming up to the City of David and the Old City walls. We got up to Olives and parked the car in this random car pull in and got out. After enjoying the view of the Old City and a couple of pictures, D noticed stairs going up. So we crossed the road and climbed the rest of the way through the graves up to the top of Olives (Magoo was disappointed there was no gamal = camel) and took some more pics. At which point I realised that I'd left my backpack with walet IN THE CAR! There were police guarding the one entrance to the Jewish cemetery and another near the Dung gate on our way home. Definately something going on tonight!

Oh and did I mention that that entourage that we had pass us the other day on the hyw to Jerusalem was Clinton and Arnold Swar....however you spell his name! they are staying just around the corner at the King David. Though we haven't seen them we had a VIP group pass us at the City of David tour (ours was stopped so that we wouldn't be near them) and overheard the one lady (dressed to the nines and in stelleto heals, yes I rolled my eyes!) chatting away about how Hillary was mad cause Bush was late and the plane was late.... interessting.

Anyways. That's not why we're here just an interessting aside.

So we made it home, thanks be to our Heavenly Father. Dinner was Fetichinni with stirfried veggies, sauce, chicken and left over Challah bread. After dinner we headed out and walked up to Ben Yehudah street in time for we thought an Ethiopian Jewish celebration....well I don't know what happened but it didn't happen. So we walked through and down Jafo for a cafe Hillel for Daddy and Pastries at SamBooki for the whole family. They were still warm as Shabbat had only just ended.

We popped into some shops on the way back and picked up a print for the wall. Princess and Magoo walked the whole way there and back, so impressed with their little legs! Of course it helps when you are playing games to pass the time.

We noticed the grocery store was open again so we popped in for fresh, still warm bread, melon and some dried apples and treats for breakfast and lunch tomorrow.

We are hoping to see the movie at The City of David that we missed the other day and then maybe the Davidson Center.

God Bless and until next time...
Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem!