this is an old city

Visit to Jerusalem was definitely fun but not too exciting.

After class and workin out, 11 of us hopped onto the bus to the downtown central bus station. The bus station is huuuge and has all kinds of food shops, clothing stores, dollar souvenier shops, etc etc. A kid who has never been to Jerusalem before thought it would b a great idea to drink on the way there. I thought that was an awful idea since i was nauseaus from the bus ride..seriously I get bus sick all the time - weird.

We hired our own 10 person sherut and figured a way to fit us all in - for a higher rate the sherut would drop us off in front of the Hebrew U dorms.

It was a beautiful ride and only took about an hour. From there people split up to visit their respective friends or friend's friends. I found out that a girl from Wheels, Sara, only lived 3 doors down from the girls whose apt we were staying at! Everyone changed and all the TLV kids met up again. The Hebrew U dorms are sooo much nicer than ours! Theyre only like a year old and have complete air condition/heat; full fridge with granite kitchen, new table and chairs and couches in the main room; then 5 people each have their own room; they share 2 bathrooms. Its interesting though because its boys and girls living togehter sharing the main room.

Apparently this was the night that Hebrew U kids wanted to party like Tel Aviv kids so they had rented out a bar. Only the bar was being used for a bar mitzvah when we arrived! ha Imagine over 100 drunk college students waiting for these 12 years old to get escorted out. The club was supposed to have 2x more Israelis than Americans but unfort not :(. Still everyone had a really fun time and loved the bar mitzvah decorations haha.

In the morning we trekked over to Ben Yehuda street. WE grabbed the most amazing falafel and Samara met up with her friend from school. Her friend is orthodox, 18 and already married with a baby daughter!! We sat with them for awhile but me and the other girls met up with the guys in the Old City. We got lost in the shook and had a couple funny conversations with the shop owners. Its like being in Jamiaca wiht every owner hassling you to come into the store - the line went on and on! I dont know how anyone stays in business but they sell anything from beautiful Judiaca to hookahs to tshirts. And of course you always barter with them.

then we passed into the main old city area where I took a picture of this kosher falafel stand next to a local bagel place right next to the kotel. There were hoards of chasidic Jews lining up to get their fresh kosher bagels - hilarious. Only a couple seconds from there was the Kotel where we spent atleast 20 minutes.

Then it started to rain!! Israel has been in a drought for a long time - and we saw the reprocusions up north - but this was a downpour!! It was prob one of the loudest storms I've ever heard and the windy was blowing as much as a winter day in Chicago! Unfort Samara and Shira had left us earlier and me and the other 2 girls took naps on these benches in the main dorm area while we waited for them to unlock the door. Very interesting nap..but we were so tired!

There was no way we were traveling more than necessary! So we looked it up and found out that a Sherut would come pick us up at the Hebrew U dorms and take us back to the TLV dorms for only 270 sheckles!! Thats way less than we paid on the way here! Awesome! So we managed to sleep the whole way back and not have to worry about transfering transportation!

Definitly cool to know! Everyone was way too exhausted to do more than sleep for rest of the night.