Month in Jerusalem!

That's right, we can now say we lived for a month in the beautiful city of Jerusalem!  It's such a historically significant city, I guess I didn't expect it to be so modern, with lots of great shopping and restaurants!  We rented an apartment in the outskirts of the Nachlaot community, which is a beautiful, more religiously inclined community, right near the Mehane Yehuda Shouk - Jerusalem's huge outdoor market.  It was such an incredible experience living in this neighborhood, with small parks among the apartments and brick walls protecting it from the busy streets right on the next block over, and the beauty of all different kinds of Jewish people living together.

Here's one of the homes in the neighborhood we lived in.  There's a requirement that every building in Jerusalem must be built with Jerusalem limestone.  Jeremy has been sketching during the trip and his sketch of this old building came out really good!

Our first night in Jerusalem we stumbled across the delicious Basher cheese restaurant, with beautiful architecture and an ambiance to set the tone for our exciting month in Jerusalem!

During our time in Jerusalem, we tried to see everything there was to see - which was a lot!  We wandered the Old City, visited the Kotel almost daily for the first few weeks, and learned more about the fascinating history of the city.  We didn't just see the main sites that every tourist sees; we saw pretty much every small museum and historic site we could find info on.

Jeremy at the Lions Gate.  Jeremy was determined to walk through all 7 of the Old City gates!

The Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem's Old City

A stunning view of the Mount of Olives from the Jewish Quarter in the Old City.

I was excited when I saw this map and I had to have a picture of it!  It's a map depicting Jerusalem as the spiritual center of the world, which is what it used to seem like to the Romans and the Crusaders and the Ottomans, etc., etc.  I believe the original map, which has been reproduced all over the place, was created in 1581.

This video is when we walked through the Damascus Gate into the Old City's Muslim Quarter:

Jeremy and our friend Elisha eating yummy honey treats in the Muslim Quarter!

Jeremy found something to climb into at the Austrian Hospice!

We were told about rock climbing right outside of Jerusalem's Old City walls!  Can you believe there's rock climbing so close?!  The catch... certain locals don't like people climbing there and may throw rocks at you from above!  I was scared, but we wore helmets, had an emergency evacuation plan, and no one even ended up bothering us at all.

After rock climbing, we headed towards Montefiore's neighborhood, where this landmark windmill resides.  In ancient times, Jerusalem use to have tons of windmills for grinding grain.

Yep, there's a beautiful windmill in Jerusalem and there's also an excellent view of the Old City!

We also went rock climbing indoors, because it's crazy hot outside!  I checked out Crossfit Jerusalem, which was next-door to the climbing gym.  I couldn't work out there because I've been fighting a foot injury for weeks.  Rock climbing is hard enough with one foot!

We supported gay rights at Jerusalem's Gay Pride festival!

 

Jeremy gave blood, because that's how much he loves Israel...seriously!  Jeremy likes to say, "They took a half liter of Jeremy's finest!"

We went to the movies!  They have intermission during their movies here!  I like that!

We experimented with making shakshouka and it turned out great!  Step 1 - cook vegetables, add stewed tomatoes with juice and lots of herbs and spices.

Step 2 - add eggs!

Step 3 - Enjoy!  This is our shakshouka all done and we eat it with pita!  Ta'im Maod!

What an amazing month in a magical, holy, diverse, energetic, fascinating city!  I love how every city in Israel has its own unique character!  Traveling to a new city is like traveling to a new country, and Israel is only the size of New Jersey!  Incredible!

More to come!  We have more to post on the history and archaeology of Jerusalem.