Busy in Jerusalem

The plan was to have lunch with my friend, Anna, dinner with Rabbi and Margolit Friedman and see the light show, and then catch a late bus back to Tel Aviv.  Busy, but sounds like a plan. I double checked on the light show, and I was really wrong about the dates. Not like I looked at the wrong month--more like G-d wanted me here during these two weeks.  Needless to say the light festival is in three weeks.  But there is something going on down at the Jaffa Gate each night for Yom Yerushalyim.  So change in events but not really the location.  Hmm.

When I got to Jerusalem, I found a bench in the shade and shot these photos of these light rail cars for you:

Jerusalem unified

Anna and I planned to meet at Mahane Yehuda (shuk in Jerusalem).  She suggested that we get sabich. I had heard of it but never tried it.  It's a rolled sandwich, not like a pita pocket.  This place is Iraqi and it was fresh, flash baked Iraqi bread, smoky and soft and wonderful.  The sandwich has grilled eggplant, a hardboiled egg, hummus, and some expected things like tomatoes and harissa.  Marvelous, but huge.  I brought half of it home. It's a takeaway place, but they had one table and two odd chairs on which we perched ourselves.

She invited me to her house for the afternoon which I accepted.  I needed to be at the Friedmans' @ 5:00.  No problem, 10 min bus ride from Anna's, 20 min bus ride to Givat Zeev.  Except for some spooky traffic gridlock.  It took over an hour to get up to the bus station.  A soccer game?

At this moment, the bus is completely blocking a large intersection because we can't go forward

The driver would let anyone get out to walk, but it was a big hill (mountain, really), and didn't I do that a few days ago?  And we had a shade inside the bus.  I was at peace to be late without heat exhaustion. Of course, the three of us left on the bus made it, and a #132 bus to Givat Zeev appeared quickly.

I had a lovely reunion with Rabbi David and Margolit. I left at 8:00 to see what there was at the Jaffa Gate.  Lots of people were headed that way, but I couldn't see anything but I could hear music. Oh, they had big projected images on the old city walls.  I took a lot of photos and video with my Canon, but it doesn't talk to this tablet, so I'll upload that stuff when I get home.  Here are a few I took with my Android:

Then a wonderfully unremarkable trip home.