An American in Israel

Hello, Jerusalem. We have arrived. And fortunately, we planned ahead enough to get into the city early enough to do something. When we arrived at our hotel--the Caesar Premier, which is pronounced a variety of ways, apparently--our room wasn't ready. So, the concierge locked up our luggage, handed us a city map and guidebook, and scooted us out the door towards the Mahane Yeuda Market down the road.
  
This place was packed. It was half indoor, half outdoor, and had about 800 times the amount of food you'd find at a typical American grocery store. There were fresh fruits and veggies, meats, bakeries, spice shops, oil shops, sweet shops, candy shops, olive & nut shops, eateries, flowers, boutiques and housewares. You name it, they probably have it. The market is a blur of color and intoxicating scents. This is where the locals come to get their goods. It's much different than the Arab markets in Cairo, where the shop owners stand outside their stores and aggressively hassle you inside and practically force you to buy something. Here, the atmosphere and the people are calm, and the prices are actually set :). 


After unexpectedly buying a variety of foods (all of which were ridiculously cheap, I might add), we headed back to the hotel to check into our room. About thirty seconds after I put my bags down, I discovered a white blotch on the front of my backpack. The substance? Paint. The culprit? A freshly touched-up wall near our window that had not yet dried. I grabbed the bag and ran down to the lobby for assistance. We scrubbed with hot water until the maintenance man showed up, poured kerosene on a cloth, and saturated the marks. That should make me extremely popular at the airport on my way home. Hopefully they don't have dogs looking for explosives...or backpacks that suspiciously smell like kerosene. Fingers crossed it'll fade over the next week. 


After that, we went on a lovely one and a half hour tour of the local area on foot, which only became a "tour" after we discovered that our map was trash and we couldn't locate the Bible Lands or Israel Museum we were trying to get to before closing time. Then we topped off the evening with dinner at our first sit-down restaurant all trip. 


Tomorrow we go to the Old City. Eyes peeled and hearts open...this ought to be good.