Jerusalem Road Trip

I rented a car today, a beautiful Suzuki, and drove to Har Nof, Jerusalem to visit my friend Marc who's studying to be a rabbi. Surprisingly, I only took one wrong turn on the way to Har Nof...I took a right too early and wound up at the base of the Jerusalem Forest at a construction site. I got some very strange looks. I drove back up the terraced hillside and asked a friendly Jewish face how to get to Har Nof...pretty soon I passed a power station, a gas station, and a few roundabouts and Marc was waiting for me around the bend.

Although we hadn't met up for probably 5 years, we caught right up. He introduced me to his roommate and we headed by car to the city center. We parked the car in an indoor lot but not before some uzi carrying soldiers checked my empty trunk. First stop was the shuk, the outdoor market between Yafo and Aggripas. This was exactly what I wanted to experience that I missed during the tour of Jerusalem during precamp. The sights and smells were delicious and I think the pictures does it a decent amount of justice:







We stopped for lunch at a little stand with just three tiny tables...despite the roach crawling on the wall directly next to my face, the food was delicious:

After lunch we headed outside where Marc introduced me to Marzipan Bakery...all I can say is WOW and this picture definitely does not do it justice:

After that, we went around Ben Yehuda street and then walked to the ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim community and went to some bookstores and shops before heading to an Arab shuk and then the Western Wall. can I ever get my hat straight?