SCHWARMA......What is that you ask?

This is Ron and our good friend Suleiman.  

He works at one of our favorite places to eat. 

 I remember this place from 1977 and all these years his store has remained open for business.

The shop has undergone renovations and clean ups but the one thing we could count on is that menu hasn't changed.

This is the name of the place written in English and Arabic. 

It is still in the same location on Saladin Street in East Jerusalem right outside Herod's Gate of the Old City.

The menu is simple.

They cook beef, turkey or chicken on these vertical spits and it cooks as they rotate.  You pick your meat and then they put it and any other fillings inside a pita, baguette, or wrap.  The sauce is tahini (made of sesame seeds) and a yogurt sauce....YUM!

Side dishes consist of hummus, cucumber salad, turkish salad, pickles (the BESTEST pickels anywhere in the world!) and hot peppers.

19 shekels worth and we are in seventh heaven.

We love the food.  They love us for loving their food.  

EVERYONE IS HAPPY!!!

Can't wait to take you A,E,T,A!!!!!

sHopPinG..........WHAT AN ADVENTURE!

There are so many adventures here.  Actually everyday there is an adventure.  It can happen anywhere, anytime, at any moment...but it IS an adventure!  I'm learning and reminding myself each time I experience one of these adventures to make it a memory!

Many of you have asked about how we live.
Where do we live?  Do you cook?  Grocery shopping?  Haircut?  Do you have a bank?
I will attempt to answer some of these questions throughout the year.
Today's questions and answer...Yes, we cook for ourselves and this is how we shop!

We have an apartment here in the Jerusalem Center that is equipped with a small oven (still learning to adapt from fahrenheit to celsius), 4 burner stove top, small microwave and pots and pans enough to cook just about anything.
WELL...no WOK, BlendTec, 9x13 pan or ice cream maker but what I don't have I borrow, if they don't have it I do without.
So on to the actual shopping adventure............................................................
  The first thing I had to do upon arrival to the Holy Land was to get in my head which day which stores are open.  Friday is the Muslim Holy Day, Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath and Sunday is the Christian Holy Day.
Then I have to remember which days commemorate Succot and Passover (Jewish-stores closed or have different hours),Ramadan and Eid-UI-Adha (Muslim-stores closed or different hours). On more than one occasion I have ventured off to the store only to find the road barricaded, store fronts closed or doors just closing because the hours are changed.
THEN.......I have had to memorize which stores I have to pay for the use of a cart, which parking is free and which I have to pay by the minute!  After those few details I'm ready to go with my trusty shopping list in hand.

First stop...spices for cooking. Sometimes writing is in Arabic only, some times Arabic and Hebrew, and sometimes even Arabic, Hebrew and tiny little English letters.  Hmmmm is that garlic salt, regular salt, or onion salt?  Buy it and try it!

Next aisle is dairy.  I was going to try  my hand at some White Chili.  I need sour cream and regular cream.  Then we were out of yogurt.  Most dairy products have a cow on it, a white barn with a red roof or a picture of a spoon with white substance on it.  Buy it and try it!

   Now when we need milk we discovered it is relatively easy to recognize but took us a few trial and error cartons to figure out that the 3% is more whole than usual, 2% is close to the whole we are used to, 1% is like 2% in America and their is no such thing as skim...that would be water! 

 At about $5.00 a liter we don't buy much anyway.

Next is the bakery.  Doesn't this look like a wonderful place to spend some shekels?  Most bakery items are out in the open, uncovered, unprotected etc.  The bread and roll section is often surrounded by many hands touching and feeling each item to ensure maximum freshness.  

What the heck buy it and try it!  We're on an adventure remember!

This is a Kim Chadwick, a fellow faculty wife.  More often that not we shop with someone not by ourselves.  Kim is standing in the middle of one of the aisles.  Can you truly see the narrowness of it?  We got laughing so hard one day as there was a gentleman trying to stock the shelves, us with a shopping cart headed towards someone else coming the other way with their shopping cart  

We never win the battle in the aisles but we always get a good chuckle out of it!

Now there are usually a meat and cheese section but I'm still working on the names in Arabic and Hebrew to know what to order...

and there is even meat in a can........never bought it and never will!

We turn down an aisle and lo and behold a small piece of home! Sometimes a box can cost $12-15 so we usually stick to oatmeal,l but on this day...

What the heck I better buy it and try it!  Just to make sure they got the taste right!

Yes...we have plenty to eat.

Yes...it is expensive.

Yes...it is an adventure.

and YES I'm so happy, fortunate and blessed to be here!

MICHAL SHOR. Such an important and wonderful part of our past.

If you have been following our adventures then you know we have been trying to reconnect with our Hebrew tutor, Michal Shor.  She was the woman that we hired to come to our home 5 days a week and teach Ron, Jaxon, Aubrey and sometimes Ashley (she was only six) to speak Hebrew.  We enrolled out kids in the neighboring Hebrew school where only Hebrew was spoken.

We had gone to her flat four different times and never got an answer.  We wondered if she was still living here in Jerusalem.

Then one day last week we decided to try it again.  We rang once, twice, three times with no answer.  We started to walk away and then I told Ron ring her apt. one last time.

"Ken", the word for "Yes" in Hebrew, we heard someone say on the intercom.  

We recognized that voice,  It was Michal.  She exclaimed over and over and couldn't believe we found her let alone that we were even in Jerusalem.  We had sent her notes and cards to her for many years but then lost track of each other.

We spent the next 2 hours at her house catching up, showing her pictures of our kids, and letting her stroke our faces in sheer amazement that we came to see her.  

She is 74 now but she has not aged a single day since we saw her last.  We invited her to dinner and I made banana bread as I remembered 20 yrs. ago she couldn't believe I made bread using bananas.  She couldn't believe it then and couldn't believe it now that I remembered all those years.

This time with her reminded me and I want to remind you all to 

MAKE EVERY MOMENT A MEMORY!

Free Day! What would you do?

About an hours drive the northwest  of us is the 2nd largest city in Israel, Tel Aviv. it is located on 9 miles of the Mediterranean coastline and has a population of over 450,000.  We set out on our free day to go to the Old City of Joppa and then we were going to walk along the beach.  Oooooppsss, missed the turn off to Joppa and the next thing we knew we were in Herzliya, the next city north of Tel Aviv.  Oh well.  Too bad.  Darn.  I guess we'll have to spend the day at the beach.  This happens to be the very same beach where we brought our kids 20 years ago...yellow beach chairs and all!  

                                                                  So many memories!

Water and beach to the left.......................

Water and beach to the right.......................

And nothin' but water straight ahead...............

And That Folks is what we did for our free day!

Arab Culture night.

Food, Fotos. Food. Fancy Footwork of the Arab dancing kind and good friends.

Jericho...the Oldest City in the World...and we went there!

Jericho is said to be the oldest city in the world.  It was a 30 minute bus ride from Jerusalem and we went from 2700 ft. elevation to 850 ft. below sea level in that time.  Because Jericho is located  on the Jordan River flood plain next to a spring the city is like an oasis in the middle of nothing but desert.  hot as hot but very lush and green.

And Ron has had some of the most incredible classrooms don't you think!?!?!

We went on a brief walk above the Wadi Qilt, a dried up river bed.  It was so hot, so barren, so spectacular.

Just another day in the classroom!

TURKEY!!!!!!

We just returned from a remarkable 8 day trip to Turkey. I have taken a few days trying to figure out the best way to relay all the information, history, pictures, sites and smells in this post.  Basically I concluded its almost impossible!  Just so you are all aware we were in Istanbul and on that side of the country and very safe EVERYWHERE we went.  The fighting and ISIS issues you see reported in the news was well over several hundred miles away from us.  Turkey is a beautiful country.  Istanbul is a spectacular city of 14 million people with Mosques on every corner to service its 97% Muslim population.  Hopefully I can give you a small glimpse into our fantastic week.

Teachers ready to go...

Students ready to go...

Plane ready!

Our first views from the bus as we traveled to our first site, Hagia Sophia and the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.

After we checked into our hotel we took a lovely walk to simply take in as much as we could.

Day two was filled with Hippodrome, Blue Mosque, Basilica Cistern, Topkapi Palace,shopping in the grand bazaar a cruise on the Bosphorus  ending up the day with a Whirling Dervish ceremony.  The following pictures captured the day with the exception of the Whirling Dervish as no photography was allowed.

Day three:  Long bus day. One bus broke down and so Ron & I and several others missed the visit to Gallipoli Battle Fields but caught up with the other bus for lunch and a ferry ride across the Dardanelles. The first four pictures are what we did while waiting for our new bus to arrive.  The other pictures are of the rest of the day; the ferry ride and Troy.

Day four, one of my favorites, ASSOS and Pergamon Acropolis.

In the middle of all these ruins and history, we never lacked for wonderful food.

Day 5

Ephasus, Basilica of St. John and Meletus

Basilica of St. John

Good nights rest after a long and wonderful day...

Last two days were filled with long bus rides, visiting Sardis, Bursa and the silk market, the Grand Mosque in Bursa and Iznik

This is Yasemine, our Turkish guide.  She was very knowledgeable and a delight to be with. She picked us up at the airport and stayed with us the whole time and then seeing us off at the airport.

After three gate changes, a two hour delay and the scariest take off I have EVER had in my life, we arrived back home to Jerusalem...yes it is my home...at 4:00 a.m.  

THANK YOU TURKEY!