Can't Shake the Comma

English Major here. Now, I don't remember when it started, but there's been a rule out for sometime now that in a sequence of events (three or more), you don't have to add that extra comma before the word "and." For example:

 

I couldn't believe she walked, talked and smelled like a man!

 

While I think that's great and all, I just can't seem to shake the comma! But then I've noticed that I've been adding commas everywhere in my writing. I'm one to write like I speak. I speak not only dramatically, but I usually digress with extra little tid-bits that aren't always necessary, but are deemed interesting enough to add them. It's something I catch every now and then, but just haven't gotten too serious enough about to give myself some harsh criticism. I add comas as I pause in thought. Though, I also use the "dot, dot, dot." But...perhaps, when, it, starts, looking, like, this...I'll, do, something, about, it...

In other news, my little 5 month old has lost two teeth already. Surprise, surprise! Apparently, his breed goes through a lot of teeth in their life. The first one I found by stepping on it--in my socks. The second one, Harley seemed to realize that something just fell out of his mouth as he investigated and played with it. TMI? Get a dog!



You try brushing a dog's teeth. It's not easy.

Recently, whether my vision is getting worse or not, it's starting to bother me that I can't see certain things. Movies aren't as interesting to me because they're not clear. I get nervous driving in new territory because I can't read the signs till I get close enough to them. I'm almost sure that my vision didn't just all-of-a-sudden "go bad." Foolish child I was--I had encouraged bad eyes. Why? I actually wanted glasses. Didn't the kids with glasses get teased with names like "four-eyes" or "nerd?"

Perhaps I was into fashion-forward thinking, supposing they looked hip. Or maybe I just wanted to look more like Dad or Anna. Well, for whatever reason, if only I were so lucky to get glasses! I used to wear Anna's old, round, pink frames with no lenses. Believe me: very cool. Though, not satisfied with "play" glasses, the logical thing, then, was to pretend I couldn't see so I could get my very own glasses (with lenses). Making sure my "bad vision" was known, I walked right up to the clock, face to face, and read aloud the time, or bumped into a wall and said, "oh my! I didn't see that wall there!" It was supposed to render comments like, "oh wow Sarah, your eyes are bad. We should get you some glasses." But after my ridiculous, numerous, failing attempts to prove that my good eyes were bad, I gave up. However, I'm convinced all that has finally caught up to me--only now, (you guessed it!), I don't want glasses. I think I got my first pair of glasses when I was about 15, and I wore them a lot. I eventually switched to contacts. Once I started having problems with those, I went "cold turkey"--though I'm not sure that expression applies. :) But like I say, I've gotten tired of not being able to see. So, as of last week:

 

 

New glasses! Besides the pink, round, lensless frames, these are the biggest I've had. Come to find out, "you're supposed to get your eyes checked once a year" she told me. Posh! I said, "I'll see you in five years!" :)

 

And finally, something I'm coming to appreciate more in life are attitudes like this one:  



 

Happy trails!

Melting

Yesterday, out of the blue, Sam said, "We'll go to the store sometime soon and get you a new dress for the winter." What have I done to deserve such a loving husband who wants to give me the world?

Not that the world is a new dress, LOL.

But, "out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks." And so, when things like this happen, whether it's "I want you to have a new dress" or "I want to splurge on you with hugs and kisses!"--anything that includes me in his life--I melt. A random, "I've been thinking about you".....oh, there I go....

I'm melllllllllllltiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!!!!

Food For Thought

Recently, I actually bought a REAL book--one I could hold in my hand and flip from page to page, fold the ears down, circle words and paragraphs and scribble my own little notes in the margins. The book is called "Created to be His Help Meet." Here are several teasers from it you can mull over as food for thought:

>A woman trying to function like a man is as ridiculous as a man trying to be like a woman. A unisex society is a senseless society--a society dangerously out of order.

>If God created a special woman, perfectly suited to be your husband's helper, would you be that woman?

>It is not a question of whether or not you can do a better job than he, it's a matter of doing what you were "designed" to do. It is far better that the job [leading the family] be done poorly by your husband than to be done well by you.

>Who and what you are is reflected in your face. Does your husband see you as a happy thankful woman?

>Discontentment is not a product of circumstances; it is the state of the soul.

>There are basically three types of men: Mr. Command, Mr. Visionary, and Mr. Steady.

>Chapter 10: Reactions Define You

>A man cannot cherish a strong woman who expresses her displeasure of him. ... Do you want your husband to be forced to seek supernatural power just to find a way to love you?

>A man will allow his woman many, many, many faults as long as he knows that she thinks he is great.

>A wise woman patterns her life after her husband's. His working, playing, eating, and sleeping habits become hers.

>Her ambition was personal, spiritual fulfillment, which is the most selfish drive that can possess a person and the easiest to justify, humanly speaking.

>Women who seek higher spirituality end up feeling and acting spiritually superior to their husbands...and it is a death knell to a healthy marriage relationship. Spend that "desired" spiritual time with your husband, where real growth and maturity with God will be found.

>God says a woman who lacks discretion is like a jewel in a pig's nose.

>It will not be enough for you to just force yourself into silence and start surrendering your will. It is time for you to start practicing reverence toward your husband.

>We want the Bible to be strictly our guide, but there is always a danger of reading something into it to suit our personal sense of propriety.

>When a woman resists or tries to change a man, she makes him more stubborn, and her own heart will be filled with bitterness.

>A woman's greatest power is in obeying God through obeying and honoring her husband.

>You cannot become his conscience or his accuser, expecting that pressure is going to push him into repentance.

>Don't confuse sympathy with encouragement. If you feel sorry for his hurt feelings and sympathize with him, you will only add fuel to his emotional fire.

>Get off the phone, lay down romance novels, turn off the TV, stay off the web, reduce outside visits or women's classes, and focus on putting your time into what your husband is doing.

>He only needs his woman to pour her life into his, for him to pour his soul back into hers.

>Three things that can break a man's spirit and cripple a marriage: 1) A wife who is spiritually critical, 2) A discontented wife, and 3) A wife who is not fulfilling...Titus 2:3-5.

I've done it again....

...left you all hanging for a while. I think it's pretty obvious by now that I'm a lousy blogger. Guess you'll just have to take what you can get from me. :)

So, what's been going on?....Because of my neglect, now I have to sift through my short term memory (which often fails me) to give a boring list-style summation of what's been going on.

Not that the only thing worth posting about is Harley, but as of recently, it always seems the most eventful thing. But, since the last post was completely devoted to him, I'll let a picture and a few brief words be his only part in this post:

Growing like a weed. New nicknames: "Little Ewok" and "Charlie"...though he doesn't respond to either. Potty training is going well. He must really like the treats he's getting. ;-)

Moving on....

I've got this "audio books" app on my phone--things have become so convenience-oriented--where I downloaded this book called "Think and Grow Rich." From the title of the book and from chapter one, I was fooled into thinking I found a treasure here, but somewhere in chapter 2, I quit and UN-downloaded it. Here are a few things I took from chapter 1:

>Opportunity comes most often in the form of misfortune.

>One of the most common reasons for failure is the habit of quitting.

>If you would have held on a moment longer, you would have succeeded.

>Success comes to those who are success-conscious. Failure comes to those who indifferently allow themselves to become failure-conscious.

>Thought habits: What you habitually think about is what you are.

>"I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul" (Henley). You have the power to control your
thoughts.

>Our brains become magnetized with the dominating thoughts we hold.

To my disappointment, however, the following chapter talked about how you must be obsessed with money in order to obtain it. Phooey. I took the title "Think and Grow Rich" to be talking about growing rich in thought, and therefore in character, but it turns out, it's really talking about material wealth. Nothing wrong with material wealth, but to make it an obsession is fruitless and is a misdirected goal. I could have overlooked Chapter 2, and given it another chance with Chapter 3 but the disappointment was too great. And so, the book is gone, and has since been replaced with a biography on Lincoln.

Did I mention that Sam has started school? Well he has! He's taking a class on sales management. After High School, he went straight into the workforce and has excelled tremendously without the college experience. But he's excited that he's been given the opportunity, and he seems to be enjoying it!

Sam's first day of school.

 

On to the weather: it's been cold, rainy, warm, chilly, windy, calm, sunny, icy, and then rainy again...did I leave anything out? 

 

We're looking forward to having a garden this year--last year was our land rest. We don't really have a convenient location for a garden--the year before proved that--but we'll try again anyways. The only produce we got were the habaneros that I had mistaken for regular bell peppers--quite the surprise--but I was able to make some jars of salsa with them, so it wasn't a total loss. This year, with a year of experience under our belt, we'll make a few adjustments, including some pots on the back porch for our tomatoes. They need more sun than our shady little spot-of-a-garden. Previously, the tomatoes have been snitched by some squirly creatures in our forested back yard, so I'm still not sure what we'll do about them, but Sam will think of something. *wink*

And here's a new houseplant I potted just last week to go along with our lonely money tree.

I know I said only the one picture and mention of Harley, but I just had to post this picture from today. Harley and I have been walking up and down our road where he usually finds treasures to sneak into the house (of course, since Mama is sneakier than him, he can never remember where he put his treasures), and today, his delicious find was a plain old stick that he carried for our entire walk!

 

 

That's it's for now. I'll make an effort to improve my bloggery.... 

The Dog

It's been too long since I've sat down to give an update of things. But here I am, and once again, it's time to play catch-up. In my last post, I mentioned Harley--the dog. So let's start with him:

In the words of Sam, "he has such a great personality!" He can be cheeky and stubborn at times, but I'm learning consistency is a pretty big key. And the thing I've been most adamant and consistent about is taking him "outside" to "go potty!" Up until a week ago, I thought he would never be housebroken. (It doesn't help that we talked to a guy with a 7 yr old Yorkie-poo that, even with training, STILL goes potty in the house. Yeah, that's a bit discouraging.) We've had him for two months now and just when I thought he was learning that "potty" + "outside" = "treat," I find him squatting briefly, and then running from me--before I can even react. You'd think he did it on purpose....

                                

However, the past couple days have given me hope once more. I was in the middle of making bread (there's never a "convenient" time for having to go potty), when I suddenly realized that I couldn't hear him tumbling around on the floor behind me. With dough still stuck to my hands, I looked under the table, down the hall, behind the curtains, and finally found him sitting upright, ears perked, in front of the door. As I approached, he looked at me. "Do you have to go outside?" He answered with a swish-swish of his tail. Taking him outside, we got to the grass where I told him, "go potty" and HE WENT! Baby steps!
 

And I'm learning that giving commands is MUCH needed.

I've watched a lot of videos on this and have had a few people tell me that even if you didn't give the command, and the dog goes potty outside, "yes you should praise him for it, that way he'll keep doing it." Sounds good and everything, but in this scenario, he's associating the action of going potty with a reward. Good? No, it's a problem, because at any random time--usually in the house--he'll remember "when I went potty, I got a treat!" and he'll squat in hopes to get a treat. But I want him to associate the command with the reward. So I've only praised him when I make the command--which I try not to let him go potty without me giving the command. "Set your dog up for success!" they say. I definitely agree with the positive training method. Positive results come from positive training.

 

As I said in a previous post, my schedule of life has changed. No more sleeping in till 5; no more exercising in the morning, or vacuuming, dusting, doing laundry, or ironing on certain days. I have a new, temporary-and-subject-to-change, weekly schedule. One day, I was making a salad and couldn't seem to find the cucumber I had just cut into a few days before. I found it the next day stored in the tupperware cabinet. And I can't ever seem to keep up with my dish towels--one minute, I have them over my shoulder, the next minute, they're gone! Throughout the week, I find them here and there where I must've temporarily placed them as I raced to stop Harley from biting on the furniture, etc, etc. He keeps me on my toes, as every day is a new adventure where our agenda's don't always agree.

 

Surprise!

Some weeks go by just like any other: busy with the regular house chores, the weekly voice lesson, the occasional trip and temper tantrum at the gas pump, a few exercise moves to feel better about my groggy days, and a trip to the grocery store where I usually forget an item. But occasionally, there are those unexpected surprises that add some spice to the regular week: my car breaks down, I lock myself out of the house, the computer gets a virus, the electricity goes out because I forgot to the pay the bill...you get the idea.

Last week, I got a surprise that will not just change my regular week, but my whole life!

Do I have you on your toes?

It was Thursday--and a regular one at that. Sam came home from work that evening hauling his lunch cooler, coat, and laptop upstairs. He set his cooler on the counter and like regular, he began relaying the events of the day while I went to unpack his lunch box. When I opened the cooler, I jumped back. In the cooler was a surprise that has changed my forgetting-one-item-on-the-grocery-list pattern to forgetting five items on the grocery list. It's changed my sleeping pattern, my regular chores pattern, and my exercise pattern.

What!? What!? you ask.

I reached into the cooler and pulled out a puppy! The cutest thing you've ever seen--they call his colouring brindle, but I call it black and brown, with a patch of white on his chest, and a little white beard that looks funny for a pup. Sam told me that he'd been keeping this a surprise for 7 whole weeks. That's huge for Sam, considering his kind of surprise is usually: "I got you something! You wanna guess what it is?"..."nope, that's not it....nope, that's not it either. Okay, I'll give you two hints. But you only get one guess"...."No. That's not it."...."okay, one more guess"...."okay, one more"...."okay, I'll give you one more clue"....

Well, the-cutest-thing-ever peed all over me while I coddled him.

And what kind of proud beast will this grow up to be? To me, he looked like he could be a Boxer and German Shepherd mix...but was for sure the runt of the litter. "Sarah, he's a Shorkie!" I was close. Well, not really. That's a mix between a Shih Tzu and a Yorkie. A toy dog?

Just to give a little back-story, we did talk about dogs at one point, and almost decided to get a pit bull, keeping him inside and out. However, Sam took into consideration my concerns about pit bulls and we eventually decided against it. After that, a few breed ideas were thrown around, but it got to be a little stressful just thinking about a dog in the house, what to do with it when we travel, etc., etc. Eventually, all doggie-talk stopped.

And now comes my public apology to all those inside-dog-owners I've accused and shaken my finger at, as if keeping a dog in the house is the most disgusting thing ever. Growing up, we had a handful of different animals--cows, goats, chickens, cats and dogs. They belonged outside. I loved having animals, but bringing them into the house just wasn't an option. However, moving away from home, creating a life, a family, and eventually a home of your own, you keep some rules that you grew up with, and others, you tweak or even discard. I never thought this would be one to discard, but because we don't have any little Sammy Jrs, well, a dog is the next best thing, right? And why not take the challenge? You can handle it, Sarah, says I.

So as of Thursday, I suddenly and unexpectedly became an inside-dog-owner. And I don't think I realized just what an undertaking this was! Throwing a puppy into the mix of life has been hectic. Reading the child rearing booklet, I found myself nodding, agreeing, and sometimes, even slapping my leg exclaiming, that's just how I've always said it! as if the book were to have copied my theories. While training a dog is similar to that of child rearing, I thought, well dogs are easier because I only have to teach them obedience--they don't understand all the "why's." Nothing hard about that...

...until Harley. I can't tell you how many times I've picked him up to go potty outside, giving him lots of love and treats for going poo; or how many times I've put him on the potty pad when he goes, yet he still doesn't seem to connect "potty" with "outside." You'd think my hormones were changing--I've been on an emotional roller coaster over the course of four days. It started out with love: you're such a cutesy-wootsy! His ears flop up and down as he pitter-patters through the hall, or as his head jerks this way and that with his chew toy (an old sock). Then came night-time: spending endless hours listening to him whine and yelp; letting him out to go potty, trying to quiet him, and get him to stay in his crate. Then I find myself dramatizing, this is it. The end of my once peaceful life. I watched some puppy training videos on youtube where they must cheat somehow because the dogs obey every time. Regardless, I try to mimic the videos, but eventually slump to the ground and think, am I ever going to get through this? while he squats, leaving a perfect little puddle for me to clean up. I've been ever so careful to watch him, learning his stances when he's got to go, and when he's got to go! But so far, it's not the go! that's been the problem...

There's so much that I need to teach him, but for now, I'm putting all my efforts into potty training the little rascal. So far, he's doing very well--or am I? That's where it gets a little confusing for me. Is it me that's getting better at recognizing when he's got to go and taking him outside more often, or is it him getting better at going when I take him outside? Perhaps it's a mixture of both.

Here's a little video showing his playful side.

So, how is Sam managing? you may wonder. He has SO much patience with him. After those long nights up with the dog, instead of grumpily slumping around the kitchen like me, he said, "he's just a puppy! He probably misses his Momma and family." All I could do was look at Sam with my bloodshot eyes and grunt.

 

 

 

Yes, Sam has been just wonderful with him.

 

 

 

I'm sure there will be more posts with Harley in the future.

Down Memory Lane

Fair warning: Grab some popcorn...

If you can, try to imagine a world where everyone keeps the Sabbath holy and celebrates the Feast of Tabernacles. That's part of what the World Tomorrow will be like, but I got to experience this now! As obvious as that is--because Israel is a Jewish, sabbath keeping nation--it was still a shock and quite the experience to spend a couple weeks in a nation who not only knows about the Feast, but celebrates it too. Of course, it didn't live up to the World Tomorrow standard, as the Jews keep the Feast (and even the sabbath) differently. For example, on Shabat, the elevators were put on "auto pilot" so you didn't have to "work" to press any buttons.

 

The "booths" that the locals built for sukkot were interesting. They set them up right outside their restaurants and stores, spilling over the sidewalk, reaching the edge of the street. Even our hotel had a couple of them. While our booths are hotels where we live temporarily for 7 days, their booths weren't for "dwelling" in. They only ate meals under them. We figured it must be because scripture says, "And all the congregation...made booths, and sat under the booths."

A booth in Jerusalem that sits on the sidewalk outside of a store.



This was a booth at Megiddo and looks much nicer than those in Jerusalem.



For a couple weeks, we lived at the Eldan hotel, perhaps similar to a Days Inn, or Comfort Inn, but with breakfast for kings! Just about every morning, they served pasta, eggs, bourekas (cheese filled pastries), and shakshuka (eggs in tomato sauce), all in chafer dishes. Breakfast was "open" at 7 o'clock; if you were at the door when they opened, you could expect cold food.
The dishes needed at least an hour to heat up--just saying, as it was something that took us 7 days to learn. This "hot" bar extended into a "cold bar" with all sorts of cheeses, cucumbers, tomatoes, and some kind of cold fish. I couldn't tell you much else of the cold bar, as I never stopped to tempt myself. On the other side was more bread you could ever attempt to eat--bread rolls, sweet pastries, and a loaf with a knife for you to cut your own slice, baby-bear-just-right size. They also had fruit, cereal, and granola.

Our first morning at breakfast, David B joined us. He came back to the table with a cute little portion sized cup (as you see them


Do you have any others?

sold in stores) of Yoplait's yogurt. We asked him where he found them, and he said he just asked if they had any yogurt. The man had seemed a little upset that he'd left out an item--or perhaps he thought David was being ungrateful, asking for something else. The assistant reached for the phone on the wall, tapped some digits, and began hebrewizing something about yogurt. Before David knew it, he was in yogurt-heaven. All because one man asked about yogurt, they continued to add yogurt to our breakfast buffet. Nice! And now we know for sure, Yoplait's gelatin is kosher.

It was a little strange to have the pasta dishes for breakfast, but throughout the feast, we learned that our hotel was disguised as
a restaurant by night. Then it hit me: the menus for breakfast were dinner specials the evening before! While it was strange--because who does that?--I still enjoyed eating dinner for breakfast. I think I also appreciated that they "waste not, want not."


What seemed to me a most out of place item at breakfast (aesthetically anyway), just next to the drinks counter was a fridge with sodas: Mt. Dew, Diet Cola, Pepsi, etc. It had a clasp with a big padlock on the side of it. For all
those soda drinkers, there was no way to be sneaky about your "sinful" pleasure. It was obvious; out came the ring of keys jingling across the room. Finding the right key, unlocking, waiting for the selection to be made, re-locking, and finally, testing the lock. Shake, tug, yank. Then everyone's eyes were back into their own business.

For our first sabbath, we were too excited to spend the time in the hotel--services didn't start till 1:00, and so a sabbath stroll down the streets of Jerusalem was in order.


Sabbath morning, Sam and David stop for a picture in front of the Eldan (El-Dan) hotel.

If we did nothing else the entire time, I can say I've walked down King David street in Jerusalem! Across the street, at the corner, was the mall. Being shabat, everything was closed, so we decided to walk through. 


Mall entrance

At the entrance of the mall, they stop to entertain their peers....

 

...no one.  

Keeping Shabat in Jerusalem was awesome. Here in the states, there's always crazy looks when explaining to your boss why you have to leave earlier on Friday in the winter months ("sunset to sunset" not just "Saturday"). But in Jerusalem, on Fridays, all the shops and restaurants begin shutting down at 3:00. They have to get home in time for Shabat themselves--though not to fear, there was a gas station, a 24 hour Market, and a very few 24 hour restaurants that were open on the Sabbath--we learned this only after we'd had our gas station water-and-yogurt dinner the first night. Other than those handful of places, it seemed the entire city was shut down. No dancing and singing in the streets. No cars. It was very peaceful. Just to mention it, on weekdays, people have no hesitations about using
their horns. They honk as soon as the light turns green. They honk if you're diving slowly. They honk when they want a pedestrian to cross. They honk when they don't want you to cross. They honk when they're going to allow another vehicle to get over. They honk when they don't want another vehicle to get over. So on the Sabbath, it was nice to get a break from all the honking.  

Services were held at the Gesher Center where the hall was like a theatre. The space for fellowship was in the rows, on the stairs (where we were asked no to, but it seemed it couldn't be helped), out in the halls, or at the very front of the stage. If we weren't a close family before, we are now!

Saturday night, we enjoyed dinner with our good friends:

The following day, Sunday, we had a tour with Dr. Mazar. What a woman! She looked at us as though it was an honor to give us the tour! Very gracious, she was. She gave us at least 4 hours of her time for the tour, which is incredible! As she began, we were standing at the center of the Ophel, where many significant landmarks were visible.



The tour begins.

Halfway through her introduction, Dr. Mazar stopped. She caught a glimpse of John, a student who worked for her on the 2007 (or was it 2008?) excavation. "Oh. John," she said. For a very brief moment, the rest of us disappeared. As if the sound of her own voice startled her, she blinked a few times quickly to stay the tears that were brimming, and she repeated very lightly, "Hi John." Pause. "I didn't know you were going to be here." She looked pleasant, calm, and her eyes sparkled--partly because of the tears. The rest of us suddenly reappeared, and as she gained composure, she felt the need to explain the sudden burst of emotional surprise, though her explanation turned into a mumble and soon faded out. True friends. It was such a delightful and very touching moment!

I'm a big sap! 

 

During the feast, two other tours were scheduled: Megiddo and Cesarea were in one tour.

 

This was the "gate" to the ancient city. 

 

I couldn't resist! Though the Sea must not have been feeling it like I was.

The second tour was at Masada (Metz-adah) and the Dead Sea.

We hiked....in flip flops. Wouldn't recommend it.

Incredible view from the top.

An Ellen that bobs.

We thoroughly enjoyed the tours and would love to have seen more sites like this in Israel. But instead, we had three entire days throughout the feast that we were free to roam wherever we liked! We hiked up the Mount of Olives (which is just that: a mount--or hill), visited the wailing wall, and went down to the the Old Market--there's a story for you!

The Old Market is an alleyway that is full of shops, selling you name it! Going down those alleys was like walking into an ocean of people that slip around, under and sometimes over other people without skipping a beat.

It was too crowded for Sam's liking, but he consented because I really wanted to go. It's here that you can bargain for things--perhaps they get the term "jew em down" from here. It was an exciting scene for sure. I was so eager to get into my bargaining; I turned and stopped into the doorway of the first store I came upon. I asked the man for a small replica of the ark of the covenant. It must have been a pleasing request. His finger shot up and he said, "wait right here! For you, I have just the thing!" He came back with a small ark-figure. "Solid gold," he said. Immediately, whether he was telling the truth or not, I knew he was going to want too much for it. The original price was 17,400 sheqels. "But for you, 800," he said. He began nodding his head like: Hands down, done-deal, best price, you want it, it's yours, sold! 800 sheqels

is about $210. I was absolutely not paying that. I said, "twenty sheqels." He laughed. He plopped the heavy figure in my hand and said, "For you, 300 sheqels." That's quite a discount--only $80. Still, I was thinking of spending something like five or ten dollars. I can't help it if he went to grab the most expensive thing he had! I tried to hand it back to him, but he wouldn't take it. They've got skills! So I placed the item on a ledge and said, "Twenty sheqels." He got mad at me and yelled, "What? Do you think I stole this from my mother?! Go to bed already! Go to bed!" I had to laugh at the expression, but I wish I would have offered the guy 40 sheqels. Would it have mattered? If I were selling my car for $4000, and a guy offered me $1000 for it, I wouldn't take it. If he added an additional $1000 to his offer, would I take it then? No.

It was hard to get used to the sheqel system. Meals were anywhere from 54 to 120+ sheqels. It's automatic for me to assume "dollar" when seeing a number after a meal...or rather before a meal (Hebrew reads from left to right). "$54 for a burger?" Or "$20 for one bottle of water?" After the initial shock of it, I reminded myself that we weren't using the dollar system. But even so, the 54NIS for the burger was $14. And the 20NIS for water was $5. So on the whole, things cost more over there anyway.

Since I'm not always one to readily try new flavours, and I wasn't sure what kind of traditional meals to expect in Israel, I was surprised to discover that it was very similar to America. Typically, anywhere you travel, you'll  find a "burger and fries" on the menu, but overall, I found that it wasn't so much the food that was different, rather the Kosher law that separates theirs from other cuisines. When you order spaghetti, you know you're getting cow, not pig. However, they also take a literal meaning to Exodus 34:26, "...Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk."

And so, at all kosher restaurants, you cannot order spaghetti and expect to put cheese on it. You couldn't have macaroni and cheese with a steak. If you ordered steak and a baked potato, they would not bring you butter. In the kitchen, they cannot use the same knife they used for the butter, for the steak. They even have two different refrigerators for the cheese and meat--that's right, they can't even be stored together. Which explained why there was no meat at breakfast (fish is apparently not considered meat). It seemed because of the law, they had a lot of starchy meals--a lot of pasta and cheese, pasta and potatoes, and pasta and bread dishes. Because of my partiality to good ole American cookin', I enjoyed their cuisine very much. But it's probably a good thing we had to walk everywhere.

The language barrier made things interesting, too. It's odd, because although we were the "aliens," I got the impression that the locals were the ones feeling uncomfortable. Even though they spoke some English, anything outside of ordering a meal, or discussing how to pay the bill, was avoided because they didn't have the vocabulary for it. Therefore, they tip-toed around looking like, "I don't know. Please don't ask me anything. I just don't know."

As exciting and thrilling as it was to just be in Jerusalem, the reality is that it's a very dirty city. Some places are cleaner than others, but more often than not, garbage was seen gathered along the sidewalks. Cats were in and out of restaurants just kind of loitering.

All the buildings are made of stone; and they don't paint any of the buildings, so the whole city is yellow-ish brown. After visiting with some of the brethren, and wondering "why did God choose Jerusalem?" it was a much needed reminder that it is New Jerusalem that has been chosen.

On that note, I'll end our walk down Memory Lane and hope that you've enjoyed some of our experiences from Israel as we saw them. To see the rest of our pictures from Jerusalem, if you haven't already, you'll find the albums here (part 1) and here (part 2).

So until next time, happy trails!