Israel. Days 9 and 10. Ha-Sof.
Friday
Thankfully we woke up to slightly better weather today. We had another great breakfast, then took a cab to the kotel, which we still hadn’t visited. Hallie kissed the kotel and said “Thank you Hashem.” Then we carried the stroller up what must have been a hundred steps to the Rova, where Hallie got yet another bagel and cream cheese. She was certainly crankier than she had been the last few days. Maybe she just needs to go back to the discipline of school, or maybe she’s getting sick…
the kotel is fun with mommy
and somber with daddy
From the Rova we made our way out to the parking lot and got a cab to Machane Yehuda, which we also hadn’t been to yet. We made obligatory stops at Marzipan for rugalach and Rosemary for dried fruits, and then fought our way out of the shuk. It was ridiculously crowded. Considering that this city is empty, Tzvi couldn’t believe how packed the shuk was.
We walked a couple of blocks to Crave, a restaurant that serves “street food,” which is fairly new (it wasn’t here in 2017). I really didn’t want meat for lunch, but it was on Tzvi’s list of things he really wanted to do, so we sat for lunch. I got a tofu burrito and Tzvi got the burger. He couldn’t decide what to get, but the waitress told him the burger would be the best burger he’s ever had in his life. First, I’ll say the tofu burrito was excellent – the tofu was chunks of deep fried tofu. Tzvi can describe the burger for himself.
Tzvi: I was skeptical when she said it would be the best burger I’ve ever had, but I have to admit, if it wasn’t the best I’ve ever had, it was in the top few. The burger was ground steak (not sure what that means exactly, but I took it to mean it was a better cut of meat then just chuck), lamb bacon (crispy, delicious), fake cheese (which I usually don’t like, but this was actually good), lettuce, tomatoes, and special sauce. It was amazing. It was cooked to a perfect medium rare and just seasoned so well. I was really impressed. It was so good.
Hallie made an H out of her french fries
Steph: After lunch we walked all the way from the shuk down to Ben Yehuda. We stopped at Ann for kippas, where Tzvi got two kippas and Hallie bought kippas to give her friends Dovid and Yehuda at school. After that we walked down to The Coffee Bean where I got a mocha iced blended. We had to wait a really long time for our drinks, so that was fun. Then we walked back to the hotel and got ready for Shabbat.
Shabbat started in Jerusalem around 5:00, but we didn’t really start until 5:30. We sat for a bit in the lobby before going into dinner in the dining room. We started with a basic salad bar. For appetizers I had gefilte fish, and Tzvi had both the spicy Moroccan fish and the tuna tartare “nicoise” (which was kind of like a diced nicoise salad). Then Tzvi and I both had the chicken consommé and the sweet potato soup. For the main, everyone at the table had the entrecote. For dessert I had some sort of chocolate nut thing.
Conversation at dinner was lively and unrepeatable, and everyone at the table enjoyed themselves, including Hallie who did quite a bit of running and made people take her on numerous trips to the bathroom even though she rarely had to go.
Saturday
We woke up around 9:30 and made it to breakfast by 10:00. Avery now has the sickness that my father had and was too ill to make it to breakfast. We’re so full from this trip we could barely eat, though we struggled to find a way.
After breakfast we had our suitcases brought back to the room and packed up. While in the lobby, Tzvi found Shai Kehat, whose parents had told him they were coming to visit my parents before lunch. Abby and Mordy didn’t actually show up until after lunch, but we spent a nice hour talking to Shai.
We went down for lunch around 1:00. There was a great cold buffet with all sorts of deli meats, roasted vegetables, dips, salads, liver, different types of fish. Then there was a hot buffet with lamb carving, veal osso bucco, chicken legs, sweet and sour duck, roasted veggies, chulent, potato dishes, and other stuff. There were too many different types of foods to name. Tzvi probably ate a half of a lamb. There were about 12 desserts, but every single one had nuts. I don’t know why they can’t make even one thing without nuts.
In the moment it was difficult to appreciate it because of how overstuffed we are, but in a week we’re going to be salivating over memories of King David buffets.
After lunch we put Hallie in the stroller and walked her down to the windmill in Mishkenot She’ananim. She fell asleep pretty fast, and then we walked back to the hotel and napped ourselves. We woke up with a few minutes left in Shabbos, packed up some more, showered and got ready to go out for the night.
Again, Avery was too ill to go out so he stayed in his room, and the rest of us went to Kadosh, a café near Mammilla. The café has been there since 1967 and we’ve heard good things, but it did not live up to our expectations. We though the menu was a little limiting, the service was slow, and the food was eh. Tzvi had a “cheese toast with mushrooms,” which was basically a grilled cheese sandwich with mushroom cream sauce poured over it. I had an egg with a side salad. We ordered Hallie a cream cheese sandwich, but she wouldn’t touch it. Again, we’ve heard good things so maybe they were having an off night, but we were a little sad to have that as our last meal of the trip.
After dinner we walked down to Mammilla mall and shopped at Michael Negrin while Tzvi went to Café Rimon to get Hallie a pizza. Then we said goodbye to Gabs and she walked back to the hotel with my parents so she and Avery could leave for the airport for their midnight flight home.
Tzvi got the pizza from Rimon and we sat on some steps. It was a huge pizza and delicious, and Hallie at a lot of it. We also got a final slushy coffee from Roladin, which Tzvi remembered as being really good but was basically undrinkable, and a slushy coffee from Aroma to make up for that.
Then we walked back to the King David and went to sleep.
Tomorrow we’re off to Paris!
