hot hot heat

What a good feeling to wake up and put on my new clothes and not have to walk around looking like a dork. In white short sleeved collared shirt with an open V-neck and army green pants that gather at the bottom (out of respect you can't wear skimpy things to holy areas so no shorts or tank tops) we got in the car for the hour-long drive to Jerusalem. It was cool looking, but frankly I can’t enjoy even the coolest thing when I am hot and miserable. It was sweltering, the sun was supernova bright and beating down mercilessly, and I kept repeating the obvious, an annoying thing I tend to do when I’m miserable. It goes something like this: “Its so hot” (duh) ...5 minutes later… “Man is it hot.” (thank you observo, master of the obvious)

So we went to the wailing wall, also called the ‘kotel’ – it’s the one remaining wall from some holy destroyed temple where people go to pray and write notes that contain prayers or wishes and shove them into the cracks of the wall like notes to god. Its separated so there is a (large) side for men only, and a tiny section for women. Many of the places you had to go through a metal detector and they would look through your bag. There was that golden dome you always see in the pictures of Jerusalem that is part of a holy Muslim mosque, and winding alleyways of markets selling shiny trinkets, swords, hookahs, and cloths of every color like you would see in Aladdin or Indiana Jones. It was way cool but, again, impossible to enjoy due to the heat. Unfortunately due to violence, many of the cool things to see were off limits. I didn’t start feeling normal again until we were half way home in the air-conditioned car. So due to the stress of the heat combined with the whole family thing and trying to travel with too many people, today didn’t feel very vacation-like. We did have a delicious meal of hummus, olives, tomatoes, lettuce, mushrooms roasted in olive oil and herbs, etc. at least. One thing I noticed is there are a LOT of beautiful women here. Like in America you walk around and maybe one in 25 women is pretty. Here it’s more like, 1 in 3. Also most people here are skinny. So, the question my brother raised is, are they genetically superior to Americans or do the ugly ones just stay home?

Then my bro, kids and aunt went to the part of the city that’s just up the street from my aunts house, all new chic restaurants and clubs, and ate malawa, a flaky round flat bread which is a lot like paratha, delicious, another thing called f----something with an f, that is like a long skinny brown bread-like thing that you dip in this spicy tomato puree, yummm, and then for desert something called fatoot, which I think is made from malawa but small pieces and in a sweet form, like with chocolate or in our case, honey, cinnamon, coconut, and raisins. Sounds weird but was delicious. The end! Oh yeah still no luggage! >:(

Oh yeah scary moment when I heard what I thought was a gun battle in the street below, but was just fireworks from a wedding! I guess I'm a *little* jumpy!