Some Thoughts and Nibbles

Cats:  There are cats everywhere here.  It's very much like Rome in that this ancient city is crawling with cats.  Here's the thing though, neighborhood cats are taken care of.  We see folks feeding them at every turn with leftovers.  One kind person in the old city took great pains to arrange a few plates in a painstaking manner.  The plates looked like Michelin star quality stuff.  They roam in clowders, mostly unaffected by passersby.  They meet up in secret clusters by the dumpsters, I suspect to plan a coup d'etat.  I suppose they are great for keeping vermin at bay.

Sheruts and Traffic:  A sherut is a cheap 10 passenger communal bus that most folks take to go from one major location to the next, city to city, bus station to airport.  Other than ignoring basic laws of  merging, changing lanes and the fundamental rules of human decency in driving they are a great way to travel.  My eye started to twitch upon boarding and hasn't let up yet, but I think I pretty much got to the hotel in good condition.  While walking as a pedestrian one hears many many long and angry honks, but rest assured everyone in their vehicles looks to be in fine spirits, aloof in fact.  I saw a man playing on his phone as he took a turn at 35 mph on a scooter, just one hand on the handles.  Folks here can fit an old VW into a four foot wide alley in the old city, no problem.  And drive 45mph while doing it?  Yep.  A very popular form of transport here is the electric bicycle, and folks- they can MOVE.  Don't confuse it with a scooter.  These are cool.  No helmets and you don't have to sit with your legs together on one of these and everyone drives on the sidewalk with theirs.   I may invest.

Graffiti:  Nothing is more political or egocentric than graffiti.  Here we've seen actual graffiti and state sponsored graffiti.  Both have provided many moments of novel consideration.  Obviously there are a lot dealing with the Palestine/Israeli conflict and hate thrown back and forth.  But often you'll see very considerate political art in unexpected locations.  Some graffiti is quirky, even lighthearted and some very poignant.  One thing I have not seen at all is tagging, you know, the scripty stuff you can't read, that you might confuse with a gang symbol.  Not a single one.  Or maybe I have, it's just written in Hebrew or Arabic and I can't read it.

Food:  So things are fresh here, seriously fresh.  Often salads are a big part of meals, and I don't mean the limp iceberg kind of thing we are used to in the States.  Cucumber, tomato, faro, quinoa, cabbage are just a few types of salads that are common here.  And they are flavorful and NEVER boring.  This is the land of herbs and spices.  Rosemary, sage and lavender grow wild everywhere.  Parsley actually has a flavor round these parts.  There is always an array of cheese too.  I love a "culture" that gets down with cheese.  Cream cheeses, yogurts, hard cheese, goat cheese, mozzarella style cheeses, oh my!!!  We watched a woman eat a 4" by 4" block of stinky blue cheese with no bread accompaniment this morning in the hotel.  She polished it off like it was a Werther's Original.

      Amber took me to have the "Best Hummus in the World" yesterday in the old city.  We walked into a strictly Arab restaurant with lots of suspicious looks.  But GIRWL, it was the best hummus I've ever had.  In fact, the falafel was the best I've had as well.  Walking into a restaurant in the old city is like walking into a cave, with four foot thick walls and no windows.  Once you've stepped in, you've committed.  The Jewish restaurants differ in that they have a very distinctive European feel to them, with outdoor shaded eating and if it's Kosher, two separate sides for dairy and meat.  If it's Arab, it's very simple fair but incredibly good at whatever the niche is, be it schwarma, kebabs, juices, or hummus.  We saw the Middle Eastern version of Kentucky Fried Chicken dubbed Arab Fried Chicken (AFC) while walking.  It's pretty easy to maintain a vegetarian diet here, but I'll admit we haven't.  And my sin of eating lamb has gone into the third infraction as of today.  But it was so caramelized and crunchy on the edges.

     The bread and pastries here in Jerusalem are something out of a French novel.  Walking past one of these bakeries is torture.  The expansive abundance of sweets and savory pastries has clearly found it's way from Europe.  Expectedly we find pita everywhere but there is quite a bit of focaccia, strudels, and croissant style delicacies.  Folks don't waste bread either.  It's always left out for the birds or cats.

Music:  Muslim women THUMP pop music from their cars too.
The lobby is fond of Sade and Marvin Gaye.

Culture:  Shabbat shut EVERYTHING down.  From sundown Friday to sundown Saturday nothing is open and nothing runs.  On the Jewish sabbath no one works, answers a phone, turns on the TV or drives a car.  The train doesn't even run.  So we walked, and walked and walked and finally broke down and took a Taxi to a 24/7 restaurant that knocked my socks off.  I had all sorts of Shabbat questions.  There's even a special elevator in our hotel that stops at every floor.  Walking through Hassidic neighborhoods during Shabbat where folks just walked with their families and the children were able to play in the streets was truly a memory for the ages.  I could get down with Shabbat.

     Our interactions have been fairly curt.  I am pretty confident in saying that most Israelis don't like Americans.  But everyone thinks we are French or German at first so as long as we don't talk.  ;)  "Where are you from?" is the bait question the shop owners throw out willy nilly.  "I have what you want to buy."  Hasidic men avoid you like you reek of rancid pickles.  Out of respect, a woman doesn't wear shorts here or sleeveless shirts.  I've only seen a few tattoos and piercings and they were foreigners.  Jewish women dress in a head wrap, longer dresses and sensible shoes.  If they are a little more liberal they wear a wig and "church best." Most Jewish men wear a yarmulke and black suit or if they are Hasidic they wear the whole shebang, long beard, big black hat with the long side curls known as payot, and a flowing black coat over a black suit with the white fringe known as "tzitzit."  Islamic men typically wear a button up and slacks (or really whatever) and women a modest hijab and long dress.  If they aren't conservative they dress like American women for the most part.  We saw an "Adidas" brand burqa.  I should've taken a photo.  Don't worry young ladies, even on this side of the world eyeliner wings are even in style.
    We have found much more socially progressive areas of Jerusalem and of course it involves shopping.  We see skin there like in the States, public displays of affection, and hair.  So hey, where the money flows- so does the hair.