Israel Diaries # 1: World Cup and Maccabee Lager

Picture of Old City Jerusalem from the window of our hotel

Well, this is the stuff that makes Janny and I come to life. This is our 3rd day in Jerusalem after about 24 hours of travel and a 10 hour time change. Our favorite part of traveling is learning and embracing new culture(at least new to us!). Travel forces us into a posture of humility and intrigue as we have to feel our way through the new setting by trail and error. This has definitely been true of our first few days in Israel.

The main reason we are here is to study at Jerusalem University College for a 3.5 week graduate course. I have FINALLY finished about 30 hours of pre-work and so we were able to rest and get a taste of the city for these first few days. We check into the school today.

The hotel we have been staying in (we are now moving to campus housing) is a 0 star and is packed with other low budget travelers from across the globe. We have already traveled with, exchanged email addresses and watched the World Cup with people from England, Holland, Costa Rica, Switzerland and a bunch of locals. Although the facilities are modest (to say the least!), we have an incredible view of the Old City and the Mt. of Olives…and it came with free breakfast! Nothing like hummus and tomatoes @ 7am. It is located in the Arabic part of town and the guys that run the place are super friendly and accommodating. We were told not to stay in this part of town, but we have really enjoyed getting into the rhythms of this culture. Most are Muslim and we can hear the prayers 3 or 4 times a day that are amplified through the streets. They exhibit so much devotion, it is quite admirable.

There is an upper lounge at the top of our hotel where we can watch the World Cup games. Super fun. I offered to get some Hebrew Lager for myself and our English friend David and quickly realized that Muslim’s don’t drink alcohol, so we had to leave the area. We ended up finding some Hebrew beer call Maccabee Lager(LOVE the history! If you’re not familiar with the Maccabee’s influence in the Jewish story, click here) and enjoyed the USA vs England match. Janny had this guy on his heals with her strategic smack talk. We just liked to hear him fire back comments in his English accent.

We have been able to walk the Old City streets and are excited to be moving to our new hotel which is actually inside the city walls. Our favorite meal has quickly become falafel and Turkish(or Arabic) coffee. We will share more about the city and some of the sites next time.

Any tips or insight, please feel free to throw it in the comments. We should have internet pretty consistently.

Cheers and Shalom from Israel!