Friday

On Friday we started our day at the Israel Museum and Shrine of the Book (Heichal haSefer).  Most of the Museum is closed for construction (but don’t worry, it was the same price for admission!).  We saw the Dead Sea Scrolls and that whole exhibit (but my favorite was watching them “water” the shrine building).  We saw the model of the 2^nd Temple period, which used to be at the Holyland Hotel.  We went into a cool exhibit on Israeli art 1998-2008 which included very creative and modern art and interesting messages about Israel.  Then we ran to Emek Refaim for, of course, some last minute shopping!  We had a quick and huge lunch at Caffit, then walked back to the hotel.  A bit later, Aaron B picked us up (we missed Mollie and Livnat by a few days because they are still in Denver!) and he drove us to Machaneh Yehudah.  We went shopping with him – lychee nuts, rugulach, pita, humus, olives, and lots of spices!  We sat with him and had a quick coffee – so nice to catch up.  He drove us home and we got ready for Shabbat, then walked to Shira Chadasha for nice, but very long, tefilot.  Then Adam and I had a lovely dinner in the hotel – it was nice to be relaxed and to be together.  We read our books in the lobby a bit – it was quite a scene of different kinds of Jews, in fact, so was dinner, which was very cool.  Israelis seem to really enjoy Shabbat dinner, and to find it important, even if they have cell phones with them.