Sunday - single-handedly saving Israel's economy

Due to our late night Saturday, we slept in on Sunday.  Eventually we had breakfast at Cup-a-Joe and then went to Pomerantz booksellers.  Boy, did we have fun there!  They are so wonderful, so helpful, so giving.  Oh – on the way to Pomerantz, someone tapped my shoulder.  Turns out she remembers me from high school and USY and says I haven’t changed.  Weird!  Anyway, we had a lot to carry, so we schlepped back to the hotel with our goods then took a cab to the Old City (it is close, but we were tired – ok, I was lazy).  We walked through the Christian quarter to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  It was beautiful and very crowded.  Then we found our way to the Cardo, did some shopping there (Adam bought me a beautiful necklace!) and then to the Kotel, where we ran into Martha and Larry from Beth El, and I had another encounter with someone who remembered me, Sarah B and her husband Rabbi Josh.  Crazy – and again, only in Israel!  We went right to the Kotel tunnel tour.  There were some very cool parts of this tour – seeing an interactive model of the Kotel plaza, seeing the Western Wall at a deeper point, and being near the Kodesh haKodashim.  But the rest of it was a bit long, claustrophobic, and boring (that’s because I’m not so into archeology).  The weirdest part of the tour was the end when we emerged from the tunnels, deep in the Muslim quarter, and we were escorted by armed guards back to the Kotel.  Personally, I have been lost in that area many times and have lived to tell the tale, so I’m not scared to be there (once I practiced my Arabic – shukran!), but it was embarrassing to stand there with guards and guns (the guy had his hand on the trigger the whole time).  In my mind, the message was one of distrust, and it was not friendly.  Sarah says it’s the government’s way of saying we have the right to be here and to protect ourselves.  Interesting.  I’m sure we can all discuss that at some point!  So we made it back to the Kotel, where Adam and I parted, each davened mincha, placed notes, prayed, etc.  I’m always torn – is it a holy place or just a brick wall?  In any case, the day continued with a visit to Rhea, our kippah lady.  She just turned 89 and is so precious.  We bought beautiful kippot, saw pictures from her granddaughter’s wedding, her daughter’s trip to India, and met her grandson.  We told her to get ready for the women of Beth El – she’s very excited for our trip.  Then we went on a very long walk (mostly because the ATMs in Rhea’s area didn’t accept our foreign credit cards so we had very little money!), we stopped at Beit Nativ for pictures, and then made it to Burgers Bar on Emek Refaim for a delicious and huge burger.  Sarah met us there for a bit.  We walked home, full and exhausted from a very long day.