Hello Israel, First stop Jerusalem

We arrived in Tel Aviv around 2:30 am. Feeling a little jet lagged it was nice to have a driver waiting to pick us up and take us to Jerusalem. It was a 45 minute drive to the hotel with one check stop along the way where the police were looking for drunk drivers.

We went to sleep, had breakfast and then ventured to the old town.

While traveling we have a tendency to forget what day of the week it is. When we arrived to the old town, we saw that 98% of the shops and restaurants were closed and many of the locals on the street were wearing customary shabbat clothing. It must be Saturday.

Shabbat begins at sundown on Friday and ends at sundown on Saturday when the new week begins. Observant Jews don't work during Shabbat. Norm felt this made for the perfect day to go shopping.

We did find a nice patio restaurant that was open and had a drink and appetizers for lunch.

While eating I googled where to go in Jerusalem on a Saturday and discovered the Arabic souq was open, so we walked over there.

Hebrew is the official language in Israel, and Arabic is spoken by Israel's Arab minority. However, so far English is very prominent as a second language so it's been amazingly easy to chat with many locals.

We eventually walked back to our hotel for a power nap and then back out for supper around 830 pm. The streets were quiet, and unfortunately, the restaurant we wanted to try was closed. We found another one on the rooftop of the International hotel close by where the food was very good.

We strolled back to the hotel to wrap up a great first day in Israel and a wonderful wedding anniversary.