Mehane Yehuda Market

In spite of our plans to explore another museum after we left David's Tower Thursday afternoon, our noses and appetites took over. We traveled on a local bus back to Ben Yehuda street where Stu picked up his repaired eyeglasses, and then onto the Thursday market where the city seemed to be shopping in preparation for Shabbos to come.
What a challenge for us. What salads to choose, which macaroons to eat--definitely the best we have every eaten in our life time, moist, fresh, flavorful, live real smells. The macaroons never made it out of the market.
We saw radishes as large as apples, fresh breads coming from the ovens, more varieties of halvah than we have known to exist, and bins of fresh red peppers. I bought three red peppers for 2 shekels, about 40 cents!
Then it was on to fresh olives by the kilo, cucumbers for another 2 shekels, fresh salads we have grown to love--beet, carrot, cabbage, humus, and tahini. It was a struggle to keep from buying too many fresh strawberries, we have to remind ourselves we can only eat so many and there will be more tomorrow.
While we shopped for our dinner, we met Moishe, he did aliyah 14 years ago and has a mission--to help Jews. Today he translated for us and assited us with our purchases. Tomorrow we are meeting him at the Cotel for another tour of the old city from Moishe's view point.
We taxied home with our purchases and then out again for the pita we had forgotten. Instead of turning right from our apartment, we turned left. One block from our studio is the old wall that separated the Palestenians of the west bank of Jerusalem from the Israel held city. That one block could be another country. From there you can see the Damascus gate, the golden Dome of the Rock. It is a Muslim area where we are assailed, again, with other smells, bins of fava beans, schwarma and falafel take-away stands, Arabs playing cards, while their women shopped for their sabbath which is on Fridays. We stood on the monument that marked the Israeli section of the city.