The quilt is home. My friends were amazed, never have received a hostess gift like this one! Here is it on their couch.
I immediately put it to good use.
It’s final destination is on their bed. They love it so much, I even got a phone call once I got home with another round of thanks. And this is why many of us create things by hand and give them to people we love. 
Sorry the image is fuzzy, I also delivered the wedding dress for their daughters wedding. JCrew for the win. It fits her perfectly! I must say they have great dresses at great prices. This little one in under $400 and is made out of a very good quality silk chiffon. We won’t be going back to this wedding in June, but I am so happy I did my little part.
Back to miscellaneous out in Jerusalem. This installation, decor, I don’t know what you’d call it is at the Cinema City center in Jerusalem. Just enjoying the creativity of it.
This pictures sums up Jerusalem today. This is the old street, Nachlat Sheevah. An old Courtyard nieghborhood in the center of town, today it houses high end creative shops, bars and a few restaurants. The colorful balloons are new to me, I’m guessing they light up at night. The crane is the most ubiquitous sight in the city these days, new construction is going on everywhere.
I snapped this picture from the bus, hence the Streetlamp post right in the middle. I don’t recall seeing this wonderful turret and this building used to be on my daily route. It also used to be part of Bikur Cholim Hospital which is no more. It is now part of another hospital. I think this whole section used to be enclosed and is now reopened and spruced up. Btw, my Armenian neighbor was born right here, she married and moved to Lebanon in 1967, the year my family moved to Israel. In the 1980’s when the troubles started in Lebanon, her family moved to California. Today we are neighbors in Studio City. What a world.
This Falafel stand has been here for 49 years, Falafel Maoz. It opened the same year I moved to Israel. I used to eat here as a child and today the parents who opened it have passed on. The brothers who run it today are my age and their children are also in the business. It is very good falafel, even if it weren’t the best, nostalgia demands I go there. Joel remembers it as well from his stays in the city. He also remembers Richies Pizza which opened next door in the late 1970’s but that is sadly no more.
Another piece of history. Emek Refaim is the main street of the neighborhood known as the German Colony. Last trip I shared pictures from the Christian cemetery that is right on that busy street. This time the gate to the German cemetery was open. I popped in and met a descendant of these Germans who had come from Australia to put a tombstone on her great great grandfathers tomb. If you are interested go to Temple Society and read their fascinating history. One thing I found very interesting is that it was Protestant groups, both from Germany and America that came in the mid nineteenth century to rebuild Israel. They arrived a good 20 years before the First Aliyah of the Jews. Israel is so multilayered.
Many of the tombstones are new, put up by the descendants but they still use the old Germanic script that I have to concentrate on to read.
And then there is Jerusalem at night. Go read this article about the artist and his work. This all has happened in the last year, Jerusalem is always changing. Restaurants, bars and street musicians take over once the fruit and vegetable vendors go home.
Some of the murals are of famous people, others are at the request of the stall owner. All of these are painted with permission and a lot of the paint has been donated. No one is getting paid for this project.
I wonder if this is a special request, a butcher, who sells mostly chicken (notice the image on the upper left corner). Here we see eagles and other birds becoming airplanes.
Then there is another kind of art, also on the metal doors of the shops. I saw a number done in this style, much more robotic or techno. They all had a play on words. In this case these are tomatoes, the saying is Tomato or not to be. In Hebrew tomato rhymes with the words To Be. So it’s a play on Shakespeare’s famous saying To Be or Not to Be.
And that’s it for now from Jerusalem, I’ve already been having some interesting experiences back home.
Leah