Three

Wednesday was wonderful. It started with a solid brisk walk around the block and 10 sets of stairs with my house mate Rachel from Florida. There is a lot of walking during a typical day around here but it's usually offset with a lot of food. The food here is incredible and deserves its own proper blog. Food themed posts to appear soon.

A quick shower and breakfast later and we're off for the day for some community volunteering. Our opportunity was to help pick food at a not-for-profit farm to be donated to needy families. The produce of choice for the day? Onions. I love onions so much that they actually make me cry. Luckily there was no chopping involved. We filled bins and bins of onions. If you've never seen how an onion grows I the ground it is quite incredible. They grow nestled in the earth with a long stem reaching up into the sky. A perfect little handle for pulling them out of the ground. It was amazing how warm these onions get in the sun and how well they hold up. Wow. Enough about the onions. Seriously.

That night I was able to get a hold of my cousin Lisa. She's basically a long lost cousin from Savannah, Georgia that moved to San Diego where she was inadvertently introduced to cousin Ilana who recognized that with the last name Bodziner she must be related! She spent some time studying in Israel and happened to be visiting here this summer and because she extended her trip we were able to meet up. So I rounded up 2 girls from my house, Sara from Liverpool, England, and Elyse from Georgia, and took the bus to Ben Yehuda Street. Pretty excited to see the authentic local side of Jerusalem. Enter Irish Pub here. Certainly a contradiction. It was great to catch up with Lisa and share a pint with new friends. Needing a "nosh" before heading home at a respectible time, the logical choice was waffles. And it was a delicious choice.