Shabbat Shalom

Shabbas has descended upon Jerusalem and that means that almost everything is closed by 2 pm or 4 pm to get ready for Shabbat. In order to not use any money or transportation (not allowed), our dinner was provided at the hotel for us. The hotel provided candles for all guests to light, wine for each table to say the Kiddush and bread for Challah. Neil, one of the others in our group led us in the Kiddush, and Theo proudly said the hamotzi. Our tour guide, named Shabat, made sure we covered our heads out of respect and we were ready to eat.


For some reason, this hotel that we are staying in, Prima Kings, is popular with the very very Orthodox. Almost everyone here is Orthodox except us. The dinner room was empty when we arrived at 7:30 pm because everyone else was at services (yes, there is a synagogue inside the hotel.) It soon filled up and each table blessed everything all over again. 


We had an amazing dinner of everything you could possibly imagine, meat, potatoes, soup, salad and dessert. Lots and lots of dessert. After dinner, I went to the lobby to use the restroom (which has toilet paper you don't have to rip btw) and there was another American non religious woman there. She had just come from the spa and was wearing a bathrobe. Only one elevator in the lobby was operational, because the other one was set on Shabbas mode (meaning you didn't have to push any buttons and just waited and it stopped on every floor for you.) It was literally her in her bathrobe and a hundred Orthodox people dressed in 3 piece suits, fancy hats, skirts down to their knees, etc. She was so embarrassed, it was hysterical to watch.


Sophie and I had a party in our room watching the KPop movie, highly recommended to us by Neta and Efrat and we were excited to be able to sleep in the next morning.

The next morning we were on our own because of Shabbas. We slept in a bit and then went down for breakfast. I was super excited for the latte machine which makes delicious lattes with the push of a button. But to my dismay, it was closed for Shabbat! No button pushing! Noooo!! Everything else was also Shabbat friendly - they literally removed fridges that housed the yogurt and milk and the line for juice was a bit longer as after each person poured, they stopped right there to bless their juice.




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