Christmas is coming...Happy Hanukkah!

Christmas is fast approaching, which means that my stay in Jerusalem will be quickly coming to an end. We had our Christmas choir concert last night which went really well, but I have always looked at the concert as a far off thing that marks the beginning of the end of this wonderful experience. I am really excited to come home and experience all of the Christmas tastes, sights, sounds, and smells-Israel is slightly lacking in that category as the vast majority of people here are Muslim and Jewish. Hanukkah is going on right now and it is fun to observe what goes on for that, and luckily the center has Christmas decorations set up on the top floor which is wonderful. I was really excited when we passed by this store in the Old City with a blown up Santa!

Last Friday we went to the open air market in West Jerusalem which is pretty much a ginormous farmer's market with other stores as well. We got fresh made challah bread which they have every Shabbat (Saturday) and it looked and tasted AMAZING! I think we are going to go back next Friday to get the bread again...

Today we toured around Jerusalem and visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, tought to host the tomb of Jesus, and went on a tour of the church/hostel where Orson Hyde, a Mormon missionary, stayed. For a long time it was unknown where he lived while he was here, but they found an old door with his name carved on it, apparently it served as the hostel's guest registry. It was pretty neat to see.