Ancient Jerusalem; Modern Jerusalem

Thursday morning started off early once again with our reservation to the Temple Mount Sifting project. My sister and two of her girls joined us for this experience.  This is run by Ir David, but it does NOT take place near Ir David, it is basically next to Bringham Young Univeristy and the Hebrew University. Once you figure out where to go, parking is easy, but figuring out where to go can be a bit tricky. We parked above the sifting site and walked down about 100 steps down a hill. This part is NOT stroller friendly, fortunately for us Atara hates her stroller anyway. Unfortunately for me, half of the time she wanted to be in the carrier. The views of the Old City are outstanding from here.
The point if the Temple Sifting Project is to go through the tons and tons of dirt that the Muslims dug out to build a mosque on the Temple Mount in the stables from the time of Kings David and Shlomo. They took no care in careful excavation and mixed layers and areas with reckless abandon. The volunteers (you pay a small fee) sift through pre-filled, but not sorted buckets of rubble. First you select a bucket and then take it to a sifting tray. Then you wash off the dirt and rocks. Next you search through the pieces you find into different categories such as pottery, metals, glass, special stones, bones etc.  A certified archaeologist comes over to your sifting tray to check through your work and make sure you didn't miss anything or thing something is ancient when it is really modern. Any special findings for the day are placed on a special display table. Meir found a nail from the time of the second Bais Hamkidash (Second Temple). The difference between a modern nail and an ancient one is a modern nail is round at the shaft and head and an ancient one is square shaped (since it had to be hand pounded by an metal smith).
Atara was moderately occupied during this process. The archaeologists let her play in some of the worthless rubble sifting through it as if it was important. They also let her play with some of the empty buckets and wheelbarrows, but after about an hour she was in full complain mode. The other kids could have stayed longer and Meir even says he would consider archaeology as a profession. Even though it was early, we treated the kids to the customary ice cream and Popsicles.
The Bermans headed back to RBS to continue on with their day and upcoming wedding preparations, we headed back into the Old City for some breakfast. We were thinking of going back to
Cofix, but a throng of school kids where in the store and there was no way we could get through that tidal wave of kids. So, off to Cafe Ne'eman. There they sell the burekas that Mendel loves, sufganiyot that were pareve and the most creative sufganiyot that were dairy. Meir, Atara and I sampled some donuts, ate some bagel sandwiches and got Atara some pizza from the store next door. We thought about going down to the Kotel once again, but it was about 45 minutes until we had to be at the shuk for a tour, so we headed out of the Old City to allow ourselves some time to get lost and confused!
We took the light rail from just outside the Old City walls 3 stops to Machne Yehuda. We had to meet our tour guide Debra Nussbaum Stepen in front of the Berman Bakery on 42 Agrippas Street. First we had to find Agrippas Street. We had several blocks to walk in order to get to the right address
, but we made it there by 2 pm.
Debra took us all around the shuk with various stops to sample local and ethnic food like malawach and custom fruit juice blends. We sampled mixed roasted seeds and nuts (which the kids loved!) and dried fruit. We drank tea and had fresh rice cakes. Debra explained the history of the shuk and discussed things like the different kosher hechshers we saw. We ate, learned and walked for 2 hours. It was a great experience.
After our shuk tour we met up with a Solomon cousin on Ben Yehuda. We walked around a little but it was very cold and windy that we decided it would be best to park ourselves at the mehadrin Pizza Hut to get the kids dinner and to chat. Afterwards we went on a hunt to find Mendel something to eat. Finding a good hechsher for meat proved to be a bit more challenging. We finally came up with a shwarama/felafel type place right before we had to cross the street to our one and only parking area, Mamilla Mall. The outdoor scene was much more subdued than usual for a Thursday night due to the chilly weather. Just as well.