Next time with drums!

Taking advantage of our jet lag, and trying to beat the crowds and the sun, we scheduled my son's and my nephew's bar mitzvah aliyahs at the kotel for 6 AM. Yes, you read that right. Normally these things are done any Monday and Thursday from 9 am onwards and if you are planning a trip to Israel in honor of a bar mitzvah and you wish to book your son's bar mitzvah aliyah at the wall, go to www.thekotel.org From there you can make a reservation which includes a guide who can help you go through the davening, put on tefillin, get a Torah set to the right portion, help you read the portion, guide you through the blessings, let the women in your group who are peering over the partition know when to throw the candies, take your picture and present the bar mitzvah boy with a personalized certificate signed by the Rabbi of the Old City/Kotel. All for free. Of course we booked this through them, because as you know Free is Free. We didn't really need any help with the proceedings, but it was very nice to have a guide helping us. If we only knew about the drums/saxophone, chupah procession and white suits so many of the other bar mitzvah boys arrived with... oh well, maybe next one, we do have a bunch of boys. You live and learn.

It was really beautiful having the extra bar mitzvah at the wall. My father came from LA too and had an aliyah at the kotel, a first for him. Once davening was over we climbed the steps to the Old City to grab a bite to eat. We didn't really arrange for breakfast and just hoped to wing it, which is something I wouldn't do next time around. The restaurants there are set up for a couple orders at a time of mostly grab and go customers. They were very overwhelmed by a group our size and messed up several orders, some of which never arrived, including the bar mitzvah boy's. Don't mess with a 5'9'' teenage boy's food. Not a pretty site.

Most of our group went from breakfast to the Kotel Tunnel tours (which can also be booked at the kotel website). The tour is 30 shekel for adults, but MUST be arranged well in advance. For groups over 4 people you need to book with a credit card over the phone. Don't worry English speakers, you can call them and reach some one who can actually help you in English on the first try. They give you a confirmation code, don't lose it, just in case!  The kids really enjoyed the Tunnel Tour. We didn't however, send in our 2 year old. The bigger kids could actually pay attention, the adults could focus on what was going on and the little one was much happier digging in a flower bed in the old city and watching the "parade" of in coming bar mitzvah boys.

After the tour we left to do some obligatory visiting nearby in Yerushalaim. By the time my kids had enough of that they were starving. We had bribed them all along with a trip for some Kosher Fast food. We were looking for Pizza Hut, but ended up in the food court at Malcha Mall. This was also a great thing, since everyone could chose what ever they wanted from Sushi to pizza to burgers to salad to Chinese food. The novelty of eating in a food court was an experience all of its own. We roamed the mall for a short while. Levi enjoyed seeing so many Jewish people around, not sticking out in a crowd and getting a coffee with real milk. The kids got a kick out of the Hebrew titles in Steimansky and kiosks selling yarmulkas. After a full day out, it was time to head back to RBS. Busy day planned for tomorrow.