May 15 - Jerusalem Hotel to Hostel

Thursday, May 15

We woke up in good time and went down to eat. It seemed sad to eat breakfast without our friends from the yellow bus! After breakfast, we did a trial walk to our hostel opposite the Damascus Gate. It is several blocks away and we got rather hot and tired walking there, We found the hostel after asking a couple of times. It is definitely in the Arab section!
New Palm Hostel
6 Hannevim St.
East Jerusalem
Entrance at back of produce vendor stall at top of stairs directly opposite Damascus Gate.



We walked back to the hotel and rested, packed up and checked out of the hotel, and then stayed in the cool and comfort of the hotel lobby to work on the computer and read, etc.
Johan and Rinske Roosma stopped by. They, too, have time before their flight in the middle of the night. They were going back to the Old City. I walked them to the place where the road continues straight to the Damascus Gate. It was quite a reminder of how much we enjoyed the people on the tour. To see them once more was such a joy!
We bought 2 hours of computer time at $6 per hour and put our journals on the blog, bought our plane tickets from Tel Aviv to Athens, and checked the bus schedule for getting from Jerusalem to Eilat. It's cheap and several buses run.




We spent the rest of the day in the hotel lobby enjoying the comfort, working with the computer, reading, and doing Sudoku. It was pleasant and restful after the busy schedule we've been keeping. It's great to be feeling up to par.
At about 5 p.m. We decided it was time to leave the comforts of the hotel and walk with our packs to the hostel. We will be staying there 3 nights. Thankfully, it was cool and windy and the walk was actually reasonably easy.
We checked in with an English speaking Jordanian Christian, who spent 23 years in the Los Angeles area. The people here are really friendly. We have free wireless 24 hour Internet that works well! Monier gave us hot tea with fresh mint (wonderful)



and we visited with the people around. Verle hooked up the Internet on his laptop in our room and we went down to a little shop just below us and had two Mediterranean sandwiches -- good and fun. Everyone seems to be very friendly. It's wonderful to be with the real people of the area!