Snow in Jerusalem!

Yesterday afternoon Christian and I arrived in Jerusalem after a 1 hour bus ride from Tel Aviv. It was raining the entire day already, and the rest of the day was no exception. We booked a room at the Abraham Youth Hostel. It is a really great hostel. It has a very nice lounge room where you can hang out. Play some pool, drink some beer or do some other games. Last night we met some nice people already in the hostel. Despite the rain we went out and went to a really cool Shisha (water pipe) bar.

We escaped the rain to the Mahane Yehuda market, yesteday afternoon.

This morning we looked out of the window: huh, snow? Yeaaah it is really snowing here! The snow lasted for a couple of hours. The snow didn't stay for long, as the temperatures were rising and the sun even came through! 

Snow!

Tram on the Jaffa st. in the snow.

From the hostel we walked to the Old City where we first arrived at the Jaffa Gate. Here we saw the Tower of David, plus some happy Israeli kids!

Happy kids playing in the snow. (Christian joined later)

Not much later we arrived at the pretty impressive Western Wall. We had to put a kippah on our head and then we walked to the Wall.

 The Western Wall

 A Jewish man making prayers.

You can put you wish in the wall!

So did Christian and I.

From the Western Wall we walked through the Muslim Quarter to the Mount of Olives, on the outside of the Old City. We walked up, through the steady rain and wet snow. The sight on the city was impressive:

The Old City with the Dome of Rock on the left.

On Friday the Muslims have their prayers at the Dome of Rock. So only Muslims can enter the area near the Dome of the Rock. We couldn't enter, too bad for us.  Tomorrow or Sunday we will visit the Dome of Rock again, to see it from closeby.

View on the Old City.

From the Muslim Quarter we walked to the Damascus Gate. This is said to be the most beautiful gate of all. And it sure was. Too bad there was some condens on my lens, so the photos aren't really good. 

Some signs in both Hebrew, Arabic and English.

Near the Garden Tomb we had the cool eastern subspecies of Jay, atricapilla. Then we walked back to the hostel for a rest and some food. In a bit we will go out again, and explore the Sacher park for some birds!

The Sacher Park was really nice. In between de rain we walked to the park and quickly found a White-throated Kingfisher. Then we walked up a bit and ended up at the JBO. It started raining really hard so we sneaked into the hide of the JBO. Here we saw the first Syrian Woodpecker. There were at least 4 Palestinan Sunbirds feeding in front of the hide. The Jays showed well too. And above that, the Smyrna decided to come really close!!!

Syrian Woodpecker

Smyrnaaaaa