Apparently I'm already an obsessed blogger

A picture of Kiryat Schmuel--the neighborhood we live in.
A cool, zebra-striped bird on campus today.
Part of the checkpoint into Bethlehem

My first day blogging and I can't seem to stop. I forgot to say that the hummus and pita bread is AMAZING! I've been eating it for lunch everyday. Buying things in the store is hilarious because all the labels are in Hebrew (except for the American products like Captain Crunch). Milk comes in small cardboard containers OR in much cheaper bags. The idea is that you buy a pitcher that's designed to be perfect milk-bag size, place the bag in the pitcher and just cut off the top corner of the bag and pour. Also, I've passed lots of savory looking bake shops, but ate my first pastry today just at the cafeteria on campus. It was heaven! Flaky, light, with cream cheese filling . . . nothing like pastries at college cafes at home.
Also, because today is the today before the Jewish Sabbath (and the day mormons go to church here) everything closes down super early. The buses stop running a little after midday. All the shops here close earlish even on normal days (around 8 o clock), but especially on Fridays. The greeting and goodbye for weekends is "Shabbat Salom", good sabbath. Jerusalem is a very religious city wich is interesting because it's also a really big metropolitan city. But Kosher laws are everywhere (they have seperate cafeterias at the university for dairy and meat).
I forgot to say that Sahar was actually baptized in the church built above the nativity site, and that she took us to dinner in Bethlehem to a place that had mostly American dishes. I got a chicken fajita served on rice and with curry like spices. Not at all fajita like, but very delicious. Also I forgot to say that Bethlehem is not actually dangerous at all. Thousands of tourists go there everyday.
Lastly, promise for today, today at the library people kept poking their heads into our workroom (even though there's a sign on the door that says don't disturb in Hebrew, arabic, and English) and started rattling off to us in Hebrew. I don't know whether I should be flattered that they didn't recognize us as foreigners, or if they just expected us to speak Hebrew. When we told them we only spoke English they mostly just smiled, said "Hello" and left. I wonder if there all coming to check out the weird Americans . . .