SNOW ... really!

Shalom and Happy Holidays! We apologize for not blogging sooner as we have been quite busy with school, traveling and guests. We had a wonderful Chanukkah and are getting close to finishing up our first semester as we head into the New Year. We hope to write more soon about our time over the holiday vacation and with all of our visitors, but for now the exciting news was the snow we received yesterday!

We had heard that Jerusalem was used to seeing snow about every other year, but we always understood "snow" to mean a few flurries without much accumulation. Well, yesterday's storm came as quite a surprise when the rain of the morning turned into snow fall for several hours - even leaving a couple inches of snowy slush covering the streets of the city! We had actually been "warned" by the Dean of Pardes that Jerusalem was expecting snow - he wanted to remind us of Pardes' snow policy and that we follow Jerusalem Public Schools. I found it hard to believe that we would even see snow let alone that we would see enough for schools to cancel (although I was told that as in places like Atlanta and D.C., if there is much snow on the ground here, Jerusalem doesn't really know how to deal with it and closes everything ... funny how I recall going to school in Colorado pretty much no matter how much snow we received!). Anyway, as we have had until now a pretty dry winter and the temperature highs haven't really even fallen under the 40s, I was pleasantly surprised to get a real taste of winter yesterday. And even more surprising was that it was so nice to see the snow - it just doesn't quite seem like December without at least a little bit :)

I had already opted to take the afternoon off from school to hang out with Betsy (my sister) and Joel (her fiancé) during their last day in Jerusalem, and as it turned out, it was a great decision to meet at one of my favorite restaurants, Coffee Shop, for lunch. We ended up staying there for almost 7 hours watching the snowstorm. It was so fun to just watch the amazed faces of the staff and customers as the snowflakes grew and grew all afternoon. Max came to join us after classes ... and we just had a great time playing cards and drinking coffee/tea and watching the snow fall ... one of my favorite experiences this year!

After deciding we had surely spent enough time at the restaurant, we bundled up and went out to pick up take-out and wine to bring home for Betsy and Joel's final dinner here. After some yummy Asian food, we were getting them packed up and ready to leave at 2am for their 5:30am flight - I still don't really understand why all flights seem to leave Israel in the middle of the night – and we took this video to share with you. Now you can finally see a bit more of the inside of our apartment where we have been living since the beginning of September.


Sort of in Colorado fashion, we woke up today to lots of sun and a very blue sky with nice white puffy clouds. We were even able to hang out laundry outside! Betsy and Joel are on their way home, our friend Katherine arrives this afternoon, and our other friends Nicki and Dan who were in Jerusalem for a few days last week and are spending this week in the South of Israel, will return to spend a few more days here tomorrow. So, still a bit of commotion around here, but we are really enjoying all of the company.

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and enjoys the New Year! Lots of love from Jerusalem - J&M