Israel: Day 1

We flew out of Toronto, driving there in the early hours of the morning for a direct flight on Air Canada.

We arrived at the airport a suitable number of hours early, checked in our bags, cleared security, had lunch and then got on the plane. The plane was a 787-9 Dreamliner. Seated in Economy, the seats were decent room wise, but the backs were thin enough that the little bugger sitting behind me hitting my seat with his knee at dd times got annoying after awhile.

A nice, smooth 10 hour flight where I got to catch up on some movies with the in-flight entertainment system (The Mule, Green Book, and Super Troopers 2 'cause by the end of the flight I wanted mindless comedy and got it). Service was good and friendly , food palatable enough for airline food - but pass on the omelet, order the pancakes, trust me. Interestingly, every announcement was first in English, and then repeated in French, Hebrew, and Arabic which made every announcement take forever. A tad bit of turbulence but nothing terrible, managed to catch a short nap even. Landing was smooth as silk and we had arrived in the Holy Land.

We cleared passport control and customs quickly.

We then got transport for th ride to Jerusalem and arrived at our AirBnB on Jabotinsky street.

The AirBnB owner courteously allowed us to drop our bags off when we arrived there at 11am even though check in is at 2. We then headed off much less encumbered, to explore and walked about 25 minutes to the Mahane Yeyudah market.

Quite a huge market it is.

Fruit and vegetable stalls were evrywhere and we bought some fresh fruit, some dried fruit and other delicacies as we wandered around.

Then we headed back to the AirBnB at 2, dropped off our purchases and headed off to the German Colony.

The German Colony was, as you guessed it and as the name suggests, founded by Germans.

In 1873 the Templers (note not Templars, but Templers) settled in the area. Today it has trendy shops and eateries and was very nice to walk around. Some shopping was done, including at Sabon that had a delightful fountain/sink "well" for washing hands and trying some Sabon products.

Very nice,a nd they got to try and then by some nice prodicts and felt very refreshed after doing so, and then we went to a nice fresh bakery which had delicious baked goods as a snack.

After the German Colony, we headed home and had a light dinner.

Then to bed, as the next day would be for an event that was the main reason why we had traveled to Israel.