Shabbos in Yerushalayim
Before shabbos started it was time to put DD to sleep. After we did, my wife went down to the lobby to light. The place to light is just in the middle of the main staircases right in front of our room, which was rather convenient.
I went to daven Mincha/Maariv, after DW came back up from lighting, in the hotel’s basement. It was a very nice davening and lasted about an hour (I’m mentioning the time on purpose). I went back up to the room to get a cup in which I’d get grape juice, and was able to get some from the hotel in the restaurant.
I brought the grape juice upstairs, and we had our meal. It basically consisted of lots of rolls (remember the salads came with rolls too, but they were mezonos), salad and dip. This was enough for us, and we were both very full. We had the chocolates they put in the room every night for dessert. We had eaten dinner in the small room as soon as you walk in which had a door we could close so the light didn’t bother our sleeping DD. I had also set the Shabbos clock in the room to have the entry way lights and bathroom lights go off that night and on again the following evening.
We finished up an hour after we started and went to bed.
The next morning I was up early to go to the Great Synagogue for shachris at 7:55 am. My thinking was that this way we’d—or more accurately I’d—be able to eat breakfast at the hotel after shachris, and the minyan at 8:30 am at the hotel would be too late.
I walked to shul and got there right around 7:55 am. The speed at which they said Pesukei D’zimra was astonishing; they were done by 8:10 am! At that pace, I figured, they’d be done by 9:30 am at the latest! Boy, was I wrong.
There were four men who got up and stood on either side of the chazzan with a choir leader in front of them. Thus began the very, very drawn out davening that the Great Synagogue is known for. We eventually made it to leining at 9:30 am, which once again moved at a normal pace, and we were done by 10:00 am.
Once they chazzan started mussaf and the choir started singing each and every word of Av HaRachamin out loud, I lost it. It was going so painfully slow, that had I stayed for the rest of davening they wouldn’t have finished until around noon! I davened mussaf by myself and went back to the WA for an abridged breakfast.
When I got back to the hotel DW and DD were already at breakfast. While there was definitely less food on Shabbos than there was during the week, there was still plenty to eat. There were bottles of grape juice to make Kiddush, which I did, and then we enjoyed a light breakfast of mainly fruit and pastries.
At around 11:00am we started our hot, hot walk to my BIL’s house. We decided to bring the stroller over the baby carrier, since I didn’t want to hold the baby carrier on my back in the heat. We took it very slow, and a mere 45 minutes later we arrived, very sweaty, at my BIL’s house. My SIL was home, but we basically just sat in front of the AC for a good while until we were nice and cool.
We had lunch, which was very good, and there was another guest there as well. After lunch, we just hung around a bit until a friend came over to visit. We visited a bit which very nice while DD was up and quite fussy. Since she didn’t nap that afternoon, by 5:00 she was getting quite fussy, so we decided to walk back and have her sleep on the way.
The walk back was a lot cooler than the walk there. Maybe it was because there was more shade, maybe because it was later in the day, I’m not sure, but we were back in our room by 5:45 pm.
It was a long day for DD without a nap, so we decided to just to get her ready for bed early. We fed her and put her to bed around 6:00 pm.
We were relaxing a bit, when I ran into friends from LA in the hotel. I knew they were staying in the hotel Saturday night, but they’d apparently walked over from the Herbert Samuel (where they had been staying) to the WA to take advantage of the hotel and see if they could check in early, which they could.
We were schmoozing with them in the small vestibule of our room with the door closed when it was time for me to go to Mincha, again at the hotel. After mincha we ate seuda shlihis in our room with the some of the leftovers we had from Friday. It was finally time to go to maariv and make havdala at the same area that candle lighting was set up in the day before.
We were some of the first ones down to make havdala; we ran down, made havdala and returned the manual key to the front desk (and got them to make us new keys for the last day). We didn’t have many plans for Motzei Shabbos, so we just kept it low key and hung around the hotel for our last night in Israel.