Strange things happen

Jerusalem, 7:45 AM

Sometimes the luck in finding a ride leads to unexpected consequences. I'll meet my host after 6 PM. Mmh, that means ten hours roaming in Jerusalem. OK, let's find a place to drop the backpack and then a nice place to have breakfast!

But this is Israel: you cannot drop your luggage anywhere. I mean it. The police will come and blow your backpack just before you realise that it is raining underwear. Your underwear!

After one hour or so, I recognise a desperate glance coming from under a huge backpack: another CouchSurfer is facing the no-drop feature of this place! We decide to have a breakfast in the old city while looking for a solution.

Walking the Holy City. The holiest place on Earth — at least for a handful of different religions.

We feel the holiness raising as we approach the old city, in terms of amount of religious symbols on sale: here you can buy any kind of sacred item, ranging from Coptic Orthodox necklaces to FC Barcelona t-shirts! (I am pretty sure that there were also gondola-lamps somewhere, but to actually find it would be too depressing!)

Climbing the Via Dolorosa carrying a heavy burden makes you think all sort of strange things …

But eventually we sit on a nice café and with great relief for my soul, the morning starts looking kind of familiar :-)

—
Photos of Jerusalem here.

Back to kebap!

I'm back to Turkey, and hungry: sewing this flags to my backpack is a very tiring task!

There is the good old kebap, but Turkish food has many many options, so I tried to taste more. Here you have a small gallery, ranging from the afore mentioned Mr. K to more esoteric possibilities: a thing with eggs inside — the name will be posted as soon as I'll remember it — that you can't actually see because my American friend put all of the bread into it (for saving time?).

A portion of chicken with vegetables and rice — with the evil green-peppers as a side dish —; a carefully prepared in nouvelle cuisine style plate of Köfte with cheese.

But my favourite so far is this home-made dinner: mushroom soup, cooked and fresh vegetables, stuffed peppers, yoghurt and dates!

Of course, if you are looking for something a little more unusual, you can pay a visit to this bar at Izmir bus station: