Thursday Sept 6

(Dormitian Abbey)
I took some time this morning to head out of campus and try my luck with breakfast in the city. I was surprised to find that not much happens in the Old City before 8:30 am. There were four of us wandering around the Old City looking for coffee and breakfast and finally found a little shop just opening up called Bonkers Bagels, and watched as their bagels just finished up in the oven and were placed hot into bins for our choosing. They smelled wonderful and I got one with tuna and cheese toasted to go. We wandered back to the Dormitian Abbey, supposedly the place where Mary, mother of Jesus, died, for coffee and sat out in the cool morning breeze enjoying the success of breakfast. It was wonderful to just sit out in front of this spectacular building drinking coffee and having a little breakfast watching the daily life of Old City Jerusalem go on around us. We saw a couple tour groups wandering through the abbey and deliveries of fresh baked bread and other assorted vegetables going here and there; kids on their way to school playing and talking all the way. If it was not for the Limestone buildings and the foreign words often heard it would have been hard to believe I wasn't just sitting at a corner cafe' somewhere in America. But the view was spectacular.