I must admit, Julia and I both approached the idea of eating sushi in this town with a bit of trepidation. I mean, the Jerusalem idea of a gourmet meal is fried balls of mashed chick peas stuffed in a pita with more mashed chick pea stuff and some tomatoes and cucumbers. With that in my head, as well as images from the shuk (outdoor market) where fish, still alive, flop around on the floor, I wasn’t sure how this culinary experience would rate. However, when we heard Nikky and Josh’s excitement, and also remembered that they were from San Francisco (and probably knew a thing or two about fish), we happily agreed to accompany them on their next outing to Sakura.

While it might not have been the best sushi I’ve ever eaten, it certainly ranked in the well above-average category, and was much better than anything I expected to find here in Jerusalem (a town not known for its cultural diversity). We enjoyed all the requisite components of a sushi meal: edamame, miso soup, sashimi, various rolls, various pieces of sushi, and even a bottle of sake, not to mention fantastic conversation with our friends. We’re definitely going back soon, but perhaps we’ll wait until after I find a source of income…

After dinner, we decided to grab some dessert at a cute little restaurant that we are quickly discovering is the worst-kept secret in the whole city. T’mol Shilshom is located just off Yoel Solomon, which is one of the off-shoots of Ben Yehuda Street, which is one of the Jerusalem hotspots, especially for tourists and Israeli teeny-boppers. If you blink, you will miss it. In fact, I was looking for it eyes wide open last night, and I still missed it. Once you manage to find it, though, you enter into a space that feels as comfortable as your best friend’s living room. Each of the two tiny dining rooms is filled with books on all matter of subjects, all for sale, by the way. The food has yet to disappoint, and the desserts, particularly the “Mound of Chocolate” that we tried last night, are simply wonderful.

Thinking I would be sophisticated and cool, I decided to order a decaf iced coffee with dessert. While the iced part felt great (we’re in the midst of a heat wave), I made two minor judgment errors with my drink. First, I forgot that sugar does not dissolve particularly well in cold water, and that one should use the sugar water provided when sweetening iced coffee. This was easily remedied, though the result was a big pile of sugar at the bottom of my cup. The second error was forgetting that even decaf coffee has a bit of caffeine in it, and that at 10pm any amount of caffeine spells disaster for me.

Needless to say, at 3am this morning, I was still wide awake. However, my pain, or at least lack of sleep, is your gain. I put my insomnia to good use last night, and I have added a number of pictures, never before seen outside the Weisz-Aronson families, of our engagement as it was happening. Yes, I asked some random guy who was working at Reunion Tower if he would take pictures of us as I was proposing. Not the greatest photography ever, but they’re still really cute pictures, and I encourage you to take a look at them here.

So with that, I will sign off. I have a meeting at noon today at the other end of the city, and before I hitch a cab, I think I’m going to sneak over to the HUC coffee shop and grab some more caffeine. Might as well fight fire with fire, right? Have a great day!