Walking

I’ve been doing a lot of walking since I arrived here on Sunday. Between the 20 minute walks to and from the archives, the 15 minute walks from the archives to the German Colony for lunch, and then the 15-20 minute walks to dinner, I’m walking at least 2 hours a day. And another thing: I haven’t set foot in a car, taxi, or bus since I arrived at the hotel. That’s why I lose weight in Israel. Even though I never go to the gym, just all that walking is good for my health.In case, you were wondering, here's what the archives look like:
The sign directing you to them:


The building:


My desk (with files):


A typical file (the yellow tabs are documents I've marked to photocopy later):


The reading room of the archives (with the problematic photocopy machine in the background):

A good day at the archives. Sometimes, the best research is what we find when we’re looking for something else. In my case, I’ve been going through Education Ministry files from 1947 to 1966 looking at how history was supposed to be taught. Along the way, though, I ran into what looks at first glance to be a fascinating document related to how the Holocaust was to be taught in Israeli schools. I’m terrified someone may have already written on it; but if they haven’t, I found my next article.

The copy machines aren’t working so well. Won’t just shut down yesterday while I was trying to use it and announced it has decided not to accept any cards. The other machine decided it needed a new part. One problem with the photocopy machine is that all the paper is A4 size, but some of my documents are legal, which is about 1 and a half inches longer. For some documents, I had to choose which lines would be cut off. Tomorrow, I’m bringing my camera and use that to take photos of the legal-sized stuff.

I ended up have a schnitzel sandwich for lunch. It wasn’t bad. I stopped at English Cake for coffee, and ordered a large kafe hafukh, but what I got was barely the size of a double espresso. Not much bigger than those tiny glasses of juice you get in cheap diners. I went to see A Dangerous Method at the Jerusalem Cinemateque and really liked it.

Here's the view of the Old City walls from above the Cinemateque. The theater is the red roofed building in the foreground with the flags:

Afterwards, I got a falafel in the German Colony at an old place on Rachel Imenu.

The weather cools off nicely in the evening. They’re promising that it will get warmer tomorrow, but as long as it stays cool at night I’ll be happy. Last night I slept the latest (without chemical assistance) since I arrived: 7 am!