Supermarket and Snow - A Little Excitement

When living in Palestine, things are very different than they are from the USA and Minnesota. Mostly I have gotten used to the differences, but every once in a while, reminders of home and things out of the ordinary in Bethlehem offer a little bit of excitement.

Last week I went to a new grocery story that opened up in Bethlehem. Most grocery stores in Palestine are small markets. There is a fruit market, a meat market, a spice market, and the small corner store where you go to get dry goods. Sometimes one corner store will have one thing you want and a different store another thing you want. There are certain stores that cater to Westerners as well, so they will have comfort foods such as peanut butter, oatmeal, mac & cheese, taco shells and spice. I have gotten used to know which store has certain things that I want and making several stops throughout the week to get different items.

If I go into West Jerusalem or Israel, I can find supermarkets that are near to what I would find in the USA and with more options. Every once in a while, I'll go to these stores to get special things.

Well...

Recently, JUMBO opened up in Bethlehem. It is the closest thing to an American supermarket to be found on this side of the wall. It has isles, dry goods, toiletries, fruit, spices, meat, fish, cheese, and housewares. Following are some pictures of my first visit to JUMBO.






It was quite exciting to get a small taste of the US. Although, I do not know if I will continue going, since I've gotten used to going to specific stores for specific items.

Today, we also had snow in Bethlehem. It was nothing compared to Minnesota. In fact, it was actually small pellets of hail, which landed for about 1 hour. Most of the ground wasn't covered, but here's a picture of a bit that collected on a roof.



It wasn't much, but it got everybody running through the pellets yelling: "talj, talj" - meaning "snow, snow" - and added a little bit of excitement to everybody's day.