Soup Kitchen

Yesterday I (as Jen decided to forego class) had the interesting experience of spending some time at a soup kitchen in Jerusalem with all of the other Hebrew students.

The soup kitchen, located near the central bus station, is really impressive - it's part of a chain throughout Israel and is more of a restaurant than a soup kitchen. Anyone can come in for the hot meal, no questions asked. The patron sits at a nice table and a tray of food is brought to him or her by a volunteer and then taken away after eating by the volunteer. It's a neat system and the food looked and smelled great; it made me really hungry.

Unfortunately, there wasn't enough work for us to do because our group was too large. I started pealing potatoes and then realized I was the slowest of the bunch so handed over my well sought-after peeler to someone better at peeling than I. I then tried to start serving food but there were far more servers than patrons.

I then wiped down trays but there was competition for that job as well. Ultimately, I didn't feel like I accomplished much but the experience of visiting the innovative center was worthwhile and interesting.

At least I didn't end up cutting my finger, as a fellow student unfortunately did. With my potato peeling skills, it could've been much worse!