Today was another day in the old city and yet another day of experiences and most definitely stories. I had my first haggling experience and I have to say I’m rather proud of myself. I went into the Old City today with exactly what I wanted in mind to get and exactly what I wanted to get it for…and I did what I set out to do at the exact price I wanted to do it at. It was lots of fun being in control…well for the most part.
My mission: to buy a scarf and a pair of earrings. My price: 15 shekels. 10 for the scarf. 5 for the earrings. No more. No less. Okay…if they’d take less then that would be a total buy, but I didn’t want to push my luck on my first haggling experience.
My friend, Jordan, and I originally set to just go to the Austrian Hostice, but we decided to go through the market with two of our other IBEX friends, Taylor and his girlfriend Ellie. After getting some Falafel (pita with salad and fried garbanzo beans), I set out for my mission.
We started at some markets on Davidson’s street (which EVERYTHING is terribly overpriced there) and entering a large tent filled with scarves and such I soon found out that this would not be the place I would buy my scarf, as they seemed to be offering everything about 20-25 shekels over what I could get it at somewhere else, so I left that place empty handed. After just wandering through some places and having not much success, I finally found a little shop that would be the place of purchase for my scarf as I haggled down from 20 shekels down to 10, getting just the blue scarf that I wanted at the price I wanted
So, with half of my mission complete I set out for those earrings, which that was much easier said than done. We went through many, possibly just about every store in the Christian quarter and I could not find earrings for less than 10 shekels. 10 shekels isn’t a lot, but when I know I can get them for 5 shekels somewhere why settle for a higher price? (yes, I’m cheap I know…) But after trying to haggle some earrings from 35 shekels down to 10 and totally failing and being yelled at for offering such a low price, I had kinda given up on ever finding my earrings for 5 shekels. It wasn’t until we went through the Moslem quarter that the tables changed (is it bad that the Moslem quarter is much nicer and reasonable than the Christian Quarter?). We were rushing past markets, as I had given up looking, when a seller exclaims from his tent, “earrings 10 shekels…5 shekels!” 5-shekel earrings? Yes please! I immediately turned around and got my 5-shekel earrings in disbelief to the point that he said if I kept asking with uncertainty he might change his mind. I should always be confident with a price so good. So I picked out my earrings and completed my said mission, buying from a very cute seller mind you…I told him I would remember his store, and I wasn’t lying…heehee.
The markets here are a bit crazy, as they’ll try just about any way to get you in their store to buy from them from saying “everything is on sale today” to saying “it is free to look today!” The one line that one of the sellers we talked to today loved to say, “Don’t worry we don’t bite! We are vegetarians…we only eat hummus!” which definitely made me laugh (hence the title of this post). One even tried to sway us by complimenting Taylor saying, “You are a very lucky man” speaking of the girl he was walking with. Mind you this was when he was walking behind me and not his girlfriend, which we found very amusing. So all in all it was a pretty hectic, fun day. There are many sellers throughout the market that will most likely remember my face since I probably walked past their store a handful of times and had some good conversations with some, while not having such good experiences with others. I think I have more of an idea of who to buy from and which areas are better than others, so I’ll know just where I need to go and avoid many places and people. I won’t be going through the markets in the Old City for a while, although my next mission is to find a hat. We’ll see how that goes. For now about to go get ready for dinner and the bond fire, and I'm very excited for that. Hot dogs, smores, fire, and hike is on the agenda tonight and although I'm tired I'm probably going to go. Oh the glorious tiredness of IBEX. :)
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| Posing with my new scarf From Shabbat Shalom. |
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