All the languages

So, today I was shopping in my favorite nearby store, Tannour's, where the hoagie rolls are fresh and the service is excellent, although rarely smoke-free.  This is in East Jerusalem, in the Palestinian side of town, so I am interested to hear a woman at the bakery counter speaking Hebrew.  She asks for two bagels (pictured below) and two pizza bagels.  So I decide I would like the same and wait in line.  The woman continues chatting with the clerk, and he answers back in Hebrew.

I'm smiling because I love exchanges like this--a friendly Israeli telling a story to a trilingual Palestinian.  The woman asks if I understood, and I say, no.  She then tells me her story in broken English:  A cat is chasing a mouse, who hides in his hole.  The cat waits and waits, then finally starts to bark like a dog.  The mouse comes out of his hole, right into the jaws of the cat.  The mouse says, "I thought you were a dog!"  The cat says, "Well, to get by in this town you have to speak all the languages."

By the way, the pizza bagels were fabulous.  I replaced most of the olives with pepperoni from the states and toasted them open-face style, and my kids liked them a lot!