Living in Jerusalem

I live in one of the world's most beautiful cities, if not the most beautiful of them all. I live in Jerusalem, in the heart of the Judean Hills, on the edge of the Judean desert. It's where I've always known in my heart that I wanted to live.
I felt encharmed and at home here from my very first moment as a new student in town. I fell in love with the campus of the Hebrew University on Mt. Scopus, and spent many inspired and inspiring moments in its secret corners, whose charm never ceased to touch me.
Something about the majesty of the city, reflected from every limestone brick and abundant in the air, got a hold of me, and whenever I'm here I feel like the luckiest person in the world, being able to live in the city I love, the city which so many people around the world yearn for.
I breathe the Jerusalem air everyday and feel that my soul is being uplifted and brought closer to G-d.
Once in a while I feel this strong need and urge to go to the Old City, where the Western Wall is, and be immersed in the presence of G-d, the Shekhina, even more. Hashem (G-d) is everywhere, but He is even more near the Western Wall, one of the few remnants of the Holy Temple.
Whenever I'm there, I feel my soul opens up to a huge channel of communication to Hashem, and I know He hears me even more when I go to pray to Him there.
I call G-d Hashem, literally "The Name" in Hebrew, since out of respect, awe and reverence to Him, we're not supposed to invoke His name in vain. Baruch Hashem, "Blessed be His Name", is a colloquial expression in spoken Hebrew of our days. A normal conversation between two people, not necessarily very religious, might go something like this: "how are you?" -"Baruch Hashem, everything is good".
As a child I was told I should ask God at the Western Wall for anything that I wanted. I remember going there and asking for good marriage for my uncle, for career success for my other uncle, for success for myself at school, etc. All of my requests were materialized in reality, which was a good boost for my young spiritual life.
So now I finally live here.
I rent a two room apartment in Rehavia, one of the nicest neighborhoods in town. It's a magical neighborhood, with beautiful white brick houses, lots of trees and colorful flowers all around, and a very special human atmosphere too.
Other neighborhoods and parts of the city are gorgeous too, including the German Colony, Katamon, Ein Karem, Beit Hekerem and more. Perhaps I'll talk about some of those places in the next posts.