Not Camping, The Beatles, and Shakshuka Lessons

I had mentioned to some people that we were going camping in Mitzpe Ramon this past weekend for Sarah's birthday.  Because of the rain, and flash floods in the area, we decided it was in our best interest not to go.  We made a good choice.  Pictures of the roads in the area are insane.  Does this work?  Sandy, muddy, waterfalls in the desert.  There were multiple deaths as people went down south to watch the floods rush by, and got swept away.  Needless to say, we stayed home.  Ooooh well.
  
I did manage to have a very productive weekend though.  Friday, spent the day at Loveat, my new favorite cafe, applying for jobs for when I get home, then went to a bar to celebrate with Sarah and the gang that night.  We found 70 shekels.  Shhh.  Don't tell anyone.  We got a bottle of white wine to share to spend our recently acquired fortune. .  Saturday, went into Jaffa with Sarah and her friend Ricci who was visiting.  We wandered  through the old city, just exploring, trying to find places open on Shabbat.  The weather was great, and we had some yummy abulafia pastries and smoothies.  Ricci has been in Israel for 6 weeks so far, volunteering, and is now staying until June or July to travel and do some more volunteer programs and workshops.  I'm super jealous.  Actually, her and I decided to do some traveling together that last month I'm here.  I was planning on backpacking around anyways, so she and are are talking a few options to hop around the country.  I think she'll be a great travel buddy.  I'll keep you posted as we make more plans!

On Sunday, a bunch of us went to the Opera House to see an Israeli band called "The Sixties" perform with the Tel Aviv Orchestra.  They did the entire Beatles Sargent Pepper album.  It was pretty cool actually, and they were really good.  They spoke in Hebrew between songs, but nailed the accents on the vocals and you would have never known they weren't British if you didn't know any better.  Quite an impressive cover.  Jacob saw the show advertised a while ago, and convinced a bunch of us to go in so we ended up getting a group discount and each got a ticket for 95 shekels.  Not too bad.  I really enjoyed it too.  A nice group night out.  


Monday night was Allison's bday celebration, at a club on the port.  Mine is next!!  Thinking about doing a big bonfire on the beach.  Not something I'll ever get to do in February at home, and could be a really cool closing to the program as well.  I'll keep you posted as we plan. 

Today, Tuesday, we didn't have a siyur since we are leaving Thursday for our tiyul.  That'll be the next post.  Anyways, I went into work for the afternoon, then came home for or Israeli cooking class!  Ricky chose our apartment to host, and her friend came over along with almost the whole group to cook together.  Everyone had jobs, washing, chopping, sauteeing, stirring, etc, and we worked together to make stuffed peppers with rice and veggies, and shakshuka.  They also brought super fresh pitas and taught us how to make tehina from the sesame paste mix.  The shakshuka was made with all fresh ingredients, no canned anything or tomato paste, and it was awesome.  Can't wait to make it for you all at home.  The peppers were great too.  You put the rice in with the veggies, fill the peppers, then cook them in a pan of tomato based sauce.  They cook over time, the rice soaking in the flavors.  Yummmmmm.  I know I talk about food a lot, but hey, in Israel its hard to resist.

That's about all for now.  Have a job interview in Bat Yam tomorrow for a Young Judea overnight camp.  I'll let you know how that goes. Wish me luck!

Locked In!

Occurrences in the past week make me feel like I should give you an update on Ulpan.  Here it is.  Although I am not as far along with my Hebrew as I thought I might be by this point, I am happy with what I have learned and feel very good about my progress.  Since we switched to the new location and started working with Aviv, things got a whole lot harder and a whole lot better.  The first quiz he gave us, not so hot.  I didn't understand most of the questions, so even if I did know the answers...  Anyways, I suppose I failed if there was a grade for this class.  I wasn't the only one who struggle though, so he let us make corrections and helped us work through it.  The next quiz, just a week or so ago, was hard, but I managed to pull an 86%.  Not too bad considering everyone else in my class went to a Jewish day school or have Israeli parents.  I was quite happy.  I also wrote a 2 page letter, in Hebrew, for an assignment which Aviv was very impressed with. I was impressed with myself if I may say so.

Anyways, the reason this Ulpan update came to be is because of last wednesday's class.  We got there at 6 and there was a woman cleaning our classroom/office.  Didn't think much of it.  We worked till 7:30 as usual, and went to leave, only to find that the door leading to the outside was locked.  From the inside.  We were locked in to the Jewish Agency.  Ummmm...  Since it was after hours, we were the only ones there.  The other class starts at 7, so the 4 of them and their teacher were still in class.  Aviv went to get their teacher to ask her if she had any ideas.  We started by looking through people's desks to try to find a key.  No luck.  We did manage to find some cookies though.  Which we ate a few of.  Shhhh. We did find a big box of keys, and tried each and every one on the door, but to no avail.  We made a few calls, trying to figure out how to get out of this building.  Seriously though, what if there was a fire?  I guess we'd have to break the door down.  Aviv went back up to the second floor where our class meets and attempted to make a window escape.  He climbed out the window, and attempted to find something that resembled a ladder or at least something he could shimmy down.  No luck.  We were all freaking out watching our teacher crouched outside a second floor window, but he reassured us with "I was in the army, don't worry."  I felt a little better, haha.  So he climbed back in, unsuccessful, and decided to trigger the security alarm, thinking maybe it would call someone to come.  All that happened was the noise was really loud, causing the other teacher to let her class out early, and someones phone rang.  Hmmm.  We finally got a hold of Ricky who was in Raanana with her family.  She had to drive from Raanana, to Petach Tikva to get a key from someone, and back to Tel Aviv.  Sitting in the building, plotting our demise, thinking about stealing a bottle of wine we found in the kitchen area, using random people's computers to play music and facebook to pass the time, and playing bumper cars with office chairs, an hour and a half into our imprisonment, Ricky finally arrived with a key to let us out.  I have never been so happy to see her. 

So, that's about that for Ulpan.  Not sure how I feel about going to class on Monday...

Anyways, other adventure of the week was Thursday night in Jerusalem.  The Jerusalem Arts Track of WUJS had their final showcase.  I hate that I just used the word final.  Grrr.  So the Tel Aviv group got a bus to take us to see the gallery and performance in the German Quarter near where they live in Jeru.  The event was called "After Lights."  We had an hour to snack on wine and cheese and cookies while we looked through the gallery of all the visual arts people.  There was photography as well as paintings, and even some video art.  It was cool to put faces to the work, especially because I don't know many of them very well, just have seen them around on trips etc.  I also ran into Ally Tick, a girl I know from DHS.  I recently found out she was in seminary in Israel through facebook, and found out that she went to college in Rochester with Hallie, another WUJie.  She was at the exhibition to see a friend of hers from camp perform.  So there we were, Ally, Hallie and I, all knowing the other two from different settings, weirdly reuniting.  I love this country.  I can't say that enough. 

At 9 we went into the theatre space for the performance portion.  It opened with a video/dance collaborative piece where Dahlia danced with a video version of herself in various Jerusalem locales.  Then Sarah Fortman sang a few songs, jazz, musical theatre, and opera.  This was followed by 2 singer/guitarists, one, Abby Silber, who sang 3 of her own original pieces. Matt read a children's story he had written, and played a song he wrote as well.  It was cool to see how these artists have used the past 5 months to work on their respective crafts and let Israel inspire their work.  Pretty rockin. 

That's about it for now.  Trying to keep the entries shorter for your viewing pleasure.  Next up, an update on the plan for my return.  I keep putting off booking my ticket, as it means I actually have to leave, but I assure you I will return, and I will tell you all about the plans very soon.  Love!!

More Videos

Shalom all.  Here are the newest videos for your watching pleasure.  Haven't put them up in a while, so there are a few. Not sure if you actually watch them, but in case you do, here they are.

WUJS Video 9 - PSJ, Concert, and Opera House (Donna and Jaks)

WUJS Video 10 - Jerusalem Arts Track

WUJS Video 11 - Jerusalem Learning Program

WUJS Video 12 - PSJ and ARDC (Ellen and Alisa)

WUJS Video 13 - Sailing Siyur, Kelly, and Seth

Israel Update and Lost on the Yarkon

Hi again!  I'm back in the swing of things!  A few more stories, and I should be all caught up.  I am currently sitting at an adorable cafe down the street, Loveat, drinking tea and writing since our internet is down.  Again...

I'll start with Sunday.  On Sunday afternoon, we all left work a little early to meet Vivian and her boss at their office.  Her boss, Gad, used to work as Rabin's press secretary and media advisor.  He gave us some background information on his consulting firm and his background, and then opened the floor to questions.  It was nice to have a perspective other than Sheldon's offering us political opinion.  We asked him about Gilad Shalit, Israeli settlements on the West Bank, his views on Obama, and basically whatever was on our minds.  He had some great insight, and strong opinions.  It was incredible informative, and I didn't feel like he was forcing his opinion on us.  I'm glad he was able to share his time with us.  As we were leaving, Ricky offered a few of us a ride home since she had extra seats in her car.  On the way she pointed out the landmarks, an amusement park and gas station, that would help us find her on Tuesday for the siyur.  I jotted down what she said, and therefore ended up in charge of leading the group that Tuesday.  That's where the fun begins.

We were told to meet her at the gas station she had pointed out near Yarkon Park to go boating and have a picnic.  We all left the apartments at 10, as we had been told, and waited over 30 minutes for bus 28.  When it still hadn't come, we called Ricky, and she said we could also take the 42.  One pulled up, and we all piled on.  When we had been on for the half hour I had expected, and I still didn't see the amusement park, I called Ricky, asking her where we should be.  She asked for a landmark, we told her the mall we were passing, and she goes "You're in Ramat Gan.  Get off the bus!"  Haha.  So we did.  She hadn't bothered to mention that to take the 42, the landmarks we had been looking for wouldn't show up... We had gone too far.  So she directed us to walk across and find the nearest stop going the other direction.  We all waited at a stop outside of the mall, and asked the first bus that pulled up if he went to the place we were looking for.  He said no.  The next bus came, he also said no.  At this point, I resigned as PM (or got impeached) and we called Ricky.  Not 5 minutes later she pulled up in her car and shuffled a load of us to the park.  She came back one more time, loaded everyone into taxis, and took one more trip in her car.  Turned out we were pretty close.  Wasn't my fault, I promise, but we got to the park about an hour or so behind schedule.  No biggie.

We were hungry, so we voted to eat our potluck picnic first, and boat later.  What we hadn't eaten while stranded at the bus stop, we chowed down on on a nice big sheet blanket on the lawn of the park.  We had brought pasta salad with grilled veggies, another apartment another kind of pasta salad, some fruit salad, cucumber sandwiches, and Ricky brought jachnun.  Jachnun is a traditional Yemenite Jewish dish made from rolled dough which is baked on very low heat overnight.  It is traditionally served with a crushed/grated tomato dip and hard boiled eggs. This answers the question, Mom and Dad, of what we ate at our hotel in Eilat.  We missed the topping though.  Now I know!

After we ate, some people played a soccer esque game, and I along with some others took a little nap on the grass, then we went boating.  Although we had been told "sailing" and "canoeing" we found ourselves in paddle boats, ya know the ones with the foot peddles.  Super cute.  We rode around an artificial lake with a cute little island.  I was in a boat with Amy, Jacob, and Ricky.  My ulpan class, plus Ricky!  After about half an hour, the guide came around in a put put tossing out balloons.  We had a contest to see which boat could gather the most balloons from around the lake.  It became quite competitive.  To prevent them from flying away, we tied all of our balloons in a bundle.  This was a great plan until, in a mad dive to get a balloon before the boys, our entire bundle fell back into the lake.  Oops.  We raced to go pick them up before another boat got all of our hard work, and I managed to snatch them up just in time, losing only 1 in the process.  It was quite fun.

We managed to get home with much less trouble.  We took a different bus though, and ended up near the Shuk, so Chelsea and Melanie and I decided to take a little detour through Nachalat Benyamin, the craft and artist market.  As soon as I walked in, I looked up and recognized a face from High School.  Jeff and Brian Glickman.  Turns out they were here on Birthright, and had been given some free time to shop.  We caught up a bit then headed on our way.  Not 10 minutes later, I look over and see Teri Herbstman.  Assuming she was with them, I stopped to say hello.  Teri also went to DHS, and was a participant on WUJS in Jerusalem last fall machzor.  She was not with them in fact, and was equally as shocked to have seen 2 separate groups of people from High School.  It was like a mini Deerfield Reunion, all by chance.  I love this country.

Worked from home on Wednesday, since Tomer is in London and Maayan was at class all day.  Got a lot done actually.  Thursday I had my year course class, and we started working on our show.  I'm not sure how much I have explained about this, but I'll go again just in case.  I have found myself teaching an acting class for Year Course, another MASA program for post high school students during their gap year.  There are 6 students on the performing arts track in the class which I co-teach with Amy Gross.  We have elected to do a short play festival with them as their final project, and after a few weeks of fun acting exercises and scene work, have finally begun working on that.  We started with The League of Semi Superheroes.  It's a play I bookmarked a while ago, but hadn't yet found the right group to direct in it.  This was it!  It was a perfect cast of 6, and they really have done a great job with it so far.  I'll be sure to update you as we move further on teh rehearsal process and get closer to performance.  It is really nice to be directing again, and working with people.  As much as I love my internship, I am so not cut out for an office job, and being back in the classroom had confirmed this.  I need to work with people.  Yay.  I chose the right career track.


Friday was an excellent sleep day, and today Michal, Chelsea and I had a wonderful adventure.  We went down to the port for this clothing and accessories sale we have been seeing posters for forever.  It reminded me of the jewelry shows Mom and I went to with "Things Boutique", but not quite so cheap.  Only cost 15 sheks to get in, and everything was on a discount, but still designer merchandise is designer merchandise.   Lots of clothing boutiques had booths, and we saw some awesome pieces as well as of course some crazy stuff.  Michal and Chelsea both bought cute headbands and I treated myself to a cute pink belt.  Can't wait to wear it.  It was a wonderful way to spend Shabbat, and gave me a much needed excuse to get out of bed and do something with my day off.  Yay for roommate adventures.

Well, I think I have officially caught up.  I'll try to get back on schedule from here on out.  Next course of action, label pictures.  I am trying to figure out why the link to the right doesn't work, but regardless when I have captioned and arranged, I will post a new link here.  Hope all is well, and can't wait for you to see all my pretty pix!  Love!!

Catching Up

Hello Hello!

I would like to begin by apologizing for not writing like I used to.  I still have so much to say, and I still have so many exciting adventures to share, but I am also realizing that my time in Israel is slowly shrinking and I need to savor every moment.  So instead of writing, I am having even more adventures on the streets of Tel Aviv.  I know you'll understand.  So here goes a little bit of catch up on this nice Friday morning, relaxing in bed after another crazy week.

So after Mom and Dad left, I attempted to get back in the swing of things at work, but unfortunately my body didn't seem to think that was a good idea.   I went to work Wednesday, went home not feeling well and spent the day in bed.  Feeling a bit better I went in Thursday and Tomer sent me home.  From that moment I spent the next few days in sweatpants in bed.  Got me some nice Israeli flu meds, acamol, and did my best to rest it off.  I managed to crawl out of bed to go out for a few hours on New Years, but only so I didn't feel like a total loser falling asleep before midnight alone.  We went to a bar in Tel Aviv, and I toasted everyones champagne with a nice bottle of water.  Spent the next few days back in bed, watching endless marathons of Law and Order SVU on my laptop and listening to the new Phil Vassar CD.  Couldn't have found a better way to pass the time while I felt crappy.

After not too long I was feeling better and back in the swing of things at work etc. I went to movie night with the WUJS gang, hosted in our apartment this time, and we watched "Someone to Run With".  Not bad, interesting movie.  After that I went to meet up with a few friends of mine from Birthright NEXT who were in town on birthright.  Mara, whom I met on the shabbat camping trip I took this summer was a participant, and Aleza, the Chicago campus coordinator and birthright recruiter who I met through the Hebrew class I took was staffing a trip.  Their busses, and some others, had rented a bar in Tel Aviv, Alice, for a private birthright party.  A friend and I went to meet up with them, have a drink, and catch up.  It was really great to see them, and a lovely reunion in the holy land.

That Tuesday our siyur took us to the Massua Institute for Holocaust Studies.  It was a museum, but took on a very different perspective from Yad Vashem and others I've been to.  We focused on the aftermath, the second generation, the media responses, etc, as well as the current relationship Israel has with Germany.  We watched some movie clips, saw footage from the Eichmann trial in Israel, and explored an art exhibition by the son of a survivor.  Some very interesting and powerful discussions followed.  It was a nice new understanding, and I'm glad we went there instead of a traditional museum. 

That night, another wonderful reunion followed.  I met up with Rachel Gore, a former student of mine from Newton North, the one who directed Urinetown that I advised, and her father.  They were in town visiting family, and Adam Brown had suggested they get in touch with me.  I am really glad they did.  It was great to see them both, and I got caught up on a lot of the gossip and happenings around Newton.  We walked around town a bit, and had dinner at Max Brenners.  Rachel shared a beer with her Dad, her first legal drink, and we all laughed at the face that she was toasting with her Dad and teacher.  Its funny though, she graduated in May, and is really not very much younger than me.  I had spicy mexican hot chocolate in a hug mug following dinner, and have discovered my new weakness.  Another excellent reunion as well.

The theme of this entry seems to be social events, so I'll throw in a few more.  Michal and I have been bonding listening to Sugarland, kareokeing, and watching the airplanes out my window.  And we had an excellent roomie bonding session the other night over some late night chicken nuggets and chocolate shots from Max Brenner.  I've been there a lot lately.  You don't have to remind me.  Last Friday night I went over to Amy Gross's for Shabbat dinner.  She is the WUJS recruiter, and the co-teacher of my theatre class.  Her fiance, an Israeli, cooked a gigantic vegetarian/dairy meal for Amy, myself, Allison (another WUJS participant, Amy's intern), Ricky, and another Young Judea staff member.  We ate a ton, and it was delicious.  That night was also Matt's birthday, so Ricky drove Allison and I straight from dinner to Mike's place, the American bar on the beach, for his surprise party.  We missed the surprise, but it was still a fun night.  All of us together, as well as a giant Taglit group, basically took over the bar.  A bunch of people wanted to go to a strip club with Matt that night to celebrate. Hallie and I followed them to the Port, but decided not to go to "Pussycat", and had an adventure of our own on the port.  We met a group of Israeli boys our age and ended up spending the night with them.  Really cool people.  One in particular.  Seen him a few times since then in fact.  Don't worry though, I'm not making Aliyah just yet.  

Anyways, sharing all these adventures with you, I am just about caught up.  I'll try to write again tomorrow to get back on track.  I'm just living up my remaining time here, making friends, exploring, and figuring out what comes next in my life.  I'll let you know as soon as I do...

Mom and Dad's Visit - Part 3

Welcome back.  The southern end of our adventured together.  Enjoy!

We woke up crazy early on Friday, Christmas, not to open presents but to be the first to the Budget office to rent a car.  We were on the road by 8:30 attempting to leave for Eilat, but we were on the wroooong road. We finally found the track we wanted to be on, almost regretting our lack of GPS, and started our desert tour on the way down. Our first stop was Kumron Caves where the dead sea scrolls were found.  We bought a pass for 3 national Parks pass and went to explore.  You cannot go all the way to the caves, but could see the important spots from the overlooks.  Next we went to Ein Gedi and went  in for a hike to the waterfall.  I had been there on both Birthright and WUJS, so we just did a quick exploration.  We ended at a pretty waterfall.  Lots of people were swimming, but we just looked and touched the water.  Not sure if we completed the hike we set out for or not, but it was pretty and we got a bit of our nature on, so it was all good. 

We got back in the car for our next stop on the "tour", Masada.  Saw some ibex, and hit the road.  We opted for the cable car instead of climbing due to our time restriction, but watched the movie and still got a good chance to explore.  We explored the ruins of the fortress, giving ourselves a walking tour from the packet the whole way.  I liked the food storage areas, and some of the living quarters.  Mom is always asking how they could know all of this and identify which were rooms and which were just rocks.  Good question, but I guess theres a whole field of science for that.  Hot, tired, and having had our fill, we took the cable car back down and continued our drive.  Next stop, food.  We drove south through the desert looking for an oasis.  From a distance we spotted Ein Boqeq, a strip of hotels and a little town off the dead sea.  We were not excited but he lunch options, but we managed to find something.  We decided as long as we were there this was our chance to hop in the Dead Sea.  There was a changing room in a bathing suit shop which we were allowed to use after we bought a towel, but would have had to pay for otherwise.  I hate tourist towns.  The water was super cold, but we took the obligatory tourist floating photo, showered, and changed.  We had had a full day and it was getting late, so we drove the rest of the way straight to Eilat and checked into the Nova Hotel.  It was cute, like a little one bedroom apartment.  I had my "own room", otherwise known as the living room couch bed.  We went down to the beach boardwalk and explored a bit.  All the stores were open late, and there were lots of touristy little kiosks.  We watched a light up bungee ball ride, but you couldn't have paid me enough to go on it.  We had a yummy dinner at the Giraffe Noodle Bar where we shared some good squid inked noodles and lemon chicken.  We walked around a bit more, people watching, then were off to bed after a long, full day. 


We woke up Saturday in Eilat for our relaxing day.  Much needed.  We slept in a bit, then set up our Petra tour for Sunday and got a free snorkling rental in the process.  Busted out the bikini.  It had been a while since the warm beach day in Tel Aviv.  We drove down to Migdal just past the port was on the southern end.  We rented our free snorkel gear, and watched in fear as everyone else was getting in in full wetsuits.  We sucked it up, and I sure am glad I did.  The snorkeling was awesome.  We barely had the leave the beach to see some awesome coral and pretty fishies.  Mom stayed out a lot longer than I did, but I got to see a lot of stuff.  Wish I could have taken pictures.  After relaxing on that beach for a bit, we drove back to the boardwalk beach for lunch and to relax some more.  We had lunch at Café Café, then settled into some 15 shekel chairs on the Zahav beach and relaxed until the sun went down.  Again, much needed time off in the sunny sun sun.  After we got back and changed, we drove around looking for something to do.  We discovered that there was very little night life, probably because it was Saturday, the end of the weekend here, and all the Israelis seemed to clear out.  We found a kids amusement park place, but it didn't look too exciting.  We ended up back on the boardwalk, for a late dinner, then bed.  A great break day in the middle of our exciting adventures. 

Sunday was back to early wake up tourist time, and we got picked up around 7:30 for our Petra tour. The bus picked us up at the hotel and we headed for the border crossing into Jordan.  The bus ride and the border crossing honestly took more time than the tour itself.  At the border crossing, they collected our passports for a good long time.  Not sure what they were doing.  Could have been photcopying for all we know...  When we finally got them back, we got with our gigantic group and got on another bus to Petra.  We drove through Aqaba, a source of national pride for Jordan and a growing city, but I slept most of the 2 hours down the "silk road".  We stopped at a gift shop for a bathroom  break and then finally arrived.  Mohammed, our guide, walked us through the caverns and trails, explaining the history and excavation process all along the way.  We learned about the aquaducts and water diverting to keep the area from flooding, and saw all the houses and temples carved right into the rock face.  Kind of like Cappadocia in Turkey.  When we got to the turn before the big temple, he told us to turn around to this incredible view of the carving peeking through the rocks.  Very cool.  Our tour was about 4 hours, and we barely even cracked the surface as to what there is to see.  Could have spent 3 days.  We saw the theatre though, which was awesome, and some really incredible sights.  We bought some souvenirs, Genie lamp for Laur, and a pink headscarf for me.  Had to send that home with Mom and Dad, as I don't think its an appropriate pattern to sport here in Israel.  We decided not to ride the camels, horses, or buggy things back, and did the trek by ourselves, exploring as we went.  After the tour, our bus took us to a Jordanian buffet.  A giant spread of delicious, undefinable food.  Who cares that we didn't know what it was though.  I ate my fill of mystery dishes, finished up with white jello, chocolate jello, something pink, and something gooey with apples and nuts, and hit the bus.  It took as back to the border, we waited forever again, got our pretty stamps, then back to Eilat.  We spent the evening at the mall, since we had concluded there was nothing to do.  We had been craving ice cream the entire time, so we finally got some from a stand at the mall.  It was far from satisfying.  Not sure I've ever had bad ice cream, but this was the closest I've ever come.  I did finally buy a purse though, which I've been needing for a while.  Well, Dad bought me one.  Thanks!  Success.

On Monday morning I was gonna wake up early to waterski before we hit the road, but I didn't feel like getting wet and changing and everything, so I opted out.  We had our last hotel buffet breakfast and started our journey home.  Of course with a lot of stops along the way.  First was the Timna Mines.  We got an audio CD guide to play in our car as we did the tour, and it told us when to play things and then explained the formations etc. First we saw the Mushroom and a Half, or "a loaf of bread and something else" as they said it could also have been on our guide CD.  The real Mushroom formation was much cooler, formed like the fairy chimneys in Cappadocia with a softer rock underneath a  harder one, eroded differently over time.  Solomon's Pillars were huge and amazing, definitely the best part.  We also saw the remains of the copper smelting plant and alter etc in the plant.  We also saw some cool cave drawings on the walls of ostriches, ibex, chariots, soldiers, and a bunch of random animals.  Our last stop was the man made lake at the visitors center where made our own small sand bottles.  Not as cool as the ones with camels and words like we saw in Petra but fun none the less.  

Next stop was Mitzpat Ramon, a gigantic grand canyon like crater.  We stopped in the visitors center to ask about the "prisms" and she told us we were 10 minutes to far.  We bought a map, then went around back to check out the view.  As soon as we got there I got this weird sense of recognition and immediately stories started to play out in my mind.  This was where my birthright group had gone repelling, and ate ice cream,a nd watched the fighter planes fly overhead.  Weirdly almost perfect memory.  We stopped to take pictures with some ibex int he parking lot, then went back to see the Prisms we had missed.  We discovered we remembered passing the turn off because if was called "carpentry" and we almost turned off just because we were curious.  This time we did, and it was pretty damn cool.  We climbed up a hill on a curving wooden walkway, and figured out we were looking at the prisms all along.  The sandstone splintered off in the cool formations when baked in the sun.  It looked like a pile of bricks, but it was all natural.  We went back to "town" for lunch.  Mom and I shared a giant bagel toast with cheese and mushrooms and Dad had the best shnitzl sandwich of his life.  We watched a bunch of plain clothed "soldiers" with guns, trying to figure out what they were doing there.  Still not a clue.  We ate, then got back on the road.

Last stop, Rehovot, to visit Yehuduth.  We got a little lost on the way there and missed the nuclear reactor Dad wanted to see, but thats ok.  We found her apartment, following Tsachi's landmark directions.  We turned not at the first sign to Rehovot, but the second one, then took a left at the 3 tall connected buildings, and pulled over by the tall bushes.  We were exactly where we wanted to be, and she buzzed us in the gate and we went in to see her apartment.  We had some orange juice and talked a bit with her, learning more about what she does.  What I didn't know was the she not only worked for the Weitzman Institute, but she was very famous for some of discoveries.  She is responsible for finding a small organism in soybeans that prevents insects but doesn't harm humans and is completely natural.  It was studied for use as a pesticide, and she even won the Israel Prize.  Cool!  We went out for an awesome seafood dinner with her.  I ordered something off the English menu that was no longer available, so the waitress suggested something.  I wasn't quite sure what I was ordering, but it was awesome.  Pasta with calamari and shrimps and a bunch of other yummy yummy things.  Good work waitress.  We dropped her off and headed back to Tel Aviv, following some confusing directions for what we thought was an easier way, and we ended up making a giant circle.  A cool guy at a pizza shop helped us get me home. Tired after another exhausting but awesome day of adventure, I went to bed. 

Tuesday was Mom and Dad's last day.  I went on the siyur with my group to the Supremem Court knowing I would meet up with them later int he evening.  We got a tour of the Supreme Court in Jerusalem in the morning, learning a bit about the architecture, and then a bunch about the court system in Israel.  Very different from the US.  No jury system, and an interesting appeals process.  The Supreme Court gets all appeals from level 2 courts as well as all human rights cases.  We sat in on the start of a trial as well, saw the Judge (1 not 3 unfortunately), and made sense of what we were seeing as best as we could.  Chels, Michal and I had an awesome time wandering through the grounds, taking a photo shoot skipping, running, and jumping through the greenery and sleek designs in the courtyards.  In the afternoon we went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  Chelsea and I were hoping to see some of the people we had worked with there through our internships, but we didn't.   Instead a guy took us to a lecture hall type room and explained to us a lot about their goal, branding Israel with a positive image and promoting culture and the things we want to be known for.  Most people picture the image of the Palestinian boy throwing a rock at the Israeli tank, where as Israel wants them to think of music and theatre and dance and family life and all the happy proud cultural things Israel has to share, rather than just war and "occupation".  We watched clips from a fascinating focus group type thing where people described a neighborhood of "houses" each one from a different country.   We watched them explain Italy as friendly, lots of food, wine, laughing, stories, etc, and Israel as a big steel wall, cold, guns, unfriendly, guarded, not a place they wanted to visit.  I was unaware that non jews had this distorted image of Israel.  Crazy.  He talked about how they are trying to change this and what is being done.  It was really fascinating, and I have never been prouder of what I do at my internship. 


Mom and Dad had the day to kill, so they wandered around a bit and did some shopping a the Nachalat Binyamin craft market.  I met back up with them for a late lunch near my apartment. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at the shuk, because Dad needed one last fix of baklava before he left.  The guy was just closing up and gave us an excessive amount of sticky options.  It wasn't even that good.  ,I walked them back to their hotel via Dizengoff grocery store.  Did some quick shopping, after finally finding the store that seems to move around that confusing mall every time. I dropped them off, helped them re pack and arrange everything, then said goodbye to head home as they left for the airport.  It was awesome to be able to spend 2 weeks with them.  Saw some new parts of Israel, and got to play tourist.  Overall a really good time, and I am really glad they were able to come.  Next time with Lauren!  Thanks for the visit, I had a blast.  Miss you already!!

Mom and Dad's Visit - Part 2

Here we go again. Picking up where I left off. Again, may be a doozy.

On Monday Mom and Dad left for Jerusalem via train in the morning. I stayed back because I had to teach my class then go to Ulpan in the evening. They had a great tour of the Old City. On Tuesday, I went on my siyur with the group to Moshav Bnei Atarot and to the Eretz Israel Museum. We were supposed to go to an Air Force base, but due to some security issue we had to change the plans that morning.  At the Moshav we learned about its formation and a bit about how the village works. It was slightly boring, but a way to experience their way of life and the structure of the farm town.  The Eretz Israel Museum was much cooler.  There was an exhibition of World Press Photos from around the world and within Israel, featuring news photography winners in several catagories.  Some of the pieces were truly incredible, really powerful.  Saw a series of Michelle and Barack Obama on the campaign trail, and 2 feet down a series from Gaza.  Really a cool exhibition to see.  I'm glad our change of plans forced us to go. We had some more free time in the Museum, wandered around a bit and saw the history of the Israeli postal system, and of course the gift shop. 

On Wednesday morning, I woke up early to catch a sherut into Jerusalem to meet Mom and Dad.  I heard all about their 6 hour adventure at Yad Vashem their quick stop to Mount Herzl over breakfast at the hotel.  This time I was an official guest, so I didn't have to pay...  Our first Jerusalem stop was to buy tickets for the Tower of David show.  We decided to get the combined ticket and visit the museum as well.  We learned a lot about the history and filled in the gaps of our knowledge about Jerusalem.  Also was a great chance to peek out over the city and see some really amazing views.  Also loved the cheesy cartoon movie.  A lot of heads were chopped off...  Next we headed to the City of David through the dung gate.  We did the dry version of the water tunnel tour, following some girls seminary groups and listening in on their guides.  For a while there we thought we had gone the wrong way and were stuck getting wet, but we found our way to the narrow tunnel passageway.  A lot shorter than he water one, but oh well.  After the tunnel, we tried to follow a sign to the Shiloah pool.  First route was under construction so we took the alternate route which took us down and down and down a steep road basically through an Arab village. On our way down we saw a cute little girl, maybe 4 or 5 years old, walking up the steep incline all by herself carrying her Dora the Explorer backpack.  I bet she does that every day!   At the bottom, we found a less than exciting pool of muddy water.  From there we tried our hardest not to walk back the way we came, but it appeared as though we had no choice.  Fortunately it was not as bad as we had anticipated.  We made it out alive.

After that we went back into the Dung gate and made one more visit to the Kotel. Walked up the Via Delarosa and saw a few of the stations and had pizza right at the place where Jesus fell down for the first time.  They claim to be the best pizza in Jerusalem and that even Jesus ate there.  It actually was pretty good.  We wandered through the confusing alleys, and eventually found the Church of the Holy Sepulchure and went inside.  The church was really ornate and full of beautiful hanging lamps and decorations.  There was a big stone at the front entrance of the church, the stone of unction, where Jesus was prepared for burial.  People were stopping to kiss it and rub it.  We did not wait in the line to go to the “holy” spots that many people were there for, especially because we didn't know what most of them were, so we just explored and watched people's rituals.  Beautiful.  We went on to do a bit of shopping and explore some more.  Mom bought the same star she saw in Jaffa and regretted not buying, for a better price! Glad she waited.

Plans were to meet Milton and Shaynie for dinner at Tal Bagel.  Traffic was pretty bad, so instead of hopping on a bus we walked into the German Colony.  It was a bit of a hike, but we found Tal Bagel and had a nice dinner with the cousins.  We learned the whole family history.  Took a bus back to change before the light show, and went back to the Tower of David.  It was so incredible.  The entire city was taken over by projections and lights and we basically saw the history of the city play out before us in huge 3D images.  I was shocked at how they were able to achieve such perfect perspective on the rough stone walls of the buildings.  The entire area surrounding the courtyard became part of the show.  So glad Tsachi suggested it.  Definitely a Jerusalem experience not to be missed.  Stopped by the Waffle Bar after that for a late night snack and all shared a Banana Boom waffle extravaganza thing.  Super delish.

We woke up on Thursday, Christmas Eve, for our adventure to the other side of the wall, Bethlehem in the West Bank.  Chelsea met us at the Jaffa Gate, and we went to the Damascus Gate to find the blue and white striped busses we had read about.  According to the website, the 21 bus was our best bet to get all the way into town and not just to the crossing, so we spotted it and gave it a go.  For 6 shekels, we got on with all the Palestinians and made our way to Bethlehem.  We ended up having to hop a cab from where they dropped us off because of some areas we couldn't get to due to closed roads, but we eventually made it (close) to Manger Square.  We basically walked into the middle of a huge Christmas celebration.  We watched the parade of drum corps for a while, packed into the crowds of people.  We walked into the church of the Nativity which was very cool, through a tiny little door.  Lots of news cameras around, wonder if we made any big network broadcasts.  Again, the church was very ornate and had lots of beautiful mosaics.  I got yelled at for sitting on the bima/alter/whatever they call it because I crossed my legs...  Hmmm...  In the church we met a kid from LA who had been traveling around and exchanged contact info since he was staying in Israel.  We chatted with him a bit, then left the church for the Milky Grotto Church.  This is supposedly where Mary nursed her baby and dripped a drop on the stone. People believe that miracles happen when you go there, and women who are suffering from infertility or anything of the sort went there to eat the stone and pray.  We saw lots of monks and priests in our journeys.  It was Christmas Eve after all.

After the churches, we wandered through the streets and some markets.  One place was a vegetable market int he center, surrounded by hanging animal carcasses.  Chelsea almost died.  The butcher was literally slicing steaks off the hanging animals, tails and all.  Most of the stores were selling random clothing items or Jesus memorabilia.  Chelsea and I bought matching knee high athletic socks.  Cute.  Dad was most excited by the wood carving place, and we managed to get our own little tour of the workshop. We bought fresh falafel for lunch, which we watched the guy form and fry right in front of us.  Dad had shwarma.  We bought a mystery drink from a guy with a big silver tank on his back because everyone was buying it and curiosity overcame us.  He bowed over and poured the drink from a spout into our cup.  We do not know what it was but we think some kind of plum spice tea.  No one really liked it.  Pretty damn nasty if you ask me.  But for one shekel, worth watching him pour.  We watched a little more of the parade while we ate, and then decided to head back to Jerusalem.  We walked back towards the checkpoint.  On the way we passed some cute little arab kids and gave them the roses that people had given away at the parade.  They were so excited and even posed so we could take their picture.  Adorable.  Ending the conflict one friendship at a time.

When we finally hit the separation wall, we were simply overcome.  The entire lower half of the wall was covered with graffiti, some of which was really cool.  There were lots of nasty statements about wanting the wall torn down, but also some incredible imagery and powerful messages/metaphors.  You have to check out these pictures.  We followed the wall all the way to the checkpoint, not to confident with our path the whole time, but we eventually found it.  We got through the checkpoint easily on the palastinian side and then had to do a little more, show our passports, xray machine, etc, on the Israeli side.  We wanted to see Rachel’s tomb once we crossed, but we could not figure out how to get there.  We were tired and Chelsea had to get back, so we gave up and got into the 124 Arab bus and headed back to the Old City.  We asked the guy to get off at the Jaffa gate and said goodbye to Chelsea.  Now I can say I have spent 2 Christian holy days in the place where it all happened.  Christmas Eve in Bethlehem and Easter in the Vatican in Rome.

After our adventure, we headed to catch a bus to see the Chagall Windows at Hadassah Hospital.  As we walked to the bus stop, a bus drove by with a sign on the front saying Bnai Tikvah.  I spotted it and freaked out a bit.  We looked through the window and spotted Marcia Sloan and waved.  I tried to chase them down but they drove off.  We gave up on the bus idea and got in a cab.  The taxi took us through terrible traffic to the hospital only to find that the entrance to the windows had closed an hour before.   Tried to get the janitor to let us in but to no avail.  We snuck around, tried everything we could, but had to just take pictures fromt eh outside.  We had to look at pictures and postage stamp images of the windows.  Oh well.  We also found a list of Hadassah groups with many focused in Illinois, and a memorial stone for some family in Highland Park.  Weird. We went back to the hotel for a rest and then went for dinner at the Ticho House.  Yummy food but way too much.  We walked back to the hotel to get to bed before our big drive.

I'll stop here and start a new entry, make it a little easier to read and navigate.

Mom and Dad's Visit

It's been forever since I wrote an entry.  Sorry all.  These past few weeks with Mom and Dad were crazy busy, then I was sick, icky, but now I am all better and here to tell you all about it.  Stolen from Mom's journal, with my own twists and input.

This begins part one of 2 long ones.  May require a snack break.

Our siyur Tuesday the 15th, the day Mom and Dad arrived, was to the Bahai Gardens in Haifa and Druze village nearby.  We arrived around 5 to 12 for our 12:00 tour, and were told the tour was full and we couldn't go.  Bummer.  Jaks and I had visited the Gardens from the bottom of the hill previously, but not taken the tour so I was looking forward to it.  There was nothing we could do though, so we just went into the free access points from the top.  It was a nice view, and at least different from the last time we were there.  No big deal.  They tried to blame it on us for being 5 minutes late to the bus, but seriously, they should have made the meeting time earlier then...  Oh well.  After that we went to a Druze village where a man took us into his house and explained a lot of the culture and religion to us.  We learned about the colors on the flag, and how each represents a pillar of the religion; soul, nature, brain, can't remember the rest.  Then they brought out giant trays of traditional foods, and we feasted.  Big lafa, rice with cinnamon, some kind of kebab meat, cous-cous, the whole shebang.  Yummy yummy.  We ate our little hearts out then hopped the bus to continue to part two.  Since we had missed the tour earlier, we were a little ahead of schedule so we went to  Ein Hod, an artists colony.  We learned about how artists become a part of the village and a little bit of the history, then got a tour and to see some galleries.  Some of the work I really liked.  Hopefully I'll get back there some time for a workshop of class with one of the artists.  Our guide mentioned that the place was also known for their home brewed beer, so of course the group voted to stay and spend some time at the bar.  We got there and the door was closed, so we called the phone number posted on the door and the man came back to a surprisingly large group of thirsty visitors.  He offered us lots of options, and I tasted a few kinds of beer other people ordered.  Not bad, but I was anxious to get back and see Mom and Dad. 

Their plane had landed right about that time, so I called to check in.  Since it was too late to meet them at the airport, they went back to the hotel and I got on the bus with the group back to Tel Aviv.  Halfway home Ricky suggested I get off and go straight to their hotel because of traffic.  I hopped on a local bus to Dizengoff and found them at the Cinema Hotel in Kikar Dizengoff.  We trekked from Dizengoff toward my apartment via Rothchild Blvd to find something to eat, and decided to go to Max Brenner's, a chocolate restaurant.  Mom and I shared sweet potato gnocchi and mushroom ravioli.  Dad had a spicy chicken sandwich.  Since it was a chocolate restaurant we had to try something and shared a banana crepe for dessert.  The selection was incredible.  As mom said, Auntie Laurie would have had a field day.  We stopped back to meet Chelsea and Michal and then sent Mom and Dad home to sleep.

Wednesday Mom and Dad headed up North, intending to hit Haifa and Akko, but Tsachi called and they changed their plans to stop by the Golan Heights due to the weather.  They checked into the zimmer, or guest house in Rosh Pinna called Villa Tehila.  I went to work. 

Thursday morning I took a 3 hour bus ride to Rosh Pinna to meet them.  It was a long ride, but there were lots of yummy soldiers with big guns, so I survived.  Mom and Dad had bought an umbrella before meeting me and I'm glad I brought mine because it was a rainy day of rainy days.  Mom's word of the day was "geshem".  The GPS got us to Tzvat with a bit of difficulty.  We made one wrong turn and poor Schlomo (the GPS)  got very confused.  We finally found the town, parked and got out.  We got totally soaked trying to find the old city and artist colony.  Dripping wet and tired, we gave up and went back to the car.  Then we pulled into a alleyway following a sign to the artist colony, only to find that it was not intended for cars as there were stairs at the end of the alley.   We turned around and parked at the community center to try again to find the Tzvat we were looking for.  Walked down some the stairs we almost drove down, and followed some more signs and finally found an artist.  We continued to follow the artist colony path until I found a square with blue fences that I recognized.  I excitedly led Mom and Dad to Avraham, the crazy guy from Michigan who spoke to both her birthright and WUJS groups on mystical art imspired by kaballah. Dad knocked on his door, and I almost died when he answered.  We saw his art and he gave us directions to the covered artist market we were looking for.  Finally, we were on the right track.

We foudn the artist market and were glad to get out of the rain for a while.  We looked at some really cool jewelry, art and judaica, and were of course harassed by the salesmen.  We bought some awesome mezuzot and a necklace for Sarah Mason from Amy Ticho who promised that the bat mitzvah gift was being sent from Israel.  Slightly more dry, we went to see the Sephardic synogogue and the rubble of another synogogue that survived the earthquake.  I told them what I remembered about the story of the shul coming from Spain and the torah that refused to leave the ark.  Every time it was taken  away, the person who moved it died and the torah returned.   Stopped for lunch and to warm up at what we concluded was the most expensive place in town, Maximillion Café.  Quiches.  Not worth what we paid for them.

By the end of the adventure we were one umbrella down and totally soaked to the bone.   After following all of the convoluted alleys and pathways through the artist colony, we were amazed at our ability to actually find our car again.  We used landmarks, and eventually process of elimination to get back to the car and turn on the heat.  Yikes.

Our next destination was Hula Valley to see the bird migrations. Followed Shlomo the GPS’s directions again we went down some windy back road, only to realize that the GPS was set for avoid highway.  Shlomo had another brain spasm directing us to dead end and having us go both directions at the same time turning left into a forest with no street.  We finally straightened out, and after traveling though intense fog, very slowly, bringing back strong memories of Costa Rica rain forests, we arrived to find the park closed and the sun going down yet again.  Israel called on account of darkness.  Ooooh well.  This day was kind of a wash anyways.  Get it?? Wash??

Drove into Kyrat Shmonah to kill time at a nice dry mall.  The guard at the parking garage let us right through.  We decided that they did not search us because, apparently terrorists do not rent cars from Budget.  The guard at the mall entrance searched purses on the women and then proceeded to ask Dad something in Hebrew to which he responded “ma?” only to get the same Hebrew question.  Once the guard realized we were clueless, he asked in English if he had a gun.  We all laughed and went inside.  I had to teach Dad that saying "ma" doesn't exactly portray that we don't speak Hebrew well... We bought some buy one get 2 free books in Hebrew including The Wizard of Oz and Cat in the Hat after a very long time of pondering the books we could not read anyway, chose Flat Stanley.  We wandered through the mall a bit more, played tourist in the grocery store llooking for krembos for Dad to try, and finally left to go back to the hotel.  It was adorable, at the top of a long staircase.  Now I know why the woman called and asked me if "they were very old people".  We relaxed for a while and then went to dinner at Chocolate, in Rosh Pina.  Again, at a restaurant called Chocolate we had to get dessert, so we shared a trio of truffles.  We decided to change our plans for the next day due to incoming rain again, and head back to Tel Aviv to have an indoor day at the museums.  Hoping to stay dry this time.

We woke up early to hit the road.  Stopped at Café Café for 3 of the 4 croissants we ordered and coffee to go.  She just did not understand our English and attempted Hebrew. Good anyway and we started driving.  The rain was on and off and happened to be off when we saw a sign for Beit Shearim so we stopped.  Decided to be Israeli and play the day by ear.  It was really cool.  It was a burial ground for many with really cool caves and sarcophagi.  They even let you  in the caves and allowed to touch the relics.  It would never be like this at home.  It was the burial place of Yehuda H’nassi and many of his disciples.  We went into as many caves as we could that did not have flooded out entrances from the rains.  We ended up paying on the way out as no one was there as we went in.   And we thought we would get away with it too...

The weather was still mostly dry so we returned to our original plan and drove on the Cesearea hoping for the best.  We arrived at Cesearea just as the rain stopped.  Someone was clearly looking out for us.  We found the entrance gate to the park and as luck would have it, the intro movie in English was starting in 15 minutes.  All is good with the world.  Movie was interesting history of the site from early romans, greeks etc.  From there we went to lunch at a rather expensive but good sandwich place.  We seem to find all the expensive stuff.  Anyway,  rain was only a drizzle and soon stopped again as we finished and went to explore the ruins.  Really cool tile floors and marble columns still remained after 1500 years.  Truly amazing…and they let you walk right through them.  We saw the old Roman theater and the hippodrome.  Everything was a little flooded but that did not bother us.  The grounds were gigantic, and although the path we took didn't make much sense, think we covered it all.  We were just heading back to the car as the rain started again.  Like I said, someone was watching over us. 

When we had had our fill at Caesaria we finished the drive back to Tel Aviv and Mom and Dad checked back into the Cinema hotel again.  Showered and changed and they picked me up to head to Hod Hasharon for dinner at Tsachi and Einat's with the family.  First, of course, the whole WUJS gang came over to say hi and light Hanukkah candles.  We kept the car a few more hours to get us to dinner where Mom and Dad were able to meet the entire Israeli branch of the family tree including Tsachi, Einat, Yael and Merav, and Yael’s boyfriend, and also Yehudith, Ohad, Ruti, and their kids, Michael and Yonaton. We lit candles again and had a wonderful dinner.  Ohad played the piano and tried to coax me to sing with him.  It just wasn't happening.  After dinner Tsachi helped us to plan out our entire route to and from Eilat as well as a list of not to miss places in Jerusalem.  It was a fantastic evening.  We left there at 10:30 and they dropped me back at home and went to return the car.  This part is best told in Mom's own words, straight from the journal:

"We then went on to return the car to the airport.  No problem until we tried to get gas to top off the tank.  Most gas stations were closed for Shabbat so we went to the one near the airport that we had been promised would be opened.   After driving around a little, we found it, self service tanks, no attendent.   Tanks only had Hebrew directions that we just could not seem to figure out.  Found a different style tank with a button that said English.  Getting excited that we may have figured everything out, we moved the car only to find that the English button did nothing.  We asked a guy pumping his gas for help but his English was not good enough.  After two or three more tries, we found a nice guy to help.  It was asking for our license plate number and then he said you need to punch in your ID number. What ID number, we were American and this was not a debit card?   Finally figured out that it wanted the social security number of the card owner.  WOW, never would you get that in the US!  Filled the tank and returned the car.  Taxied back the hotel around 1: 15 AM.   That sure was harder than expected."

On Saturday, I went to join them at the hotel for buffet breakfast.  They charged us shekels for me to join them.  What a rip off.  I ate as much as I could, trying to get my money's worth, haha.  After breakfast, we walked to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, one of the few places opened on Shabbat.  We met up again with Tsachi, Einat, and Yehudith to tour the Human Nature exhibit by Zadok Ben David I had heard so much about.  It was incredible.  Yehudith told us great stories about the artist him since she was friends with his father.  The sculptures were made from cut steel and looked like trees but shaped like people and other things.  The tree branches often had hidden people in them.  It was really awesome, very unique.  The other part was an amazing piece made of hundreds of tiny hand cut steel flowers growing out of a bed of perfectly smooth sand.  One side of the flowers were black and the other bright colors.  From sideways, they were so thin, they almost disappeared.    It was incredible to see people's reactions as they got to the other side of the room and noticed the colors.  After that, the Israeli side of the family left us and we walked around the other exhibits in the art museum for a while.  Saw some neat stuff, and some not so neat stuff, as usual with art museums.  We of course hit the gift shop on the way out, but I had to be put on the waiting list for a neckalce I wanted.  Hopefully soon!

With everything closed for Shabbat, we just walked around town a little, saw Rabin Square, and went back to the hotel for a rest.  We went to a late lunch/early dinner at 3:30 at a falafel place, and then headed off to the Experiment 7 theater festival.  Tomer had arranged for us to get tickets.  I think he told Gil, the festival director that we were important guests from Chicago... We played along.  It was definitely some of the weirdest, most out there theatre I've seen in my career.  wThere were strange displays and ushers dressed as waiters with invisible food on their trays, videos playing on toilet tanks and a variety of weird performance pieces.  The first one we saw fell under the genre of “object theater”.  The narration, totally in Hebrew, was accompanied by a guy creating people out of a pipe with a mustache and a woman made out of a perfume bottle.  We kind of understood most of the story, we think.  The second one was silent but sooooo strange. Called "Halav Tzahov" or "Yellow Milk".  It started with a man and woman battling for posession of chairs and then 2 other women walked around drinking and spitting out milk.  Milk was poured out into a laundry basket, a big plastic tub and then spit into.  The spit bucket then became a foot bath. At one point the guy stuck his face in the milk spit up.  Not sure we understood what was going on.  Definitely entertaining though.  Between the 2nd and 3rd show, we went outside and saw a girl with a motorcycle helmet doing a strange dance involving taking off layers of clothing and hitting herself on the helmet.  Really out there!  The last piece we saw was a woman singing in Hebrew, no clue what it was about, and some guys accompanying her with a violin, guitar, trumpet and diggerido.  Again, we just did not get it but the diggerido was really cool.  The only words I could translate were earth, wind , fire and water.  I had a pretty bad headache so I hopped on the bus home.  I ran into Ariel Ephraim Ashbel on the bus, which was weird because I had just finished telling Mom and Dad about his show.  It was like I willed him into existance.  Mom and Dad stopped at Go Noodles, one of our favorite for Pad Thai take out.



Saturday I opted out of the expensive breakfast, and met them for our day around Tel Aviv and Jaffa.  We met at the Shuk to browse fruit and veggies, pastries, and random stuff.  I knew they would get a kick out of it.  Dad got dragged into shoving his hand into a pile of lafa to feel how warm they were.  I just thought about how many other people touched it before it was finally purchased.  Dad bought kippot, I bought sunglasses, and to share we got a container of olives and some gummy candy.  From there we took the 25 bus to the office so Mom and Dad could meet Tomer and Viola and see where I've been spending all my time.  Wasn't sure Viola would be there, since the baby was due any day now, but sure enough she was, pregnant as ever.  Tomer made me leave so he could talk about me...  Only good things they promised.

We got back on the number 25 to head into Jaffa for the rest of the day.  The man at the tourist office didn't seem to know what was going on and didn't understand when we asked for the audio guides for the walking tour...  Clueless...  We did it on our own with a map and walked around old Jaffa to see the churches and houses, Andromeda’s rock, and the port.  Fun mix of old world buildings intermixed with new. We stopped at the Nalagaat Center, the deaf/blind theater but unfortunately there was no show today.  They have a blind - blackout restaurant but we could not get a reservation.  We picked up some post cards, Mom got the alef bet in finger spelling.   We weaved through the windy streets more, visiting artist galleries and flea markets, and just explored the town. Some of the streets were named for the signs of the zodiac and had really beautiful street signs.  We walked across the zodiac wishing bridge, touched our zodiac signs looking at the sea and made our wishes.  Ate lunch at Dan’s Hummus for the complete hummus foul experience, and were clearly the only tourists there.  We shared a yummy plate of hummus with beans, falafel and a traditional Israeli salad.  From there we went for dessert at Abuelafia Bakery, the famous one, where we got some yummy baklava and other sweet stuff.  We walked around some more exploring the fun shops and the beautiful seaside boardwalk. 

Deciding what to do on the way home, we realized we were close to Neve Tzedek, so we headed that way.  We did some upscale window shopping and stopped by Suzanne Dellal.  When we had explored and seen what there was to see we walked back to my apartment so I could get ready for Karaoke night.  Just had to ditch the parents for that.  Int he music school on our street just below our building, we met with some of the students as well as our Tel Aviv University friends for the karaoke adventure.  Turned out they only had like 12 English song options, so it wasn't quite what we expected.  I sang "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" from Banner, one of the only ones I liked from the list, and was reminded that I had tons of Banner karaoke songs on my laptop.  I went to get it and they hooked it up so we had more options.  No lyrics though, so we had to make them up.  Jaks, Sarah, and I sang "Get This Party Started".  Jacob was the only one who sang in Hebrew, but he was in  Jewish a capella group so he had an unfair advantage.  Ricky even sang!  The boys did some crazy group numbers and it was overall a fun night, despite the lack of selection.

After karaoke, the roomies and I met back up with Mom and Dad for a sushi dinner at Moon.  Dad's glasses broke, missing screw, earlier in the night so he showed up with them taped together with a bandaid.  Amazing.  We couldn't find a place that sold a glasses repair kit, but he managed to get through the yummy dinner no problem.  We tried some interesting new rolls and had a great time chatting and laughing.  It was awesome to have my "family" here meet my real family.  We stopped at the hotel to drop Mom and Dad off and pick up a bag they didn't want to bring to Jerusalem with them, and then took a cab back to the apartment.  It was a late night.  We parted ways at that point to meet up again in Jerusalem on Wednesday morning so I could go to work and Ulpan before the rest of our adventures.  Tune in soon for part 2 of the family trip!!