Debriefing and the trip home

I'm a creature of lists, and both the original packing list and the very odd shopping list were adhered to and helpful.  What was so odd about my shopping list? It included things as diverse as soup and birthday cards.  I didn't bring too many clothes (this year).

Today I check out of the apartment and entertain myself for the day.  I'm going to Jerusalem to see what 50th anniversary stuff they might have on Ben Yehuda St.

Back in the States

Writing from LaGuardia airport using my cell phone as a hotspot.  I indulged in having real NY pizza for breakfast, not because I tired of Israeli food, but because we don't have it in Kansas City.

My skirt report is that the plane ride wasn't any different than riding the buses and otherwise schlepping around Israel. So now I have a modified travel plan that makes a little more sense.

P.S. I'm completely home now.  My hotspot connection was too slow to actually update the blog.  Tired but ok.  See you soon.

Answers to great questions, and other musings on the way home

Well, a question that I've had for four years is  what the heck is the name of this cheese?  I have muddled through successfully for four years by asking for the tall cheese.

I'm not crazy, and it is the tallest cheese in the dairy case.  That is a standard coffee cup.  It is a bit salty and firm, mild like mozzarella, and I've eaten kgs of it.  It's kosher, widely available and reasonably priced, so I still think it's produced inside Israel.  But Israelis don't know what cheese I'm talking about. The standard Israeli cheeses are quite soft.  My dairy guy in the Carmel shuk has crummy handwriting, so his label didn't solve it. But today in the Jerusalem shuk, those nice dairy people had typed signs.  Ha!

The woman's hand is over part of it, but now we know.  It's garuzinit.  And it's a Georgian cheese.  With all the Russians, that makes sense.  I can have so much more dignity on the next trip.

This afternoon I got a limonana.  Not like we make at EEF.  See...

Really minty.  Not that I'm suggesting we make blended drinks, just that this what the original is like.  Yummy.

Another cosmic question is, can I travel in a skirt?  I only wear skirts in Israel (long, very functional), but I usually travel in trousers.  And showing up in Israel, I always feel like I'm out of uniform.  I wonder if going through El Al security might have gone a little smoother on the way in.  So I'm in my long, turquoise skirt, and we'll see.

The plan for the next few hours (I'm at the safest place on earth: Ben Gurion Airport): juggle the weight in my suitcase, change into a dry shirt, check in for my Southwest flight, and generally be an asset to the universe. Signing off for now.

Mediterranean

I needed to buy (a reasonable amount of) halvah and my favorite soap.  The hard part was finding an ATM that still had money in it after Shabbat.  The fifth one did.

A lot of the Bauhaus building are being restored. This one is right across from my building and I watched it under construction last year.

Isn't it lovely?

See the last photo on this page of my blog from 2015.  It's really nice now.  So what kind of halvah did I get? Coffee (of course), cinnamon (that's a new one for me), date and poppy.

Then a first crack at packing.  Best news is that I'm ok on volume.  Marginal on weight, but I can always put a couple things (not knives!) in my carry on.  Don't have to pay for an extra bag (a lot), and I can manage this on my own and take the bus and train (for cheap).

And it was time to say "hello" to the Mediterranean.  I found a better path from my apartment to the beach than I had used before.

Really, that's how it's spelled in Hebrew?

I sat for a bit under a shelter (pergola) on the sidewalk, and then found the iconic statue of Ben Gurion.

Ben Gurion University, his grave in Sde Boker, and now him playing on the beach!

And I got another malabi to try (caramel syrup and coconut topping).  BTW, all the syrups are pink, even lemon or caramel.

Last shabbat

Well, after all my bus rides this week, I just felt like a ball of crumpled paper.

So I resolved that every time I stood up, I would stretch. That strategy worked. It was a disappointing start, but I ended up in much better shape and feel much better.

I bought some dreamy strawberries that were completely ripe.  And organic. Mmmm.

I'm eating up all my food bits that I can, and washed what I can. Tomorrow, I will finish up loose ends like buying halvah. And then it's packing for Deb.  Wish me luck.

Yom Yerushalyim placards in Safra Square

Busy in Jerusalem

The plan was to have lunch with my friend, Anna, dinner with Rabbi and Margolit Friedman and see the light show, and then catch a late bus back to Tel Aviv.  Busy, but sounds like a plan. I double checked on the light show, and I was really wrong about the dates. Not like I looked at the wrong month--more like G-d wanted me here during these two weeks.  Needless to say the light festival is in three weeks.  But there is something going on down at the Jaffa Gate each night for Yom Yerushalyim.  So change in events but not really the location.  Hmm.

When I got to Jerusalem, I found a bench in the shade and shot these photos of these light rail cars for you:

Jerusalem unified

Anna and I planned to meet at Mahane Yehuda (shuk in Jerusalem).  She suggested that we get sabich. I had heard of it but never tried it.  It's a rolled sandwich, not like a pita pocket.  This place is Iraqi and it was fresh, flash baked Iraqi bread, smoky and soft and wonderful.  The sandwich has grilled eggplant, a hardboiled egg, hummus, and some expected things like tomatoes and harissa.  Marvelous, but huge.  I brought half of it home. It's a takeaway place, but they had one table and two odd chairs on which we perched ourselves.

She invited me to her house for the afternoon which I accepted.  I needed to be at the Friedmans' @ 5:00.  No problem, 10 min bus ride from Anna's, 20 min bus ride to Givat Zeev.  Except for some spooky traffic gridlock.  It took over an hour to get up to the bus station.  A soccer game?

At this moment, the bus is completely blocking a large intersection because we can't go forward

The driver would let anyone get out to walk, but it was a big hill (mountain, really), and didn't I do that a few days ago?  And we had a shade inside the bus.  I was at peace to be late without heat exhaustion. Of course, the three of us left on the bus made it, and a #132 bus to Givat Zeev appeared quickly.

I had a lovely reunion with Rabbi David and Margolit. I left at 8:00 to see what there was at the Jaffa Gate.  Lots of people were headed that way, but I couldn't see anything but I could hear music. Oh, they had big projected images on the old city walls.  I took a lot of photos and video with my Canon, but it doesn't talk to this tablet, so I'll upload that stuff when I get home.  Here are a few I took with my Android:

Then a wonderfully unremarkable trip home.

Eggs and Ariel University

It's fascinating to watch deliveries down on Allenby St.  It's probably just an urban thing where there's no room for people to do their jobs.  The palette jacks are used in the street proper.  So I was gazing and I saw a neat delivery.

 Sorry that it's not the clearest photos.  I will explain.  The truck is an egg truck.  Just eggs.  I could see into the truck back:  it was dense-packed with egg flats. About 20 eggs on a square cardboard tray each.  No cartons or boxes.  I see the guy bring a two-wheeler around, and I think, No, he can't do that!  But sure enough, they just loaded up the two-wheeler just like the UPS guy.

And then headed across the street.  Israelis eat a lot of eggs.  These are the flats  of eggs that I used to buy at the shuk.  Well, this is how they get to the shuk, I guess.

After the egg truck excitement, I headed up to Ariel.  It's no surprise to anyone from Tel Aviv that I had trouble finding the bus in the New Bus Station.  But I negotiated in Hebrew, so at least that's an achievement.  It was on the 7th floor.  And I made the 2:15 #286 Afikim bus to Ariel.  And got myself to Rivka's office on campus elegantly.  They have some new landscaping, and this is an interesting plant:

We had a coffee and some snacks including one with zaatar that we may incorporate for Israel Spirit.  Then there was a student event where a faculty band opened the evening.  The Dean of engineering is on the keyboard (dressed in black).

It was quite a production. Those are LED screens, and they had smoke machines and lasers (the event, not the band). We left after the band's set of four songs.  Rivka's sister (MD) joined us for a late supper at Biscotti in Petach Tikvah.  We got kicked out because the  restaurant closes early.  I got sent home with lots of doggy bags. There's a joke in this somewhere: three women doctors go into....

A Day of Songs

The point of Tuesday was to end up in Jerusalem for a Yom Yerushalyim event in the evening.  But that would be later.  I went for a bit of a walk over to the old city hall just to sit in a pretty place on the plaza.  There were some benches in the shade so I sat there. There was a mom with her kid, a guy with his dog, a tour group.  But then the tour group (Israelis) came to sit in the shade while the tour guide talked to them. Huh. They insisted that I not move (Israeli hospitality).  Ok. We were all cheek-to-cheek on the bench.  I figured, how long can they stay? About 30 min.  In Hebrew I mostly didn't understand.  When they left, one of the ladies talked to me and explained that it was a tour about Natan Alterman.  The guide had played several of songs for which Alterman wrote lyrics.

On the recommendation of two separate Israelis, I took the train to Jerusalem instead of the bus, because of President Trump's departure.  The bus's path is the main highway to the airport.  I met up with friend from Jerusalem, Gershon, for supper and then went on to the free Yom Yerushalyim concert @2100.  Well, that website info was wrong.  The concert started at 2030 (no problem) and required tickets (hmm).  I wasn't going to stay too long, but although one could hear, one couldn't see.  I queued up to get a ticket, but they had run out.  Really.  There were a lot of people without tickets that didn't know they needed them.  A lot.  I decided to see what would happen.  And they started letting us in as SRO.  Fine.  But then they stopped letting people in (capacity?).  It was titled "Singing to Jerusalem."  They had the words up to old songs that everybody knew (but me), and I mean everybody because I was standing by some teenagers.  And they were running archival footage of 1967 Jerusalem behind the words.

Listen the songs I heard (different performers):
"Light and Jerusalem"
"Letter to life"
"On all of these"
"Let it be"
"Keep the world" David D'Or was there
"Blessings of the King" Miri Mesika was there

In closing, I didn't see this, but I hope to:  https://www.jerusalem.muni.il/en/Municipality/Municipal%20info/Pages/AllcelebrationsJerusalem.aspx
A long, late trip home, but I slept in my bed.  Dayanu!

Botanicals and Herzl

I decided to go to Jerusalem today with one of two objectives: go to the Herzl Museum and/or the botanical garden in Jerusalem.  I got up and about early and was on the bus to Jerusalem by 8:15.  I called the museum when they opened and got booked on a 1:15 English tour.

Well, that sounds like enough time to go to the garden first.  The #32 bus from the Jerusalem bus station drops you very close to the garden.  The garden is at the bottom of a valley (that will be important later), south of the Knesset.

It's rather a linear park.  The herb garden was of particular interest to me.

Oregano

Rose geranium (mine doesn't look like this)

There was a cool wood structure:

And here's an overview shot I got from the elevated walkway,

They were kind enough to have water fountains throughout the park, so I left well-hydrated with a bottle of water.  I wasn't too far from the museum on Har Herzl (yes, that's Mount Herzl) and I needed to walk a bit to catch a bus.  After a bit of a false start, I headed west toward Har Herzl.

The garden is in the green blob in the center by "Nayot"; Har Herzl is next to Yad vShem (to the left). I never did find the right bus stop, so I decided to walk the whole way.  Let me just say that it really was uphill the whole way.  From the bottom of a valley to the top of a mountain.  But I arrived in plenty of time for my tour, so I ate the lunch I brought (stuffed grape leaves, hard boiled egg, and pistachios) in some precious shade at 12:30.  And thanked G-d for my health.

The Herzl Museum is fairly new (2005) and is 95% dramatic presentation on video.  They do have a lot of his stuff (desk, living room).  Of course, it's an amazing story.  Well worth my time.  I think he'd be proud of the Tikvah dancers and Israel Spirit.

Luckily for Deb, the light rail stop is very close to the museum.  One more thing to do: check out an alternate route home from Jerusalem to my apartment.  The bus stop in the Tel Aviv south station for the local bus is creepy at night.  I took the bus to the north Tel Aviv bus station at the Savidor train station.  Then in an absolutely not-creepy setting, picked up the #18 which brought me home.  We have a winner for safe evening returns!