Happy Endings to Miniscule and Epic fails, pt. 2

So, y'all know that living in a foreign country isn't always going to go smoothly, right? Well, we know this too, so please don't worry about us as you read about the mishaps and mayhem that we get ourselves into (and out of). I do appreciate all the messages after the last post of fails but will try to write this post in a more balanced fashion so as to not worry so many people....

Ten days done now without Josh, and we've had a few more mishaps. The most epic one involved laundry, a balcony, and a big truck. Israeli buildings and apartments are secure. Concrete.  Three girls can jump without shaking any pictures. Nice locks. Extra locks from the inside. A special room that serves as a bomb shelter and happens to be where H sleeps. So, H and I are hanging laundry out to dry on this magnificent laundry rack on our balcony (see picture). The door is opened [note the passive tense] without fully clicking the lock into the unlock position, and we close the door behind us because the air conditioning is on. Yup. You guessed it. On the balcony, not clothed in street clothes, no phone, no key, no way of getting in. The only phone number I know by heart is Josh's WhatsApp, and it's 6am where he is. It's about 13:00 and I have visions of G&A needing to be picked up at 16:30 with no one showing up.

There's tons of people out and a very loud argument going on in the alley beside us between an older woman and the driver of a huge truck. They're very emphatic about their unhappiness, but I had no clue what the problem was. I ignore them, muster my courage, and call down to my potential hero סליחה, אתה מדבר אנגלית?״" In other words, "Excuse me, do you speak English?" Luckily, he did. I explain the problem and he asks if the door to the apartment is unlocked, I don't think so, but he runs up the stairs to test it.

Locked. He asks about an open window. Luckily (since we were doing laundry and there's no ventilation), the window to my bathroom is open a bit. So, he gets the angry driver of the big truck to move the truck under the window, turns into Spider Man, and gets himself onto the balcony that holds the air conditioner. He takes out one of the slats (see picture) of the awesome secure metal blinds all the apartments here have, reaches in to unlatch the rest of the blinds, hops through the window somehow, takes off his shoes so as to not track ughy stuff through our apartment, walks through the apartment to the sliding door.and lets us in.

My hero. He's happy to have helped and runs off before I can figure out how to thank him. Turns out he worked with the guy yelling at the older woman and they had to hightail it outta there. I think we would have needed construction equipment to get us into the apartment--windows would have needed to come off. It was not going to be pretty. See, happy ending!

We haven't needed the buses again, but that nice clean scrape looks

pretty ugly now. This picture was from a few days ago and now there's purple hues around it. But it doesn't hurt as much any more, so that's great news!

We always go out for one decent meal while Josh travels. This time, we planned on going to the Bleecker Bakery on the corner of Bar Ilan and Ahuza, a restaurant we walk by multiple times a day and are very curious about. I read the reviews, check the hours, get us all excited and we go out. And it's closed. grrrrrrr.....

We debate between a place called Burger Bar and Papa's Pasta and I check the reviews again. And we ended up at a different pasta restaurant (actually code for Italian restaurant) and everyone ended up very happy. Not only did they have menus in English and a waitress who was fluent, but the food was excellent. I had beautiful Nicoise salad, Helen had fettuccine in a cream sauce with sweet potatoes, Alice had a kid's margherita pizza, and Gabi had pesto pasta with (very salty) cheese. Paying was a tiny adventure because I kept waiting to sign the receipt so I could leave a tip. Turns out you don't leave tips on credit cards. So, then I had to get my big bill broken... But no big deal, and at least I had cash on me. It was about $65 for the four of us which is great for Ra'anana prices. (We proceeded to go to the grocery store on the way home and pay 1/3 of that for grapes, two boxes of granola bars, and deli meat turkey.)

The fridge is working, the girls' school lives continue to evolve with only normal mishaps (homework drama), and we're getting ready to have lots of days off for the holidays that occur once a week for the next four weeks. (3 off for Rosh Hashanah, probably 2 for Yom Kippur, a full week for Sukkot, and 1 for Simchat Torah.) Josh comes home in five days and then we'll get to experience the holidays here in Israel as a family!