Well, it's fun to share the good, but the bad and the ugly are important too. I'm constantly reminding the girls that one of the best teachers is failure and failure happens with some risk taking.
Josh is gone for two weeks, which drastically reduces the Hebrew skills in 37 Bar Ilan St. While I'm sure Boston is enjoying his presence, we are going to have some painful growth in his absence unless we want to hold ourselves prisoners in the apartment with no food.
So, I give you Fails, pt 1 of who knows how many.
(1) after Josh leaves Saturday morning, we attempt to go to shul. We like those people and we like the oneg (whiskey for me, a wide variety of goodies for the girls). We know the congregation is meeting in a different place because it's a bar mitzvah and the normal place is too small. Three grumpy girls and one gung-ho Jan show up at 2 Opsterland and the door is locked. But, we see a lot of people going in the door around the corner and the outside is set up for a nice nice oneg for lots of people... feels like a bar mitzvah. So, in we go.
Oops. We realized it was a modern Orthodox congregation right before walking into the front of the men's side. We made a few different turns in hopes of finding our own congregation and instead found the women's side. At this point, I'm curious enough to stay, but my hair is not covered, I'm in a sleeveless dress, and I feel pretty darn uncomfortable. So, home we went. I now know that we found a very nice (and I agree--they were SO very nice) orthodox congregation in the building across the street from where we wanted to be. And we were there at the wrong time. Oh well. Live and learn.
(2) Sunday, Helen has no school but the twins do. We try to do something new on Sundays with H, and since Helen and I love hummus, we went to a much lauded hummus bar near us. We had no clue what we were doing, but they spoke English. Do you want eggplant on it? (no) Do you want chickpeas? (why not) Eggs? (no) lemon juice? (sure) Zatar? (sure). We get a few pitas and sit down to sample. It did not taste good to us. At all. I have no idea what we did wrong, still... Oh well. That was disappointing. Sure does look yummy, right?
(3) Monday, I leave the apartment to work in a different space so that they can come into the apartment with the owner and fix the fridge. After working for four hours, I learn that we were given misinformation about the day. Not only is the fridge still broken, but I forgot to take out the store-bought hummus I had put in the freezer for a few minutes to try and keep it cold enough not to spoil. Frozen solid when I got home, and spoiled upon defrosting. Bummer, dude.
(4) Tuesday was election day. No schools are in session, so we head to the beach via bus. The first bus is a Tel Aviv bus that we're not taking all the way to Tel Aviv. Turns out I was supposed to tell the bus driver that so that he didn't charge us the Tel Aviv price (I didn't know there was a Tel Aviv price). He lectured me when we came to the front of the bus after the back doors didn't open at our stop. We missed our stop. Coming home was worse. Getting off the first bus, the driver didn't know we weren't all off the bus, closed the doors on me, and started driving. The doors didn't hurt, but getting myself extricated from them was scary and scrape-y. Scared the crap out of the bus driver, too. And a few passengers. And a few little Levys. And me. The worst part is that I bruised muscles in my right buttock [insert 9-yr-old giggles here]. The scrape cleaned up nicely.
(5) Wednesday (today) they came to fix the fridge. 30 minutes before arriving, I learn that the person we're renting from can't be here. Good thing I decided not to clear out. It was a simple part to replace, and they guy spoke English pretty well, but since equipment in the mechanical innards had frozen, we have to leave it unplugged for 24 hours. There goes more food. So frustrating.
And, some silver linings:
(1) (shul debacle) I'm genuinely curious about the orthodox congregation. Evidently they sing more than our shul does. A new hat for graduation wouldn't be a terrible souvenir for me to bring home... (oberlin profs often wear a hat instead of a cap with their regalia).
(2) can't find a silver lining yet. The best explanation offered to me so far is that homemade hummus tastes different than store bought. But, Josh makes that wonderful hummus recipe from the Zahav cookbook and it goes down just fine, so I'm not satisfied yet with the explanation.
(3) I navigated the sign-in process at the University just fine with my limited Hebrew. Yay me. My friend Daryl put it in nice perspective with a Facebook comment that left the day in a rosier light for me: "I think it's those little victories, like managing a sign-in process in a language I'm not great at, that make me enjoy living & traveling internationally so much: you constantly have that little rush of accomplishment and increased competency while just doing everyday things."
Also, I was hungry and grumpy when I got home but didn't take care of feeding myself cause I was so angry at the fridge (yes, I know that makes no sense). When Helen got home and I knew she couldn't have her normal snack of hummus and pita, I gave her money to go get falafel. I expected her to balk, but she took it, went and got falafel by herself, and brought me back on loaded up with everything on it. Yum. Ruined my dinner but saved the afternoon/evening.
(4) We had a great day at the beach. And we need to figure out which bus companies have back doors that open for riders, which don't, and how to get the little girls out a little faster when they do. A few more rides and we should have it down.
(5) We tried the Israeli equivalent of crazy eggs. We have crazy eggs when Josh travels, which means making scrambled eggs with whatever we can find in the fridge that seems reasonable. Tonight we had potatoes, eggs, and deli-turkey stuffed into pitas. It was surprisingly good and we'll reprise it when Helen gets home from her three-day school trip. But not for Josh. He hates eggs, in case you hadn't heard.
You crack me up. Love you!
ReplyDelete-your sis
finally read one
ReplyDeletewe had a similar experience in 1968 staying in jerusalem
loved this will send to paul and emily