Israel - Pesach 2025. The Eighth Plague. Cramping.
We got back to Jerusalem and were welcomed with open arms — and by that, I mean two children completely engrossed in the television who barely noticed we were back.
My mom was busy cooking because she was hosting Friday night dinner. Tzvi immediately went to work, and I decided to take the girls to Cafit for lunch. Hadar was in the middle of making matzah balls and a cake (thank you, Hadar) so she stayed back.
I walked the girls over to Cafit and we got seated pretty quickly. I had a tuna salad. The girls ate fish and chips. Tzvi met us a little later in the meal and had a salad, and then we all walked back to the apartment together. We made a brief stop at the wine store by the apartment, where Tzvi picked up two more bottles of wine, bringing our total number of bottles to bring home up to five.
I had originally wanted to take the girls to the First Station to ride the rides, although I’m not sure they’re actually still there. However, on the walk back, I suddenly started getting horrible, horrible cramps. I barely made it back to the apartment before a lovely bout of food poisoning hit — that was fun. Let’s just say I was in the bathroom for so long that the girls slid a card under the door that said “we miss you mommy” (this is not a joke).
After that I still had to make matzah arrayes, which took forever. It was a combination of a very involved recipe and not really knowing what pans to use, because we had never actually cooked in that apartment. But we got it done. I also had to make veggie fritters because one of our dinner guests was vegetarian. Then it was time to get ready for Shabbat.
For dinner, my parents' good friends, Abby and Mordy (who we visited last week), came over. They even brought presents for the kids, which was really sweet. Overall, we had a very nice meal — they stayed until after midnight because we always just have such a great time with them, even the girls had fun hanging out. Tzvi learned a new party trick from Mordy — he can now tell you what day of the week you were born on, on the spot. (If anyone is interested, feel free to message... or you could just check a calendar.)
Shabbat morning, we got up and my mom was already dressed and leaving for shul. We had to hustle, because shul ends pretty early here, and we made it out of the apartment around 10:15 or 10:20.
We walked to Nitzanim, their shul. My mom gave us directions, but we still got a little bit lost. [Tzvi: a lot lost.] Eventually we found it, just in time for musaf. It was really hot, and for some reason, there was no air conditioning inside. There’s no kiddush there usually, so after davening everyone pretty much just leaves — though we stood around for a bit, said hello to some people. We saw Annie and Jeremy Watman, which was very nice! The kids complained (understandably) that it was hot and they wanted to go home.
We walked back to the apartment, eventually had lunch, and just hung out the rest of the day. I even got to take a nap, which was very nice. Later in the afternoon, we took a walk and ended up hanging out at a playground for a bit. By the time we got back, Shabbat was almost over.
Shabbat ended and so did the holiday. We decided to order pizza but we can never move quick enough. I think part of the issue was that we just couldn’t believe that everything was available so we kept waffling over what to order. The app was allowing us to order pizza and salads and tuna and fries, and we just couldn’t fathom that all of this could be available forty minutes after Pesach had ended. Hadar kept saying if it’s available in the app that means they have it. We couldn’t believe it so we made her call, which was embarrassing for her. By the time we actually put the order in, the app said the restaurant had received too many orders and was no longer accepting orders.
Anyway, I ended up walking over to American Pie Pizza, which was just up the block, and picked up a couple of pies. It was pretty good — especially considering we hadn’t had pizza in over a week. Tzvi ate way too much pizza – like five slices – and then had cramps. But we all still enjoyed it.
Then we went to bed. Good holiday.
Tomorrow we get bread!