Israel. Pesach 2022. Day 12. What Do You Mean You Have Floaties?
We got up and went to breakfast. Is there any other way to start the day?
Same nice chametz breakfast, except I was kind of in a rush because I had made plans to meet with friends who I haven’t seen since middle school. Before I get to that I should mention that my mother took her daily Covid test, and surprise surprise, she finally tested positive! Of course, notwithstanding that she’s spent the last four days telling everyone that she feels fine and there’s nothing wrong with her, she’s now claiming that she’s on Day 4 because she’s felt sick since Thursday. Hey, whatever works.
[Tzvi: Today at breakfast they had this bread cup thing with a soft egg inside. It was pretty delicious. They also had all of the other great breads. So many breads. So little stomach space.]
Anyway, I was supposed to meet Lisa Shapiro and Michelle Zomberg, who are now Tzipora Leah and Mindel, except Mindel got sick, so I ended up just meeting Tzipora Leah. I took a cab to somewhere in Ramat Eshkol where there were some cafes and a grocery store and a bank. We were going to sit down at a café, but I told her I was happy to just go with her to run errands since I didn’t need another coffee and she was out with her 3 week old and probably had things she needed to get done. So she took me to the bank and to the grocery store. She just had her 7th kid (yes, she’s my age). It was so funny talking to her because she’s still the same as she was in middle school, but also totally different. It was so interesting to hear about her life and what it’s like here. She told me a little bit about how they live and her husband’s life in kolel. I held her 3 week old, which gave me more anxiety than baby fever, so that’s good. It was just so nice to see her and it really felt like so much time had passed but no time has passed. We only communicate by email because she has a kosher phone so she can’t text or whatsapp. I was like, ‘how do you talk to people? I spend my whole day texting.’ She said she calls people and speaks to them. What a novel concept. It was sad I couldn’t see Mindel, but she has Whatsapp so we’ve been talking a bit. There is a photo of me and Tzipora Leah, but I don’t have it because she took it on her digital camera and hasn’t been able to send it yet. I do have a picture with her baby though.
After that I went back to the hotel, where I realized I had lost 300 shekel (about $100). So that was great. Basically, my taxi app wasn’t working when I left the hotel, so I asked Tzvi to give me cash in case I needed it. For some reason he gave me all of the cash he had, which I proceeded to put in my phone case and then lose in the taxi. Robyn spent a half hour trying to get in touch with the taxi driver, but he said he didn’t have the money. I only made it back because I paid for something at the grocery store with my credit card for Tzipora Leah and she gave me cash. Oy.
When I got back, I found everyone at the pool.
[Tzvi: We stayed at breakfast until about 10:15, then went to the room to change and headed to the pool. We had no problem getting day beds since it seems everyone has left the hotel now that chag is over. There was another family in the pool with little kids who were wearing floaties. As soon as they saw Madeleine they came over to me and said ‘you know they have floaties in the closet.’ Excuse me? You mean all this time when the life guard kept telling me Madeleine couldn’t swim without floaties and I told him that we didn’t have floaties, they actually had extra floaties that we could’ve been using? Amazing. Anyway, I asked the lifeguard and he gave me a pair of floaties, which were actually great because they’re fabric (instead of just plastic), so they’re really easy to get on and off. Madeleine absolutely loved swimming with the floaties and kept saying “No hold me! No hold me!” She had the best time and stayed in the pool for over an hour. By the end I had to pee really badly, but she didn’t want to get out.]
It was already past lunch time and we needed to feed the kids so I ordered schnitzel and fries from the rooftop restaurant, but it took forever. Grant was also there having his last meal before getting on the 5pm flight home. Once the food did come Hallie decided she didn’t want any but Madeleine ate the whole thing; she was probably so hungry from swimming so much.
Bye Grant.
Both girls were beat so we decided Hallie could stay home with Robyn and watch her tablet and we would take Madeleine on a walk so she could sleep in the stroller. We took a really long walk all the way up to Mamilla, where we met our friends Aliza and Yehuda Beilin who actually live in Brooklyn but have been staying in Tel Aviv and came to Jerusalem for the day. We walked through Mamilla with them for a few minutes, then we walked up to Ben Yehuda Street so we could get pastries and coffees at Ne’eman, which is really the best slushy iced coffee but has been closed all week. Tzvi also got a bag full of borekas which he ate all of and enjoyed, and we got some chocolate pastries that were delicious. I hadn’t really eaten lunch so I got a tuna sandwich at Aroma, but it took forever to get. Maybe now that chag is over and most tourists are gone the restaurant workers have relaxed and everything has slowed down.
We walked all the way back to the hotel, which took about 20 minutes. When we got back, Robyn and Hallie met us across the street at the Tachana. Now that the chag was over the station was pretty empty. We rode all of the rides – the little train that goes from one end of the station to the other, the carousel and the Ferris wheel. The girls had fun. Hallie also got a slushy that was blue and pink. Like I think that was the flavor – blue and pink.
When we got back to the room we found they had left us a platter of little desserts. That was nice for our last night.
We showered and decided that it was too much to do another sit down dinner at a restaurant, so we decided to go to the Malcha Mall. I feel like we used to go there on every Israel trip but then we just stopped at some point. I had forgotten that it’s actually not so close to the center of Jerusalem and took almost a half hour to get to. It was really nice though. I had my one and only schwafel (shawarma + felafel in a laffa) of the trip, Tzvi had a sabich sandwich (fried eggplant in a pita) and the kids had pizza. The girls also had fun riding the little carousel in the food court. It had three seats, so we paid for it and then another girl randomly jumped on the empty seat. It was fine though because then another kid came and paid and Hallie and Madeleine got a free ride.
We walked around for a bit and did some shopping. We were on a mission to find my dad a new hat because he had left his Islanders hat in the hotel room. Well, we obviously weren’t finding an Islanders hat at the Malcha Mall, but we were surprised at how difficult it was to find any hat. For some reason the only hats we could find were these weird hats that had animals and odd things printed on them, like one that had a unicorn and said LEGEND. We thought about getting him a hat that said SILVER FOX, but decided against it. Eventually we found a Tommy Hilfiger hat that was plain enough, so we bought it, only we didn’t realize that it cost 200 shekel (which is $60). Whoops. Enjoy your hat dad!
(By the way, they seemed to be selling these hats in every store in the mall. If anyone knows the story behind these things and why they sell them everywhere and does anyone actually buy these??? please let me know. Thanks.)
We made a final stop at Ne’eman where we bought more pastries and a giant donut that looked amazing and for some reason was still being sold in a box that said Have a Delicious Hanukkah. Maybe we waited to long to eat it – by the time we did (later that night) it was kind of dried out.
We got a cab back to the hotel and then spent some time packing. I think the end-of-trip anxiety had really started to set in at that point. We were just so anxious about leaving the next day and having to take our Covid tests in the morning (you need a negative test to get on the plane to go home). We had been around my mom for days and just couldn’t see a way that one of us didn’t turn up positive. It was just mentally exhausting.
And that wasn’t even the most stressful part of the night, but I think I’ll leave that for tomorrow…
Israel. Pesach 2022. Day 11. At Long Last, Bread.
We woke up this morning and thankfully everyone seems fine. We got very excited for our first chametz breakfast!
We went down and found a beautiful spread. Pastries, breads, babkas, pizzas. I wonder how they did it so quickly. They must have been baking all night. Pretty impressive. I forgot to mention that during yuntev Tzvi ran into Haskel Ash, who he went to Valley Torah with. He lives nearby in Arnona and his parents are staying in the hotel. He was back again for breakfast this morning and Tzvi chatted with him a bit.
At 930 I left to get my hair blown out. Then we all got ready for our photoshoot with Eugene, our family photographer in Israel. We booked this photoshoot when we were here in 2019, but it rained on the day of the shoot and we couldn’t reschedule, so Eugene has been holding our deposit for 3 years.
We left the hotel and took a cab to Gan Havradim (the Rose Garden near the Kneset) and met Eugene there. On the way our cab driver pointed to a bearded man standing on a street corner and said, ‘that’s Jonathan Pollard.’ We said, ‘how do you know?’ He said, ‘Because… it’s Jonathan Pollard.’ As we drove by him the driver rolled down his window and yelled “Yonatan!” and he turned and looked at us. Definitely Jonathan Pollard.
The photoshoot was about an hour and a half. Eugene was so great with the girls. He’s also a magician (he was both the photographer and magician at my brothers’ bar mitzvah), so he made balloons and did magic for the girls. At first Madeleine didn’t want to take photos – we had forgotten that it was actually impossible to get her to take a picture with a photographer on the cruise in January – but once he started with the balloon animals she warmed up and did great. Cant wait to see the photos in five to six weeks.
Is it just me or does she look like she’s ready for her Bat Mitzvah???
And when did this one grow up???
When we finished we walked five minutes to Cinema City, where there is Waffle Factory. Waffle Factory used to be on Emek Refaim, but that closed a while ago and I guess moved to Cinema City. Madeleine fell asleep in the stroller, so she slept through lunch which made it very peaceful. I had a tuna salad, Tzvi had some warm mushroom salad, Robyn had mac and cheese, and Hallie had pizza. For dessert (the real reason to go to Waffle Factory) we got two big waffles. Hallie got vanilla cream and lotus spread, m & ms, a kinder egg and Oreos. Tzvi got vanilla cream, chocolate ganache, lotus cookies, Oreos and apples. You might think Oreos and apples don’t go together, but it was delicious.
After lunch we walked around Cinema City for a few minutes. It’s basically a huge round building with a movie theater and a handful of stores and restaurants, but it’s all themed to movies with statues and posters all over, which was cool.
From there we got a cab back to the hotel where we relaxed a bit before deciding to take a walk. Hallie was so tired that she would only go if she was in the stroller, so Madeleine ended up in the carrier on Tzvi’s back. First we walked by Sushi Rachavia and saw Grant eating lunch (just a photo, no actual “hello”).
We walked all the way down Emek Refaim where we got iced coffee at Aroma. They messed up at first and gave us iced chocolate, which actually kind of tasted like a Serendipity frozen hot chocolate. We also made our obligatory stop at the bookstore and got some Hebrew books as well as Hebrew bananagrams, which Madeleine picked out. I think she likes to play with the tiles and recognized the bag. We then walked back, past the hotel and over to the First Station, where we went back to Gaya for the third time so Tzvi could buy some more metal puzzle toys. This time Tzvi bought a level 5 and a level 6, as well as a heart puzzle that’s a level 1 that Hallie really wanted. So we’re coming home with a lot of metal. Madeleine also had fun playing with lots of little metal balls. Thankfully she didn’t break anything.
When we got back to the hotel I realized that I had lost my bracelet that my mother had bought me on a previous trip in Israel, so I walked back and retraced my steps. Thankfully I found it right outside the hotel. When I got back I found Madeleine having fun with the bananagrams – she just liked dumping them on the floor – and it was decided that Robyn would be taking the girls for dinner to the pizza and pasta place at the Tachana while Tzvi and I went out to dinner. I also found that Tzvi and Hallie had opened the level 1 metal heart puzzle, and Tzvi was completely stumped by it.
It took a while, but we finally got the girls out with Robyn. We got dressed and ready for dinner peacefully, and then headed out to Jacko’s Street, a restaurant near Machane Yehuda. We’ve eaten there before, but it’s been a few years. We had a very nice meal. We started with cocktails, which were ok, and then an asado bruschetta, which was pulled beef on pieces of toast, except the toast got very soggy. We also got this dumpling thing, which ended up being more like a wonton soup, and was just okay. We also got a cabbage appetizer of smoked roasted cabbage with some kind of sauce. That was delicious. For mains we shared a mushroom asado risotto (more pulled beef), and a Moroccan salmon that came with an amazing piece of bread. For dessert we ordered a chocolate mousse thing with sea salt and a sesame twill. Then they brought us a lemon mouse bar covered in white chocolate on the house. That was interesting. It was a really nice meal. The place was so lively and fun, and by the end we felt ill from eating too much.
Then we took a cab home to the hotel. Good day.
Israel. Pesach 2022. Days 9 and 10. Watch for Vomiting and Loss of Consciousness.
Another day, another breakfast.
Our numbers are dwindling at these meals. We have Robyn back, but we’ve lost Avery, Gabs and my dad. My mom met us and we sat outside.
My mother took another Covid test and is still negative and felt fine. We had to do take out for my dad after we were done eating, except they didn’t have take out boxes so we had to take real plates. We also stuffed whatever we couldn’t into paper coffee cups.
We took a walk to Gan Hapaamon (the park across from the hotel). There was a playground and the girls played a bit. Madeleine was chasing around this Asian boy who was 6 years old and spoke English, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese and a little bit of Korean. So an underachiever. Hallie hit her head on the monkey bars (the first of many injuries to come). Madeleine fell inside a tube slide and hurt her lip, so that will look great in the photos were taking on Sunday. After that we walked up to the King David and said hi to Jeremy Dery who is the guest relations manager there; he and I did a David Project thing in Boston when I was in college and I haven’t seen him since, but he actually helped out my parents last month when they were staying at the King David. Very nice to see him.
We walked back to the hotel. Hallie made it most of the way but needed to be carried by the end. Then we had lunch. This lunch was good because it was a little different, kind of more like a yuntev bbq. There were burgers and steaks. I think we’re getting full.
After lunch Tzvi and I had a massage at the hotel spa. We had booked the same time, but we had to be in separate rooms because they’re not doing couples massages since Covid. We had 75-minute massages and they were pretty good. I think both masseuses were Russian women. Tzvi’s was bald. We also hung out a bit in the hammam and sauna which was nice. At the entrance to the area there is a lifeguard behind the desk, I guess he monitors the indoor pool, gym, and sauna area. Anyway, I heard him playing something from his phone and it sounded so familiar. I went to ask him what movie he was watching and he said “The Notebook.” So yes, this 20 year old Arab guy was watching The Notebook. Then we headed back to the girls and found them in the bath. They were still doing great so we went up to the roof for a half hour and sat at the pool reading. Did I mention how happy we are to have Robyn back?
We all dressed for Shabbos and Tzvi took Hallie to the lobby, where we hung out until dinner. Hallie and Tzvi have been pretty entertained by the metal puzzle toys Tzvi got at Gaya. Hallie can’t do them but she likes watching Tzvi do them. Surprisingly Tzvi is actually very good at them and was able to figure out the level 5 very quickly. Cue cockiness.
Dinner was pretty much the same. Nothing special. The food is starting to get old. Everything is still tasting good, but it seems like things are starting to repeat. I mean, how many lamb carving buffets and foie gras stations can you have? At one point the table next to us, which I think was Americans, started singing zmiros very loudly. Then the table on our other side, which were French, started singing Kol Haolam Kulo. The maître d, who is an Arab man, started singing along and cheering them on. That was nice.
If I haven’t said it before, it's a very interesting mix here of Israeli French and Americans. Definitely more Israelis than any other hotel we’ve stayed at here. Probably because Isrotel is an Israeli chain with hotels all over the country, so Israelis are familiar with it.
I think we finally got the kids to bed around 11pm. Seriously, why can’t we do this?
Shabbos morning we got up and went to breakfast. Then we went to the pool and got two day-beds, which was very nice. We hung out at the pool all the way until lunch. They had the really good cauliflower again that we hadn’t seen since first day of yuntev, but who was even hungry at this point? There was some veal that was really dry, probably because it had been served five times already. Madeleine fell asleep at lunch and I managed to transfer her into the crib. Then Tzvi took Hallie up to the pool for forty five minutes while I read in the room.
[Tzvi: Hallie wanted to get one of the ice pops that they have at the pool restaurant, but all they had left was lychee, which I told her she wouldn’t like but she had to have it, and of course she didn’t like it. So we got lemonades instead, which she drank half of and then put her popsicle in it. Then we sat inside at the pool restaurant playing her Jewish foods matching game.].
Tzvi came back and we swapped; Hallie stayed with me and Tzvi went up to the pool. He said he was going for a half hour, but I think it was like an hour, because while he apparently has a secret skill for metal puzzle games, telling time is beyond his abilities.
We took a walk around 5ish and went to a playground near my parents apartment. The kids ended up taking off their shoes which was disgusting, but helped them fit in. We just sat watching them having fun, running around with the barefoot Israeli children… surrounded by flies. Then we moved down to the swings and that’s when things took a turn. The swings weren’t like rubber American swings that bend into your butt – they were flat hard plastic swings that Hallie wasn’t really familiar with, and of course Tzvi decided to push Hallie too high and Hallie, not realizing she needed to hold on tighter than usual, flew right off. While he may be a level 5 at metal puzzles, Tzvi is maybe a level 2 at child safety. We’re pretty sure that Hallie landed on her butt and then fell back and bumped her head (rather than landing and hitting her head first), so that was good. She cried a bit. It seemed like a pretty bad injury at the time, but she was reactive and responsive. I think she was just scared and upset more than anything.
Hallie got pushed home in the stroller and Tzvi carried Madeleine on his shoulders until she wanted to walk, but she was just going too slow so Tzvi made her go back on his shoulders until he realized that she had made a doodie and it was literally coming out the side of her pants. It ended up on his arm and was pretty foul smelling.
I should mention that we made a stop at the free book stand again and picked up a novel for my father because he had finished his book earlier in the day. He’s feeling great and having a wonderful time on in his own in his quarantine. He’s done a ton of reading and is enjoying the food deliveries my mother has been making after every one of our meals.
The kids didn’t really eat dinner – it was basically just a lot of snacks. Shabbos ended and Tzvi and I wanted to go out and get food, but the kids just wouldn’t go to sleep. Madeleine kept crying any time she saw me in the hallways and kept saying “don’t go, don’t go.” At one point we tried to leave and Tzvi actually made it out, but Madeleine saw me and I got stuck. Tzvi ended up waiting in the lobby while I was stuck in the room.
Eventually I made it out and we walked to the First Station to see if there was any food, but there really wasn’t. There was one place that was open, but we didn’t want to eat there, so we just took a picture of Grant eating there and left (though we can’t find the photo now).
We walked down Emek Refaim but it didn’t seem that much was open. We made it all the way to the end where the Waffle Bar used to be – the one we went to after Pesach ended in 2017 – but it’s a real estate office now. So we walked back and got a table at Cafit, which was the only thing open. It was so hot in the restaurant but I saw a bailey’s hot chocolate on the menu and couldn’t resist. It was really good. Tzvi needed a cold drink but their coffee machine wasn’t working yet, so he ended up with fresh squeezed orange juice, which was actually very good. We shared sweet potato pancakes, which were ok. Pasta was the only real chametz they had (it was too soon to have any bread), so I had sweet potato ravioli, which was pretty good, and Tzvi had pappardelle with a tomato cream sauce.
At the table next to us there was an older American couple who sat down after us and ordered, and then never got their food. At one point they told a waiter that if they didn’t get their food in ten minutes they were leaving. Ten minutes later they got up to leave, but then the woman couldn’t find her purse and started freaking out. She was yelling “this is a disgusting place!” It turned out the purse had been accidentally carried off to the kitchen (who knows what was happening there), but these people were just so kvetchy. They kept complaining about how long it was taking to get food. It was literally the only restaurant on the entire street that was open and it was an hour after pesach had ended – like maybe lower your expectations a little bit. Americans.
We were having a very nice time, enjoying our chametz and watching the show of the old people, and then about halfway through the meal Robyn texted us that Hallie had woken up and had a headache. We thought great, now she has a brain bleed. My mom went to check her out and said she seemed ok but was a little nauseous, except I don’t think Hallie even knows what nauseous means – my mother had asked her if she was nauseous and she said yes, so who knows. Anyway, that made me put a call into he pediatrician.
Thankfully by the time we got back Hallie was back to sleep. I spoke to the doctor and she said if anything Hallie probably had a concussion, but watch out for vomiting and inability to wake.
We visited my mother when we got back and brought her pasta from Cafit. She tested again and was still negative. She said she was feeling great, no symptoms. We also visited my father from the balcony and waved down.
Let’s hope we all make it through the night.
Israel. Pesach 2022. Day 8. How Are You Folks?
Today we got up and headed to breakfast, maybe after 9.
Breakfast was the same except without Avery and Gabs, which was sad. Today was the day my parents are taking the kids to the zoo! So we got the kids ready to go and shipped them off with my parents. We didn’t have that much time but we decided to use it wisely. I went to the gym and Tzvi went straight to the pool. They have these daybeds and then a bunch of uncomfortable non-lounge chairs (sort of like an Adirondack chair).
Anyway, we got a daybed with a view of the Old City walls which was pretty nice. Eventually I went to meet him and we sat there for a little while. Around 12 I went down to the lobby to the yuntev meal reservation desk, because my mother told me (three times) that it opened at noon and I needed to be there early to make sure we got a reservation. Well, I went right at noon and they told me that we were all set and there was no need to have come to the desk. [Tzvi: For the record, I told her that she didn’t need to go to that desk, but no one listens to me.]
In the meantime, Grant came and got the daybed next to us and we talked for a while. It was really warm and sunny and we just sat there for a while reading. As we were sitting there Tzvi got a text message from our tour guide from Monday:
“How are you folks? Hope your travels are going well.”
Tzvi’s first inclination was to ignore it, because he wasn’t looking to start a long lasting friendship with this guy. But it was odd that he was just randomly texting us. It took another minute before he sent the next message:
“You should know that I tested positive for covid yesterday afternoon. A bit of a cough and some congestion.”
Wonderful. We spent the rest of the day worrying about what we would do and how all of us were going to fit into my parents’ apartment when we test positive on Tuesday and can’t get on a plane to go home.
Anyway, the kids came back a little after 1pm and hadn’t eaten lunch, so we got them some schnitzel at the restaurant. Then they changed and went swimming. There is a kiddie pool, which is cute and would be great for Madeleine, but it’s not heated and the water is freezing, so she couldn’t go in there. Instead she went in the main pool. The main pool has this really wide shallow ledge that goes the whole length of the pool and is mainly used for women taking Instagram photos of themselves. Madeleine went up on the ledge and started walking on the ledge, but then the lifeguard told us that she wasn’t allowed to walk there. So Tzvi took her to the shallow end and she was going up and down the stairs, but then the lifeguard came over again and said he was nervous because she was jumping on the stairs and he was afraid she would drown. Basically, he didn’t want her in the pool without floaties, and of course we don’t have floaties, so that was that. I told him it was ridiculous and if they didn’t want kids in the big pool they need to heat up the kiddie pool.
Tzvi stayed at the pool a little while longer with Hallie and I took Madeleine for a walk to nap in the stroller. [Tzvi: We swam a bit and then Hallie was done in the pool so she sat huddled underneath a towel watching her tablet.]
I walked for a while, with a goal of finding a slushy iced coffee and Covid tests (I told Robyn about the Covid exposure and she immediately wanted to test). The tests were easy to find, but it was pretty late in the day and things tend to close early on Erev Chag in Jerusalem, so it was tough to find anywhere open and still selling coffee, but eventually I found coffee at Aldo (the ice cream shop) and it was actually quite good. I also went to the market and bought some kitniyot food (humus and some chips) because Pesach would be over Friday night and then we could eat some hardcore kitniyot. Then I walked back to the hotel and gave Tzvi his ice coffee.
Tzvi went back to the pool while I stayed in front of the hotel so the girls could run around and play. Eventually Robyn came back (she had taken the bus from her kibbutz). We’re grateful that she actually returned to us.
Back in the room the kids played with their matzoh pizza slime that we had brought, and we definitely ruined one of the hotel towels.
Eventually Tzvi came back from the pool and we all got ready for yuntev. I should add that Tzvi got extremely burnt at the pool, to the surprise of no one. Tzvi is very much a hypochondriac, and if he finds one strange ache or pain he’s telling everyone he’s worried that he has MS or some rare cancer, but when it comes to the one disease he can actually prevent (skin cancer), he’d rather lay in the sun for hours.
Anyway, yuntev started and we went to the lobby to wait for my father to finish shul. Then we went for dinner in the dining room and had another nice buffet. As usual Tzvi directed everyone through the courses. I’ve gone through the food enough times that I don’t need to do it again.
The whole dinner my dad was looking kind of upset and annoyed. Finally he told us that he wasn’t feeling great and he’s just too old to have a day like this where he has to take the grandkids and walk all over a zoo in the heat. We told him if he wasn’t feeling well he should go take a Covid test, but he didn’t want to take a covid test. So he went back to his room and took a Covid test, and of course, it was positive. Not only was it positive, “it was an immediate positive!” (he later said with glee). Then it came out that he actually hadn’t been feeling great since the day before but just didn’t want to test and need to quarantine, so basically he exposed all of us.
My mom was freaking out at that point and started making phone calls to her travel health insurance and to my father’s doctor and I don’t even know who else. She wanted to try to get him a PCR that night, but I said it didn’t matter because they aren’t leaving for two more weeks and it’s not like there’s actually anything wrong with him.
So around midnight my mother went to the lobby and told the front desk that her husband had broken his sleep apnea machine and she couldn’t sleep through his snoring (which actually was true – he had broken the tubes the previous day). So at midnight my father packed his stuff and moved downstairs to room 203 (directly below my mother’s room 303). When he got there apparently there was a bottle of wine and a cake. I guess they were waiting for him.
I think we finally got to sleep around midnight. How can a single day be so relaxing and stressful at the same time?
Israel. Pesach 2022. Day 7. Tuna Bolognese.
There are two questions I hope you ask yourself after reading today’s post.
What is tuna Bolognese?
Why would you order it?
But first…The night was fine but at 6:15 Hallie woke up and asked me to stay with her. Once I laid down Madeleine started stirring and I didn’t want to move. Hallie kept asking me if people were at breakfast. Then we both fell asleep and the next thing we knew it was 9:15.
Today was our first day where we really had nothing planned so we didn’t need to rush! We took our sweet time and headed to breakfast to meet the rest of the family. Tzvi was upset with the table today for breakfast because it was in the claustrophobic side room and it was hard to get anyone to serve us. Though I will say I actually got coffee today. They also had matzah brei, which surprisingly wasn’t bad.
At the end of breakfast we spoke to Eliad Shapiro a bit , who we know from college. He is married to Leora Kanner who I knew from Write On for Israel. Small world.
After breakfast we went back to our room to get ready. Standing on our bathroom balcony we spotted Grant down below on the balcony at the lobby restaurant. We started yelling his name, then realized he looked like he was in an important meeting. Oops.
We got ready to go and headed out for the day. Except by the time we got out it was almost noon, so it was more like getting ready for the afternoon. My dad went to his apartment to read cases, so we took a cab with my mother to Ben Yehuda and did some shopping. Tzvi went into Ann saying that he wasn’t spending a lot of money and only needed one kippah. Then he came out with 5. Then the girls found a toy store and Hallie wanted to buy everything but she ended up with a Barbie notebook and pen.
Around 1:30 we started looking for lunch and finally sat down and settled at Coffee Bean. We were ready to order when the server told us the kitchen was closed, which was crazy because five minutes earlier when we were standing at the entrance and asked to see a menu they didn’t say ‘sure, here’s a menu but the kitchen is closed/will be closed in five minutes.’ It was just too difficult, so we split up for lunch. Hallie and Tzvi went to Burgers Bar. Once again it was filled with police, but they got a table. Hallie had chicken nuggets and Tzvi had a lamb burger, which he said was delicious. Madeleine and I went to Mr. Green. I got a salad and Madeleine got pasta, and we both got these great reusable bags that would become our pool bags for the rest of the trip. Madeleine spilled my olive oil all over the table, so that was gross. Anyway, we all had decent lunches.
Madeleine napped in the stroller and I got a coffee bean mocha slushy which was delicious. By the way, when we went back to Coffee Bean for coffee it looked like plenty of people were sitting and eating and getting fresh food, so I guess the kitchen was only closed for the ten minutes that we wanted to order?
We walked around and then split up again. Hallie and I took a cab back to the First Station (across from our hotel) and Tzvi walked a sleeping Madeleine back in the stroller.
At the First Station we met Hadas who was also on sheirut leumi when Ofek was here, so she was at our house a lot. It was so nice to see her and Hallie had a great time with her. We spent maybe an hour and a half together. We also went on the carousel and Ferris Wheel there which was fun. Tzvi went to Gaya, the store that sells all of the wood toys and discovered that they also have little metal puzzle toys. They had a deal if you bought three, so Tzvi bought a level 1, a level 3 and a level 5 (out of 7).
When we were done we went back to the hotel and quickly changed for dinner. Dinner tonight was at Palomino. They had a really cute chair for Madeleine that she stayed in a lot more than regular high chairs. The food was… interesting. Hallie got a pizza that she didn’t like so she just ate a plain piece of matzoh and watched her tablet. As we were sitting we saw a salad go by that looked really good so we ordered it. Except we didn’t order the right thing. Instead we ordered some kind of beet and arugula salad that just ended up being a bowl of arugula. For the main, I got a “tuna bolognese” pasta, which was basically pasta with tomato sauce and tuna, though it actually tasted a little like meat and not too fishy. It was fine while eating it was also kind of nauseating. Tzvi got a pasta with a mushroom cream sauce, which he actually liked. We also all shared a bunch of appetizers which were just okay. Strangely the pizza here was basically just regular thin matzoh pizza, rather than the thicker pesach pizza you find everywhere else.
They didn’t have any desserts we wanted, so we all headed back to the hotel and decided to have dessert in the lobby. My parents got a cab fairly quickly but it took us forever and the Gett app wasn’t working. We finally hailed a cab and boy was our driver interesting. Hallie started singing Vehi Sheamda and the cab driver joined in, and Hallie thought it was the funniest thing.
We got to the lobby restaurant and ordered everything on the menu – strawberries and cream (good cream and fresh tasting strawberries), crème brulee (which was way too runny), tiramusi (eh), and chocolate souffle, except the chocolate souffle was actually more like a chocolate soup. It was like they took batter, baked it for five minutes, and served it. I’m not complaining. It was delicious. But strange. They had no decaf coffee and the server started telling me how decaf coffee isn’t KFP and I was just like ‘what are you talking about they serve it downstairs…’
We sent Avery and Gabs off to the airport because we had enogh of them. Kidding! They had to go home tonight so they could go back to school. Womp womp. Then we headed upstairs and did bedtime. Once again the children went to bed after 10pm. Probably didn’t fall asleep until 11. I don’t know why we cant figure this out.
Nice day.
Israel. Pesach 2022. Day 6. Grenade Launchers and Meat Cleavers.
No one woke me up in the middle of the night. It was wonderful.
Tzvi peed at 7:15, which woke me up, but then we fell back asleep until 8:30. Then we were all in a huge rush and no one was ready. Tzvi took the girls to breakfast and I eventually made it downstairs, maybe around 9:30, which was when we were supposed to leave the hotel. I want to point out that while planning this trip all I heard was that “Tuesday is Old City day.” So naturally, I assumed that we would have a leisurely morning, get out of the hotel at a glacial pace, and walk around the Old City. Well, apparently we had a “virtual reality” thing book at the Kotel that no one told me about, so my dream of a relaxed morning was gone. Anyway, I ordered coffee and an omelet. I got the omelet but never got the coffee. At one point I asked someone where it was but by the time she said it was on the way I had to leave.
I went outside and saw that my mom and Tzvi had ordered separate taxis, both to the Kotel. There is extra security around the Old City because of all the rock throwing etc., so it’s difficult to actually get a cab into the Old City. My parents got in one cab with and Avery and Gabs, and we got in another. Well, theirs dropped them off at Jaffa Gate. Ours drove us all the way into the Old City and dropped us at the Dung Gate! At the entrance a solider stopped our driver and asked where he was going and asked if he was coming back. He said yes, and she asked if he would say hello, and he said he would say “boker tov.” Then she let us in. I like her style. She also thought Madeleine was very cute, so that may have helped. We were very lucky because he took us straight to the kotel, whereas my parents had to walk all the way from Jaffa Gate. Thank God, because I never would have made it with Madeleine on my back.
We got to the Kotel and Hallie was excited. We went to the left side of the wall for the VR experience. Basically they take you into this little room with a bunch of chairs that spin around 360 degrees and give you virtual reality glasses. Then you watch a ten-minute movie about the beit hamikdash. I’ve never really done a VR thing like that, but it was pretty well done. It really gives you a good idea of what the temple looked like and what it would’ve been like to be there. Tzvi said it just made him sad that we’d never get to see that in real life, because Jews don’t like to build massive temples anymore, just little shteibels. Hallie watched for like three minutes and then was scared.
When we were done we went to the actual kotel. Madeleine didn’t care to touch it but Hallie enjoyed. Then we headed back. Madeleine was strapped on my back (thanks to the Bernsteins for their carrier) and walked all the way up the steps back to the Rova.
Our first stop was Hadaya for jewelry. Hallie was upset she didn’t get anything but (1) my mom had just bought her a necklace on her trip two weeks ago and (2) Hallie has a Hadaya bracelet somewhere that she lost. She kept trying to explain to us why we should buy her a new bracelet and how she would be responsible this time. Nice try. We were in the store way too long and the kids were going nuts. After Hadaya we went to get Tzvi a new tallit. We probably paid a big premium to buy in the Old City, but at least now he can remember his tallit is from the Old City.
From there we went for lunch. Hallie wanted a burger so we took her to Burgers Bar. Madeleine got chicken nuggets. It took a really long time to get the food. Also the entire store was filled with police. I think they were just regular police but they looked like a SWAT team – they were decked out in full riot gear, massive vests and were all carrying what appeared to be grenade launchers. It was probably the safest place to be in the Old City. Since every table was taken by police, we took the food and sat in the Rova. Tzvi and I got salads from Holy Bagel because we wanted to stay dairy. They were pretty good.
After lunch we went for a stop at the Blue and White gallery in the Cardo to shop for art. We weren’t planning on buying anything but we ended up buying a piece. There’s always something that captures us at that gallery. Today it was a large painting by an artist named Ligtenberg. He’s a Dutch born painter who hid from Nazis, then moved to Australia and later to Israel. He paints mostly Jerusalem landscapes in the style of the old Dutch Renaissance masters. The painting we bought is a scene of first temple Jerusalem. We really loved the colors and the way he played with shadows and lighting. Anyway, we spent a while in the store, during which Madeleine was taking all of the containers of paint off of a shelf and moving them to a spot on the floor. Then she would carry them back to the shelf, and then back to the floor. We were spending enough on the painting that they just let her do her thing.
(we bought the one on to)
From there we split up – Tzvi and I and the girls walked out of the Old City through Mamilla and stopped for iced coffees at Aroma. Madeleine fell asleep on my back and we did some shopping. Hallie bought slippers at Steve Madden. I will say I haven’t been to a Steve Madden in a while, but it seems that all the old shoes styles are back. It’s both comforting and frightening, but hey, if you want a pair of slides…
“Life is happy only without internet and movies”
We walked to the end of mamilla and Hallie started complaining that she wanted a cab and was so tired, which she probably was. We kept walking up the hill and almost made it to the King David before she fell down and was crying on the street. An old America man stopped to give her a band aid, commenting it was band aid brand. Nice man. At that point Madeleine woke up so we just took a cab from there.
Back at the hotel Hallie watched her tablet and Tzvi went to the pool to read. I bathed the kids and we got ready for dinner.
Dinner was at a place called Black Iron, a steak restaurant near the shuk. I think the concept of the restaurant was supposed to be like very meat-focused and most of the steaks are Wagyu. There wasn’t much on the menu, mostly meats. We got chicken for the girls and a platter of grilled veggies, which I think had some kind of meat fat or something in them. We also got good chunky potatoes and a tomato salad that Tzvi liked a lot, and a massive marrow bone filled with marrow and caramelized onions. For mains I had the rump steak and Tzvi had the picanha, both of which are cuts of meat that come from the back of the cow (which is only Kosher in Israel). It’s so hard ordering meat here because we have no idea what anything is. Half of the meats are just called by a number, and the other have names we’re not familiar with. Entrecote. Denver steak. Rump steak. My father tried to order the Denver steak and the waiter told him that it’s very tough and you really need to work at it and chew it a lot. We were waiting for him to say ‘but it’s really tasty and worth ordering,’ but he never did. It kind of sounded like it was just a bad steak and I don’t know why they were serving it. But my father liked it, so I guess that’s why they were serving it. Anyway, we didn’t know at the time that we were ordering back-of-cow (something we probably would’ve been more excited about had we realized it at the time), and our steaks were pretty delicious. Also, all of the dishes came on a cutting board with a small meat cleaver. Cute. Also, gimmicky. I couldn’t help but notice that everyone in the restaurant seemed to be an American tourist…
There was nothing to have for dessert so we went back to the hotel. I went upstairs to the rooftop restaurant and they said they had the same desserts at room service. That’s nice. I didn’t know room service has dessert, as its not on the menu. I once again asked about brining kids and they were like “well, we don’t allow kids but we can make a deal.” Whatever that means. Anyway, I went back to the room and we ordered the room service desserts, by which I mean we ordered all of the desserts that they offer – chocolate mousse, a fruit plate, and a lemon custard thing. The mousse was great. The lemon was not. [Tzvi: I kind of liked it.]. Maybe it was more like a flan. Then the kids got ready for bed.
Maybe they went to bed before 10:00. I’m not sure.
After they fell asleep we opened a bottle of the free wine they had given us and I took a bath by the open window while watching the Mets on my computer. Great end to a really nice day. (Oh, and remember when I said the other day that I watched the Mets in the bath? I guess that was actually tonight. The days just blend together…)
Israel. Pesach 2022. Day 5. One Lane Going North.
Last night actually went pretty well.
Each kid only woke up once, so that’s a win! We got up this morning and we were at breakfast by 8:50 where we met my parents. One thing I should mention is that most of the tables in the dining room can accommodate only 4 or 6 people, and they don’t like to put tables together for some reason except for chag/Shabbos meals, so most of our meals have been split across two tables. This morning we finally got the one big table for 10 in the middle of the dining room, only to find out that Avery and Gabs wouldn’t be joining us for breakfast. We soon found out that due to a case of dehydration they wouldn’t be joining us for the day at all. It’s a good thing we ordered the extra large van. Anyway, breakfast was as usual (i.e., Hallie and Madeleine ate/played with a dozen hard boiled eggs) and then we headed out.
Our driver was Ahmed. I will withhold the name of our tour guide due to patient confidentiality. He came recommended by Steve, the manager of my parents’ apartment.
We started our drive up north and our first stop was the Jezreel Valley Winery. The drive was supposed to take maybe 2 hours but it took about 3, and that included a stop for everyone to pee. All of Israel goes up north on Pesach and they don’t believe in highways bigger than two lanes. At least the van was comfortable – I think it was a 15 or 17 seater. Originally we were supposed to be 9 people plus driver and tour guide, so we were too many for a smaller van, but then we lost Robyn and Avery and Gabs, so we had a lot of extra space. The tour guide was pretty knowledgeable and explained things as we went along, but there was just so much traffic and only so much to explain. Also, he kept coughing but said he was just having issues with his allergies.
“You knew it would make me upset if you put the dirty diaper next to me, and if you take a picture of me. So why would you do it? Why would you? Do you want me to be upset?”
[Tzvi: We finally made it to the winery around noon. Robyn was already waiting for us when we got there (her kibbutz is sort of nearby, so she drove to meet us for the day). We weren’t having lunch at the winery, just a wine tasting. Ideally we would’ve gotten there earlier, but we couldn’t get out of the hotel before 9am. At the winery we got a big table outside and were served trays of cheeses and butters and spreads as well as matzah. It was actually all quite delicious and I ate enough matzah and cheese that I would’ve been happy without a real lunch afterward. Anyway, they started bringing around wines to taste. After a couple of bottles, Jacob Ner David, the winemaker/owner of the winery came to join us. (Our tour guide knew him, so he had called him in advance and gotten him to join us for a bit.). It turns out he’s actually from Woodmere and went to HAFTR. He was very nice and talked to us all about his story and the winery and Israeli wines generally. The girls did pretty well and played stickers and colored with Robyn. I had a great time. I think everyone else enjoyed too.]
At about 1:45ish we got back on the bus and drove to lunch at a kibbutz near the Kineret. It took almost 45 minutes to get there, because again, traffic. Lunch was your typical kibbutz style buffet lunch. You walk into this packed cafeteria and it’s a meat buffet with schnitzel and meat and pesach egggrolls and mashed potatoes, salads, soups etc. Typical kibbutz food but actually very good (for one meal).
We ate pretty quickly, then left and headed to Jungle Kef, which was at another kibbutz that was next door to Robyn’s kibbutz. [Tzvi: I don’t quite know how to describe Jungle Kef. It was unbelievably disgusting, but also an amazing experience that you can only have in Israel. It was basically a petting zoo, but there were just animals walking around all over the place and very few people working there and watching you feeding and petting animals. At one point Steph held a snake and the person working the snake room was a boy that may or may not have been bar mitzvah age. I fed some camels and goats and I’m pretty sure if I weren’t paying attention they would’ve eaten my hand and no one would’ve been around to see it. The girls loved it, especially jumping on the very dirty bounce house. Hopefully no one gets any disease. Oh, also the most disgusting thing was the pigs. They STANK.]
Before leaving we made sure to use the bathroom. You know who else was using the bathroom? A massive tortoise. So I walked right out and found somewhere else to pee.
From there we drove another twenty minutes to visit Robyn’s kibbutz, Kibbutz Ma’agan. There was again a lot of traffic, but Robyn led us down this dirt road through the banana fields that cut out a bunch of the traffic. Stupid one lane roads. We walked around the kibbutz and met Robyn’s mom, which was really nice. Nice to see Robyn in her natural habitat. The kibbutz is very nice and located right on the kineret. Robyn’s mom treated us all to snacks and drinks at the kibbutz shop.
“Today is the tomorrow you were worried about yesterday.”
The journey home was long, at least 2 hours. We did make a rest stop at a gas station so Ahmed could get something to eat to break his Ramadan fast. Imagine driving around our family all day and having nothing to eat or drink. Rough. At the gas station we also found KFP Tonys Chocoloney chocolate. How is it not even kosher in America but in Israel it’s Kosher for Pesach!?!?! You have to admit it’s pretty amazing that all of the restaurants in the Five Towns shut down for Pesach, but you can stop at a gas station in the middle of nowhere in Israel and everything is KFP.
We got back and had to decide on food for dinner. It was so late and the girls had already had so much snack we decided to just put them to bed without dinner. So sue us. They didn’t seem to mind and didn’t go to sleep until 10:15ish.
Once they were sleeping, Tzvi and I ordered room service and my mom came up to eat with us. Tzvi got a burger, my mom got ravioli and I got a chicken salad. The salad was supposed to come with egg and red onion. It came with lettuce and cucumber. Don’t ask me why. So I had to pick it all out. We also got some cauliflower thing which was meh. The room service here isn’t great.
All in all it was a nice day and the girls did great. Everything seemed to be positive, but little did we know…
Israel. Pesach 2022. Day 4. Forty-Five Minutes by the Sea.
Last night was rough.
I think I went to sleep around 1245ish. Hallie woke up around 4:30 for “water” and when I put her back in bed, Madeleine was up but went back to sleep and let me leave, but of course I was awake. Then at 6am Madeleine started crying and was so upset she wouldn’t let me in Hallie’s bed alone, so I had to pick her up and lay in Hallie’s bed with Madeleine sleeping on my chest. Obviously I didn’t sleep because it felt like I had an elephant (albeit a cozy one) on me. So then I was just up and we laid there with Madeleine sleeping.
Eventually Hallie got up, and then we all got up by 7:45 and packed up because today we are switching rooms! Very exciting. I hope this room will not be a disappointment. We went to breakfast around 8:45 and got ready for our day in Tel Aviv!
Now, as you can see from the stroller photo, it looked like we were spending a week in Tel Aviv instead of a day, but what can you do.
We got in this big Mercedes van, which is the van that Avner SHOULD have sent when we left the airport, and made our way to Tel Aviv. The problem was we didn’t have a destination. We’ve been planning this trip for a year but all we said was “we’ll go to Tel Aviv on Sunday.”
My mom got a recommendation to go to Hilton Beach, except you can’t just walk in through the Hilton Hotel as a non-guest and use their beach. So, the driver let us off by the Carlton. We started walking around in one direction to look for a place to sit, except every beach said “no swimming” because they were for water sports (but no one was actually doing any water sports), so we walked back in the other direction. We eventually just sat down and saw people going in the water. After a while the lifeguard would yell at them to get out, and the cycle went on and on. Thing was, by the time we actually got settled on the beach, we only had about 45 minutes before we had to be back at the van so we could get to our lunch reservation on time. Tensions were running pretty high by that point. Everyone was kind of annoyed, but Tzvi just kept smiling and saying how nice it was, which was more annoying than if he had been doing his normal complaining.
Madeleine is an expert at applying sunscreen to other people
We stayed on the beach until about 12:30ish and then went back to the parking lot where the driver let us off. Me, Tzvi, the girls, Avery and Gabs sat around waiting for a while but didn’t know where my parents had gone. Eventually my mother called and said they had been waiting for us down the road for ten minutes. She was mad at my father for not telling us to walk to the van, so she made him sit alone in the back.
It took about a half hour to drive across the city to a café called Lorenz and Minz, which was maybe the only restaurant in the entire city of Tel Aviv that was serving a kitniyot free lunch. The restaurant was basically a nice outdoor garden with a buffet inside. Thankfully it wasn’t terribly hot. The buffet had great cauliflower and decent tuna. There was also pizza and gnocchi and some salads. The food was actually all pretty good.
For some reason Gabriella didn’t like this photo, but I liked it, so I’ve edited her out.
We stayed for a while and then got back on the bus and planned to go to the port. The driver said it would take 15-20 minutes. Now, the problem was this driver wasn’t using Waze. Also, this man has lived in Israel for 30 years so he should know that this main road in Tel Aviv is always packed. Anyway, the drive ended up taking about 45 minutes. All this time I had been texting Ofek, our first au pair, because we wanted to see her. She watches kids during the day so she ended up brining the three kids to meet us at the port. Hallie had no idea what we were planning and when she saw Ofek she was so excited and gave her the biggest hug. It was such a nice reunion for the both of them. I stayed with Hallie and Ofek (and the three kids she was watching) at this indoor arcade, while everyone else walked around the port. The arcade had some cute rides and Hallie had a really nice time. She kept saying she just wanted to stay with Ofek but we all had to go home eventually.
[Tzvi: I walked from one end of the port to the other with Madeleine and Lisa and Sheldon. I think Avery and Gabs stayed back because they needed to stay in the shade. We found the carousel and I tried to take Madeleine on but she just cried. Then Lisa took her on and she still cried but eventually was okay. Then we went looking for ice cream. At the first store we stopped at my mother asked about kitniyot and then had to explain what it was. They told her the gluten free flavors were kitniyot free, but we decided to see what else we could find. We tried another ice cream store, but no one there could figure out what “kitniyot” was. They kept asking us to just speak English. We ended up getting slushy iced coffee from Aroma, which was very refreshing. Then my mother went back to the first ice cream store she had been to and they again said there was no kitniyot in the gluten free flavors, and just not to get the one with the pretzels. Turns out, it wasn’t even kosher for pesach. Oy.]
We got back on the bus and headed back to Jerusalem. I think we observed that for a guy who drives for a living, this driver didn’t seem to enjoy driving. Anyway, the drive back was fine. Tablets were used by both children and when we finally arrived at the hotel all our luggage was moved into our new room! Our new room is in the main building on the 6th floor. It’s a corner room, so, similar to the previous room setup there’s an outer door that closes off the hallway outside our rooms so you can just keep the two room doors open and have a two room suite. The rooms are so much more modern and luxurious feeling than the boutique rooms we started with. Both rooms have tubs and balconies. Our room is actually the corner of the hotel, so we have a balcony overlooking the old city, and then our bathroom has a balcony overlooking the front of the hotel. We also have a big clawfoot tub next to the window, so we’ll be able to bathe and watch people coming and going in the front of the hotel.
We unpacked and at this point it was 6:30 and the girls were going nuts. Thankfully, Tzvi planned with my mom that she would take the girls and we would get a dinner out. They tried to go to the rooftop restaurant, but the hostess said they didn’t allow kids, so they ended up just ordering room service. You would think the 12 times we asked about this rooftop restaurant (while holding children) someone would have told us they don’t allow kids at night.
Tzvi and took showers in our new room. It was nice, but we immediately saw that the shower drain was clogged so we had to call a man to fix that. Then we headed to Mamilla for dinner and ended up at Café Rimon, which was delicious. We shared a cauliflower starter, I had a niçoise salad and Tzvi had a sweet potato salad. They also gave us Pesach bread, which came with salsa and salad dressing. Why? Because it’s Israel. After dinner we got some ice cream and I bought these pink pants that I wonder if I’ll ever wear.
After we got back we opened a bottle of the free wine they had given us and I took a bath by the open window while watching the Mets on my computer. Great end to a really nice day.
I hope I sleep tonight.
