Day 9. April 13, 2017. one day of yomtov.
Lets start off with a big Mazal Tov to Avery and Gabriella! #CohenwinstheFeit Da da da da da da….you know the rest.
Well, today was better. We got up around 8, got dressed and headed down to breakfast. We were supposed to be leaving for our tour at 930, but didn’t end up leaving until just before 10. Oh well.
We had the same guide today, Omer, and the same driver, who it turns out was named Salah, not Sarak. Once we set off, Tzvi immediately asked our guide about going to a winery. When my mother booked the tour, she told the company that going to a winery was a priority. Then we got the itinerary and there was no winery, but the email said “don’t worry, there’s lots of wineries around.” In all fairness, visiting a winery was basically the only thing Tzvi wanted to do this whole trip. So the guide said he would work on it.
The itinerary for the day was a morning visit to Beit Guvrin (caves) and an afternoon visit to the Sorek Cave (cave) which it turns out is the stalagmite cave that everyone has already been to. So luckily as we drove, Omer made some calls and told us we could visit a winery in the afternoon instead of the Sorek Cave. Everyone said okay, because we had been to the Sorek Cave, but also because we wanted to shut Tzvi up.
The drive to the first cave was about an hour, but we managed to make it an hour and 10 minutes, which was exactly 10 minutes too long for Hallie, by making a stop at Eden Hills, which consisted of driving on dirt roads up to a closed gate. Eden Hills is where my parents “bought property,” though of course they have no deed or contract or receipt or anything. I think they have a one page sheet somewhere. We’re pretty sure the guy who sold it to them has run off to Mexico by now, or wherever Israelis go to abscond with your money. Anyway, after that stop Hallie really lost it and had to come out of the car seat. It’s going to be tough when we go home to NY where it’s not acceptable to hold children on your lap in cars.
We made it to Beit Guvrin, parked, changed Hallie’s diaper on the ground and tried to keep the giant ants from getting her, and then started our tour. The first thing we saw was an ancient olive press, and learned that in ancient times, olive oil was like modern day crude oil. Next we descended into the caves. There are 3000 caves there, three dozen that you can actually visit, and we saw three. The first cave we saw was a columbarium – basically a giant cave for housing pigeons. Then we saw another columbarium. They were actually kind of cool and pretty deep down. Next we hopped back on the bus and drove to the next cave, which was a burial cave. It was arranged like a large room with a dozen body length openings on each size and a large space at the front. The parents were put in the front and the rest of the family at the sides. Israeli children were running in and out of what used to be the graves. Very nice.
After that it was time to get back on the bus and drive to Beit Shemesh, where thank God we found an Aroma that was kosher for pesach. Once we got in and sat down we realized they had kitniot, but that was fine, we were able to eat around it, except for my father who ordered a sandwich then went to the bathroom and missed the whole “the bread is kitniot corn bread” discussion and ended up having to go back and change his order to a salad. Anyway, the food was good and it was great to finally get an iced coffee (the slushy kind, American style iced coffee is called “café kar” which means cold coffee, which actually makes more sense). At lunch we talked about NY and what we do and how Omer is getting a PhD in Talmud like R’ Avi Miller and how he has family in Philly and San Francisco.
After lunch we drove to Kibutz Tzuba for our winery. Unfortunately, the actual winery was closed for pesach so we didn’t get to tour much, but it was still a nice visit and a nice tasting. At the winery we met Eitan, or Ethan, an older man from the kibbutz who was originally from Westchester. He still sounded like he was from New York except he kept saying “ehhh” like an Israeli. We tried four wines, one white and three red. We all really liked the Chardonnay even though we usually don’t like white wines, and even though my father doesn’t usually like any wines. Then we tried three reds which were all pretty good, except for the Merlot, which was just okay. Eitan sat with us outside the winery at a table.
The weather was getting cooler and it was actually very nice. He told us that he came to Israel by chance, met a woman from Boston on the kibbutz and ended up staying. The winery was actually started because the neighboring Castel winery (which we were supposed to visit but didn’t) asked the kibbutz to start growing grapes for them to use, and then after 10 years they realized they should be using the grapes for their own wine. Eitan said Israel produces 40 million bottles of wine a year, but only 5-10 million are exported, and mostly to the United States. During the second temple period, wine was a big industry in Israel because all of the surrounding countries wanted to buy wine from the Holy Land, then for hundreds of years the industry was dormant, until finally Rothschild came and restarted it. The wine industry in Israel is just starting to bloom, but interestingly, it’s hard for them to compete outside of Israel, because when you go to wine stores the bottles are usually arranged by country, except Israeli wine just gets stuck in a kosher section, so only Jews buy it. All very interesting.
We ended up buying two bottles and my parents bought two bottles, so the whole tasting was free. After the tasting we walked down the hill, over a barrier that said no entrance and into the woods to see an ancient wine press from the second temple period. We weren’t totally sure what we were looking at or how it worked, but basically people would stomp the grapes and the wine would flow into massive holes in the ground so the sediment could settle and the wine could be skimmed off. Interesting.
After the winery we got back in the car and drove the 30 minutes back to the hotel, where we thanked Omer and Salak (Salah? Salad?) and said goodbye. Then we went up to the room and got ready for our 630 dinner at 1868, a restaurant a few minutes away near the Mamilla mall. By 645 we were leaving the hotel. We were quite late, so me and my parents took a cab. Hallie was sleeping in the stroller though, so Tzvi and Austin walked. There was so much traffic that Tzvi and Austin beat us by at least 5 minutes.
When Tzvi got there, at 7 (30 minutes late), they told him they didn’t have a table for us because they had tried to confirm the reservation by calling the hotel 3 times and also, we were 30 minutes late. I think the guy was just venting a little bit at his frustration with us, because pretty quickly they offered to seat us in the bar area, and then said a table was leaving and that they could set a place for us, but we’d need to finish by 9. A two hour meal was more than enough since we had to be at the l’chaim by 930.
They ended up setting a table for us in basically a private room, which was great (I think it’s the room they use to store wine). The restaurant is beautiful. There’s barely an entryway from the street, and you descend down into a courtyard and then what must have been a house at one point with lots of arches and Jerusalem stone. Tzvi and I had been there before (you can also read my January 2014 review of the restaurant) but no one else had.
The meal was fabulous. We started with matzah and a roasted eggplant dip, which I didn’t eat but Tzvi and my mother said it was really good. Then they brought out a tree. Yes, an actual tree, with olives stuck into the branches and nuts and marzipan crackers at the base of the tree. There was some confusion because the waiter said the tree had peanuts, but peanuts are kitniot, and we’re pretty sure it was just almonds. I ordered a margarita, which was very strong, and Tzvi had a glass of red wine from a winery called Bat Shlomo, which he really liked and had never even heard of before. For our appetizers, I had the leek soup and Tzvi had veal short ribs with dried tomatoes. Both were very good. For our mains, I had beef filet. Delicious. Tzvi had braised and slow roasted lamb shoulder with leek puree, new potatoes and some sort of green vegetable. Tzvi thought his dish was incredible and completely cleaned his plate; he even said the fat on the lamb was delicious. Nothing like a wad of fat to say gluttony. For dessert we shared the almond lemon cake, chocolate mouse and a dessert called the anarchy of sweets which was a bunch of different small pieces of yummy things. It was served on a piece of Jerusalem stone. I like that you can get away with serving food on what they use to build houses.
Hallie was pretty good during the meal. She was pretty happy and didn’t make too much of a fuss, although she wouldn’t really eat anything, including the chicken and potatoes we ordered her, and basically wanted to be entertained the whole time. We finished right around 9 and started to clear out the room. Of course we had to change Hallie’s diaper first. There was no changing table in the restaurant bathroom, probably because most people don’t bring babies to five star restaurants (if it wasn’t clear, this was a pretty fancy place and one of the nicest restaurants in Jerusalem). So, of course we changed Hallie on the floor in the corner behind our table. Since she was getting restless and wouldn’t lay down for the changing, we used the chocolate mouse to keep her happy and laying on her back while we cleaned up her… chocolate mouse.
Finally we made it out of the restaurant and walked about 10-15 minutes down to the Cohen’s apartment for the l’chaim. The apartment is basically across from Ben Yehuda. We arrived the same time as the newly engaged couple. Avery had proposed in Yemin Moshe with roses and photos and some prose. They had a photographer shoot it and then went to the King David where apparently they almost didn’t get in for their dinner reservation. The Lchaim was very nice. Judah made a dvar torah, one of what I’m sure will be many to come. Pop pop did not make a dvar torah. I’m not sure what the Torah in Judah’s dvar torah was, but I think the point was that there will be many times that Gabriella makes Avery mad and want to scream, but he should just stay quiet. Oh, and he said something about having babies, which was surprising considering how much screaming Hallie did yesterday.
Hallie was really happy for a while, until she crapped out and we had to leave. We walked back to the Inbal and put her to sleep. Good day.