Back in the Saddle Again

Well, you could have guessed this blog was coming. I alluded to it over the past few months but here we go again. I had to just get right back into the dating game, especially with a semi-permanent zip code and the Chagim long behind me. No more excuses. This evening, after a long day at school and then writing with a classmate at a coffee shop in North Tel Aviv, then the 45 minute walk from the shop to my apartment and finally making my way through some homework, I sat down and uploaded my profile to Dosi Date which apparently is akin to Frumster here in Israel. I also have a date planned for this Saturday night with a guy I've been speaking to for the past 2 months. He's been super patient with me, considering my move and how much my life has been in flux, so we'll see what happens.

Meanwhile, Bracha is in town for the next month to perform a few times with the Philharmonic in Herzliya and then again with some orchestra in Jerusalem. I'm hoping to get tickets to her show in Herzeliya next Wednesday night. I've yet to see her perform in person but I hear it's amazing. Next time I hear her with B"H be at Carnegie Hall in February! When we spoke this evening, I told her to ask her mother in law to make Uri's (her husband, Yotam's brother) bed because I'm moving in. I was kidding about the sleep over, but I am really looking forward to having Bracha here for almost a month.

I was going to upload a poem I wrote today based on a class exercise but Tamara just called that she needs to go the emergency room and I might have to take a cab out to Ra'anana to watch her kids while they are in the hospital. I hope she is ok!

Song of the night is Black Shoes by The Films, a great new band that I'm obsessed with! Look them up on MySpace to hear from samples. Well worth the time!

Tribulations

I'm sitting at a coffee shop/video store/laundromat in Kikar Dizengoff and have been here for the past 2 1/2 hours. All I ordered was a decaf coffee and two glasses of water, so they must be ready to kick me out at this point, but I've been getting a lot of writing done so I hope they don't want me to give up my seat anytime soon. This place is great actually. Super clean, decent location and teeming with interesting folks so that I can people watch to my heart's content. Gayle met me here initially and we chatted over coffee and then did some work before she left to meet Julia at the movie theatre across the way. I have too much work to do to join them, so I'm trying to finish up before heading back home.

It took me almost 3 hours to write a 6 sentence poem today for my poetry homework. This class is going to be my most difficult, by far, and I'm starting to regret the decision to take the course. Tamara mentioned that the reason I'm finding the assignments so hard is because I'm not letting myself go yet. As soon as I reach the dreamlike state of mind that Gardner talks about in his book, then I'll be able to write what I'm not letting myself write.

I have no idea what that means but I hope the trance hits me soon, I have a lot of writing I want to get done.

In addition to running the various errands today, like sorting out my medical insurance problems, I also worked on a mix CD for Asi this afternoon. We had been in Ari's car on our way to Jerusalem a couple of weeks ago when Asi mentioned his fascination with Disco music. So, I told him that I would pull together a mix that would really tap into his type of music. Initially the mix really just consisted of the disco classics but I just couldn't allow myself to not include some new and great music that would appeal to his John Travoltaesque musical sensibilities. Once I'm finished with this, he's be doing the hustle all the way across the Bar Ilan campus.

Song of the day is Tribulations by LCD Soundsystem

Patrick Dempsey

Enjoy the clip!

African Anteater Ritual

Tonight, I went to an engagement party in South Tel Aviv at a kosher bar/club called Bulldog. The engagement party was for a woman named Michal, who I met at Oren's meal a few weeks ago. She was really sweet at the meal so I wanted the opportunity to wish her a Mazal Tov. Anyway, a couple of people called to tell me to come as they thought it would also be a good opportunity for me to meet people. Sadly, with the loud 80's music interspersed by some Israeli pop and hip-hop blasting in the background (Fame followed by Bootylicious is just a sample) you couldn't talk let alone hear anything. As most of my blog readers know, I don't dance in religious mixed company. Something that stayed with me from my Yeshiva education, so I make no apologies. Back in NYC, if I wanted to go dancing, I did one of two things. Either, I grabbed my friend Jules and we went to a place downtown where I knew no religious people would ever be, or I would head to the Roxy on a Saturday night and get jiggy with the gay men of Gotham. Looks like, if I ever want to get my "freak on" here in Tel Aviv, I'm going to have to find a gay club to go dancing. Fortunately for me, I'm not much of a dancer so I don't really think this will be an issue.

Anyway, I've been reading this John Gardner book and he keeps talking about dinner parties as great forums for writers. He also talks about the writer's nature, and how we tend to be the ones sitting in the corner taking in the scene.

Tonight, that's pretty much what I did. I sat at one of the tables and just took it all in. I knew a handful of people, so they would occasionally stop by to say hello, but most of the time I was by myself at the table just watching.

I am including the African anteater ritual clip from the movie Can't Buy Me Love (Patrick Dempsey at his finest, before Grey's Anatomy) simply because one of the girls at the club started to mimic the movement and was impressed that I knew exactly what she was doing. I am buy no means insinuating that I think frum people - or the people at tonight's party - dance like this.

Nevertheless, enjoy the clip as it's really fun to watch.

For those who want to know how my meal went last night, please check your inbox. I am sending out an e-mail with the details shortly.

Now, I have to go and rewash my hair because it stinks like tobacco. Man, I wish Bloomberg was mayor of Tel Aviv.

Only G-d Knows Why

I had my last class of the week this afternoon and it's one of the required Jewish courses necessary for me to get my Masters. This is the only class taught in English, so of course it was really crowded, and the topic is Mideval Jewish Philosophy. We're going to be examining texts by Islamic, Greek and Jewish philosophers including Aristotle, Maimonidies, Rav Saadia Gaon and others. When Professor Harvey mentioned some of the topics we will be tackling, I perked up! Particularly, I was really interested in the fact that we will be tackling the dilemma between Free Will vs. Preordination. I've been asking that question of Rabbis and teachers throughout my Yeshiva education and have yet to get an answer that is satisfactory. It will be really interested to see if during this course, I'll find an answer that I'm comfortable with.

After class, Tamara drove me to Ra'anana so I could go food shopping at a place called Meatland. It was like being back home, I was really excited to see the rows upon rows of American products. I stocked up! I got 3 packages of frozen pie shells, three Ungar frozen gefilta fishes, cans of whole-berry cranberry sauce, solid white tuna in water, creamed corn and Hunt's tomato sauce. I also stocked up on bags of terra chips, tortilla chips, craisins and jars of honey and salsa. With 9 people expected by me this Friday night for Shabbat dinner, I have a whole lot of cooking that needs to be done.

I think my brownies came out alright but I might have burnt my gefilta fish. With my convection oven working on celcius as opposed to fahrenheit, I think I left it in too long at a high temperature. I'm not sure if this is going to be another zucchini bread fiasco (only family members and close friends will understand this comment) but I'm going to mull it over and decide what else I can do as an appetizer on Friday night.

More Vacation Photos


The Camel I call Marlboro. I'll admit it, I thought he was fake when we first pulled into the last rest station before we hit the Dead Sea. Hannah and Liora got a good laugh out of that one.



This, folks, is Fayaad. Now you understand what all the big hoopla was about.



View of the desert from a "window" at Masada. Hannah took some pretty amazing shots, this was definitely one of them!



Hannah, Liora and I did a walking tour of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. We started off at the Jaffa Gate and went around, through the Armenian Quarter and the Jewish Quarter, before getting off at the Kotel. This is the view below when we were in the Armenian Quarter.



Hannah and Oren during our dinner out at the Namal. We went to the one dairy kosher restaurant before meeting up with a few folks at Shesek, a pretty cool bar on Lillienblum Street here in Tel Aviv


Song of the day is Only God Knows Why by Kid Rock, cause Mr. Pamela Anderson Lee Rock actually, well, rocks.

Betty Crocker Cosmo

It's already 10:00 pm and I have had such a busy day today, but it was absolutely amazing! I cannot get over the energy on the Bar Ilan campus, it's contagious. Granted, I did have to get a cup of coffee to get me through the 2-4 p.m. sugar hump, but once I was outside and walking from class to class I was able to just feed off of the surge of students walking through campus.

Couple of interesting things to note about classes today and my vacation. But, before I launch into my vacation wrap-up, I read the following today. Apparently, Kurt Cobain beat Elvis as the top earning dead celebrity.

According to the Reuters article: Rock 'n' roll legend Elvis Presley ceded his crown to Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain on Forbes.com's list as the top-earning dead celebrity. The list, published on Tuesday, said grunge rocker Cobain earned $50 million between October 2005 and October 2006. Presley wound up in the No. 2 slot with $42 million, down from last year's $45 million. Forbes.com bases its dollar amounts on licensing deals for using the deceased celebrities' work or image in advertising or elsewhere. This was Cobain's first time on the list in its six years of publication. Presley has ruled the roost since its inception, said Forbes.com staff writer Lacey Rose. Cobain's coup was due to his widow, actress and singer Courtney Love, who sold a 25-percent stake in the Seattle grunge group's song catalog to New York music publishing company PrimeWave. Ranked after Presley is "Peanuts" cartoon strip creator Charles Schulz at $35 million. Rounding out the top five were Beatle John Lennon at $24 million and groundbreaking physicist Albert Einstein at $20 million, whose estate profited from such licensing deals as the popular "Baby Einstein" educational videos. Other celebrities on the list include Theodore Geisel, better known as children's book author Dr. Seuss; rhythm & blues pioneer Ray Charles, silver screen legend Marilyn Monroe and reggae superstar Bob Marley. Past top earners include songwriter Irving Berlin and actor Marlon Brando

Of course, I went into my iTunes to listen to my Smells Like Teen Spirit album and discovered that I never uploaded it before leaving for Israel!! I went through a hard core grunge phase, and own the classics from Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, etc. I'm just curious to understand why this year was Cobain's year? Is there a resurgence in grunge that I just don't know about? Before I left for Israel, I gave Josh D. my copy of Kurt Cobain's journal (and a bottle of chocolate flavored vodka, the perfect accompaniment to Cobain's writing) but I highly recommend it as a reader for anyone who was interested in getting a glimpse into Cobain's head. It would be great if someone published Elliott Smith's journals too, that would be #1 on my must read list!

VACATION final update.
This will probably bore most of you, but it's just a list of some of the funny experiences and expressions that came out of the trip last week with Hannah, Liora and Fruma. If you have any questions and would like me to elaborate, feel free to e-mail me offline and maybe I'll fill you in! Hannah and Liora, feel free to add anything if you think I forgot it!

- Val Kilmer and the gazelle, camel and ibex
- Carnival tongue
- The datim are coming!!!
- Me Love You Long Time
- Come to my Tree (Abed to Hannah)
- Fayaad superimposed with Gnarly Charly at the Kibbutz
- El 'Heffei
- Separated at Birth
- The day isn't complete without an anecdote about Cousin Neil!!
- Before bed crack up
- Separated at birth
- "Toot" Sadeh (this one is all Hannah folks)
- Bats in a cave
- "ping" a quarter off of the hot buns
- The Dead Sea Boys show up at Shesek
- "You know the sex, I want the sex" (Fayaad to me, before I responded that "you're not going to get the sex")
- Box envy!
- The Betty Crocker Cosmopolitan (which Hannah and I wrote one night before going to bed, imagine if you will a 1950's version of your favorite magazine!)



The largest esrog I've ever seen!!!



The Olive Man



Ari Miller hates cameras in public. Oh well, Hannah snapped him anyway (PS. I'm in this picture but you'll have to e-mail me to see the complete shot. Remember, I'm like OZ, I don't ever appear on the blog!)


Class
Today, we finally got to meet Bret Lott, who is going to be leading our Fall workshop. It was really refreshing to listen to him, and he is such a different type of instructor as compared to Atar from Summer session. We already know when we will all be responsible for workshopping our stories, so I have about three weeks to get another piece together. I think what really got to me, in addition to his constant quoting of Flannery O'Connor was the fact that he opened the class up to us today to ask any questions we wanted to. I appreciated that and found his answers were really informative and insightful. One of the things I walked away with from his class was the following comment:

Write what you don't know about what you know. Brilliant way to provide me with direction, that was really a thinker.

We then had our Jewish Arts seminar with Professor Michael Kramer, and each of us went around the room to talk about our ideas for our thesis. I was glad that we did that, it really forced me to put down on paper what I'm working on and the feedback from Michael and the class was extremely encouraging. There were a number of project ideas that also really appealed to me and I'm looking forward to reading what my classmates will be writing. Tobye drove me to the train station after class and she gave me the opportunity to describe the first story I'm working on for the workshop in a few weeks. She was pretty into the plot, which was encouraging, so I'm looking forward to getting it down on paper.

I then walked from the train station back to the apartment, stopping by Supersol to pick up some of the ingredients I need for Shulamit's blondies, which will be dessert for my meal this Friday night. I'm hosting 8 people for the first time since I moved here, and I'm going to need to figure out how to work my microwave/convection oven in the interim.

Other than that, I've been trying to help my friend Josh sell two of his extra tickets to The Killers show tonight. Sadly, Arye, Jason, Zeke and Jules are all either unavailable or just not interested in spending $50 to see them play the Theatre at MSG. I don't blame them, that's pretty steep! Plus, with CMJ in a few weeks, the four of them will be busy with tons of great musical acts.

The folks just called to let me know that they've arrived back home, safe and sound. Thank G-d!

Song of the day is Welcome to The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance. The video is really stirring, I highly recommend watching it on their website!

Sunsets and the party's over

It's 1:30 a.m. and I just got off the phone with Cousin Neil, who is still in the office! Spitz is working him hard these days! Regardless, I had to catch him up on the past couple of days and to let him know that the trinket from Amuka is on the way with my folks.

Tonight was a little sad for me. My parents took Gayle, Oren, Jeff and I out to a nice dinner at Pacifica, a great restaurant in the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Hayarkon in Tel Aviv. The sushi was actually pretty amazing but I had to bring majority of my main home with me. I wasn't really hungry at that point as sushi fills me up.

So, before I continue, there is going to be a shift in the blogging activities. I am going to ween away from just regurgitating what I've done each day and focus on writing more interesting topics. Before Ari headed out to the States, he mentioned how boring he felt blogs were (in general). And, since I don't really want to ever be called boring, am going to try to keep my writing interesting.

With that said, let me tell you how it was raining men today in Ramat Gan!

Officially, Univerisites in Israel opened yesterday and today was my first day of Fall classes. I felt like a kid in a candy store full of eye candy for me! It was almost overwhelming the number of people in school and the campus was just charged with great energy. I was so fired up from the teeming people that I walked from Namir and Arlozorov back to my apartment in record time (25 minutes!).

Tonight, a couple of interesting things happened:

1) After saying goodbye to my parents, we headed over to this new bar on Dizengoff Street and met Lana. The doorman didn't want me in because of the doggy bag I had with me. Listen folks, if my parents are buying me a $20 lamb kabob that I didn't eat, I'm certainly going to take it home with me! I'm a part-time student on a budget! Anyway, the manager comes out to see what the problem is and I had a choice. I could have let Oren, in his perfect Hebrew, explain the situation or I could just work my magic like I would at any bar/club/restaurant in the States. I decided to work my magic, and let's just say I'm proud at how charming I was. Within minutes, my lamb kabobs and I were sitting at a table by the window enjoying the atmosphere.

2) Sometimes, the only way to affect change is to break a bad cycle. Even if the cycle is enjoyable, fun, familiar and easy but it won't bring you any closer to your goals, it's important to first recognize the issue and then try to eliminate it from your life. When I moved to Israel, I automatically broke one of my bad cycles but this evening I had an opportunity to fall back into a similar situation. Tonight, I was able to stave off what could have potentially turned into a "bad situation" and while I'm proud that I was able to fight it I am hoping that I'll have the strength to continue on.

Song of the day is Sorry Seams to be the Hardest Word by Elton John. The person this is applicable to knows the reason why I'm so sorry, and I hope he really does forgive me.

Charge!

Shavuah Tov! I'm having a great time in Jerusalem with the folks. It's 9:15 p.m. on Saturday night and my parents are snoozing in the hotel room while I've camped out in the lobby of the Sheraton Plaza hotel. I only have 30 minutes left on the wireless I paid for, so I'm going to have to make this short and sweet.

Friday was great, we went into Geula and Meah Shearim and bought a couple of tablecloths and other Judaica for my apartment. Mom picked up a bunch of "shmata's" for my two sisters and Dad got some Sefarim. I left them in the middle to go to get my hair blown out for Shabbos and then the next thing I knew, I was back at the hotel and we were getting ready for sundown. When Shabbos comes in so early, it's crazy to try to get everything done in such a short period of time!

So, of course, there is a story. Because, as you've learnt by reading this blog, there is always a story.

Here it is.

My Dad is the guy who used to always be first online to wait for the dining room to open on Shabbos. This year, he decided to take things easy and met with the Maitre D' before Shabbos to make sure we had a table. A nice amount of shekel was exchanged and we thought we were set. We checked with the front desk who told us that the dining room would open at 7:00 pm and then Dad went to shul while Mom and I hung out and caught up in the room.

At ten to 7, the three of us went down to the dining room.

And it was PACKED!

And an elderly couple was seated at our table and already up to their soup course!

Apparently, they over sold the dining room and there were no tables left. So, what did they do? They opened up the Primavera restaurant and put the "latecomers" in there and served them dinner.

I was livid. Mom was livid. Dad was cool, calm and collected. His response to the Matre D' was pretty simple: He wasn't paying for dinner.

The story is a lot longer, and includes a conversation I had with the Matre D' that caused him to scramble to try to ready a table for us in the dining room but at that point, Dad wasn't interested.

Two bottles of wine later (small folks, really small) and I was finally relaxed enough to enjoy the meal. We had a pleasant evening regardless of the location but the management got an earful from the folks. My parents are Starwood Prefered customers!!

Anyway, the Matre D' told my Dad that this afternoon, he was going to sit at our table to make surethe situation isn't replicated.

My Dad wasn't taking any chances this time and he camped out in front of the dining room 30 minutes before it opened. He wasn't alone. All the people who got screwed out of dinner in the dining room were standing there with him.

We were the first people into the dining room and one of the last to leave. It was actually an incredibly relaxed lunch, we had a great time, and the Matre D' worked really hard to make it up to us.

Let's just say I doubt it will EVER happen again. It's unfortunate that it had to happen in the first place but we tried to put everything into perspective. May what happened last night be the worst thing to ever happen to our family.

So today, Dad woke up and went to the early minyan and then we took a 2 hour walk! You can understand now why Mom has been fast asleep for a few hours!! It also makes our 3 hour lunch a lot more easy to understand as folks who know our family would be shocked to hear that we had lunch for that long!

Anyway, Mom and I hit Ben Yehuda one more time this evening to pick up a couple of items and then we all ended up back at the hotel room watching a House rerun and preparing for Amuka/Teveria/Meron tomorrow. There will be a lot of praying going on!

Song of the day is Fix You by Coldplay.

Amuka Bound

Hannah left my apartment a few minutes ago and I'm way too tired to really update the blog. However, I did want to write a couple of quick things.

First of all, the Dead Sea portion of this vacation was absolutely amazing. It was the first time I "frolicked" in the Dead Sea, shmeared myself with mud (and wrote a couple of nice comments in mud on Hannah's lilly white back), got picked up by the hottest 24 year old Arab lifeguard name Fayyad, hiked up Nachal David in a skirt and Sketchers, toured Masada and had tea in a Jeep with an Israeli Indiana Jones wannabee and then licked the rock to taste the salt in the region.

Three days of absolute bliss.

My parents B"H got here and while I was having fun down at the Dead Sea, they have been enjoying Jerusalem. I have to wake up at 6:30 tomorrow morning to catch the 7:15 bus to Jerusalem to meet Mom and Dad for an early breakfast and to get a jump on errands. I have a 1:00 p.m. hair appointment at the place I went to last week so I should be all set for Shabbat. I'm looking forward to just relaxing with the folks for a few days.

On Sunday though, we're planning on heading up North to Teveria, Meron and Amuka to pray by the kever of Rabbi Yonatan Ben Uziel. For those who do not know, tradition has it that Rabbi Yonatan Ben Uziel gave a blessing to all those who are unmarried that if they visited his resting place they would merit to meet their soulmates and marry within the period of one year. This blessing has worked for all these centuries and countless numbers of people have married.

I was there in June 1995 and, well, 12 years later am trying it out again. This time, I'm bringing reinforcements in the parental unit.

So, if you would like me to daven for you at Amuka, please e-mail me by Saturday night so that I can add your name to my tehilim list.

Don't worry Cousin Neil, you're #2 on the list after The Dude

Song of the day is The Right Time by Ray Charles cause I was in the mood for some Ray Charles this evening.

Rain in Tel Aviv

It's raining here in Tel Aviv! Check out the photos above from outside of my apartment. It's pouring! I guess the prayers from the States, and the ones from Israel yesterday when we davened for Geshem, were accepted. That's amazing!

The sky is gorgeous now, check it out:



Hannah and Liora just checked in from Jerusalem and I don't know if it's raining there, but I do know that they are at the shuk again. Hannah wanted to go to Marzipan bakery to check out the ruggilach and then they were going to head down to Ben Yehuda to do more shopping.



I think Hannah was going to head over to the Olive Man to say hello on their way out. They also woke up early this morning and took the 99 bus around the City. Hannah will share the photos so I can upload some of the sites they saw.

I'm almost completely packed, I just have to put in a few more items, shower and then head to the bus stop to get back to Jerusalem. We're not sure 100% what we're doing tonight, but I think Liora and I will be going out to dinner (dairy, I could use a salad) and then Hannah will meet up with us after she is done with her party. I've been procrastinating today, hard core. I didn't sleep well last night, had a huge headache and finally took 2 advil at around 6:00 a.m. when the rain was coming down outside my window. I finally pulled myself out of bed around 10:00 this morning and then ate breakfast while watching Heroes which was amazing. Then it was off to see my favorite person on Ben Yehuda street to make sure that I am physically ready to hit the Dead Sea tomorrow. 50 shekels later and I'm good to go. I walked back home, packed some more, then watched Lost from Wednesday night and decided to go ahead and update this blog.

I had a lot more to write about this morning and now I'm just blanking on what I had wanted to write.

Oh yeah, this guy who I spent Rosh Hashana with got engaged this week here in Israel! That was so nice to hear as he is a nice guy and I hear she's a wonderful girl.

Oh well, I'll remember the rest later.

Song of the Day is Comfortably Numb remake by The Scissor Sisters. The song goes out to Jeff, who loves the NYC band's latest song. While this remake isn't my favorite, the song in its original version is a classic, it's got enough of a beat to get Jeff chair dancing in his car. Maybe one day I'll tell him about their concert at Hammerstein Ballroom last year. Jules and I had a BLAST!

Jerusalem: Part I

It's 10:00 p.m. on Saturday night and I'm back home in Tel Aviv, trying to unpack and then repack before heading back into Jerusalem tomorrow evening.

Phew, its been quite a ride! Good thing I've been keeping a journal the entire time.

Hannah, Liora and Fruma have been making fun of my blog the entire trip, but yet every time something hysterical happens, they all just say: "this is one for the blog".

So, sit back, put your feet up, relax. Stay a while. Pop in some Oasis. Yeah, dig out your What's The Story Morning Glory? album and hit track 1. As Hello fills your speaker start reading my blow by blow of the vacation thus far. Pictures will be included.

Day 1, Tuesday afternoon
Yehuda, the amazing personal driver for Credit Suisse here in Israel picked me up at my apartment and then we headed over to the airport to get Hannah. My cold had hit nasty levels and so Yehuda bought me some tea at the cafe in front of Stemasky's and we sat down and waited. And there she was, clad in a head to toe red velour track suit and sweating from the Tel Aviv heat and humidity was Hannah! Woohoo, trip was good. Except, her cell phone from Talk n' Save wasn't working. Apparently, her phone was "stolen" so it went into fraud protection mode and she wasn't able to call out. Interesting. We spent a few minutes trying to get her phone working and then Yehuda whisked us into the cab and we were off to Jerusalem. Hannah was pretty excited and it was just so nice to see her that I can't remember what we talked about in the cab. We did a lot of Upper West Side catch up. Then we got to our hotel and checked in, around the exact same time as this group of Chrisitans from Holland were checking in as well. We got our room key and stepped into the narrow elevator with three of the group members, who immediately asked us if we were Christian. Hmmm, that was a first. We said no, and I gestured to my lulav when responding that we were Jewish. We walked to our room, which was really nice, and unpacked. Fruma called and told us she had picked up some Burger King for dinner and was at the Dan Panorama visiting with Shayndie and Daniel, who is a good friend of Hannah's too. So, we headed out to the Dan Panorama to see the crew. It was really exciting to see Fruma, and it was nice to meet Shayndie and her husband (who we ended up hanging out with a lot this week). Before we headed out of the hotel though, someone stopped us in the lobby and asked if we were part of the Christian Group. Second time in a row in Jerusalem no less, that was pretty interesting for us.

At the Dan Panorama, Hannah and I had box envy. Let me explain. Shayndie picked up pastries at the Cafe Neeman bakery on the corner of King George and Jaffa and oh my lord, but I haven't had cake that good in a long time. Hannah and I both agreed that if we were walking our way through Jerusalem, and eating our way through the city, we needed our own box.

We forced Fruma to come out with us to Ben Yehuda and went for a slice at Big Apple pizza. Cafe Rimon was packed, literally, line out of the door. Hannah and I decided we would have to come back and settled for some pizza. It was sad that there was a guy offering to take polaroid shots of people with their pizza's. Seriously, he was screaming: "pictures with your pizza!" and I just laughed. Here we are in Jerusalem, the Holy City, with unbelievable architecture and holy sites throughout the area. And yet, the guy was offering us a shot with our pizzas! Only in Jerusalem folks, only in Jerusalem.

At this point, Fruma was ready to head home and the jet lag was starting to hit Hannah so we hoofed it back to our room. As we were getting ready for bed, we wondered how they were going to fit a third person into the room. It was really tiny. But, I was feeling lousy with the cold and Hannah was wiped so we toasted my Nyquil to her bottle of water and went to bed.

End of Day 1

Day 2 Wednesday
We slept in and boy did it feel amazing. When I went outside looking for the cleaning cart so I could grab another box of tissues, I spied the cot they were going to put into the room for Liora and started laughing. I grabbed Hannah and she wasn't pleased. I believe the term she used was that it looked like something the animals sleep on (I am cleaning up the language for Dad) and so I headed downstairs to have a chat with Kobi, the manager. We had, what my Christians friends would call a "coming to Jesus" and I was handed room keys for a new room. This one came equipped with a built in third bed but no working safe, which was upsetting as Hannah and I had a lot of items for the safe. So, we put everything into a large bag and used the main safe. As we were walking out the door to get our day going, I noticed an ant crawling on my bed. Not being a prima donna, I just dusted it off and we headed out towards Ben Yehuda. Since we missed breakfast in the succah, we went to Cafe Rimon and got omelets. Hannah called Ariella in Kiryat Sefer and we really caught up on the things we wouldn't be able to discuss the rest of the week. Now, Ariella is Hannah's best friend from childhood and my former roommate from Michlalah. She lives in Kiryat Sefer, which is "over the green line" and a very Charedi neighborhood. I wore my one long sleeve t-shirt and the longest jean skirt I own. Hannah was similarly garbed and we went to Geula to pick up the bus to see her. We had hoped to do some shopping in Meah Shearim but it was closed since no one in that neighborhood works on Chol Hamoed and we grabbed the 320 bus. The ride was gorgeous, at one point I saw an Arab shephard with his herd heading up a mountain. It was just surreal, the scenery spectacular. And then we got to Kiryat Sefer and it was eye opening to see the neighborhood. It was nice to catch up with Ariella and meet her kids and, on the way back to the bus home, we stopped by Dina's house. Another former Michlalah flatmate of mine, Dina just had her fourth child so I got to say Mazal Tov. On the way back to Jerusalem, Hannah and I discussed the experience and then the conversation shifted to a mutual friend on the UWS. And that's when the woman in front of us turned around and said:

No, it's Lashon Harrah. Stop. No. Bad. Bad, bad, bad. Lashon Harah, bad. And, shaking her head, she crossed over and changed her seat.

I was shocked. That has never happened to me before. She was right though, we were speaking lashon harah, but I don't know if that was the most effective way to tell us we should stop. What we ended up doing was shifting the focus and speaking lashon harah about her instead of the UWSer. Oh well. I'm human.

We got off in Geula and then fulfilled our box envy by hitting the Cafe Neeman bakery on our way back to the hotel. Yummy!

Liora was sitting on the bed when we walked in and was really happy to see us and to see the box. We had heard of some concert near Emek Refaim so we decided to hit the strip for dinner. As we were rushing around changing and getting ready, I looked on my bed and saw a horde of ants running all over my sheets. Now, one ant is one thing but a horde is quite another. So, I went downstairs and since Kobi was off duty, told Jimmy at the desk my problem. I explained that I just couldn't fathem crawling into bed with these creatures and could he please switch our room. He was so mortified about the ants that we got upgraded to a suite and ch-ching we were moving rooms again. This time, we have a larger main bed and Liora got her own bedroom with two single beds. We also got water bottle, some chocolates and a working room safe. I was in heaven.

We headed to Burger Bar and it was a zoo.

Wanna know how to scare away 18 year old Yeshiva boys? Ask them what Yeshiva they're in and, when they ask you where you are, respond that 12 years ago you were at Michlalah. As soon as I responded, and then ended with a "you're so sweet" all 10 boys disappeared. It was hysterical.

Burger Bar has amazing burgers, lousy french fries. I ate two and dumped the rest. Then we headed off to this concert which turned into some food fair, and we headed back to the hotel. It was late and Liora was tired so we wanted to get into bed. As we were heading up Emek, I ran into little Danny Cucher, The Cuch's baby brother. He was with his wife getting dinner on Emek Refaim and it was really nice running into him. We chatted for a few and then headed back uptown.

Meanwhile, Liora's phone experience was another doozy. Her phone wasn't working but it was because her SIM card was busted. I had to do the talking with the Talk N Save guys and I basically asked them what kind of racket they were running. He had the nerve to respond that they had over 12,000 cell phones out over Succot and he was sorry that my two friends had some problems but it happens. I was a little surprised by his response, someone needs to give those folks some PR lessons, and the next morning a courier was sent to our hotel with a new cell phone. This one didn't crap out until Sat night, so at least Liora was able to use it for a few days.

Another Nyquil toast and we were in bed.



Day 3 Thursday
I got an 8:00 am wake up call from the Talk N Save guys about Liora's cell phone so we actually were able to make breakfast in the Succah. Pretty lousy actually, but at least I didn't pay for another meal in Jerusalem. We decided to spend the day in the Old City so we strapped on the sneaks and headed out. We go to the Old City and decided to walk on the top of the walls from the Jaffa Gate through the Armenian Quarter until the Kotel. This photo is Hannah and Liora walking away from David's Citadel, one of the first stops on our walking tour. We didn't get a tour guide and decided to do the tour ourselves, which was really interesting. Partly because you need to have legs up to the sky for some of these steps. Good thing I didn't eat too much over the Chag because, a couple more pounds, and I wouldn't have been able to fit through some of the areas. It was narrow too. We got to the Kotel and were able to daven mincha and say tehillim, which was nice. Hannah and Liora haven't been to Israel in 12 and 14 years respectively, so the site of the Kotel was pretty amazing. Then, we raced over and caught a Tunnel Tour. It was really cool! They have done a lot of things since the last time I took the tour back in 1994 but sadly we were rushed through because it was Chol Hamoed and the line of people wanting to go through was huge! Now, at the end of the tour you are in the Moselm Quarter. They told us to wait for the escorts to come and walk us back through to the Kotel but Hannah said: Please, we walk through Harlem so we can do this ourselves!. Famous last words. Guess who got lost in the Moslem Quarter. Yup, us three losers. Somehow though, we thought we caught up with the group that had gone through the tour before us (a bunch of people in kippas so we though Jews so they must be the right folks). Yeah, they weren't. Somehow, we ended up with a tour group that were going to the Kotel Kattan, which is located in the Moslem Quarter.

And then the call for prayers blew and that's when I asked the guy with the gun where was the Rova.

He said: Rova HaYihudi?

I said: Ken

He said: Wow

Then he called his friend at the gate and told him that a couple of American girls were lost and could he escort us back to the Kotel.

He did and I was very thankful. I spoke to the yeshiva bocher, who was learning at Ateret Yerushalayim and actually living in the Moslem Quarter. I hope to send them a check soon to say thank you.

So we got safely back to the Kotel and then headed up to the Rova to meet Liora's friends Dani and Boaz at the falafel stand. Another food joint on Hannah's list, so we got to cross off falafel in the Rova. It was good but it wasn't incredible. The five of us finished walking through the Old City and headed towards Ben Yehuda so Liora could get some money out of the ATM. On the way, we stopped at the largest Succah in the Country. It was pretty big and nice, Hannah and Liora took some photos. Then we stopped by the Frozen Yogurt store and I got my favorite mixture and we went shopping for Hannah and Liora. They picked up some stuff, Hannah haggled, and then it was time to go back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. Jeff and Oren were coming in from Tel Aviv for dinner at Olive on Emek Refaim, which turned into a joint birthday celebration for me and Hannah. We ran into Zahava Kahan at the top of Ben Yehuda, which was great to see her too, and then headed home. Dinner was great and Fruma joined us too. My order was pretty bad though, so I ended up giving half my chicken to Jeff and eating Hannah's half of steak, before we got dessert with sparklers!! I felt 10 again but it was well worth it, my chocolate mousse cake was yummy! Liora and Fruma were starting to fade out when Eli G. showed up to wish us a Happy Birthday. He told us about some party in Baka and Liora and Fruma decided to head back to get some sleep. Hannah and I were wired so we went to the party and that's when I got to meet Slightly Mad! herself. It was very random the way we were introduced, but it was so nice to meet her in person! I've been reading her blog since before I got to this country, so putting a face to the writer was thrilling. Jeff decided to be a huge party pooper and forced us to leave about 30 minutes after we got there, and so I was yanked out in the middle of this guy's accoustic Oasis set.

Hannah and I crawled into bed around 1:30 and no more Nyquil toast this time. I fell right to sleep.

Day 4 Friday
Hannah and I slept in and Liora met a friend at the hotel for breakfast. Since it was a short day, we decided to keep things close to home and just headed over to do some shopping. We headed uptown this time and entered Mahane Yehuda to the shuk. I don't remember the last time I was at the shuk and it was definitely not a bit different. Same smells. Same yelling. Same pushing. Same shoving. Ahh, Israel. Hannah loaded up on dried fruit and I told her that she was going to have to sleep in the other room if she bought any more.

It gave a whole new meaning to Tut Sadeah. Seriously.

And then I met the Olive Man and I was in love. Hannah has a photo of him, so y'all will eventually see what I am referring to. But ladies, it was worth every second at the shuk. He was gorgeous. Hannah picked up some yarmulkas and with sundown a few hours away, we headed to Ben Yehuda to buy a gift for Fruma's parents, who hosted us for both meals this Shabbat and Yom Tov. On the way, we hit a shoe store and Hannah and Liora each got a pair of new sandals. I wanted this great black platform shoes but Hannah wouldn't let me get them. She said they made me look like a clown. Oh well, there's always next week when Hannah's back in the States. We ran down the block to the candy store and got a nice basket for Fruma and then we met Shayndie and went to Sbarra's for pizza. At that point, I decided I wanted to get my hair blown out for Shabbat. Shayndie called her sisters, who were getting their hair done at a place on Betzalel, and they told me if I came in 5 minutes I could get my hair done. I left the ladies and raced up Ben Yehuda to Yaniv Levine where Shayndie's sister and the hairstylist were waiting for me outside. He whisked me in and then told me I needed a haircut too and somehow I acquiesced and left with half my hair and a really nice blow out. With Shabbat rapidly approaching, i decided to call home to say hi to the folks.

Mom said it was the happiest she had ever heard me since I left the States. She was right, I haven't been this happy since I landed a few weeks ago. I've been having an amazing time.

And then the other shoe dropped.

My Grandmother was taken to the hospital by The Dude at 4:30 in the morning. She was in tremendous pain. My folks trip is up in the air. They didn't know what was wrong. Candle lighting was in 15 minutes. I was really upset. I didn't know what to do and there wasn't much to do at that point, so I asked my Mom to leave me an update on my cell phone and Hannah and Liora went to light candles. I tried to not ruin their time and decided to try not to think about things.

We went to Chovevei for Hakafot and to pick up Fruma, Shaydnie and her Mom. I ran into a couple of Kew Gardens Hills people and we chatted and then we headed over to Fruma's folks for dinner. It was amazing. The food was so good and we all ate way too much. After dinner, Fruma decided to go to bed and Shayndie and her husband went back to the hotel and Liora, Hannah and I went to Emek Refaim to a party.

It was interesting. Highlight of the evening was running into Slightly Mad again. Eli G. told us not to go to another party and then we ran into a couple of Tel Avivians I had met over Yom Kippur. We walked back to the party we had left and ran into Jeff and Oren. Liora was pretty beat and since we didn't know anyone really at the party, we decided to call it a night. It was already late and we had a 30 minute walk back to the hotel. We said good night to Jeff and Oren walked us back.

Liora took a Tylenol PM and got into bed while Hannah and I spent a few minutes cracking up about some things. It was nice to go to bed laughing.

Day 5 Shabbos and Yom Tov
We ALL slept late, Liora inclded! Fruma told us that they dance to the kotel with the sefer torah and that they go right past our hotel around 11:30 so Hannah and Liora ran to the Great Synagogue to see if for a few and I took my time getting dressed. Sure enough, around 11:45, there were the dancers and Fruma. We joined the group and danced down to the Kotel. A Harry Potter look a like led the cheering and singing and we got to the Kotel just in time to watch some more dancing. I was able to daven Mussaf and Mincha, and to say some Tehilim for my Grandmother, and then we walked back through the Old City towards Fruma's parents apartment.



We walked through this neighborhood, where apartments are like $2 million a piece. It was beautiful! I took this photo on Thursday, BTW. We got to Fruma's for lunch around 2:30 and it was again amazing food. At this point, my stomach is starting to protest all the eating, even with all the walking, and I was in desperate need of a food coma sleep. Liora left to the Inbal hotel after lunch to meet with Dani and Boaz and Hannah and I went back to the hotel to get a quick nap in before Shabbat was over.

And that was pretty much it so far. Jeff picked me up at the hotel and took me, and all of our suitcases, back to the apartment. It's nice to be back home for the night as tomorrow will be a very busy day indeed! I have to pack for Ein Gedi and take care of some school things. I'm hoping to get back to Jerusalem with enough time to join Hannah and Liora on a tour of the City and then maybe grab Liora and take her out to Cafe Rimon for dinner.

That's the update for today, some more thoughts in the morning and then again when we get back from the desert.

Birthday Gifts!

Today, my parents gave me a great birthday present! This gorgeous wood and glass table for my apartment, along with four very comfortable chairs. This afternoon, after I went to the bank and deposited some cash, then paid some bills with Itai and watched the window man make sure nothing else was going to break off and hit me, I hopped a cab down to Herzl Street to check out furniture stores. I went to Lubliner, as per Itai's suggestion, but didn't really like what I had seen. In terms of buying couches, I'm pretty much at a loss. My last couch purchase was gorgeous, a denim blue convertible bed from Jennifer Convertibles. I bought it for the Upper West Side apartment I lived in for 6 months back in the day when I was 21 and tried the Westmont. It really didn't work out for me and I ended up giving the couch to a good friend as a wedding present.

So, I've decided to shelve couch shopping for the moment. Who knows, maybe someone will give me a couch so I don't have to go out and buy one. I walked into a lot of stores and came back to the same table store I had visited weeks ago when shopping for a bed on Herzl Street.

Mark, who is half British and half Israeli, was swamped today but we managed to discuss my price parameters and what I was looking for. In the end, I decided to go with a table that seats 8 people comfortably, even though with the 4 additional chairs, I now have 10 chairs in my apartment. I've decided in Tel Aviv not to do what I did on the Upper West Side and just host meals at Cousin Neils and the boys apartment every couple of months. Those meals always totalled around 12-15 people and at times we were pretty tight around the table. I'm now hoping that if I limit my meals to 8, it will be a lot more comfortable and more manageable.

To see what else the store sells, check out Sol Rahit.

My cold is really coming in nicely. Fortunately, I caught Hannah before she went on her last minute errand trip and so she's bringing me some Nyquil and some Claritin, just in case this is allergies and not a cold. I also called to arrange for a car pickup tomorrow, so that I can get to the airport in just enough time to grab Hannah as she gets out from baggage check.

Tonight, I also decided to really cook dinner. I made portobello mushrooms and onion stir fry with fake chicken strips, seasoned with shwarma spice, salt and pepper. I cooked up some couscous with onion soup mix and then cut up a some Israeli salad. It looked great when I plated it ala Emeril of course, but when it was time to sit down and eat, I couldn't do it. You know the saying, starve the cold and feed the fever? Well, there's a reason you starve a cold, you have no appetite! So, I'm hoping as Hannah, Liora and I restaurant hop throughout Jerusalem, there will be plenty of soup for me :)

Today was a big phone day! I spoke to both my parents, Shulamit for almost 2 hours, my little sister (having spoken to my older sister last night), Grandma, Marnina, Cousin Neil, Yotam, Jason and the Apple care customer service folks. I was having a slight issue with my Mac but thank g-d, it's all fixed!

Well, it's 10:00 p.m. and I promised myself to get to bed early this evening. So, good night to you all and I will hopefully blog next time from Jerusalem!

Song of the evening is Fade Into You by Mazzy Starr, because it's a great bedtime tune.

Dry as the Desert

I woke up parched this morning, my throat sore with the dryness and my head throbbing. I've had another first in this country. This morning, for the first time in my entire life, I got a nose bleed. For the people who get grossed out or are of the faint of heart (i.e. Cousin Neil) now might be the time for you to stop reading. Basically, at first I had no idea what was going on. But even with only six hours of sleep last night, I was able to spring into action before I stained the new oatmeal colored rug I bought for my bathroom. I was pretty impressed with myself for remembering not to tilt my head back but rather to tilt it forward. Fortunately, the bleeding stopped fairly quickly, which was really good.

Of course, that led me to consult The Hypochondriacs Bible to find out where this nosebleed came from and whether or not I need to get myself to a Dr. Fortunately, nose bleeds are pretty common in areas with very little moisture in the air. And, given that Israel is basically one big ol' desert, it's no surprise that I'm dried out.

So, today there will be a little change of activities. I'm going to try to take it a bit easier and will try to stay close to home. I'm waiting right now for the window guy to come and fix the aluminum siding that fell on me last week and then I'm going to run to the bank to make a deposit. After that, I will probably cab it to Herzl street to look at some tables and chairs. Itai told me to go to the place he went to for his furniture and I actually like his stuff so I'm going to head down to that store. Other than that, I'm going to just relax and maybe watch some TV. I haven't watched TV really since installing the cable so now would be a good time to see what types of channels I have.

Oh, so last night I had a dream about one of my guy friends from back in New York City. I've had this dream before about various guy friends over the years, which means that he's going to be getting engaged. It's wierd, I know, but trust me. In a few weeks, I'll be blogging a big Mazal Tov to him and the future Mrs. him.

Wow, I'm all over the place today. Last night, after editing my friend's Wharton application essays (note to people applying to Biz school, I am now charging for editing business school applications but I have to say I'm really good at it!) I took another shower (3 yesterday, and yet I'm still dry, whatever), got dressed, picked up Jeff and met Oren and his friend Sarah at some bar on Frishman street. Gayle actually took me to this bar before and we walked in and I made her walk out because it was just too crowded, too smokey, the music was too lousy and it just wasn't my scene. When I texted Oren to see what he was up to last night, he said he really wanted to go to this place, so I acquiesced. We had a nice time and after Jeff went home I met this guy named Ayal, who had the coolest hair! He invited me to a party he's throwing in Jerusalem on the 19th and, coincidentally, I should be in the Holy City that night so I might meet up with Sarah (nice girl who works at the Knesset!) and go with her to his party. We'll see, the 19th is still a long ways away so I don't need to make any decision now.

Aight, gotta go hit the bank before it closes on me.

Song of the day is Mr. Brightside by The Killers, who just released their sophomore album.

Hail Caesar!

Hail Caesar, Customer Service representative of the month for US Voice Link, my VOIP provider. He spent over an hour on the phone with me and the end result was great - I am ready to go!

Not to bore anyone with the details, but I am just so happy to hear the familiar tones of my home phone ringing that I have to share. Here was the problem, once of course I had to beg and plead my cable company to drop my dialer and enable me to connect directly to the internet via my wireless router. So, apparently, the ports were closed on my wireless router which meant that people couldn't call into me, even though I was still able to call out.

So, rather than have to call Linksys and ask them to turn on the ports on my wireless router, Caesar explained that all I had to do was have my cable connection go through my VOIP box and into my wireless router. That was it, simple. Of course, there were some complications because folks, as you've learned by now, with me things are always complicated. So, after much restarting and recycling of power (for us simple people that means pulling out the plug and then plugging back in) Caesar reconfigured my box to enable the cable connection to flow through to the wireless router. And boom, I'm in business. My internet with thankfully working and I can call out AND get incoming calls on my phone!

Now, we also discovered a complicated when he was playing around with the lines. Apparently, my upload speed here is really, really low which accounts for some of the dropped calls I experienced last week (i.e. hung up on Mom three times!!). He configured the box to work with the low upload speed right now, but suggested I call Smile and ask them to boost that number. Now, that of course will probably take 3 weeks to accomplish since this is Israel and everything takes forever (plus with the holidays and very few people working, the time will take even longer) but at least I'm aware of the situation and can take into account when making calls or dealing with the internet.

Of course, no one at home can call me right now to test out my connection but I'm going to probably wait up again tonight until after the Chag in New York and will make some calls. Also, my friend Dina sent me such a sad e-mail on my birthday that she has been calling me non-stop for the past three weeks. Obviously, she hasn't been able to get through until now! So Dina, if you're reading my blog after the Chag, give me a call when you wake up tomorrow morning! Would love to catch up!!

Today was good, I had an interesting afternoon. All the swimsuit shops here are having end of season sales and since we're going to be wallowing in the mud at the Dead Sea, I wanted a swimsuit that wouldn't get ruined. I spent 75 shekel and bought a new bikini bottom to pair with my Jcrew tankini top and so I'm all set for Ein Gedi! Then, I went to the Dizengoff mall and picked up a few items for my kitchen and my bathroom. I got hand towels and a small shower rug for my bathroom and I picked up a couple of pyrex cookware and a springform pan. I'm starting to get excited about entertaining, having spent a lot of time going through Tova's cookbooks over Shabbat, and just need a table and 4 more chairs to get started. I also changed some money so I could deposit into the bank and have enough shekel to cover my bills this month. I have to pay for my health insurance, my internet connection and my cell phone all within 2 days of each other. Because of the Chag, the banks are all closed in the afternoon so I have to wake up early tomorrow to make sure to make the deposit.

After all my afternoon errands, I headed back to the apartment and made some lunch before working on my phone issues. Not sure what's going on tonight, I texted Oren to see what he was up to and am waiting to hear back from him to see if he wants to hang out. I could really go for a movie right about now.

Song of the day is In the Morning by Junior Boys because it was the free download of the week off of iTunes and it's actually a pretty good tune. Perfect for working out!

The Sukkot Shake

This video is hysterical! Enjoy!

Plague #3: Lice

Majority of my readers are celebrating the second day of Succot right now, but for all those living here in Israel, it's Chol Hamoed. I have been looking forward to celebrating one day of the Chag for years, having celebrated two when I was a seminary girl back in the day. So, what do you think I did on Saturday night when I had all these options opened to me? (remember the post from Thursday, when I listed them? If not, go back now and take a look).

Well, I spent my Saturday night at home, looking for lice.

So, let me give you some context before I continue with this post.

Shabbat/Yom Tov was very nice and chock full of children! When all three of the Novick men are together, they have (g-d bless them) 14 children! And somewhere between the Ethopian children who came aroud Succah hopping, and the kids who were there for the siyum that was held for Tzvi because he (at age 6 folks) finished Masechet Succah with his father, and the neighborhood children who came over to play, I was exposed to lice. In this country, where lice sadly is rampant, this shouldn't have shocked me. But, nonetheless, it was very surprising and really bad memories from elementary school came flooding back. I had this immediate image of my little sister sitting at the kitchen table, her hair in pigtails (and she has very thick, black hair) and my Dad sitting there going through every single strand of hair with a fine tooth comb. I remember the year my Mom said it was enough with the lice (our school had a real problem that year) and she took us to Main Street to the beauty parlor and I went from having long hair to a Dorothy-Hamill like bowl haircut. It solved the lice problem for me but I looked awful with short hair, and have since hid every single photo of myself from that year.

So, as you can imagine, my fear of lice is pretty significant. I spent the half an hour waiting for the train scratching and on the phone with my friend Tamara from school. She has two children, so she knew exactly what to tell me to do. I got home and didn't unpack or go anywhere near my bed. I grabbed my wallet and ran out to the drugstore and walked up and down the aisles looking for all the lice- related products. I was told to buy this one "amazing" metal lice comb. It's called the Assy 2000 (seriously folks, I wish I was making this up, but there are the marquee products for lice issues in this country!) and I couldn't find it anywhere. I finally asked one of the sales people and she said I had to go and ask for it at the pharmacy.

Talk about shame. Sometimes there are products you just want to pick up off the shelf and then not look into the registers eyes when you have to pay. That's what I was hoping to do but NO I had to go wait on this huge line by the pharmacy and ask for the lice comb. And he showed me three different options before I found the Assy 2000 and bought that one. I also bought some Vitamin C and cold medicine because I was also exposed to MULTIPLE colds this weekend and I really do not want to get sick with my friends and parents on their way.

So, I head on back to my apartment with my lice comb in hand and the directions to get into a shower, shampoo and heavy condition before going through my hair with this lice comb. I did and didn't see anything. Didn't mean anything to me. So, I layered on the heavy conditioner and tried to sarran wrap my head for about an hour. That's what I heard you're supposed to do to suffocate any lice you might have. Ummm, I couldn't get the saran wrap to stay on my conditioned head so I ended up dumping the saran wrap and just wrapping my head into a big towl.

Now folks, it's already 1:30 in the morning by the time I'm up to this part. I still had to sit for an hour and then rinse out the conditioner. I didn't get to bed until 3:00 am but the good news is that I'm all caught up on this season of Weeds (thanks WeirdScientists on YouTube!).

So, long story short, I think I'm pretty much lice free. Thank g-d, cause it wouldn't have been good if I found anything at all.

I of course slept in this morning since I was up so late and got a wake up call from my gym. They were calling to see how come I haven't been at the gym. I laughed. I was at the gym on Wednesday when my trainer totally worked me to the bone. So I said, I've been to the gym in the past week. She got all angry and said I had to make sure I gave my name at the front desk. So, I told her that I didn give my name at the front desk and it's not really my problem if they couldn't find it in the computer.

Another big difference in terms of Tel Aviv vs. New York. In NYC, if you don't show up at the gym, no one will ever care. They are more than happy to take your money and have you never work out at all. In Tel Aviv, they care if you don't come to the gym (and folks, I'm already paid up for the YEAR! Plus, I can't cancel my membership either).

Very interesting. I guess at Pure they actually want you to come and use their facilities. I was planning on hitting the gym today anyway.

OK, so it's already 1:15 p.m. and the extent of my day thusfar has included benching Lulav and Esrog, catching up with Tamara, catching up on e-mails, eating breakfast, unpacking and picking out my outfit for today. I am now going to finish e-mailing, updating my blog, and then I'm going to head out on errands.

Oh, and here's my schedule for the next year:
Semester I
Mondays, 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. - Poetry writing seminar
Tuesdays, 12:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. - Writing Seminar with Bret Lott
4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. - Jewish Arts Seminar with Professor Michael Kramer (department head)
Wednesdays, 12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. - Medieval Jewish Philosophy

Semester II
Tuesdays, 12:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. - Writing Seminar with Professor Alan Hoffman
4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. - Jewish Arts Seminar with Professor Michael Kramer (department head)
Wednesdays, 12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. - Medieval Jewish Philosophy

The first semester I'm not thrilled about, I was hoping to only go to school twice a week, but I really need to take the poetry course and it's only given on Mondays. So, for a few months, I'll be going to Ramat Gan three days a week and then after Febuary, only twice a week. Definitely manageable.

Today looks as follows:
Change some money and deposit into my bank account to pay for my health insurance, cell phone and internet bills, hit the gym, look at furniture and maybe catch a movie, do some laundry, pickup some more cooking items for my apartment and do some baking for my freezer (I need to test out my oven anyway).

Moadim Le'simcha! I'm so happy to be on vacation!

Succot in Ramat Beit Shemesh

It's 2:00 p.m. on Erev Shabbos and Yom Tov and I'm exhausted already! We've had quite a busy morning. Tova took me and the kids to Ramat Beit Shemesh so I could buy a lulav and esrog. Now, I've never actually ever purchased or personally owned a lulav and esrog, but Tova make a good point last night about benching all week, so I acquiesced. Basically, I really like to bench lulav and esrog at least during the first few days of Succot. With three men in my household back in Queens (at least that was the number until a few months ago), there were plenty of lulavim and esrogim to pick from. Since Succot in the States is the holiday when I have the worst allergies, I tend to stay away from shul and would come downstairs when my Father and Grandfather got back from Haskamah minyan so I could bench and then held Mom prepare for another meal.

The streets in RBS were packed with people! It seemed everyone was looking to buy a last minute lulav and esrog set. And, since we were all "last minute Charlies", the price was significantly reduced. Tova knew someone who had a table, so we decided to buy from him. The thing in Israel though is that the lulavim don't come already assembled, you buy it all piecemeal. So, right now, I have a handy travel case with the deconstructed lulav ready to be assembled. I'm missing one element, which the kid I bought it from is going to bring to the Novick house, and Noam is going to put the lulav together for me.

The other interesting difference in Israel is that none of the esrogim have a pitom (the pointy stem at one end of the esrog). If this breaks off in the middle of the holiday, the esrog becomes Pasul (no longer kosher enough to use) and then you're up a creek for the rest of the holiday. When I asked about the pitom, the kid laughed at me and said that they don't sell them in Israel with a pitom. They also don't sell them with a nice case like we get back in Queens. So, my esrog with swaddled in this pink styrophone "bag". I've been carting it around in my purse too, it's hysterical.

It's going to be interesting traveling back to Tel Aviv tomorrow night with my esrog and lulav in tow. People are going to think I'm really progressive :)

After we picked up the lulav and esrog set, we went to the bagel store and got some lunch. It was actually really good, and turns out the first bagel I've eaten since been to Israel. We got back home and the cleaning lady had done a great job in the house and then everyone just scattered. Tova went to take a nap, Noam cut up some fruit salad and the kids are all playing. I'm sitting here updating my blog and typing in some recipes from Tova's cook books. I am hoping to make my first Shabbat meal the weekend after my parents go back to the States and Tova has a great Israeli cookbook.

OK, the kids just came down so I'm going to sign off!

VACATION!!!

I'm on VACATION! Woohoo! Sooo happy right now, I can't even express it in words but will try to anyway since I can't call every one and just squeal with delite. I should probably start with last night since I didn't really sleep, I was up all night editing my two stories, then editing other people's stories, then editing and rewriting my stories again. This morning, before I finished packing up my apartment (again, took all the important documents and the laptop with me to Beit Shemesh) I reviewed my pieces and then submitted them to the Professor. Now, it's all in his hands. I get my grade around the 15th, and I hope it will make me happy.

The last class today was really nice, we workshopped four stories and did some more writing and then Nomi gave me a ride to Beit Shemesh. Now, Nomi is one of the people in my class (obviously) who I've spoken to and edited her stories but we really haven't had a chance to get to know each other. I mean, how much can you get to know someone when you basically just exchange pleasantries during the break and before class. In the car ride from school to Beit Shemesh, we really got to talking and it turns out and a full 16 years before I went to work at Dan Klores Associates, Nomi was a Junior Account Executive for Dan himself while working at Howard Rubenstein.

That is just an unbelievable coincidence. It turns out that Nomi and I have a lot more in common, minus the husband and children, and it was really enjoyable getting to know her. I'm hoping to be able to meet up with a couple of classmates who live in Jerusalem when I'm there next week, but more on that in a bit.

Nomi dropped me off here at the Novicks and then came in to meet Tova. I barely dropped my stuff onto the floor before the kids converged, which was fun and overwhelming at the same time. Tova and Noam are out at a Bar Mitzvah tonight, so I'm on babysitting duty. And, I have to say, at 30 years old I'm able to get things under control. The baby went into hysterics when Tova left and I managed to rock her to sleep and then get two of the other kids into Slumberland. The oldest waited up until Noam came home from work and then went promptly to bed after I let him play another computer game. And now, all is quiet, and It's good to know that I still got the gift for babysitting!

This will be my very first Succot keeping only one day and I'm soo excited!! I think it's going to be a little weird on Saturday night when we make Havdala knowing that I can get on the train back to my apartment and enjoy my Sunday while my family and friends back home still have to keep one more day. I'm just going to have to remember not to call anyone on Sunday, because no one in the States will answer the phone!

So, here's the schedule for the next few weeks. I'm here in Beit Shemesh until Saturday night and then I am doing one of the following:

1) Going back home to my apartment to catch up on sleep. I haven't had a decent night sleep in a really long time, so it would be great to crawl into bed at 10:00 and just sleep till Noon

2) Go back home, dropped my stuff, then take the bus to R'anana and go out to the movies with Tamara.

3) Stay in Beit Shemesh and go with the Novicks to a Simchat Beit Hashoevah concert in town

4) Head into Jerusalem to this singles event, where apparently some famous shadchan named Tova holds a huge singles event around this time each year. Don't know if any shidduchim ever result, but its been getting a lot of ink lately.

The jury is out on what I'm going to do Sat night, but it's nice to know that I have some options.

Sunday I'm looking at furniture for my apartment, going to the gym and probably doing another load of laundry. Depending on what's going on in the neighborhood, maybe I'll take in a movie.

Monday is Birkat Kohanim at the Kotel and the OU Center is also airing a movie about the last basketball game to ever take place in the settlements that were disbanded during the disengagement. I heard some really great things about the movie and I'd like to try to catch it if I can. I've been chatting with my friend Rabbi Avi and I'm hoping to coordinate with him. I need to go to Meah Shearim to pick up another Mezuzah for my apartment, so perhaps he'll want to come with me to that. I also need to see Fruma, who should be in flight RIGHT NOW!!! I can't wait to see her! At some point, I also need to coordinate with Rav Rudman, who I haven't seen in a few years at this point, and my friend Rivky. If I end up making it a day trip to Jerusalem, I'm going to try to get together with some of the Jerusalem crew from my class as well.

Tuesday I'm going to be packing, going to the gym and getting ready because Hannah comes to town and we move into the Kings hotel for the week!! I can't wait! I'm going to be picking her up at the airport, and by the time we get in to the hotel and unpack, we'll probably just have time to grab some dinner and maybe walk over to the Kotel (depending on how tired she is too).

Wednesday, we are off to Kiryat Sefer to visit Ariella. For those who don't know who Ariella is, she is Hannah's best friend from childhood (growing up in Cincinnati) and my former roommate from Michlalah. I haven't spoken to Ariella in a while, but Hannah promised we would come to see where she lives and meet her kids, so we're planning on going there for a few hours. Then, Liora lands and heads to the hotel!! We're thinking of grabbing dinner and, depending on what Liora wants to do, will probably go back to the Kotel.

Thursday in terms of plans is completely up in the air. I know Hannah and Liora both have certain things they want to see while they're here, so I'm just going to go with the flow. We all agreed that we'd like to go do the Tunnel Tours, which I still have to call about on Sunday so we can make reservations, and Hannah mentioned that we would most probably be "eating our way" through the Holy City. Well, I don't think I'm really going to be up for all that eating, but if we end up doing the amount of walking I'm hoping to do, I might just need the constant refueling. The one place I'm insisting we go to for dinner is Olives on Emek Refaim, which is a great restaurant my friends Rachel and Greg introduced me to when I was here in Israel back in 2002. There is also a fantastic candle store on Emek Refaim (or at least there used to be one) and I really hope to get a chance to pick up some candles for my apartment.

Friday, also not sure yet what we're going to do, but it's a really short day so we'll probably stick close to home. Friday night we are all eating by Fruma's parents so I have to make a mental note to pick up a bottle of wine or send flowers before Shabbat. We're not sure what we're doing yet in terms of lunch on Shabbos day, but Fruma mentioned that they dance the torah down to the Kotel, so we'll probably head over to the Old City for that.

Saturday night, not sure yet, but I'm sure we'll find something to do.

Sunday, we might end up splitting up because Liora wants to go to Amuka, I think Hannah wants to go visit some family, and I would like to do two things: visit the new Shalva in Har Nof and meet my cousins who live in Rechavia. Sunday night is our last night in Jerusalem, so we'll probably lay low and just prepare for the coming days.

Monday - Wednesday we're going to be in Ein Gedi! We're taking the bus down to the Kibbutz on Monday morning and plan on hitting the spa, the Dead Sea and the pool in the afternoon. I've never been to the Dead Sea, so it should be a lot of fun. Hannah and I will have to pick up a pair of pool shoes, unless I want to ruin one of my pairs of Jcrew flip flops (I don't). I also have to call the Malia Mills store on Columbus Avenue to see if I can even wear my tankini in the mud. If she says that it's going to get ruined, I'm going to have to buy myself another suit. I spent over $300 on the tankini and there is no way I'm risking ruining it.

Wednesday night I'll be back in my apartment and then Thursday, it's off to Jerusalem to see the folks!

OK, I have to cut the blog short because the baby woke up screaming and I need to go take care of her. Will try to blog again tomorrow!

Chag Sameach!!

Song of the day is The Mating Game by Bitter:Sweet

Chicken Little

Well, the sky isn't falling but things in my apartment have started raining down. The above photo is a picture of aluminum siding from my window that fell on me yesterday. Fortunately, it missed my head and just hit my hand, but it was definitely a bit too close for my taste. I'm too tired to go into the whole story but my landlord knows about the issue and she promised to take care of it.

Moving on...

I was up late last night working on my stories and have less than 24 hours to whip them into better shape before my final class tomorrow. Cousin Neil e-mailed me that he couldn't get through (sorry, my cable is a little tempremental) and was confused about the acceptance into the Masters program issue I raised in yesterday's post. To clarify, I was accepted into the program by the Creative Writing department but since this is a Masters program, need to also be accepted by that department as well. Apparently, at Bar Ilan, the Masters department is notoriously slow so the fact that I don't have an official acceptance letter isn't an issue. According to my department head, last year a number of people didn't get their acceptance letters until well into the program. Fortunately, I've been in touch with my department head, and he is well aware of the situation. I will be enrolled in the courses that I'm required to take next year, and hopefully once the Chagim are over and everyone at Bar Ilan gets back to work, I'll be able to deal with the appropriate school officials.

Today is going to be quiet. I have training with Yehuda from 1:30 - 3:30 and otherwise, I'll be at my "desk" working on my papers. At some point I have to pack for Yom Tov as I'm going away tomorrow night to Beit Shemesh, but I am really looking forward to the 3 week break from school. I could use a few days to just relax and get ready for the crew to come.

Song of the day is Portion for Foxes by Rilo Kiley

Milim Yafot Me'ele

It's 1:30 a.m. on Thursday and I'm too amped up to sleep. I think I've finally gotten my two papers into good enough shape to send to the Professor tomorrow. I'm going to be graded on three elements for this class: my analysis of one of the Tevye The Dairyman stories and my two original short stories. The first one, which has been a literal labor of love, is called The Domino Sky while the second one is Kush Revelations. If anyone out there is interested in reading either story, please let me know, I'm happy to e-mail over copies.

Tonight when Itai came home from work, he knocked on my door but I was in the middle of a paragraph and I ignored the door. When he called me, I told him to come back in a few hours since I was working on the paper. He ended up knocking on my door at around 10:30 and told me that everything in the apartment will be fixed on Friday. He was super nice, and he even lent me this amazing floor lamp so that I can plug in a Shabbos clock and have light on Friday night. Since sundown is so early these days, I'm going to need light in my living room so I can read before heading to bed. It was really nice of him, and I appreciated his efforts.

I mentioned that he had been listening to a song the other night that I really liked and I wanted to borrow the CD (yeah, the walls really are not that thick. When he's eating dinner, I can hear him cutting his food). Turns out, it's the exact same CD Jeff got me for my birthday. I hadn't been able to listen to the CD at the time, my CD player in my laptop was acting funny when I tried, but Itai managed to get it to work for me. And, I've been listening to two specific songs off of the CD all night long! The first song is called Mimamakim (which in English means "From the Depths) and the second song is called Milim Yafot Me'ele (which means beautiful words from someone, not sure if it's from her or from him, I need to look up the word "me'ele" to know for sure.) The "group" and I use that term loosely because it's more of a Fatboy Slim situation is called Idan Raichel and I definitely recommend checking it out.

So, here's the update with my phone. I have the ability to call out, but no one can call in. Very weird. I'm giving it another few hours before I call the cable company again. I hope this gets fixed really soon! I spoke to my friend Tommy in New York and he told me he'd been trying for a few days to get through. He then told me that his Dad passed away last October, and I felt awful that I didn't know. He mentioned trips to Austin in the past, but I thought he was just visiting his Dad and not going to settle the estate. He's doing okay though, which is good, and I told him that we'd be able to catch up a lot more when I'm back in the States.

I also spent about an hour on the phone with Shulamit again tonight. That's the best part of my VOIP, I felt like I was back in the City and we were doing our usual evening catch up. Being able to talk on the phone like that is the reason VOIP was created, and really makes living so far away much easier. Unfortunatey, I haven't been able to connect with more people, but over time I'm hoping that will be much easier. I'm hoping to catch my sister and Marn's when they're driving into work, and Cousin Neil when he's at work. Other people will be a lot more diffcult, especially my nocturnal buddies who used to call in at Midnight. Oh well, we'll just have to figure it all out.

That's it for me, I need to get to bed before the big day tomorrow!

Song of the evening is Milim Yafot Me'ele by Idan Raichel. Dad, I think you'll really like this CD too!

Acid House Kings

I'm going to share a little secret today. There is an incredible website called Insound where I go to get MP3's of new music. Each month, the folks over at insound scour the planet looking for great new indie tunes and then upload free MP3's so I can sample the music before buying. I've worked with a couple of the folks over at insound and, based on our exchanges, agree in most of their selections. Last night, after I updated my second short story, I hit the site and downloaded a couple of new tunes. Some were hits, others were definitely misses. But, I've discovered a great new band called the Acid House Kings, a Swedish group whose sound is like the Smiths meet Belle and Sebastian. Other great new groups include The Decemberists and Wolf Parade.

I've been having a leisurely morning. I had to wait for the Yes man to come and pick up my boxes. He tried to convince me to stay with Yes, but I just wanted him and the boxes out of the apartment. He was a little creepy. He tried to talk me into keeping their service, and was a bit menacing at one point, but I politely and firmly said no and then showed him the door. I think the next time I need to deal with a serviceman, I'm going to schedule the appointment when Itai is home. For comfort reasons, I think it's best.

After I finish updating this blog, I have to go out and do my laundry. I feel like I'm constantly doing laundry here, it's crazy! I also have to put in some stuff at the cleaners so I have clothing to wear over Yom Tov. Tova just called to tell me that Noam's brother and sister in law are coming for Yom Tov, so the house is going to be teeming with folks! Good thing the men sleep in the succah, at least I still have a bed! I'm looking forward, it should be very lively!

I spent a few hours on the phone with the Ein Gedi tourism department, trying to prepare for our trip in a few days. I really can't wait until Fruma, Hannah and Liora get here! It's going to be a lot of fun and hopefully will be nice and relaxing. So, we're going to Ein Gedi for a few days after Succot, and I'm trying to hook us up on a jeep tour in the Judean desert. It will cost each of us 200 shekel, which is $50 for a 4 hour trip. Not bad. Right now they have the space for the trip, so I just need to consult with the crew and get back to them with reservations. Sadly, the moonlit Safari excursion is out of the question. Apparently, the full moon is the week before, and Hannah and Liora will still be in the States. Oh well, maybe on their next trip East.

Tomorrow is still up in the air, which is funny. Basically, I wasn't accepted into my program yet by the Masters department. And, until that happens, I can't register. What's so funny is that I already PAID for the program. Now, I'm only taking 3 classes next year, 2 of which I am automatically in since it's only available to people in my program. However, the third class I am hoping to take is one of my Limudei Yisod requirements and I have to e-mail the professor for permission. If for some reason I don't get permission, well, then I'm not really sure what I'll be doing. Professor Kramer, who is the acting chair of the program, is giving another literature course on Wednesday so I can always take that class and just deal with my requirements next year. Gotta love Bar Ilan folks, never a dull moment.

OK, I'm off to do the laundry.

Song of the day is Do What You Wanna Do by the Acid House Kings. Definitely a must listen to tune! Go download it for free off of insound!

Yom Kippur and the Tayelet

It's 12:15 a.m. on October 3rd and Yom Kippur has been finished for 6 hours but I still feel the after effects of the day. Yesterday, Jeff hooked me up with a meal by his friends Moshe and Tamar, and it was a really nice meal. Unfortunately, I ended up eating and running so I could get back to my apartment to change and light candles before Kol Nidrei. I felt bad, I never would have eaten and run like that otherwise, so I'm hoping the bottle of wine I gave them makes up a little bit for my rudeness.

I set up my apartment and then raced to shul in time for Kol Nidrei. The minyan was packed, but I had an assigned seat, so I was all set. The davening was nice, pretty straight forward, and that as we were filing out Jeff told me that everyone was going to take walks on the Tayelet. I went with the crowd but was pretty surprised to see what the crowd was like. Now, I know this isn't like Tisha B'av, and you can be social on Yom Kippur, but that's just not what I'm used to. I walked with a couple of people for a while and then headed back home.

This morning, I decided to go toa different minyan for the day. The downstairs minyan, whose median age was 75, was exactly what I was looking for. It was just tefilah, period. Shacharit and Mussaf went until 1:00 and then we had a break until 3:00. I went back to my apartment and relaxed until 2:30 and was the first woman back in shul at 2:45. I have a thing about being in shul for Sefer Yonah. It was my favorite class at Michlalah, partly because it was taught by Rabbi Mirsky of BMT fame, and partly because of the imagery of the story (the big fish, the casting of lots, the almond tree, the sailors, the port of Yaffo, etc.). What was odd was that, even though the fast ended at 6:01, we blew Shofar at 5:55 p.m. and then went right into Maariv. Maybe my watch was 5 minutes slow, but I hope no one ate until 6:01. I stayed through Maariv to make sure I heard Havdalah and then made my way home.

Couple of observations:
1) Tel Aviv completely shuts down and even though there is no law prohibiting driving cars during the day, no one drives. Everyone instead rollerblades, jogs or bikes in the streets. It's like Xmas for kids, they looked so happy biking throughout the normally busy streets. It was very weird for me to see that

2) Even the most unaffiliated stays home and doesn't do anything. Since there isn't anything broadcast on TV or radio, the day is devoted to DVD's. Apparently, Erev Yom Kippur is the largest DVD rental day in the country. Sad.

I spoke to Itai tonight, he knocked on my door to see how my fast went. He was just really in awe that I fasted today, and when I told him that I tend to fast all 6 fasts during the year, it blew his mind. I told him I kept him in mind during my tefilot, and that seemed to make him happy. Oh well, maybe I'll rub off on him and next year he'll try to come to shul.

I'm still dehdrated, which was the worst part of today. I can go without eating for a few days, but in this heat, not having water is really not safe. I've been drinking since I got home and I'm still not hydrated. Hopefully, I'll start feeling a bit better before I go to bed.

Tonight, I broke my fast here, and then worked on editing my second short story for class. Thursday is my last day and I have to hand in my final two stories to get graded. My professor is going to give out grades by the 15th, so I'm really hoping he'll like what I wrote!

Tomorrow is a quiet day. I am waiting for the cable guys to come and pick up the boxes from the first company I signed up with in the old apartment, I have to do laundry and give in my cleaning, and then I want to go to the gym and check out this new supermarket on Arolzorov. I also have to do some serious editing of my stories too.

I hope everyone had an easy and meaningful fast.

Gmar Tov.

Erev Yom Kippur @ The Kotel

It's 1:00 p.m. in Israel and for the next month, I will only be 6 hours behind the States! Last night, we changed the clocks back and hour. Fortunately, that was a blessing since I didn't get off the phone with my friends until 3:30 a.m. new time.

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for their birthday well wishes. Much appreciated! It's sad that I can't celebrate with y'all, but I'm happy that at least most if not all of you remembered.

This morning, I was woken up at 7:30 a.m. by my cell phone. I got a text message. Thinking it was a birthday text from some one in the states, I went to check it. It was Yanai, the guy I hung out with last night, telling me that he was driving into Jerusalem to visit a friend's father who is in Shaarei Tzedek and very ill, and would I like a ride to Jerusalem. I literally jumped out of bed, thinking this was certainly bashert and called him back. He said he would pick me up in 30 minutes, which gave me plenty of time to take out my Kotel outfit (longer jean skirt I own, long-sleeve black t-shirt) and get ready, plus I was able to daven a bit at home, eat breakfast and cathc up with Cara Rochwager back home. He picked me up at 8:30 and we were swiftly on our way to Jerusalem.

The road was basically clear until we got to the entrance of Jerusalem, where the traffic really backed up. Yanai told me that a lot of people go to visit graves of relatives on Erev Yom Kippur, so the backup were all the cars trying to get into the cemetary at the entrance of Jerusalem. Since he stil hadn't heard from the friend in the hospital, he drove me all the way to the Kotel! We went through the Old City, entering at Jaffa Gate, and he dropped me off right outside the entrace to the Kotel.

I really couldn't believe it - I finally made it to the Kotel. And, on my birthday too! The Kotel was teeming with people, and I was able to finish davening Shacharit, say my tehilim, say my own little prayer for myself, my family, and my friends and then I did Kaparot at the Kotel! That was really great, I found 4 quarters in my camera case (which is what I use when I'm home in Queens for Kaparot) and I said it while standing right near the cool stones. Since the time was ticking and I still had to get back to Tel Aviv and prepare food for tonight, I only stayed for 30 minutes at the Kotel. On my way out towards the parking lot, I was able to give out the Sheliach Mitzvah money that I got from the folks at home (Rachel, Ilana, Marns, the Torcz's, Cousin Neil, Seth and Allison, Josh Dyckman and anyone else who gave me money to give out, it was given today and the blessings from the women in need were said in your honor!).

Above is a photo of the Kotel on Erev Yom Kippur.

I walked out the gate, and past the Chabad guys who were doing Kaparot with a real live chicken, deposited my quarters into their Tzedakah box since they were collecting money in return for the chicken schlugging and I hopped a cab to the Tachanah. I have never actually been inside the new Tachanah before and it's incredible!!! I was amazed at how many restaurants and how beautiful it looks! I ran inside and up to the third floor to buy the ticket for the bus to the Arlozorov station and he told me that the bus was loading right then and there. I had to go to the bathroom though so I made a break for it and, one shekel later, was racing back towards the bus. Now, I am blaming the following on only 3 hours of sleep last night, but I didn't see the bus that was RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME! There were people sitting on the bench waiting, so I just sat there and waited with them. I kept looking at my watch because the bus was said to depart in 4 minutes, so I couldn't understand where it was. Then, I finally looked up and realized that the bus people were getting on for the past 15 minutes was the 480 bus. I hopped on and the driver shut the doors LITERALLY behind me. Oh well, at least I didn't have to wait that long on the bus. I grabbed a seat in the back and settled in for the ride back, which was absolutely gorgeous. Israel is just such a beautiful country. I was surrounded by Chayalim and, at one point, realized that I had 3 guns pointed in my direction. That was an interesting feeling.

And then, the texts and birthday calls came in. I got a call from Maayan over at my gym, she offered me a Mazal Tov but when I asked for a free month in honor of my birthday I just got a laugh from her. Then, I got a text from this guy I'm supposed to be going out with at the end of October. It was so sweet of him to remember, I don't even know when I initially mentioned it to him, so that was nice to received.

Then Jeff called again to wish me a Happy Birthday and to invite me to a pre-fast Seudah. Since the other option was to eat alone, and to eat boiled potatoes and chicken that I still had no idea where I was going to go to get, I thankfully accepted the invitation. I got off the bus a few moments later and grabbed a cab towards Supersol, where I picked up some food to break the fast tomorrow and a bottle of wine for my host/hostess this afternoon. We are eating at 3:30 since the last time you can eat is 4:45. I was going to go there all ready for shul, but just realized I have to come home to light candles. So, I don't think I'm going to go there all dressed, but will lay everything out so all I have to do is change when I get back home.

That's pretty much it. I know time is tight with everyone, so if I don't speak to you before the fast, have a Gmar Chatimah Tovah and an easy and meaningful fast! For all of my expecting friends in the States, please be extra careful!

And to Hannah - happy EARLY birthday! I can't wait until you get here in a few days so we can celebrate our birthdays together!

Follows is a photo of my Birthday cactus, courtesy of Jeff. Cuch - please send me an e-mail with how to take care of this thing! I've never had a plant in my life, and I know you have a nice green thumb.



Song of the Day is May It Be by Enya. Because it's nice and soft and puts one into the right frame of mind before tonight.