cough. sneeze. laugh.

Summer’s and I had this great idea, it went something like this:

 “let’s drive to Haifa and go hang out on the beach!”

 

We had these visions of laying on the shore of the Mediterranean, digging our toes into the warm sand, breathing in the sweet ocean air, and occasionally jumping into those crisp teal waves while the echo’s of the laughter of Noah, Hannah and Alex drifted through the breeze.

Reality check:

 

It was more like this:

they started begging to go to bed… this is when you know the situation is real bad.

he could only be appeased with pringles.

“kids?!!!! We are at our limit!!!”

 here we are driving past the ba’hai temple…

 

This was after maybe six hours in a very cramped car…

 

In actuality, we drove past those golden shores, while the water reflected the setting sun… too late to lay out; the breeze we were feeling was the wind blowing through our car speeding down the highway as we tried to air out the frequent scents lingering from the back seat, and the only echo’s we heard were the ringing in our ears from the screams of three cramped and annoyed children…

 

Are we there yet?!

He toooooooouched me!

She looooooooooked at me!

HEEEEEEEEEELP!!!

 

We did end up making it to Haifa, but after actually seeing the city, there was no way we were staying. we couldn’t really put our finger on the problem with the place, but it just wasn’t what we had envisioned: in a town where the ‘city hall’ is actually the name of a very sketchy night club instead of a municipal building, we were feeling a little disillusioned with our gorgeous relaxing beach town.

 

Ooookay, so day one was an adventure, which is good… after the fact.

 

Day two…

Things were looking up in a big way… Summer and I needed to have some laughs and a little redemptive swimming on the Sea of Galilee and the kids needed a beach.

 

Noah peed on the shore.

 

…we got both…

  the face of a happy mama doing a balancing act at nos ginnesar.

 this is the face of pure bliss… No more cars!

the face of utter cool-ness.

 

happy faces- redemption of the kinerret!!!

 

So after a long and happy day, with our stomachs full of delicious Shabbat dinner, we were passing out at our hotel. Usually it takes me a while to drift off…so as I am drifting, I suddenly hear alex begin to cough. But not cough like an actual throat clearing, instead, in the dead of the night, when all is silent, I hear the Word. “cough.”   (long pause)  “cough.”

Silence… then again…

cough. cough.

 At first I laid in bed and laughed. It was as if instead of someone sneezing like this:  “ACHOOOO”, they just said very calmly and quietly, their voice only rising above a faint whisper, “sneeze… sneeze.”

 After a few minutes of this I began to feel annoyed. “Alex… sheqit please.”

 Cough. Cough.

Silence…

Cough.

 

…

cough.

 

Aiyai ayi..

 Funny times.

Laugh. Laugh.

 

 

 

 

aviation issues.

chapter one.

one word of advice for those of you passing through ben gurion airport as you are entering back into israel and trying to get through passport control with no problems.

if you happen to be staying with your best friend who lives off of a street called aza, and the intimidating individual behind the glass happens to ask you “where are you staying?” here’s what not to say:

                                                                            “aza”

….in a crowded loud airport where it is hard to hear and political tension is high, ‘aza’ sounds too close to a particular region that if you are associated with, you would have a very difficult time getting into the country. not good for those who are kind of in a hurry because they’ve already extended their ticket by a week and really really need to get back…

if in your deliriousness, you don’t realize what you have just said, you just might find yourself in the waiting cubicle where you sit irratibly and confusedly and… well, wait for a police officer to question your ties with the previously mentioned region.

ehemm. like i said. just a word of advice.

 

chapter two. ((more aviation issues))

so today i had this great idea. it was the first day since i’ve been in israel where the house was essentially child free. sums was studioiusly working away at her research paper, alex was lost in the facebook twilight zone, and i had just finished an hour run. the house was eriely quiet with the exception of the tapping away at the keyboards and the occassional crunch of dry roasted almonds.

this to me was a perfect opportunity to take advantage of the serene atmosphere. a nice relaxing bath was just what i needed. five minutes into it, i suddenly hear the terrified, or at this point, what i thought was the estatic shouts of summer…oh i wish i had it recorded. “what’s going on?! did you freaking finish the paper!?!?! omi!!”

“NOOOOOOOO it’s a BIRDDDDDDD! AH AH AH AH AH AH HELP!!!”

something to this effect.

so what has happened is a bird has flown into the house and it’s pooping on the floor and knocking itself against the wall simultainously, and summer is flipping out, and alex is flipping out more than his mother and the bird combined. all the while, i am not being helpful, i’m sitting in there cracking up picturing the scene behind the door.

we think the bird must have hit it’s head a little hard (sad!) because it finally stopped pooping and flying around chaotically and it perched itself on the floor where summer was able to scoop it up and put it back outdoors.

she said this was a terrifying exerience for her… bird in the apartment…oooooooo creepy times…

i know i had some awesome advice up above for aviation troubles… but for crapping birds in the apartment? you’ll have to consult summer for that one. i offered nothing but laughter behind a closed and locked door in a bird free room

xx

 

 

 

ahh funny times.

 

 

turkey pictures.

 

here is a taste of turkey…no pun intended. hee heee… to see more pictures, click on the link below, hopefully it works!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=52805&l=1545c&id=722095864

 

turkey.

omi. i am finally back from turkey. i think i was there for two and a half weeks. i can’t remember when i left, but i am sure that summer would tell you that it was way too long. thing is, i was completely planning on being back in israel in ten days, but i found myself entirely too enamored by the country and the people i met to actually leave so quickly, so i stayed for another week.

i am random like this.

i don’t really want to make this the longest blog ever, your eyes would grow weary from reading if i told you everything amazing i saw and did… hmmmm…

so quick synopsis:

1. istanbul. very modern city, i was surprised, i didn’t expect it to look and feel so european. they really do sell turkish rugs all over and everyone offers you tea with a tiny spoon and three sugar cubes. yay for sugar cubes.

2. food in turkey for vegans… not so much to choose from. i can tell you i ate candy for breakfast more than once, and by candy, i am referring to turkish delight! if it was fruit flavored and rolled in coconut, i felt less guilty, because i figured it was quasi healthy, it was fruit-ish!! works, right? haha

3. the rainbow gathering at baba da. this gathering was for peace in the middle east and it was amazing. iranian’s, turk’s, israelli’s, all together… if you’re at all aware about the conflict and political issues there, esp between the iranians and the israelli’s you would understand how beautiful and incredible to see them together talking, making chapati, and playing music. i met a lot of amazing people who really want to make and be a difference in the world. this was my most significant experience in turkey. but all this rainbow gathering talk brings me to number 4…

4. cleanliness. make that lack thereof. since i have this strange preoccupation with informing my readers about how dirty i can get on hikes and the like, let me put it this way for you: the last day at the gathering, before the first time that i left, (how’s that for confusion?) i braided my hair because there was nothing else that could be done to make it look decent… when i took it out only a few hours later… it was curly- so it was Cute(!) and slightly disgusting at the same time because this this should never happen with hair like mine. curls like that in hair like mine that was clean should have taken a LOT longer. i’m talking days. so to get all the dirt out and off, candace and i had to visit the hamam… which brings me to number 5.

5. hamams… (turkish bathhouses) what to say??? let’s see, so you go down to the depths of the chambers of this 600 year old building, then they lay you on this hot stone where you just kinda bake like pottery in a kiln. while it is relaxing, if you are claustrophobic at all you can start getting a little panicky. not only that, but at some point you realize the potential for true akwardness as you 1) try to avert your eyes from the people around you and hope they are doing the same, and 2) and try not to gasp when the ha-mama (lol) comes through the door. so they do what they call a peel, and literally layers of gross baba da embedded dirt came off our skin. i came out glistening. literally.

6. international flights. one thing that always cracks me up about flying on them is the fact that at the end of the flight, without fail, they turn on the epic music. you have this feeling of awe- ‘we have arrived! we have landed! VICTORY’ and superman is about to burst through the cabin doors to welcome me to the country any minute.

omi. happy times in turkey. i’ll blog more later about my odyssey from the gathering to the airport back to the gathering.

shabaan, summer, tea and me.

 

so there we were, summer and me, sitting in shabban’s store in the old city…

when you go into shabaan’s store, he always offers some of that amazing arabic tea, so you can sit and chat it up about annoying cheap tourists, random objects he is selling, the deliciousness of the tea you are sipping, and the like…

 anyways, so there we sat, piping hot tea in hand, when i…

 (clumsy i am…and i am sure i have established this before, but in case you forgot- rachel = clumsy…)

 …somehow, manage to spill hot…. but wait, not starbucks-you-can’t-sue-me-cause-it’s-not-hot-enough-to-actually-burn-you-hot; but HOT, HOT, like I’m-in-a-foreign-country-in-a-market-7,000 miles-away-from-american-lawsuits-hot

tea on my leg.

as it soaks into my jeans while scalding my leg, i continue to sit there and make what alex likes to refer to as my ‘hamster squeal’ which sounds something like;

“eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” (high pictch-ed-nessly)

 this is how shabaan decides to rescue my burning leg;

he camly approaches me, and like a person trying to extinguish a flame, he pours water over my jeans…. like three minutes after the fact, after the squealing had ceased, after my leg was actually burning.

 

today, in israel, in the old city, in the market, in shabaan’s shop, my leg was extinguished.

 

I love it here- i laugh constantly.

 xx

alex and rachel’s day in the old city

summer’s kiddos

 taken at the park/trail across the street from summer’s apartment in west jerusalem

 hannah-banna

 noah and hannah playing in some old ruins.

 

hannah, noah  and the massive dandelion. 

frankfurt.

spent the layover in frankfurt. pretty sweet.    ich leiba bloomin! (it’s the extent of my german vocabulary)

   it is taking over the world…

 when i walked across this bridge, i saw one of those old men who stands there with the cart (and a parrot) and turns a handle to make twinkly german music box music…i knew i was in germany for sure, all that was missing was weinershnitzel! it was very tourisity indeed

wadi rum

a stroll through the desert…

despite our dodgy tour, complete with a jeep that had a bad radiator, and a tour guide that couldn’t speak english… wadi rum was amazing!!! rock climbing on the cliffs that surrounded us, the sunset from the top, bedouin whisky (it’s tea), and sleeping under a sea of stars at a bedouin camp is an experience i’ll never forget…

 

the last crusade

indiana jones ring a bell?nerida, eric, and i traveled to jordan to see petra. it was awesome! the best writer could not adaquatley describe how incredible it was… we looked for the famous indiana spot, but we wern’t sure that we found it, so we ended up just picking a temple carved out in the rock and deciding that it was definitly the place. happy times…the highlight of the day…hiking up 850 stairs to the highest point of the mountains surrounding petra…following the brightly spray painted arrows to the official “lookout”, and finding there (again, on the top of the seemingly most remote and highest point), a beddouin tent that accepted visa….hmm…no one else in the country accepted credit cards!!!

souvineer from petra anyone?

 

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sheville hike

peanut butter…a whole new definition.

last week, five friends and i embarked on an adventure that no sane person would do… in fact, the only people who do what we did, are typically americans. hmmm… figures….what crazy adventure did we get ourselves into?

we hiked part of the israel trail! (three are still at it)

starting at tel dan, near the lebanese border, we hiked for five days, through extreme heat (all the while in john, narida and rachel’s work out world), past cobras (YES john!), irate bulls who were ready to charge, slept next to herds of wild pigs and a pack of wild jackels, over mountains dodging bees, through valleys surviving at least 13 near death experiences, wading through springs; not to mention drinking the dodgy water, and illegally scaling fences (”rolly things”).

we now officially have a new standard for the meaning of filth, as well as an enmatched appreciation and love for a shower and clean pair of chonies….if you think i’m exaggerating about the level of dirt and grease we had clinging to ourselves, let me enlighten you with a few examples…

rachel, noticing the wet sheen of dan’s hair says, “dan, wow! you got to wash your hair this morning? where?!!?dan, “umm… my hair isn’t wet…”

while digging into a jar of salt free peanut butter (what the?)… tom: “guys? do i have peanut butter on my face? i feel like i have it all over my face…”“tom… that’s not peaunt butter buddy, it’s called four days of caked on sweat…”

having a stench so persistent, that your nose somehow acclimates to the smell… every once in a while though, a nice breeze comes through, and you get whiff….acclimation is not a consistent phenomena…

getting on a bus after five days of hiking and seeing people actually get up and get off the bus….i now know what it literally looks like to have people turn up their nose at you..

“ummm… i feel like a giant piece of candy… if you were to drop me on the ground, everything would stick to me…”

you know that the dirt is caked on pretty well when the dirt on your ankles matches your dark brown pipers (eric)

eric, “when i went up to fill up my water bottle in the room, there was a large dog inside, and the soliders started yelling at the dog to get out because he stunk so bad… i just kept thinking to myself,’ man! that dog is getting blamed for my stench!”

now, that’s just the stench talk, but there was so much more…. now on to the illegal moves, it’s so much more interesting than body odor…

scaling fences for parks that are definitly closed… this happened on several occassions….

the first scaling was a bit tricky, the fence was really high, but everyone made it over okay, no near death experiences there.

the second happened when we lost the trail for a bit… we thought it went through a park, so we again, we had to scale a fence only this time it was one of those round about fences that prevent people from going out the same way they come in… very interesting, a tad bit dangerous. once inside we realized the trail did not go through this national museume/park… on our way out, we ended up running into an employee (whoops)…park ranger man “how did you get in here?!”john…playing the dumb american, except how does that really work because he was speaking in english, but nevermind that…john “confusedly” replies, “rolly thing????”park ranger, “what?!?!?! isn’t the gate locked?!!”john (exact same reply complete with the hand motion), “rolly thing???”

third illegal move….sleeping at a park in a kibbutz…the grass just looked so inviting…here we were, all tuckered out from our third full day of hiking, and we just wanted to eat and sleep. we decided to have a “picnic” in the lawn… and then just ever so innocently, (and slyly) roll out the sleeping pads… very sly, very sly..

over all the trip was incredible. john’s work out world through the sheville (israelli trail), showed me that our bodies, if we push them hard enough, are capable of much more than we would guess. not only that, but we can tolerate not only phisically, but emotionally as well, a lot more than we think we can. i mean, just think how many rocks we had to crouch behind, and how many meals of hummus and cucumber we ate! a lot, and a lot…

 

israel

yesterday i spent the day in bethlehem.the experience was one that i will never forget…around the perimeter of the city is a wall which was built (and is still being built) by the israeli government to “keep the palestinan terrorists out.”the only problem is that a wall like this may keep a few terrorists out, but it also keeps thousands of innocent people in.the people inside are trapped. our driver described it as a prison, people can’t easily go out, and palestinans inside are subjected to the racisim that stereotypes them all as terrorists…the city is dead. the buisnesses are closed, the streets are empty. tourism, which once contributed to about 80% of the city’s economic profit and security is close to non-existent…electiric fences snake through the city keeping playing children out of their own backyards, and the unscalable, barbed wire, and electric fenced walls are covered with angry political and religious grafetti.

my friend who lives here told me that since the wall has been up, there have been no terroist attacks, whereas prior to the wall, on average there was at least one suicide bombing a week…

a wise friend of mine used the wall as an analogy for difficult choices in life…

sometimes the “wrong choice” is necessary.sometimes the choice is only between two evils…

what does this mean for the wall?my heart says it’s the wrong choice…pragmatisim says it seems necessary…

living in this world sometimes forces us to choose between two grossly deficient options…andi don’t like it.

 

 

you know you’re in israel when…

a bus ride is almost always a memorable experience…

…whether it’s a heavily armed, civilian dressed, sixteen year old (looking) in the israeli special forces with a machine gun strapped to their person…or……whether it’s an elderly israeli man who insists on taking your picture, while holding your hand…or…….whether it’s the sudden realization that the bus has defintley stopped, but not for a red light, and the driver is missing……then having the realization that, “oh wait, there he is, he just popped over to the market to buy some bread…”

only in Israel people…