Wednesday - July 21 2010
The Party
The night before the Pardes Summer Curriculum workshop ended, I decided to throw a small get together with some of the friends I’ve made from the program. I find Corona at the Machneh Yehuda market and buy some lemons and snacks to go with it. (Israel doesn’t have limes. There isn’t even a word for lime in Hebrew. Oranges- yes. Lemons – yes. No limes. I thought you could grow all citrus in like climates?? Bizarre.)
The party is fun and I make pomegranate martinis for the ladies. I’ve hooked up the Macbook to the TV for music and sound; however Shannon directs the conversation to her love of flashmobs and we watch the one she participated in in St. Louis. This is followed by an hour of everyone else talking about their favorite flashmobs and we watch them consecutively: one with The Sound of Music playing in a train station (Sweden? Denmark? I can’t recall) then one with the Black Eyed Peas on Oprah in Chicago; the one in Israel on Ben Yehuda St. You get the idea.
By midnight I have the music back on and am playing the role of obligatory DJ fulfilling guests’ requests at will. Dancing and singing ensues and I secretly wish that there was a karaoke bar somewhere nearby. Twice- a Russian man (who I’ve never seen before in the building) comes downstairs threatening to call the police because we are being too loud. By 2 AM the bowls of Pringles and Doritos are empty as is the vodka and beer bottles. The masses empty out and I take pride in having shown my new friends a good time on their last night.
Thursday July 22 2010
On Thursday – I wake up hung over and sleep deprived. I throw myself into the shower and as I lift the shower head off its handle, it falls apart in pieces.
Historically this shower head has been my Israeli nemesis. When my parents were here, my Dad lifted the shower head off its mantle only to have the hinge fall out of the wall. Luckily Tzeon – the handy man at the Prima Royale hotel came over to fix it for 100 shekels . I finish up the shower old school style -cupping my hands and splashing water around until all the shampoo is out of my eyes. Already I can tell it’s going to be a long day.
I dress and make it out to the bus carrying the broken shower head in a plastic bag. During the day I will run to the nearby “Home Center” (small Home Depot with Martha Steward Living magazine in Hebrew! She is everywhere!) But when I board and hand the bus driver my 10 ride ticket he hands it back to me and tells me that I have used up all my rides and need to buy a new one. I reach for my wallet but when I open it- it is sans shekels. I offer the bus driver the equivalent in American dollars to which he responds “This is not America…. This is Israel!” I have angered Mr. Israeli bus driver and he kicks me off at the next stop. I resolve to walk the rest of the way to school using the new short cut that my friend Mo had shown the previous day. However, (you know what’s coming here) I make a wrong turn and (again) get lost. I wind up in the neighborhood of Baka but eventually get my bearings and arrive at school only an hour late.
I scurry over to the home center where the very nice man who works there tells me I do not need an new shower head and only need a certain “grommit” and “shim” (for you DF) to connect the pieces and all will be “B’seder.” (Hebrew=Okay)
I make it through the morning sessions and afterwards there is a nice last day luncheon. However, before anyone eats there is the obligatory few words and comments from the program people etc… I am starving - having not eaten breakfast in the chaos of the morning’s events - but begrudgingly oblige.
It is at this point that I reach the conclusion that letting Jewish teachers talk without time limits is a bad idea. 1) teachers really like to hear themselves talk and 2) Jews really like to hear themselves talk. Putting a room full of Jewish teachers together is like James Lipton trying to get a word in edgewise during Robin Williams’ “Inside the Actor’s Studio” interview.
The speeches continue while the Kosher non dairy ice cream melts into soup and the borekas become cold. All is not lost though as it is Val’s birthday and the piece of halvah cake I receive (Thanks Sue!) turns out to be one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten on the face of the planet. Yum!
The Road Trip
After everyone says their good byes and exchanges emails, pleasantries etc… I leave to go find the Avis car rental place to rent a car for my 3 day weekend road trip to the Galilee and Golan Heights with my camp friends Ellie and Becky.
I try to follow the walking directions from Google maps but there are few road signs and fewer people who know their way around the Talpiyot Industrial area. Luckily, I meet Manni at the Delek gas station and he offers me a ride to Avis - as I am now 30 minutes away (walking) in the wrong direction. Renting a car in Israel requires an $800 deposit. This makes Chase bank very unhappy and they freeze my credit card immediately. I call them to talk it over and speak to Cindy in Arizona. I have never been more happy to hear the sound of an American speaking English before. Moreover she is nice to me. We clear up the credit card mishaps and I promise Cindy that the next time I am in Phoenix I will take her out to dinner.
I also rent a GPS for $25 in hopes that it will curtail all of the getting lost I have been doing. (It doesn’t). I drive to Holon to pick up the girls and only make one wrong turn without even turning the GPS on. It is nice to have company in the car and even nicer to see my friends.
We stop for gas - which in Israel comes out to about $6 a gallon! Israel gets most of their gas from Russia since their relationship with their oil laden neighbors is sub par at best. I think about what kind of civil war might break out in America if gas prices ever got that high and hope that the populace will trade in their gas guzzlers soon for a Prius or (even better) Chevy Volt.
Driving in Israel isn’t as bad as I suspect but I surprise the drivers by actually letting them in when the lanes merge. This is an old trick I learned in New Jersey where people are polite and courteous and drive well. ☺ However, no one offers a courtesy wave or gesture for my niceties. No matter.
We nickname the GPS “Shitty” because it is exactly that. It doesn’t recognize any town, city, or village in English. When I type in “Jerusalem” it says “City not found – Invalid error- Please try again.” However – Ellie and Becky fiddle with it and manage to change the settings to Hebrew at which point the GPS plays a little nicer. Unfortunately it will not direct us to specific addresses- only to the centers of towns. Good enough... for now at least.
The car ride to Gonen takes 2.5 hours but we talk and catch up and gossip about camp and the mutual people we know. I eat pretzels and potato burekas for dinner in the car and eventually we arrive at the kibbutz Ellie booked online a few days earlier.
When we arrive everything looks extremely familiar and I soon place my Déjà Vu as I realize we are at the same kibbutz I was at a month ago with the students from school. We arrive at room 36 and it is even the same room I was in! What are the odds?
(End of Part 1)
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