melodyssister | Entries tagged with travel: israel

For the past five years, my parents have been taking all of us - me, my siblings, our spouses and children, now 16 people in total - to the holiday camp at Dor for a few days during Sukkoth. Traditionally, time is spent sunbathing, swimming and eating. My father gets up early to go fishing, and various children and adults accompany him. There is barbecue two out of three nights, and ADC and I make a vegetarian meal on the third. We get away from the beach for one morning or afternoon.

This year, we arrived later than usual, as we went to the market on Friday morning and then continued unpacking until S got home from school. When we arrived, it turned out that we had more space than usual, as my parents had bitten the bullet and instead sharing a chalet with

eumelia, she was by herself in a honeymoon suite / 2-person igloo, including a jacuzzi, which meant an extra kitchen and fridge, as well as empty floor space for the traditional board games played by the boy cousins, ADC and myself in the afternoons. We also had a slightly different location from the usual one, and it was even more peaceful than in past years.

On Saturday, S and I joined my father for fishing, together with my brother-in-law, R and his children SR and LR. While the men fished (quite successfully), LR and I looked for shells and talked. I haven't spent much time alone with LR, and I enjoyed the bonding experience. She is very conscious of being a girl, and in some ways she is very Victorianly accomplished- she plays a musical instrument (cello), learn dancing (flamenco) and loves drawing (on Monday she sketched the fishermen and the fish); so Victorian with a twist, I suppose. It was warm even at 6:30 a.m., and I was glad to be wearing an activewear t-shirt and shorts (the first pair I made) over my swimming costume, for a bit of extra protection.

After breakfast, we had a quick swim and then showered and changed before setting off to visit NN, almost exactly a year after she visited us in Takoma Park. It took us a long time to find her house, as none of the houses have actual numbers, and their name is quite discreet, since they are renting. Lunch - made by her husband AN-D - was mainly quiches, with the correct ratio of vegetables to pastry/filling, i.e. about three times the amount of vegetables you find in commercial quiches! We had a good time catching up, although as usual - NN is so polite and I'm not - we talked more about what we were doing than what they were doing, before moving onto politics and academics, and ending up playing a new-to-us board game, called Dixit, in which the three C family teams took the first three places. At least I was able to compliment AN-D on the new machzor (prayer book for the High Holydays) for Yom Kippur, as he was on the committee that compiled it, and to tell NN that my father missed her Torah reading.

As soon as we got back to our igloo, we began preparing supper - this year, the vegetarian meal was on the middle night, since guests had been invited for the third night, which also happened to be the first night of the Sukkoth festival, the week-long festival ending the series of New Year festivities in which observant Jews spend as much time as possible in transient structures, whose sorts are covered with plant material through which one can see the stars. (A funny story about the rabbi of ADC's parents' shul in the Negev desert: when he made aliyah to Israel from Minnesota, he included his sukka in his lift. As the sukka was meant for mid-September/early October in Minnesota, he has never used it since, the temperatures in Israel at that time of year being far too high for it. I digress ...) This year's theme for our meal was Persian food, including spinach cooked in pomegranate juice until it was completely reduced (very yummy and worth doing again). The only leftovers was the plain rice we'd made for the younger members of the party who reject any kind of sauce as the devil's work.

On Sunday there was no fishing, as my father had to make the trip back to Kfar Saba and open his pharmacy for several hours. We spent the morning at the beach (at the next lagoon over, where there are fewer people and more waves than at the main beach, and some people did not apply sufficient sunscreen; fortunately, all my nuclear family were sensible) and then played Kingmaker in the afternoon until the guests arrived and a fish barbecue was prepared. A and S had a major epiphany: they do like fish! (Or at least, they like fresh sea bream cooked over coals). Everyone was very excited and my mother immediately began planning to serve fish next time we come for supper.

On Monday, S and I once again got up early for fishing. It was less successful this time, but still enjoyable. We left Dor shortly after lunch, as we had another exciting day ahead us on Tuesday, and got home in time to complete unpacking, apart for the children's books. I even had ADC set up the converter for my sewing machine. Happily, he found an unused electric point next to the dining room table, so I will be sewing there - with much more space - rather than at my desk.

Yesterday was something completely different: we went to the major Israeli sci-fi and fantasy con, called iCon. This was only our second time, and once again I was struck by how exhaustingly hot it is in Tel Aviv. The cosplayers all seemed a little miserable after a while, and the people wearing t-shirts proclaiming "Winter is Coming" are clearly delusional, at least for the next few months. I spent most of my time at lectures, two of which were very good and one of which was terrible. We also all went to a game show on logical fallacies, which was very amusing. The two good lectures were a panel on translating books featuring time travel, which quickly became - at the audience's urging - a discussion of the difficulties of literary translation generally, and of translation of speculative fiction in particular; and a really excellent talk on dragons and their natural/cultural history, given by an arachnologist who is a technician in the collection ADC curates and hopes to become one of his doctoral students (as soon as there is funding). The bad lecture was quite appalling: purporting to discuss "the Odyssey: from Homer to Tolkien," the unfortunate lecturer quickly proved to know very little about either Homer or Tolkien. This did not prevent her from retelling the stories before getting to the point that Bilbo = Odysseus and the trolls = the Cyclop. If there are parallels to Homer, could it be that this is because Tolkien had read him?! I don't expect an academic lecture; I do expect to be treated like an intelligent person. I expatiated on this to

eumelia, who met us for ice-cream after her work and before we went to the dragon lecture, and she suggested that I give a talk myself next year, on Snape and Richard III. Definitely food for thought ... ADC (who was only persuaded to stay in the Odyssey talk because there was air conditioning) is also thinking of giving a talk. Happily, A and S only had positive experiences: they heard a different lecture, comparing the cultures of Marvel and DC comics (one is a workplace and the other is a family, in a nutshell), which provided them with a prism they hadn't thought of before. S also blew about 500 shekels (about $130) on comics and action figures - but this was his birthday money and savings for him to spend, so I can't really complain. We returned home tired but happy.

It's difficult to believe that two weeks ago I was sitting in J's kitchen translating SR's bar mitzvah sermon, and her and LR's speeches. As we have a very cultural weekend planned (AwesomeCon followed by Fauré's Requiem on Saturday, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead on Sunday), I have to finish writing this letter today!

So, as everyone knows, A, S and I had a very action-packed week in Israel between May 10-16, while ADC spent part of that time visiting colleagues in Arizona with whom he has a BSF grant. We managed to see a lot of people, but not everyone we would have liked to, and most people we did not get to see enough of, for my part particularly not enough of my siblings J and R (I think I saw more of my brother-and sister-in-law than I did of them). It was lovely seeing my uncle and aunt from South Africa and my cosin from London, their son, too, and I'm sorry we only overlapped for 36 hours or so.

A and Sl's favourite day was Tuesday, which we spent in Jerusalem, each one of us seeing friends separately. I think that this week has actually made them more eager to come home: seeing all their old friends really emphasised the extent to which they have made acquaintances rather than friends in Takoma Park. I think the day I enjoyed most was Thursday, when I spent the morning at Tel Aviv University meeting friends and the early afternoon seeing

eumelia s flat and having lunch with her at a very pleasant café down the road, before she took the three boys to see Avengers: Age of Ultron, which they all enjoyed thoroughly. ADC and I are very grateful to her for doing so, otherwise we would have had to take the boys to see it, and we would rather do other things on our weekends.... The bar mitzvah itself, of course, was in a class of itself. I was highly impressed with SR's reading from the Torah, and J and LR's speeches thoroughly embarrassed him, as is the custom.

The trip home was much less traumatic than the cancellation of the Amtrak line between New York and Philadelphia following the derailment would have suggested; after spending close to an hour on the phone to America, we were able to be rerouted to Baltimore, and ADC came to pick us up. By the time he went to Princeton to give a talk last Thursday, the train was running as normal again.

Last weekend was Memorial Day weekend, and we went on what is probably our last out of town trip before we leave Takoma Park in July. We spent Saturday at Gettysburg, and Sunday and Monday in Philadelphia. It took quite a long time to get to Gettysburg, and even longer to get from there to Philadelphia; about half the day was spent driving. The national battlefield site is very interesting and informative, with a film (narrated, of course, by Morgan Freeman), a nineteenth-century cyclorama and an excellent museum at the visitor centre, and the most authentic living history we've seen yet in the US (ADC questions whether we've seen any other living history; the RenFest in October certainly doesn't count). As we are so close to the solstice and so far north, despite arriving in Philadelphia close to 8 p.m., it was still light, which was very nice as we wandered around looking for a restaurant bear our hotel. We ended up at an Indonesian place, adding to the list of cuisines we are sampling here. Each of us thought that he had chosen the best choice of the dishes.

Saturday was our only full day in Philadelphia, and we were extremely thorough in our explorations, returning to the hotel nearly 13 hours after setting out in the morning. We didn't get to see the Liberty Bell, as the queue was incredible, but we did go to the National Museum of American Jewish History, Independence Hall, Reading Terminal Market, and the Delaware River Waterfront. At the NMAJH, we started with a temporary exhibition of Richard Avedon portraits, many of which came from the Israel Museum's collection. I found the permanent collection more interesting, though, especially the sections on the development of Reform Judaism and the post-WWII move to suburbia. Like the Tenement Museum in New York, a lot of the museum was a walk through ADC's family history. The Tenement Museum was a more intense experience, focussing as it did on only one of the times and places covered by the NMAJH. A particularly interesting aspect for me was the historiography: the presence of Yiddish, for example, alongside Hebrew in many cases, and the total absence of the non-Ashkenazi experience in the historical introduction, apart from the mass aliyah to Israel. At the same time, there was both a great emphasis on Jewish involvement in civil rights and feminism (neither of which would have happened, it looked like, without the Jews) and an acknowledgement that Jews today are both Republicans and Democrats.

After we finished at the museum, we had just enough time for a cheesesteak before going to Independence Hall. Everyone approved of the cheesesteak (even the vegan one I ate), as one should always try local foods, and it was the right thing at the right time. Independence Hall was a guided tour of a small building, with a very enthusiastic guide with great voice projection. I must say that I remain resolutely Old World-centric in what really interests me in history ... We continued from Independence Hall to Reading Street Market. We had begun our day there, as it was right across the road from our hotel, and the boys were enchanted by Mueller's chocolate, which featured various body parts made from chocolate. They desperately wanted to buy a heart or a kidney as an afternoon snack, but these were quite large and correspondingly expensive, so we forced them to make do with a nose each - which seemed lie quite a lot of chocolate, in any case!

We then decided to take advantage of Philadelphia's street art, and explored the city centre further by way of walking the abridged version of the Mural Mile. S took pictures of the murals, which were almost invariably on the walls of building that abutted parking lots - I don't think I've seen so many parking lots in such a small space! The murals themselves wee fascinating, and we spent much longer than the suggested 30 minutes looking at them and discussing what we were seeing. By the time we finished, it was past 6 p.m. and we were all starting to droop. We had supper at an excellent Italian restaurant, Giorgio on Pine, where our waitress was Italian and supper was still going strong when we left, just before eight - unusual for American restaurants, which often close for the night by eight. We finished the day by walking to the Delaware River Waterfront, mainly so as not to retire to the hotel too early. When we got to Penn's Landing, we were startled to see a Cold War submarine next to a floating fish restaurant.

On Monday, we spent the entire day at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. We walked there from our hotel, down Benjamin Franklin Parkway and looked at all the flags, in vague alphabetical order (except for the flags of Poland, next to a statue in memory of Copernicus, and of Israel, next to a Holocaust memorial from 1964). At the museum, ADC declined to take pictures of the boys by the statue of Rocky, as he doesn't like taking that kind of picture - and in his defence, there was quite a long line of people waiting to take that same picture ... We were too early for what looks like a very good exhibition of the Impressionists, but enjoyed looking at the Museum's own collection of that school. We stuck to nineteenth- and twentieth-century art, this time. A was very keen to see the Surrealists and Marcel Duchamp's urinal, while S was happy to see a Roy Lichtenstein. Both of them spent the last hour or so at the arms and armour hall by themselves, while Ariel and I looked at decorative art and rooms from English stately homes that had been transferred piecemeal in the 1920s and 1930s. I have to admit to being slightly underwhelmed by the PMA. Admittedly, the National Gallery and the Met are in a class by themselves, but I think that there was more art that spoke to me, personally, at the MFA in Boston. But maybe I was just tired after Saturday ...

Last Friday, the 22nd, A's entire year, the 8th grade class of 2015, went to Six Flags. He had a lot of fun, going on a roller coaster and dodgem cars, playing games at an arcade and eating pizza. Very sweetly, he bought fudge and brought it home for all of us. The same day, S had Authors' Tea at school: parents were invited to class to hear the children read poems or short prose pieces they had written. About half way through, juice and cookies were served. S read an alliterative alphabetical poem about superheroes. Apart from him, the best pieces, I thought, were an extract from a description of a baseball game from the ball's point of view, and a poem entitled "Divorce" in which one of the girls reflected on how life was in face better after her parents' divorce - everyone was much happier, and shhe had double the family. Almost all the children read something and some of them read two pieces. As usual with this age, the difference between boys and girls is immense. I can't quite put my finger on it, but the boys are still children, and the girls - at least some of them - are becoming introspective, mature.

As a result of the Authors' Tea, I have decided to sign up for a poem of the day by e-mail. I was surprised to see how much choice there is. Should I go for a classic daily poem, or a contemporary one? When does contemporary start? Does anyone have a recommendation?

I was a bit too optimistic at the end of my last post - while I had a reasonable flight, sleeping quite a lot and almost finishing my book, S had a rather bad one: he threw up twice, after overeating at the bar-mitzvah. The first time was in the aisle, and the stewardesses sprinkled a clumping material (similar to kitty litter, I should think) and asked my help cleaning up. The second time was after he drank some water - he just spat that up all over himself ... I felt very sorry for him, but when we were about to disembark, and he couldn't find his cell phone, I did get upset. I couldn't understand how he could have lost such a thing, and we spent quite a while during our connection at Newark filling in an online form to report its loss.

Apart from that hiccup, landing went smoothly. As always, my J-1 visa raised queries from the immigration officer, but I was able to convince him that medieval medicine was actually effective (quite a few modern cough medicines, both over the counter and prescription drugs, are based on the same materia medica) and also customized to individuals (a very brief description of the ideal of Galenic practice, I know).

We arrived at BWI at 9:30 a.m., still on Israel time, i.e. 4:30 p.m., having set out from my parents' house at 8:30 the previous evening. When we got home and unpacked, Shaul's cell phone was discovered in a side pocket of his backpack - a pocket that I had not realised was there. So, all's well that end's well, but I'm still confiscating his phone for a week, so that he learns to be more careful with his things.

It's now 8:30 in the evening, and the boys have been in bed for an hour. I deliberately had them shower as soon as we got home so that they could go to bed quickly in the eveing. In the afternoon we watched Kurasawa's The Hidden Fortress, apparently one of George Lucas' inspirations for the original Star Wars. We'll listen to the interview with Lucas tomorrow, as despite the thrilling story and set-piece duels, the boys nearly fell asleep watching the movie, and absolutely did so while Ariel made supper.

I shall go to bed shortly myself ... tomorrow normal life resumes.

This entry is written at Ben-Gurion airport, on our way back to the USA, and uploaded after reaching Takoma Park again. This has been a whirlwind week, which culminated in SR's bar-mitzvah. I spent yesterday morning translating the speeches to English, for the benefit of the family members coming from South Africa and England. The celebrations began with supper at J's house, with the immediate family on both sides - a total of 21 people, many of whom are observant and therefore all kinds of things could or could not be done. J became progressively more frazzled beneath her calm facade over the 24 hours, and I think it is a very good thing indeed that she is taking tomorrow off work.

eumelia and I shared a room, and stayed up very late talking. This was a good thing for me, as she went home immediately after lunch today, and I was very glad of the extra time with her. The bar-mitzvah itself was lovely. SR is very musical and loves performing (he is the pianist in the local Conservatorium's classical trio), and read almost all of the weekly Torah portion, not just the maftir (final section) and haftarah (reading from the Prophets) that most boys do. I was given the honour of being called up for a section of the Torah reading together with A and S, and we received a very long section indeed. After the reading, SR gave a short sermon and then was bombarded with sweets. A was sorry that this was the first time he could not participate in the children's mad rush to gather the sweets, as he had his own bar-mitzvah last year.

After the service ended, there was food. Then there was lunch. Then my mother, my sister and my niece all gave speeches that embarrased SR to a greater or lesser degree. Then we went home and rested a bit (I confirmed that my mother was not being charged twice for the change in tickets and packed), then went back to J for tea and ate more.

Now we are at the airport. We were able to change tickets at check in, and the boys are now sitting togeter on both legs of the the flight. I must say that I am impressed with United's customer service.

eumelia had her 30th birthday yesterday. It was a very funfilled and busy day, in which I was barely in front of a screen, unless I was actively working at something else, hence the lateness of today's post.

Yesterday began with two meetings at TAU, with MS (my co-editor of a special issue on Islamic medicine), which greatly calmed my mind as to how three people would edit a volume together, and my best friend KA; of course we didn't have enough time together, but it was good to see her. I then continued to

eumelia's place, which is very her, and we had lunch together in a very pleassant neighbourhood café. Once we got back to KS, she took the three boys to see Avengers: Age of Ultron and I did a bit of shopping. The day almost ended with a lovely family meal. It completely ended with an e-mail from Amtrak saying that the Philadelphia-Washington leg of the journey home had been cancelled. That sent me into a complete tizzy, and I spent a lot of today sorting that out (or at least thinking about it).

Let me begin, of course, by saying that I hope I am not completely selfish and my first reaction when I heard about the terrible crash on the Northeast Regional - the only Amtrak route I've ever travelled, I think - was sorrow and concern for the families of the dead and wounded. My impression, until last night, was that I might have to take a convoluted route to Philly, but from there it would be OK. Obviously, this was now not the case. Long story short (and half an hour on the phone to United in the US), we will fly back from Newark to Baltimore and ADC will collect us from there.

We're at the midpoint of our week in Israel. Today I took the train to Beersheba with A and S, and we spent the day with ADC's parents and sister. From my point of view, apart from the travel, it was a nice quiet day after yesterday's excitement and the busy-ness of the next days, in the immediate lead-up to the bar mitzvah. Everyone was amazed by how much A has grown (although he is still shorter than E, but not by much) and how much S's comics have improved technically.

A and S was rather overtired by this time, as well as not quite over jet lag, as they had stayed up to watch the Champions' League semi-final last night, after returning from Jerusalem. I refused to allow them to see today's semi-finals unless they rested in the afternoon, and this caused a mild crisis with A, who believes he can get by with far less sleep than he actually needs and actively resists sleeping in cars/planes/trains/afternoons. I managed to put my point across, and then went off for a 90-minute nap, myself, which was very much needed. Tomorrow I have a 9 a.m. meeting in Tel Aviv, whereas the boys can sleep as late as they like.

I am really looking forward to coming home in August. Eating loquats in season and hearing A's description of the market in Jerusalem, where he had lunch with his friends yesterday, really made me homesick. In America pineapple and asparagus are as cheap or expensive as anything else, while in Israel they are luxuries, but the supermarket is a totally different sensory experience, not even a poor imitation, of a real market where you can buy staples like cucumbers and tomatoes, and they always taste good.

We arrived back at my parents, tired but happy, at 10:30 this evening, an hour later than planned, 13 and a half hours after setting off this morning. We split up, and each of us spent noon onwards with his or her friends. Ithink we all had a lot of fun. Now I must desperately get some sleep before visiting the in-laws tomorrow.

Just finished Skypeing with ADC - tomorrow he leaves for Arizona, so I'll speak to him again only on Saturday, just before we go back. Both of us had relatively relaxed days.

Mummy woke us up at ten, so that A and S could go to have their haircuts. I sorted out the phone situation, with the result that I now have a temporary stupid phone for calls and my US phone (locked to the US, it turns out) for Whatsapp and e-mail/internet when there is wifi. And my laptop, of course - I'll be taking all three to Jerusalem tomorrow.

Y and N, ADC's brother and his wife, came over this evening. They were very happy with the maple syrup and their children, R and Z, were very happy with the Playmobil. After the left, my friend T came over, and we discussed, among other things, how The Imitation Game had played fast and loose with military history, cryptography, computing and Alan Turing's personal life. I pointed out that people with any kind of deep understanding in these fields were not necessarily the target audience, but agreed that the dumbing down had been excessive.

The flight was OK in the end - the boys were not bothered by sitting apart from me, but I got a bit claustrophobic towards the end, sitting between two men larger than myself, and the person in front of me leaning back. It was lovely to see my parents, siblings and nieces and nephews. Everyone was very pleased with their presents, and very impressed with my sewing and knitting. After my sisters tried on the Miette, I decided that it fit M much better than myself, and I would give it to her, and reknit it with a needle one size larger.

The only irritating thing was that I have mislaid my Israeli phone - I thought I had left it with my parets, but it can't be found. Maybe I did take it with to America, and it is now inside the box in which my American call phone came? That would be such a smart and obvious place to put it that of course it would be forgotten ... at least there is a place that sells SIM cards just down the road, and I'll go there first thing in the morning.

Written at Newark airport, but only uploaded now in Israel:

Today was all about getting to the airport. I was right to be worried about Amtrak, but 25 minutes at the counter at Union Station solved the problem. I was able to edit nearly 50 pages on the train, and finish the second book-length manuscript of the month.
At Newark all went quite smoothly, once we managed to check in, as we were all TSA pre-selected, so didn't have to unpack our carry-ons or take off our shoes. Hope the flight is equally smooth.

Today I ...
- cleaned the house (or at least the kitchen and bathrooms)
- packed for a week in Israel
- read an epic length SS/HG and therefore
- did not do any editing (bad)
- angsted about the possibility that there was Something Wrong with my tickets and I would have to get off the train at Philly on my way to Newark airport

Next update will be In Transit!