December: the perfect time for ... a picnic?

I've gotten so far behind in writing an update that I don't know where to start. On top of my procrastination, I've had technical difficulties posting the pictures and can't seem to get them to stay in the right order but I'm too frustrated to care anymore. Let's just pretend that the randomness is really by design of some fancy flash back/flash forward writing technique.

Anyhow, we've had lovely weather. We had our Thanksgiving celebration outside on picnic tables with the two other American families on our street. Apart from the Israeli landscape, we had a traditional dinner. The pumpkin had to be steamed and pureed, no cans of Libby around here. (I didn't get in on that fun and just mooched some off others that went through the trouble.)

Two of the three kings are all ready for Christmas. They still haven't made it to Bethlehem yet and probably won't before Christmas -- maybe for Epiphany. My mom made the capes while the homemade hobby horses were a group effort. The kids are just loving the authentic garb for dress up and don't need to steal my broom and mop anymore (although they still try to on occasion.)

My parents were here for a quick trip. We only did a mini tour of Israel instead of the full throttle marathon. They were just happy to see the kids and I was thrilled to have a break from craft duty! We did a little sight seeing and hit a few new places along with the old favorites. The caves at Bet Guvrin below are always a hit with the kids.

We got a personal moonlit tour of Emmaus, where Jesus appeared to some disciples after the resurrection. Br. Anton is part of the Community of the Beatitudes that takes care of the site at Emmaus and also helps to translate mass with a nearby Russian community for us. (We gave up on mass in Tel Aviv a while ago.) It's not everyday our tour guide offers to give Alejandro a piggy back ride.

On our way to Galille, we finally took the time to stop at Tel Meggido which is to be the site of Armageddon. It was first inhabited 3500 BC (which is mind boggling in itself) and has 26 levels of occupation including that of the Egyptians. The history there is so extensive, it's a bit much to digest in a quick pit stop. The kids enjoyed the tunnel from the Iron Age which is 25 meters deep and 70 meters long once used for waterworks.

At Galilee, we stopped at Caupernaum as always and Mount Tabor this trip where it was believed the Transfiguration took place that was marked by yet another church. While each church is unique and impressive somehow they all start to look the same after a while. Alfonso and boys had been to Jordan River at Yardenit but it was a first for me. While we didn't participate in any full immersion baptisms that were going on, we did stick our feet in the water (well, Dante stuck his knees in.)

After our fifth trip to Caesrea, we finally made it to the part of the park with the aqueducts -- quite impressive. The boys also took a chariot ride in the hippodrome. We never get tired of going there.

Who wants cake when Grandma will make birthday pie? Yup, Alejandro is four! He had a little party at his school (which he is quite fond of now) which Dante and I got to attend. Unfortunately I didn't have the cam camcorder to capture all the little songs and games for the festivities. I just couldn't believe Dante went and sat in a little chair with the rest of the kids for over an hour.

In the mean time, we are busy getting ready for Christmas. Our pathetic little Christmas tree makes Charlie Brown's tree look the one in Rockefeller Center. But it still works for hanging ornaments that the kids make on a daily basis which is all that really matters. Alejandro slunk downstairs in the dark of night to inspect if St Nick came to fill his shoes. It's really sweet to see how excited he is for Christmas. Dante doesn't quite get it but is elated with all the Christmas cookies to eat.

Well, hopefully my next post won't be so delinquent but I'm not making any promises. Honestly, it's more wishful thinking than anything. But who knows? Christmas is the season for miracles!

Love always,

Debi

Why wait for Halloween?

Everyday is dress up day at our house. Blankets become capes, mops and brooms transform into horses, the dining room chairs have a part time job as a train, and our trash is recycled into helmets, crowns, shields, swords, and masks. The boys play school, "animal doctor", chef, pirates and house. Alejandro does get a bit upset when Dante's imagination doesn't follow the same story line that he had in mind or if Dante doesn't like the pretend food that Alejandro made him. Pretend is a dirty word in our house though. "I'm not a pretend fish, I'm a really fish." Alejandro and his friend, Ella, got into a physical fight over an imaginary treasure they found at the park with both bawling not wanting to share something that wasn't even there -- except in their minds. Dante fancies himself Tarzan as he stands from his bed, grabs the curtains and swings across the room. I have no idea how he hasn't pulled the rod off the wall yet.

I don't have much of a life outside the kids these days but, they manage to keep life interesting. I found a dozen cookies with one bite out of each one. "Dante did it!" Dante proudly tells on himself with a smile. I never would have noticed if he'd eaten 2 or 3 whole cookies. He also finished off half a can of pringles, leaving the empty container and crumbs in the cupboard for me to find. While Dante lives for junk food, Alejandro passes on offers on cookies from people on the beach. Instead, he finds people with watermelon or mango and stands by their beach blanket until they'd offer him some. Then he'll take Dante over to get some too. (I really try to keep my kids from mooching off of strangers but they are faster than I am and people here love to dote on kids. So it just keeps getting reinforced.) Alejandro is a chocoholic like a true Conrad though. Once Alfonso bought vanilla pudding instead of the chocolate that I buy. When I tried to feed it to Alejandro, he took one bite before declaring "Vanilla is nasty stuff for grown ups like beer and coffee."

After a month of Jewish Holidays (Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot), Alejandro was so excited for Halloween when we got to celebrate one of "our" holidays. At school, they had been making crafts associated with the holiday so I'd have to keep getting on-line to see what bumble bees, apples dipped in honey, pomegranates, fish heads, chickens on sticks, and some lemon-looking-citrus fruit had to do with anything. In the mean time, we did our own month of craft projects at home with bats, spider, pumpkins, ghosts and witches. With only three American houses on the street, we had the kids knock on both the front and back doors to double the trick-or-treating fun. The pumpkins were closer to white than orange and the rinds very thick as they are for cooking not decorating. But the Jack-o-lanterns turned out just fine.

Two American families had their little boys baptized at Yardenit, the site where John baptized Jesus where the Jordan River flows out of the Sea of Galilee. Alfonso took the boys as I was sick (again) and said it was absolutely beautiful. He was standing up above taking pictures for our friends so there was no one to pull Alejandro out of the way. So he stood right next to the babies while they were getting doused with water -- wearing a paper crown made from a cereal box. I hope they are able to crop him out of their family photos!

Alfonso is getting bored with his guitar so he's taking up the Oud instead. Really he just went and made small talk until the owner let him try. (My little guys learned to mooch from the best!)

Not much else is new. Right now we are just counting the days until Mom and Dad come!

Love always,

Debi

school days

Alejandro started school on September 1st. In Israel, (outside of ultra religious families) it is the norm for kids to be put in "school" at six months. While most women also work outside the home, even those who don't work still put the kids in school. (They insist it is school and not day care -- that the play is educational. Whatever.) So anytime we meet new Israelis, they always grill me on why I would keep the kids at home. School goes Sun-Thurs plus a half day on Friday. Alejandro is enrolled for half day school -- which is five hours.

There are public schools as well as private schools -- public means it is run by the state but doesn't mean it is not religious. The school walking distance from our house happens to be religious. So our Catholic, uncircumcised, English speaking boy is going to a Jewish school where the teacher and the aide only speak Hebrew. At this age, it means I have to pack a kosher lunch and he has to wear a kippah (which he wasn't too happy about.) They sing some songs and such -- but there's not theology lessons or anything. I thought six days of school was a bit much, so I only send him Mon-Thursday. It's been an ugly month but we finally had one day where Alejandro didn't cry about going to school but then Dante cried when we left Alejandro. I can't win. While Dante misses his brother, I think he enjoys having me all to himself.

Well, here's what Alejandro has to say since he started school:

"School was so much fun. I'm never going back." This is after his first full day, when he came out all smiles.

"I guess I'm not potty trained so I can't go to school." He wet himself on purpose after being told for months he couldn't go to school until he was potty trained (back in the days when he actually wanted to go to school.)

Cough. Cough. (obviously faked) "I'm too sick to go to school." I guess faking illness is a natural instinct.

"Just so you know, I'm going to cry a lot once we get there." He informs me as we walk up to the school.

"Fine. I'll go next week but I don't want to talk about it right now." When we told him it was the weekend but he was going back to school on Monday.

"Some boy stole my goldfish but I took them back because I didn't want to share. Then another boy took them and put them inside his sandwich so I couldn't get them." Friends sent some goldfish crackers from the States. I didn't realize it would cause such a riot or I wouldn't have sent them in his lunch. I'm not even sure they are kosher.

"A little boy dumped his water and the teacher had to clean it up but it got on my shoe. I was so disappointed." These are the kind of answers I get when I ask what happens at school.

"My kippah fell into the toilet when I went to the bathroom." Something we never had to deal with before...
Alfonso's mom is here so we've been doing our marathon tour of Israel. Work is crazy busy for Alfonso. As a bonus, all the Jewish holidays are coming up this month so Alfonso will be working to cover everyone else being gone. By the way, Happy New Year -- it is officially the year 5769 today. Everyone is in a really good mood here. I went to the grocery store the other night (since they'll be closed the next two days) and someone actually offered to let me pass in front of them. It was insanely busy and crowded but people were really nice and friendly. It was so weird. I wasn't sure if I was still in Israel.
There's always more to say but I'm tired/lazy/grumpy/homesick and just want to get this posted before the year 5770.
Love always,
Debi
(Alejandro wants to work at Intel because they wear cool costumes!)

Happy Birthday Dante!

Our baby boy is two! We had a small party with four other American families on Friday. It was mellow but very nice -- games of ring around the rosies, a cool shark pinata from our friends/neighbors, presents (most of which came from the States in Carl and Em's suitcases), and a decadent chocolate cake also from the friends/neighbors. (I did make the lasagnas and rest of the food-- I'm not a complete failure as a mother.)

Right before bedtime on his birthday, he tripped and hit the bottom step splitting his bottom lip all the way through. Off to urgent care for super glue -- happy birthday little guy!

FYI - Dante has spent six months in Albuquerque, nine months in Portland, 6 weeks in Phoenix mixed with 7 weeks in Ohio, and six months in Israel. He's going to hate that ever-so-casual question -- So where are you from?

odds and ends (some more odd than others)

We haven't been doing that much travelling lately as we've been dealing with illness and the heat. Plus, Alfonso rotates between days, nights and weekends at work. This will be the way of life for the next year -- oh joy! Anyhow, I thought I'd spend time to talk just about our daily lives and the random differences we've encountered.
Alfonso bikes to work about 3-4 times a week. It's ~25 miles one way and takes an hour and a quarter. He's lost quite a bit of weight and his clothes are literally falling off of him. Life at Intel is pretty much the same except the Israelis yell and scream at each other in meetings then go sit and have lunch together as if the previous argument never happened. Very vocal about their opinions but don't take anything personally.
Alejandro misses PBS. They have lots of cartoons in Hebrew but they aren't of the educational variety so I usually don't let him watch. There is a Hebrew version of Sesame Street but still haven't figured out what time it's on. They televise BBC programs for kids. Alejandro watches a children's cooking show where they tell a story and then make some sort of healthy snack that goes along with the story. The snacks usually look like something -- mashed potatoes with a few carrot sticks and olives magically turn into one of Little Bo Peep's lost sheep. Anyhow, along with Alejandro trying to reassemble his food into storybook characters at every meal, he's also started pronouncing different words with a British accent. He throws things into the rubbish bin instead of the trash can. The Hebrew and Spanish mix wasn't confusing enough, so he added another accent just for fun.

The first time we took Dante to the doctor's office, the nurse handed me the thermometer to take his temperature instead of doing it herself. You pay the doctor -- physically hand him the money and he/she writes the receipt. I don't know if they don't trust other people to handle the money or what -- but it's been that way at three different places. I got blood drawn and the nurse didn't wear gloves. Then there are the scheduling, language and insurance issues... (heavy sigh) I'm just hoping no one else gets sick the rest of our stay. While I'm wishing, I also want the moon.
We have been going to two different churches in Tel Aviv and aim to hit the English masses (as opposed to the Arabic, Romanian, Hebrew, Italian, Polish, Russian, French or Spanish masses that are held as well.) For the English mass, the church is filled with Filipinos that arrive on buses so the parking lot is empty. One week, we showed up and the lot was full -- it was an Arabic mass. There are woman that stand at the front of the church and put shawls around the shoulders of females in tank tops or low cut tops before they receive communion. I guess my clothes are modest enough because I haven't gotten covered yet.
Grocery shopping is still a bit tricky. I finally went with an Israeli friend and that helped but it will always be a challenge. They never have the same brands and varieties in stock. It's a crap shoot what you will find at the store. The quality of products isn't the same -- if you look at the foil funny it will tear. You can pay your grocery bill in up to four installments. We were so confused the first few times when they kept asking how many payments we wanted.

Fruits and vegetables are seasonal. When we first came, they were selling strawberries on every corner -- now there's not one to be found. Watermelon season is just about over. Mango season just started and the pomegranates trees are loaded but not quite ready. There is sales tax but it's already included in the ticketed price. The receipt shows how much of the purchase was tax -- usually 15.5%.

Went to some friends for supper and they made the most delicious pizza -- and then topped it with corn, olives and TUNA FISH. Yuck, yuck and double yuck! Israelis eat lots of tuna fish and it comes in a tons of flavors --lemon, garlic, chile and other various oils and spices.

The typical beach attire at a non-kosher beach is speedos and string bikinis. Age and/or fitness level doesn't matter. I'm often the only female on the beach with a one piece.

There are assigned seats at the movies. The adult movies just tend to have Hebrew subtitles but the kids movies are dubbed in Hebrew (as the kids can't read subtitles I guess.) Luckily, when Alejandro saw Wall-E there wasn't much dialogue.

We see lots of little ones at the park with ponytails and barrettes -- that just happen to be boys. Many Jews wait until the boy is three for his first haircut. With how much Dante fusses for a haircut, we may adopt this tradition. Since Alejandro still fusses, we need to find another culture that waits until 12 or 13 to get a haircut.

The capacity of our washing machine is maxed out with two bath towels. It takes over 2 and an half hours to wash and another two hours to dry a single load. With the small loads and lengthy process, everyday is laundry day. They wrap a towel around a squidgy with a broom length handle and call it a mop.

The light switches for the bathroom are outside of the room. The boys think it's hysterical to turn the lights off when someone is inside.

The garbage truck comes three times every week. I'm not sure why. Maybe they think people litter because their trash cans are full. I don't know. They'd be better off paying the garbage men to pick up litter.

All the houses have solar water heaters on the roof. You can switch to the electric heater when the solar one runs out of hot water.

The police cars always drive with their lights on and use sirens to pull someone over.


I'm sure there are more that I've become so accustomed to already that I forgot to mention. So I guess you will all have to come to visit and check it out yourselves!

Love always,
Debi

Summer Re-runs

The middle of June was relatively low key as was our Father's Day, celebrated with paper crowns. It's gotten a bit hot through the day, so we spend most of the day indoors or at our friends' pool across the street. Unfortunately the sea has been full of jellyfish as of late so we haven't gone to the beach very much. Alfonso and Alejandro have both gotten stung. We were told the jellyfish will be gone in another two weeks -- I just hope someone tells the jellyfish! It cools down in the evenings, so we will still head to the sand dunes. Dante was apparently unimpressed by Alejandro's leap with our friends.
At the end of June, Carl and Emily arrived for a visit so we spent 10 days trying to see and do everything we'd done in the past four months. Jerusalem, Masada, the Dead Sea, Bet Guvrin, the Sea of Galilee, Caesarea with a few extra stops as well. Part of the time, Alfonso and I took turns playing tour guide and baby sitter. It was nice to go and see things without worrying about diaper bags and nap times. I actually got to eat an entire meal without once having to say "Sit down," "No throwing food," "That's not how we use our forks," or "Please don't lick the salt shaker." Alfonso can be so embarrassing to eat with sometimes. Seriously, I spilt something on my shirt and had no one else to blame it on.
Then we took a two day trip with the whole gang. First, we went to the Sea of Galilee and checked out a fishing boat that dates from the time of Christ. There's no evidence that Jesus was ever on this particular boat but it's also a little sketchy to think that someone accurately remembered which particular rock that Jesus laid the loaves and fishes on 350 years later when the first Church of the Multiplication was built. Either way, they were both fascinating to see and help preserve the history.
We stopped again at Caupernaum, as you can see Alejandro strolling through the ancient synagogue while Dante napped in the car. Another nearby stop that we had missed on our last trip was the Mount of Beatitudes. The Church and its gardens were lovely but the view was simply exquisite. I kept thinking how incredible it would have been there during the time of Christ -- if only they had air conditioning! For those still planning a trip, I would recommend a time when it's about 15 degrees cooler!
We stayed in the town of Sefet/Safad/Tsafed/Zafat/Safet/Zefad/Tsefet depending on which map/GPS/sign/internet site you happen to look at. It is a very picturesque, particularly religious city. About 90 percent of the men we saw were wearing hats or kippahs (skullcaps.) We stayed at a zimmer (similar to a B&B) which was to put it kindly -- a dump. However, it was clean with working air conditioning. The boys were thrilled because their beds had dalmatians puppies on the sheets. If only we were all so easy to please...

The next day we headed to the Golan Heights. Months ago, I had read about Banyas, a city with ancient ruins of a temple to the god of Pan, and was so excited to visit. Banyas was also known as Caesarea Philippi after 20BC and Jesus had been in the area. (Matthew 16:13) Of course if He actually went to the ruins (the bible doesn't mention if He went sight seeing during his stay), Jesus would have been lucky enough to see the statues of the Greek gods. Much to my dismay, they were destroyed during the anti-paganist movement at the end of the Byzantine era. I hadn't realized until the morning of our trip with my last minute web search that we were going to be 550 years too late to see the statues. Anyhow, we left Sefad with the help of our ever-so-trusty-GPS and took a narrow, winding road through the hills that made Alejandro car-sick. After seeing signs for the border, I consulted a paper map and found we were a mere three millimeters from Lebanon (about 300 yards.) The GPS got demoted and I became lead navigator with the help from our Hertz map for the rest of the trip.
Despite the lack of statues, Banyas exceeded my expectations. There's lush forest at the bottom of Mount Hermon running along a tributary of the Jordan River with a gorgeous waterfall -- nature once again trumps anything man-made. We took a lovely hike that was shaded for the most part (thanks goodness!) and saw spectacular ruins from the Greeks and Romans. There was a section from the Crusaders that we'll have to catch on our next visit.
I must say Banyas is the most beautiful place I've seen in Israel so far. However, if they do give that land back to Syria, then Caesarea would take top spot. We stopped there since it was on the way home. Of course, coming from the Golan Heights, about 3/4 of Israel is on the way to Ashdod. Alfonso would have made more stops but he was out voted by my migraine. (Alejandro and I are at the rail looking out to sea if you look closely below.)
For the 4th of July, we had a simple barbecue at the house and some sparklers. As of late, we've been fighting pink eye and nasty colds. I'll be so happy to have everyone healthy again. There are a zillion other stories about the kids and our daily life here but I'm tired and short on time. Another day...
Miss you all,
Love always,
debi