Dude, Where's My Passport?

I'm in Petach Tikva right now, spending the night at Alex's flat before we leave for our vacation in Cairo tomorrow night. Alex and I are both scatterbrains. Needless to say, things have gotten off to a (predictably) poor start for us. This morning we caught a bus to Tel Aviv around 9:30 with 3 goals in mind: We were going to handle our tourist visas at the Egyptian embassy, then go buy a guidebook to Egypt, and finally go to H & O to spend a fat gift card the army gifted to Alex upon his discharge. Halfway through Ramat Gan (and only 15 minutes to our destination), Alex turned to me, swore out loud and alerted me that we had forgotten our passports back at his apartment. Sound familiar? We busted back to his place, got our passports, caught another bus to Tel Aviv and made it to the Egyptian embassy at 11:15, well before the noon closing time he was quoted on the phone.

Alex and I on our travels in TA

Of course, the bastards like to play games with silly American tourists, and they were determined not to make things easy for us. There were 4 older guys sitting on broke down furniture outside the embassy. They arrived around 9:30 or later, and were told to come back at 11. The Egyptians never reopened for business. We sat outside waiting until noon, at which point we got sick and tired of waiting and walked off to get lunch and deal with our other business for the day. At least we can be comforted knowing that it probably wouldn't have mattered if we had remembered our passports initially. We would have been late anyway.

I can't tell if this is vulgar or not.

We had sabich sandwiches for lunch and then arrived at Dizengoff Center, a big mall in the trendy part of town. Alex wasn't too keen on the walk, but I talked him into it. He's gonna have to get used to walking a lot anyway, as I don't want to just see Cairo from the window of a cab. We played around at this indoor playground before we tackled the bookstore circuit. We visited 4 bookstores, and not a one had the damn guide book we needed. How perfectly frustrating. In an even greater stroke of serendipity, the mall doesn't have an H & O either. We had bad information from one of Alex's friends. Such is life. We made some calls and found out that the closest location was in ................ Petach Tikva!!! At the very least, it was quick and easy to get back, and we had a lot of fun once we arrived to the store.

Fun with the pricing gun.

We splurged hardcore at the clothing store. 1000 shekels is a lot of money. Alex bought himself a really nice middle weight jacket, a pair of designer corduroy pants, and 5 or 6 new shirts. He even got me an early birthday present, picking out a really nice new sweater and a long sleeve T shirt. Needless to say, I did quite well. We grabbed a sherut back to his flat where we settled in for an evening of movies, relaxation and food.

Alex stylin' and profilin' in his new jacket and a snazzy new shirt.

I want to wish everyone a nice Tu B'Shvat. We have shared some nice varieties of fruit this evening. Tomorrow morning, we are going back to Tel Aviv even earlier, and hopefully with our passports, so we can handle the visas. Our bus to Eilat leaves from the Tel Aviv central bus station at midnight tomorrow, and we cross the border into Egypt the following morning. I may or may not have the chance to update my blog between now and when I return from my trip, so I'll leave you now with the promise of good stories, fun pictures and wild experiences when I next update this page.

A Restful Shabbat

As it turns out, I was able to relax and catch up on some sleep this Shabbat, which is exactly what I needed. After barely sleeping for about a week, I was beginning to run myself into the ground. I left Eli's place around 1:30 in the afternoon and made my way back to the central bus station in Jerusalem. What a zoo. My God. It seemed like the whole country was trying to escape the city before Shabbat came and everything shut down. I arrived at the central bus station in TA about an hour later, where Alex was waiting for me. We wandered through a shuk for a little while, looking at clothes and goofing off, before eventually buying some baklava for that night and hopping a sherut to his apartment in Petach Tikva.

We got a little turned around en route and had to ask the driver to drive us back to Petach Tikva. Alex has only been living in this flat for about a month, so he still doesn't know the area very well. He shares a place with 5 other lone soldiers. The apartment is very nice, supplied by the army for the use of its lone soldiers. The life of a lone soldier in the Israeli army is not the easiest life to lead. The people I met were the picture of mental exhaustion. They were young, on leave and just trying to forget about the army as much as they could before they had to return to base. Alex is a cook in the army, so we made a feast last night. Roast chicken, fried chicken, stuffed peppers with meat, rice, salad, pita and hummus. Some girls who lived in the building came by and we ate seemingly forever.

The artist at work in his studio

We watched a movie and then went to sleep. It was glorious. I slept until 10:30 in the morning and I needed every minute of it. I got up and got dressed, and at noon my cousin Itzik picked me up. Itzik and his family live in Givatayim, a wealthy suburb of Tel Aviv. Before March of this year, I didn't even know that I had family near Tel Aviv, but after much prodding from my dad, I ponied up and called him. I ended up spending all afternoon with him. First I met his mother at her home. She noted how much I look like my Bubbie Nacha (I didn't know that), and sat down to ask me all about my family over a piece of cake. A proud Yiddishe Mama. Next I went with Itzik to his family's home for lunch. I met my new cousins (although I'm having trouble with some of the names so I will get back to you when I am more certain of them) and we talked and ate and relaxed.

The Weiss family and I in Givatayim

Eventually Doron and Rina (Itzik's son and one of his daughters) took me on a short walking tour of Givatayim. It's a beautiful neighborhood, very different from Haifa. I don't know that I can really explain the difference, but the cities have a different feel to them. I did snap this photo of Tel Aviv from a distance.


The best thing about the afternoon was that four whole hours, I threw caution to the wind and spoke nothing but Hebrew. And I did pretty damn well with it too! I am finding that my Ulpan combined with my real life experiences are combining to enhance and expand my Hebrew vocabulary on a daily basis. I'm learning new words and phrases, and putting them to use almost immediately. Speaking Hebrew still requires more concentration than English, so after the visit was over, I was once again drained. I went back to Alex's and we hung out for another 2 hours, before I caught a 6:15 bus back to Haifa. Travel is great, but it's always nice to return home. Things get crazy again tomorrow, so I'm going to take the opportunity to get another full night's sleep tonight.