israel travelogue

Wednesday
Early morning drive to airport - don't remmeber much, just that Eddie didnt' think he needed to sleep.  Then he fell asleep.
shachris at the JFK gate; those people staring at Dani takig pictures of Avraham.  Annoying high school girls - one pulled off her skirt.  yellow underwear!
good flight to heathrow.  : )
saw the village and the forgotten
decided that we like boeing 767s
get to heathrow
walk three miles to get to the shuttle train to get us to the building where we have to walk to the connection gate.
buy shot glasses at duty free
get to the gate at 9:30, flight leaves at 10:30
allowed into the gate at 9:55
we see the people leaving our plane from the previous flight in at 10:15
they announce a 15 minute delay
takeoff at 11:30 london time
cramped el-al 737
dani's seat is broken, guy in front of her reclines into her lap
watched wimbledon -- bad movie, cute, kirsten dunst (who looks like claire danes, who bumped into dani ont he street in NY).
get to israel and out of customs/immigration sometime around 6:30 AM
savti thinks that we're getting in afternoon as opposed to morning
we end up taking a sheirut with fruma, others, dispatcher gets into a fight with dani as to where graetz is
driver starts cab without closing the back door.  I'm almost ready to go home.
we get there and fall asleep

thursday
wokeup really late
walked through town
bought jewlery for sisters
bought skirts at holeinthewall
met bayla at bus stop - totally random!
went to their apt - watched their wedding dvd - so cool.  bayla walked around JJ 9 times...
went to joy, ate too much food, took all the money!
walked down emeq
went to mike's place - had bad drinks.  really really bad drinks.
took ridiculous pictures

friday:
wokeup late
went to chevruta (bookstore), met elliot/benyamin.  dani wanted to buy one of each art piece, avraham wanted to buy one of each book
saw the boys' apt
shabbas prep
benyamin came by for fri night meal -
talking - us, aylana, benyamin, bayla/jj
we slept at 3:00 AM

shabbas:
8:45 chovevei - bar mitzvah, lots of talking
kiddush
lunch with nadav and old people
sleep/read
sat night
yosef: sbarros, walked around
slept/read/tv -- jets game ended 3:15

sunday:
445 wakeup
545 leave
708 train be'er sheva (crowded) soldiers everywhere!
830 arrive
845 tel sheva
910 ami's house, kids, dog, nadav and gf
1230 lunch at good meat place with all of the salads
250 train back
400 ticket incident - who knew you were supposed to keep it til you got home?
sleep
1130 chevra, pizzameter, game

monday:
wokeup late - finished pizzameter
went to town - tried to find #15
bought earrings for dorothy
saw trachtenbergs
bought tichels
walked to maalot dafna to see rivky and co
saw trachtenbergs
bussed back much later
bought breslov CD cause we're suckers
met benyamin/elliot, had pastry
went to bookstore
maimed dani with heavy book to the head (she got upset)
went home

tuesday:
went to neve: savti drove
said hi to rabbis (winter, smith, azar)
took pictures with fewer rabbis
lots of screaming girls
taxi to home and garden
went to gruss
tried to find moneychanger
had issue with bank - need an account to get money?!
had lunch with resnicks and shmoo
saw all the gruss people
saw litwak
davened mincha
walked/taxied to Uncle Leibel
ate pie
ate more pie
serenaded by elimelekh golani the taxi driver who ate our smashed mocha krembo
went to ezras torah
saw adina and kiddies
saw shalom and howie
saw shalom run the world over the phone while playing with baby
compared cameras with howie (who didn't have one, but compared anyway)
savti picked us up
went to maalot dafna
got lost in parking lot
got 19th birthday present from rivky (including $50 handy dollars from g-ma and g-pa)
went home
met she and shim at rimon, too cute.
came back
skeezy guy/aylana/pictionary/camera

wednesday:
woke up late
had brunch at some cafe on emek
went to sleep -- missed she :(
burger's bar - got magnet

thursday:
went to OU
met rabbi kuber
aliyah pressure from goldi (devoire's cousin)
shoe incident on yafo - successful inadverdent bargining
suq - dried strawberries and 100 NIS of candy/gum
Sara Tova meetup
chwarma at Melekh Falafel
big dog
changed money/got shotglasses
went to el al - pointless frustration
supersol and instant soup ($40 worth/ 3 for 13 NIS)
bus stop incident - let's take a taxi there!  (we were a block away)
tour of outer reaches of gush etzion
eftata and gershon/elanah and big kids
dinner
pizza bathroom
bus back with more dried strawberries
goodbye to aylana
pepper with gun
bayla/jj/elliot/dan/uzi/nachum joel at schnitzel bar
guy at bus stop - dani yelled
more discussion

friday:
savti drives to kotel
contemplative moments
archeological survey
walk through rova
choshen necklace
narrow avoidance of arab suq (dani has to stop wandering into the arab quarter...)
walk to sbarros
buy expensive qiddush qup
bus almost back
walked rest of way