Festival of Booths

ISRAEL has been fantastic. Let's do the shortened version...

We arrived just before Yom Kippur and went to stay with the Kuchars in Efrat. After not eating indulgently for quite a while at this point we decided to treat ourselves to a pre-yom kippur BRUNCH at Aroma Cafe on Emek Refaim, where (in the SOHO location), Lili and I have swooned over many a coffee and mushroom omelette. So, Natan got a coffee and a mushroom omelette AND two types of cheeses, salad toast and an array of olives and pickled things. Lili got her first SOY latte since NYC, plus french toast, and its array of olives and pickled things. We were satiated, and it felt like we were finally in Israel.

We kind of went crazy, and with the help of Lili's parents' visit, we managed to eat at a lot of places:

Aroma (yu-um. it's always nice when you get a free chocolate with your cappucino)

Caffit (Brick Fire Pizza!)

La Boca (VERY yum and a bit fancy. The free dip things they put on the table are the best part)

Babba (Um, excuse me, you served me a hummus, with a lot of yum around it)

Burgers Bar (Theres no point getting the double breast chicken burger, because the single breast chicken burger is, alas, double than what you'd expect.

Luigis (Didn't go because they only have SOUP IN A BREAD BOWL in winter and that's sad)

We didn't go running around Israel this trip, but mainly just walked around Jerusalem, wishing we had more room in our luggage for all the judaica we wanted to buy. We did however visit my relatives in the North, who live on a moshav called Talmei Elazar. They look after a turkey farm, which is frightening and hysterical. And, we had a grand tour of Cesaria, swam in the shockingly warm Mediterranean beaches, went to a cotton farm, visited the Baron Rothschild Gardens in Zichron Yaakov and ate lots of passion fruit and guavas from our cousins' back garden. We also did a quick stint in Akko and Tsfat and hiked a few hours in the Galilee in Nahal Gziv.

Lili's parent's came to visit for their first time, and we visited the new Yad Vashem, got a tour of the four quarters of the Old City (by Vivienne) shopped and ate deliciously from Machane Yehuda. We also frightened Lili's parents with a quick walk through Mea Sharim on Hoshana Rabba.

The best part of Israel is how you bump into people you know everywhere. Here's who we saw (in no particular order):

Tili Fisher (cousin and only blonde Israeli I know)

Simmy Suttner (Sister-in-law-in-law)

Kenny Hendon (Bekeley)

Daniel Feld (Berkeley)

Leah Schwartz (Sydney)

Amanda Wright (childhood babysitter)

Leyat Mill (Mazal Tov!) ... and then a bunch of other Aussies that came to her engagement party at the Luries house in Katamon

Benji & Ranana Levy (Thanks for helping us out!)

Ben Wittenberg

The Seidmans

(Possibly) Joel Weisbord ... it may not have been him.

Our last day in Israel wasn't incredibly smooth, as we had planned to be in Sinai to CLIMB MT SINAI ... but we screwed up on our Egyptian visa. So we stayed at the Red Sea Hotel and ate a possibly unkosher breakfast served by a man named Moishy.

THANK YOU to all the Kuchars who gave us cell phones, booked our buses, translated for us got us from A to B, fed us, and housed us!

Natan. (photos are a coming)