It's 430AM, we're in the King David Lounge at the airport and I'm NOT happy.
This has been our best visit yet. We seemed to be busier than ever, yet there are so many things we didn't do. We didn't go to any of the museums. We were at the Kotel only once, during Sukkot. The women's side was so crowded I couldn't enter, so no note in the Wall. We did go to the Galilee for the Melabev hike, but we didn't do our usual 2-day trip. I wanted to go to Hamat Gader. We did make it to the Dead Sea. I didn't do any krav maga; in fact the only exercise I got was walking, which I did everywhere. I don't know if I should get on the scale when we get home. Actually I did try something new - pole dancing. Yes, folks, the latest craze for women, especially frum girls, is pole dancing. I read about it in the El Al magazine on the way here, and it turned out that the gym where I took my one and only and never again pilates class offers pole lessons. Believe me, it's way harder than it looks. The instructor has been doing it for 8 years and she's coordinated and graceful. I managed to get about 6 inches off the floor.
We ate out more than we ate in. I did very little cooking, but managed to eat a tree's worth of olives and about 5 kilos of bageles (not a typo - these are 2 inch diameter very crisp, round dry biscuits) and an equal amount of cheese. We tried a couple of new restaurants. Angelica, which everyone raves about, isn't a place we'll go back to. Jacko's is. The goose liver, which is my absolute favorite thing to eat in Israel because outside of France it's not available anywhere else, was sensational. I told Sid I could die happy after a meal like that.
The truth is, I didn't want to leave Jerusalem. There was so much going on that we had very little down time. The days when we had nothing scheduled I usually caught up on office work. We did a lot of cultural stuff - lectures, the Oud Festival, the operetta about the NILI spy ring, the Moroccan concert, the Frank Sinatra concert and we capped it off Sunday night with a performance of the Buena Vista Social Club, direct from Cuba. We had actually gone there last year when we were in Havana. This performance was better. My classes were wonderful. I took two classes at Pardes for the first time, and was almost able to complete a full semester. My Monday morning women's class just keeps getting better and better. I took 3 tiyulim (excursions) with a fabulous archaeologist, and one tiyul known in Hebrew as a yom kef, which means a day of fun. It consisted of performances by singers, a comedian, a Russian balled duo, and a fashion show. Obviously meant for women of a certain age, there were a few reluctant husbands who got dragged along. Mine wasn't one of them.
Socially we were also busy. A housewarming, a bar matzvah, a bat mitzvah, a cocktail party, Shabbat meals.
And we had excellent weather. It's not good for Israel, and they've already declared this a drought year. But for us it was great. We had a couple of days of rain, most recently on Sunday and Monday, when it poured. Otherwise sunny and in the 60's and 70's, which is unseasonable.
It's now Friday morning. The flights were fine and we had a nice driver from O'Hare - an Iraqi Assyrian who's been in the US since 1980. The weather, however, is awful. It had snowed some time in the past week, not much but enough to be plowed. The temperatures are in the single digits + our infamous windchill. Not engendered to make me happy to be back.
Already planning the next trip - some time in July for a month or 6 weeks.
Shabbat shalom from Chicago,
Peggy and Sid
PS - I only gained a kilo.
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