Happy Birthday Israel!

Hello, hello! Long time, no blog. That's because we have been busy little bees and there was just no time for blogging. I'm choosing to take that as a good sign. Like as a sign that we actually have somewhat of a life over here now. With new friends to hang out with and everything. So we had a fabulous long weekend filled with lots o' fun, food and friends and I shall attempt to catch everyone up now.....

So as mentioned before, this past weekend was Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel's Independence Day, and it just happened to be the 60th anniversary. The holiday started (sort of) on Tuesday with Fallen Soldier Remembrance Day. Not so much a holiday, as a day to be somber and remember the soldiers who have lost their lives fighting for Israel. Basically on Tuesday evening all the stores and restaurants and anything having to do with entertainment and anything fun closed early, around 7 or eight o'clock in the evening. They even suspended the airing of television broadcasts for about 24 hrs. Ha! Can you even imagine that happening in the USA?!?! God forbid people should not watch TV for one evening! This actually happened the week before on Holocaust Remembrance Day as well. Now while I get the point and kind of like the idea that they actually do something on these days of remembrance (unlike many of the US holidays where it's simply an excuse to take a day of work and no one knows the true meaning of the day anyway), it's also a wee bit depressing. While it's a good thing to think about these things and remember them, I think it's also a bit much to put a "ban" on fun for the evening if you ask me. The restaurants (which reopened again on Wed.) were legally not allowed to play music until eight o'clock that night. If they did and were caught, then they would have to pay a fine. (We learned this last week as were enjoying Sushi at our favorite sushi place (thus far!) sans tunes, and asked the waiter why there was no music.) But then again, a night without the boob tube is not such a bad thing. Except we of course had hoards of DVDs to amuse us instead.

So we spent Tuesday night at home (obviously) and then Phil worked only a half day on Wed. Wednesday was the kick off of the celebration for Israel's 60th Birthday. I spent the afternoon making wickedly delicious brownies (easy to do with 3 cups of sugar and a cup each of butter, cocoa powder and chocolate chips!) for a BBQ the next day and then we headed out to meet some friends for dinner. After dinner we walked to Rabin Square where the main festivities in Tel Aviv took place. The square and surrounding streets were swarmed with people and children spraying each other with silly string and cans of fake snow. We were lucky enough to avoid getting caught in the crossfire although there were a few close calls. The security guards seemed to spend more time taking away the cans of snow than being on the look out for terrorists. Awesome. The entertainment was somewhat on the cheesey side but we were told that it would get better (and more crowded!) later in the night and continue on until the morning. Ha! Like I would actually last that long!

Dinner at Amore MioRabin Square Me, Debbie and Adam
After we checked out the square we headed to a party at a friend of a friend's apartment. They had an awesome apartment that put ours to shame (I know, though shalt not covet thy neighbor's house) with a really nice rooftop balcony. Mostly I covet thy awesome rooftop view. We were greeted like old friends even though we knew almost no one there. The party had quite an international flair to it with people from the US, Israel, France, Germany and Belgium. Thank goodness English is the universal language! As we were on the rooftop we also got to check out the fireworks show which was only partially blocked by several very large buildings. I actually lasted until almost 2 am (that's really good for me) at which point I dragged Phil reluctantly home. I am sure he could have lasted until the wee hours of the morning, but what can I say, I'm lame.

On Thursday we headed toward Jerusalem for a BBQ with some other Expats. What should have been about a 45 minute/hour drive ended up being much longer. Getting out of Tel Aviv was the first challenge. We somehow managed to be leaving at exactly the same time that swarms of people were heading toward the beach to check out the air show. (Which sadly we missed, but my friend and I had a preview of it a few days earlier as we were walking around the city. Scared the living you know what out of us, as we had no idea what was going on and just heard the loud fighter jets zooming above our heads.) We eventually made it out of the city and were on our way to......well, absolutely nowhere. Traffic was completely backed up almost the minute we got onto the highway. Aparently we weren't the only ones leaving the city for the day. Traffic was stop and go most of the way and at one point slowed down for this.......
If you can't tell, this is a giant Israeli flag. Which of course we slowed down to take a picture of too. Hey, if you can't beat 'em......

Now let me tell you about these friends that hosted the BBQ. They have 5 or maybe 6 year old triplets. Triplets!!! Yes, they picked up their whole life and headed over here with three young children, a cat and a dog. Now whenever I am feeling sorry for myself and thinking about how difficult things have been for us here I just think of this family and I realize.....I have got it super easy compared to them! I am in awe of them and I just don't know how they do it. So of course the house was a buzz with children, (there were also three more there from another family) and I got them even more hyped up with my super sugary brownies. The rest of us all enjoyed some beer and good ol' American cheeseburgers (soooo not Kosher) and potato salad as we enjoyed the awesome view from their house.....

Friday we spent at home resting and doing some cleaning before we had our friends Adam and Debbie over for a little impromptu Mexican Fiesta, a few days late for Cinco de Mayo, but who's keeping track anyway. We made quesadillas with guacamole and pico de gallo. Unfortunately there were no margaritas to be enjoyed. "Sigh".....that just feels wrong to me. But with the outrageous prices on alcohol and no limes to be found in the Holyland we just had to make do with out.

Saturday we decided to hit the beach and soak up a little sun. I still can't get over the fact that the beach is seriously just a five minute walk away. Being from NM, this takes some getting used to. I am happy to report that the beach was much cleaner than the last time and we found a nice spot in the the sand to camp out on for a couple of hours. Although between the loud American family behind us, the lifegaurds screaming on their mega phones and the old men playing some form of tableless ping pong, it wasn't exactly the most relaxing day at the beach. And of course despite my best efforts and the bottle of SPF thirty I slathered on before we left, I still, still managed to fry myself after only 2 hours. I guess I am going to have to turn into one of those people who has to cover their body from head to toe and sit under an umbrella the whole time. After the beach and a quick dinner at a nearby cafe we capped off the evening at our friends house and enjoyed watching an old movie together. (And by old I mean like 1993, not the black and white days.)

But the weekend didn't stop there for me. (Does it ever really stop for me?!?!?!) On Sunday I met up with a couple of friends for breakfast and then we headed back to our apartment to watch some chick flicks without the husbands standing nearby armed with snide comments. And since we are so nice we decided to cook up dinner for the hubbies when they came home from work. Let me tell you, it's nice having two assistants in the kitchen with you. Makes for a lot less work and especially a lot less clean-up when one volunteers to wash all the dishes for you! So we've decided to make it a monthly ritual from now on out with each of us taking turns hosting. Think I could get used to that.

Debbie playing waitress Ed and Sonja
Mmmmmmmm....lasagna.
As you can see it was a very eventful weekend. So I spent today cleaning up the apartment after all that entertaining and doing my Hebrew homework which I conveniently put off for an entire week. Such a bad student I am. Oh, and of course laundry. Many, many, tiny loads of laundry.