Pictures

I'm falling behind in my blogging and it's just the second day!

Trip itself was great. Every connection was much too close (traffic jam in Tampa, flight arrived late in Memphis, played to the last minute in Amsterdam) but really all worked out fine. From Memphis to Amsterdam I sat next to a Dutch man who builds ships, a nautical architect. He was a nice resource for information. I did sleep for more than half of the flight and arrived rested in Amsterdam.

Once there, I easily found my friend Lia and her family: Floor, a Christian television personality, Franka, a lovely 15 year old girl, and Tyn, a sweet 11 year old boy (11, right, Lia??). Lia, herself, is now a social worker in a psychiatric hospital, though she has taught Hebrew and Greek at a seminary in the past. We headed first in their car to Haarlem to see Corrie ten Boom ("oo" like in "ocean"--thanks, Floor). On Saturdays, they have in the center of town, like all other towns, what looked to me like a flea market. We needed to wiat 45 minutes to see a tour of the house, so we stopped for some food. My Dutch friends in Bradenton will know what crouquet is, I bet. I had some and liked it.

Yes, I loved seeing Corrie's house. I already knew most of her story from reading every single book she wrote, so actually, we didn't stay long. (For those who don't know her, she was a 53 year old lady who hid Jews during WWII. When they raided her house, they found hundreds of ration cards for just the three of them (hidden in the woodwork of the stairs), so they took her, her sister and her father away. Her sister and father died, but Corrie came out alive from Aushwitz. I adore this lady. She passed away in the 1980's, but she was the reason I ever had an interest in Israel in the first place.)

After seeing the house, we said goodbye to Lia's family and headed by train back to Amsterdam. One of my biggest impressions was how many bikes there are in Holland. My picture of the bikes was from in front of the Central Bus Station. Amazing. Then off to Anne Frank's house but every tourist in Amsterdam was in line for it. So we decided to pass and just appreciate the setting. Off next to the Van Gogh museum. He's one of my favorite artists, so this was great. Rembrandt was another museum, so we chose Van Gogh instead.

After this, we walked our little feet off, pulling my backpack along (anyone seen the movie "Once"?? I made myself laugh, since I think I looked like the girl in the movie, who dragged her vacuum sweeper around Dublin.) We saw the Dam, coffee shops, the Red Light district, canals, ate dinner in a nice restaurant. We had such a good conversation sharing our lives that we (at least I) lost track of time. At 7 pm, we had to run off and catch my 9 o'clock plane. As I turned to get my last impression of Holland as we loaded the train (same train station where Jews were herded off to camps), I heard a sweet Dutch woman speaking in Dutch. That will remain the summary of Holland to me: sweet Dutch women.

I must make a silly comment here about my impression of Holland. That was my first exposure to how humans will design different solutions for very common needs. What caught my attention was the way toilets are flushed--you push a panel thing in from the top. Lia says all Dutch homes are like this. Now that I'm in Israel, I see we Americans are the only "bar swingers". Israelis have 2 buttons to choose from based on the amount of water dispensed....

As you see, I am a detail person. Franchesca (Meryl Streep) said in a movie once that her life was a series of details. Mine too, sometimes. So it's the details I am catching on this trip. Ok, next subject!

I was so tired from running around Amsterdam that I fell asleep as soon as I fell into my seat on the plane. Twenty minutes later when the plane took off, I woke up startled, thinking I swerving off the road in a car! But I fell quickly back to sleep and woke up almost in Tel Aviv.

My first Israeli exposure came when I heard Hebrew conversations while standing in the security lines in Amsterdam before boarding my Tel Aviv flight. How fun to remember phrases my own mind couldn't summon up on its own.

The Tel Aviv airport was a shock. It is nothing like I remember. Completely remodeled and modern. Customs was nothing. Efrat was waiting for me on the other side. Together we decided to not go straight home (3 am) but to look for something open in Tel Aviv. Well, Tel Avivers are smarter than us and went to bed. Instead, we got fresh bread at the famous Jaffa "Aboolafia" bread stand.

It was wonderful to see Efrat again. She looks the same as she always has, but somehow she seemed to grow taller! She is a dear friend and we hit it off immediately. We talked until we got home to Kibbutz Gevaram at 5:30 in the morning. (Kibbutz is very close to Ashquelon.)

Today she let me sleep until 11:30 am when she woke me a half hour early because it was a beautiful sunny day. It felt like temps in Florida, no jacket necessary. I met Moysh, Efrat's very multi-talented husband, all around jack-of-all-trades. His talent reminds me of Ray. And I also met Guy, a very polite and extremely intelligent 17 year old son. Together we all walked to the dining room and ate lunch (Chicken again for me! Olives, too!). Then Moysh got productive, while Guy, Efrat and I took a tour around the kibbutz. It was fascinating seeing the factory where they make envelopes for companies like Office Depot. Efrat sits in a beautiful new office and runs the computer information systems for the factory. We saw a small petting zoo and dairy cows milking, too

In the afternoon, the delightful boys Noam, 13, and Nir, 9, came home from school. Noam is quite good with his English already and Nir is doing a great job learning it. I have had fun using as much Hebrew as I can, then fill in with English as necessary. We spent some time looking at pictures of the family on the computer.

Later in the evening, we headed to a strip mall in Ashquelon to pick up something for Efrat. I was surprised to see how Americanized it was...even an Ace Hardware and Office Depot there. Supersol is still in business, I see. Then after picking up Noam and Guy from tennis, we headed further into Ashquelon to a food court at the mall (!!). Surprised to see Ked Shoes, Crocs, as well as McDonalds.

It is getting late and I would like to upload the pictures I have taken, but my assistant, Guy has gone to bed (11:15 pm here) so I will try tomorrow. I am uploading them to a website that I'll supply the link to.

Tomorrow we'll leave the house early and head to Tel Aviv for lunch then off to Jerusalem for 2 days. At lunch I'll see Aba and Ima, Orna and perhaps Eyal. Amir, the groom-to-be, somehow will be busy. I've spoken with everyone in the family on the phone, so we're all anxious to meet up.

Tonight I was able to blog while Efrat was working on something next to me. But I will be away from the computer until Tuesday night, so all the pictures must wait until then. I was able to put a few in just for fun.

Till next time,

Shalom!

Cheri