Israel. Pesach 2022. Day 2. What Else Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Where was I? The day and night and day all just blend together.
Around 1am Madeleine woke up. I didn’t want Madeleine to wake Hallie and Robyn, so I grabbed her and put her in my bed. After a while Tzvi rolled the crib into our room and we put Madeleine back to sleep. Madeleine up like 3-5 and Tzvi was up 5-8.
Tzvi: I wasn’t really thinking when I brought in the crib, because I put it right in front of the bathroom door. I think I was awake from 5-8 and had to pee really badly but I was afraid to move because I didn’t want to wake Steph, and anyway there was no way to get into the bathroom without moving the crib.
We didn’t actually get up until 10ish when we got a call from my mom that breakfast was ending soon. Well, we sprang into action and got ready in minutes and made it to breakfast with a few minutes to spare. Everything was already pesach, but still a good breakfast. Obviously it’s better if you love dairy and all the vegetables. The girls didn’t care for the pancakes or waffles, but we managed.
At breakfast we had our first sighting of Grant, who I used to work with at JCRC. Tzvi said that now he was part of our trip and would be featured in the blog. Grant was excited about that, so, welcome to the blog Grant!
After breakfast we went back to the room and got ready to go out for the day. We thought everything was finally going smoothly, but of course that was not to be the case! Robyn let us know that her father was going to have to go to the hospital due to a chronic medical condition he has and that would mean she wouldn’t be seeing him when she went home next week (the plan was to have her go home Monday – Thursday). Obviously we told her to go home today so she could see her dad, so she packed up and left. I pray to God she comes back to us.
So, now we are on our own.
We decided to venture out! We took a cab to Machane Yehuda. We’ve given up on safety here on Day 1 and are just holding Madeleine on our laps in the taxi. We arrived at Rosemary, where we get all of our (overpriced but delicious) dried fruit. Madeleine was so excited because we were at the “mango store.” We walked around some more and ended up stopping at Roladin for snacks and iced coffee. Apparently the ice café (not iced coffee) is Kitniyot. Who knew? (And who cares?). We also had some borekas, which basically tasted like regular non-Pesach borekas. The girls enjoyed watching the light rail go back and forth. We got some strawberries (it’s amazing how good the fruit is here, probably because it's freshly picked on some kibbutz and shipped directly to the shuk) and bucket hats, because those are apparently a thing now. Then we got a taxi to my parents’ brand new apartment.
The apartment is beautifully set up. The ovens are tiny, so I guess Thanksgiving in Israel is out. We hung out there for a little. All of the furniture looks very nice, but it seems my mother has taken her quest to fill the world with uncomfortable couches to the Israel. Eventually we took a cab with Avery and Gabriella back to the hotel. We are really learning a lot of Hebrew here. Gabriella asked how to say “trunk” in here. Tzvi immediately answered “mepalpelet,” which apparently means “pepper,” but everyone believed him.
Back at the hotel we put Madeleine for a nap and Tzvi took Hallie to the pool. [Tzvi: We started at the rooftop pool. The rooftop is very nice. Most of the seating is sort-of uncomfortable chairs, and there’s only a few day beds where you can actually lay down. The view is incredible and you can basically see Jerusalem in every direction. We got chairs and Hallie went in the pool, but it was freezing cold (I guess it’s not heated) and I couldn’t get in, so we abandoned the rooftop and moved down to the indoor spa pool, which was heated to about 85 degrees. Avery joined us at the pool and Hallie had a lot of fun.]
I had my hair blown at 4. I asked them for a later appointment and they said no because they close at 4, except when I was sitting there a woman walked in and asked for her hair to be dyed and they said sure. Anyway, during this time we saw that a family had checked into two rooms on our floor and kept running back and forth and being loud in the hallway. At one point the dad was just sitting in a chair in the hallway and watching a video loudly on his phone, so I asked him to keep it down. Oy.
We all got ready for the seder. For the girls that meant taking a shower, which meant them sitting on the floor of the shower while Tzvi held the handheld shower head and sprayed them.
I think shabbat started around 6:30/6:45. We were able to take pictures before, which never happens. We went down to the lobby to take photos outside, where we found Grant. Madeleine decided she wanted to take a picture with him. She just loves everyone.
Then we waited around until davening was over to start our seder. I tried to get the girls some food before the seder but the kitchen was closed so we relied on snacks. We hung around for a while. The seder didn’t start until maybe 8:30. Unless you had a private room (which we didn’t), the seders were in the same room as breakfast. It’s large and bright and we had a nice table. Everyone was pretty loud but you could still hear each other. I think this room was louder than when we were at the Inbal. Anyway, the seder was interesting. The girls were nuts and it was tough without Robyn. I couldn’t hear most of it, but I will say the Charoset was pretty good because it was more Israeli and made from dates and really seemed like you could build something out of it. Also, I have to say Israeli grape juice is pretty bad in comparison to Kedem. Like basically undrinkable. They also gave us little bottles of concord wine, which was also pretty bad. You had to pay if you wanted other good wines. They didn’t have any kind of Moscato, but Tzvi had preordered a bottle of red and a bottle of white, both of which were really good.
The actual food for the seder was good too. It was all buffet, and Tzvi instructed everyone on how to organize their courses. To start, we did a fish course, which meant gefilte fish, ceviche (for those who ate it), and some kind of whitefish and potato salad with hard boiled egg that Tzvi really liked. Next was the soup course – they had chicken soup with matzo balls and a carrot ginger soup; both were good. After that we did a meat appetizer course, consisting of some kind of dried meat that I think was a dried duck breast, chopped liver, and foie gras. (I didn’t eat any of those but Tzvi loved it all.). Next up was the salad course – there was a full table of leafy salads, israeli salad, cold grilled veggies, matbucha, etc. Finally, if you were still hungry, you could move on to the entrée course. Thankfully there were very large plates and Tzvi filled his with entrecote (steak), pargiot, carved lamb, veal and goose leg. I think there were also some hot veggies on that same plate. It was quite a feast. Oh, and I forgot to mention dessert – there was of course a full table of little cakes, macarons, merengues, mouse cups and pastries (I think the best was a little pecan tart), as well as a mouse crumble with nuts and caramel sauce. Most of the desserts were actually really good.
The girls made it through dinner and to Eliyahu. We filled the cup, sang the song, then Tzvi told Hallie to look at something across the room while he spilled out half of Eliyahu’s cup. She was amazed that Eliyahu had actually come to drink it. After that I took the girls back to the room and put them to bed while Tzvi stayed until the end, which wasn’t that much longer.
Tzvi: For the end of the seder, it was basically me on one side of the table, and Lisa, Sheldon, Avery and Gabriella on the other side facing me. They basically did Nirtzah and the end of the seder like davening, while on my right was an Israeli family that was singing and dancing their way through the end of the seder. I guess everyone has their own customs.
I definitely missed having our own seder, but hey, tradeoffs.