Israel. Pesach 2022. Day 5. One Lane Going North.
Last night actually went pretty well.
Each kid only woke up once, so that’s a win! We got up this morning and we were at breakfast by 8:50 where we met my parents. One thing I should mention is that most of the tables in the dining room can accommodate only 4 or 6 people, and they don’t like to put tables together for some reason except for chag/Shabbos meals, so most of our meals have been split across two tables. This morning we finally got the one big table for 10 in the middle of the dining room, only to find out that Avery and Gabs wouldn’t be joining us for breakfast. We soon found out that due to a case of dehydration they wouldn’t be joining us for the day at all. It’s a good thing we ordered the extra large van. Anyway, breakfast was as usual (i.e., Hallie and Madeleine ate/played with a dozen hard boiled eggs) and then we headed out.
Our driver was Ahmed. I will withhold the name of our tour guide due to patient confidentiality. He came recommended by Steve, the manager of my parents’ apartment.
We started our drive up north and our first stop was the Jezreel Valley Winery. The drive was supposed to take maybe 2 hours but it took about 3, and that included a stop for everyone to pee. All of Israel goes up north on Pesach and they don’t believe in highways bigger than two lanes. At least the van was comfortable – I think it was a 15 or 17 seater. Originally we were supposed to be 9 people plus driver and tour guide, so we were too many for a smaller van, but then we lost Robyn and Avery and Gabs, so we had a lot of extra space. The tour guide was pretty knowledgeable and explained things as we went along, but there was just so much traffic and only so much to explain. Also, he kept coughing but said he was just having issues with his allergies.
“You knew it would make me upset if you put the dirty diaper next to me, and if you take a picture of me. So why would you do it? Why would you? Do you want me to be upset?”
[Tzvi: We finally made it to the winery around noon. Robyn was already waiting for us when we got there (her kibbutz is sort of nearby, so she drove to meet us for the day). We weren’t having lunch at the winery, just a wine tasting. Ideally we would’ve gotten there earlier, but we couldn’t get out of the hotel before 9am. At the winery we got a big table outside and were served trays of cheeses and butters and spreads as well as matzah. It was actually all quite delicious and I ate enough matzah and cheese that I would’ve been happy without a real lunch afterward. Anyway, they started bringing around wines to taste. After a couple of bottles, Jacob Ner David, the winemaker/owner of the winery came to join us. (Our tour guide knew him, so he had called him in advance and gotten him to join us for a bit.). It turns out he’s actually from Woodmere and went to HAFTR. He was very nice and talked to us all about his story and the winery and Israeli wines generally. The girls did pretty well and played stickers and colored with Robyn. I had a great time. I think everyone else enjoyed too.]
At about 1:45ish we got back on the bus and drove to lunch at a kibbutz near the Kineret. It took almost 45 minutes to get there, because again, traffic. Lunch was your typical kibbutz style buffet lunch. You walk into this packed cafeteria and it’s a meat buffet with schnitzel and meat and pesach egggrolls and mashed potatoes, salads, soups etc. Typical kibbutz food but actually very good (for one meal).
We ate pretty quickly, then left and headed to Jungle Kef, which was at another kibbutz that was next door to Robyn’s kibbutz. [Tzvi: I don’t quite know how to describe Jungle Kef. It was unbelievably disgusting, but also an amazing experience that you can only have in Israel. It was basically a petting zoo, but there were just animals walking around all over the place and very few people working there and watching you feeding and petting animals. At one point Steph held a snake and the person working the snake room was a boy that may or may not have been bar mitzvah age. I fed some camels and goats and I’m pretty sure if I weren’t paying attention they would’ve eaten my hand and no one would’ve been around to see it. The girls loved it, especially jumping on the very dirty bounce house. Hopefully no one gets any disease. Oh, also the most disgusting thing was the pigs. They STANK.]
Before leaving we made sure to use the bathroom. You know who else was using the bathroom? A massive tortoise. So I walked right out and found somewhere else to pee.
From there we drove another twenty minutes to visit Robyn’s kibbutz, Kibbutz Ma’agan. There was again a lot of traffic, but Robyn led us down this dirt road through the banana fields that cut out a bunch of the traffic. Stupid one lane roads. We walked around the kibbutz and met Robyn’s mom, which was really nice. Nice to see Robyn in her natural habitat. The kibbutz is very nice and located right on the kineret. Robyn’s mom treated us all to snacks and drinks at the kibbutz shop.
“Today is the tomorrow you were worried about yesterday.”
The journey home was long, at least 2 hours. We did make a rest stop at a gas station so Ahmed could get something to eat to break his Ramadan fast. Imagine driving around our family all day and having nothing to eat or drink. Rough. At the gas station we also found KFP Tonys Chocoloney chocolate. How is it not even kosher in America but in Israel it’s Kosher for Pesach!?!?! You have to admit it’s pretty amazing that all of the restaurants in the Five Towns shut down for Pesach, but you can stop at a gas station in the middle of nowhere in Israel and everything is KFP.
We got back and had to decide on food for dinner. It was so late and the girls had already had so much snack we decided to just put them to bed without dinner. So sue us. They didn’t seem to mind and didn’t go to sleep until 10:15ish.
Once they were sleeping, Tzvi and I ordered room service and my mom came up to eat with us. Tzvi got a burger, my mom got ravioli and I got a chicken salad. The salad was supposed to come with egg and red onion. It came with lettuce and cucumber. Don’t ask me why. So I had to pick it all out. We also got some cauliflower thing which was meh. The room service here isn’t great.
All in all it was a nice day and the girls did great. Everything seemed to be positive, but little did we know…