Lag B'omer

This is the Israeli pyromaniac's holiday of choice.  We heard lots of variations as to what exactly this holiday is all about, and to be honest we still have no idea.  All we know is it involves bonfires and potatoes.

Both Lydia's and Will's school classes celebrated this holiday.  For Lydia's class, we met in a lot just beside the local fire and police departments.  Genius planning, if I do say so.  

In other news, between the Lag B'omer celebrations, Will accidentally knocked out Lydia's front tooth while they were wrestling on the couch. Admittedly, the tooth has been hanging by a thread for some time now, but he was still pretty proud of himself anyway.

Lydia's bonfire was Tuesday night, and Will's was scheduled for the following night.  For these kinds of events everyone gets assigned different potluck items to bring ranging from canned olives and pickles to hummus and pita to chocolate cake.  This time we were on cake detail, and Will requested a "candy cake."  His request gave me this idea - let's build a bonfire made out of candy on top the cake.  Won't that be fun?  We had a great time building it.  Oh, and all Israelis make their cakes in tins and leave them like that.  No popping them out of molds, elaborate decorations, or 3-tiered anything.  No daring icing tricks. In fact, powdered sugar is kind of scarce around here and comes in itty bitty bags. So, this is as inspired as I'm going to get, folks.

Will's location was a bit more dodgy than the fire station location.  Okay, more than just a bit.  When we asked for directions to the beach where the bonfire was to be held, everyone kept saying, "Oh, you know.... the one where all the prostitutes go."  No, we weren't familiar with that particular beach.  When we arrived at Will's party, things were much like the night before.  The food was out, kids were running and playing. The fire was prepped but not lit.  Will's gan (preschool) had hired entertainment, and they had a few craft stations set up and lots of drums to bang on.  But of course, boys prefer to play with sticks, dirt and ants, and Will kept drifting away from the pack and off to the dirt and ant piles.  When we went to retrieve him, we noticed something very alarming amidst the dirt and ants.  Lots and lots and lots of evidence that this was in fact where the prostitutes & their callers hung out.  I don't want to say exactly what, but you are welcome to look for yourselves.  We quickly redirected Will back to the group and warned him to stay away from the periphery, but every time we took our eyes off of him for a second he was right back to the sticks and the ants and the muck and the mire.  

Shlo & Yuppi, we're going to have to talk about this. 

After we called Uncle on the fire-festivities, we decided to take Yolanda-the-Honda for a carwash, since it decided to rain mud in Tel Aviv a few weeks days back. It was a sand storm that ended in a quick rain shower.  Definitely one of the stranger things I've seen - raining mud.

Lucky for us, the kids go nuts over the car-wash. They just love it. It's our newest family tradition.

So that's that...weird holidays, giant fires, candy-cakes, lost teeth, and one beater-Honda only slightly less dirty than the filth in which our kids were caught playing.  

I'm looking forward to a down week this week.

Shalom Ya'll,

E

Krakow

Krakow is a beautiful city.  Even in the rain.

 Can anyone spot the upright bass in this picture?

 Aunt Katie is picture-perfect, as usual.

We had one full day to enjoy the city center and play tourists in Krakow, but unfortunately it was raining and cold.  We knew that walking in the rain with the kids all morning was not in anyone's best interest, so we splurged on one of these nifty covered tour cars.  After a week of hotel hopping, nap skipping, and late bedtimes our kids were feeling it.  It's interesting how everyone handles stress differently.  True to his personality, Will decided to make the most of the car tour and fell asleep before we even pulled away from the curb. Typical...

 Lydia is a little different.  She was cold.  She was wet.  She was tired.  "Diva Lydia" came out, and a ginormous meltdown ensued.  She wailed cried loudly for the entirety of our hour + tour.  "My feet are cold! My feet are cold!" Let me just be blunt: It was not fun.  We wanted to pay everyone we came in contact with for the inconvenience, but that's life with kids. Eventually, we all warmed up over a hearty, hot lunch and all was right with the world (movie reference, anyone?). 

Did I mention that the menu was chock full of pork products?  Pork is not my favorite meat, but when you haven't had any in 9 months, it's pretty darn exciting.  They had a bacon and lard spread for the bread that I think under other circumstances I might find a little revolting.  But....it was crazy good.  BACON!!! Real bacon.

Below are a few pictures from Krakow's Jewish quarter, just south of the main center-city area. We found some signs in Hebrew, and even several synagogues, but the area is conspicuously devoid of Jews. This was another chilling reminder of what happened to numerous Jewish communities in Poland, Hungary, and elsewhere during the brutal years of WWII, after residents were sent to the ghettos and beyond. Not far from this neighborhood was Oscar Schindler's factory, where he saved some 1,200 Jews from death in concentration camps (later to be made famous by the movie "Schindler's List,"much of which was filmed on location in Krakow).

  

All-in-all, we loved our visit. Krakow is an amazingly beautiful little city that is well-worth seeing, especially with great Olmsted friends who live there to show you the ropes (Thanks Tom & Jill for all your tips and guidance--you guys rock!). And especially thank you to them for watching Will and Lydia so that we could do the all day tour to Auschwitz.  I can't imagine missing that experience.  We'll be sure to return the favor when you come to Israel. It was also especially meaningful to get to be there with dear Aunt Katie, and to visit some of the places that Kent was visited of during his travels.

& That's that for Europe. Time to get back to Tel Aviv...
Below are a few pictures that Kent took back in 2004 when he visited Krakow. We felt they were beautiful, and worth sharing. Enjoy:

Shalom Ya'll-

EJ & Stew

Castles & Cops

With Prague in our rearview mirror, we had our sights set on Krakow.  We knew it would be a long car ride with kiddos (5-6 hours), so we planned a little castle hopping mid-trip to break up the drive.  

Castle Bouzov, Czech Republic

The castle was beautiful, but unfortunately we arrived 15 minutes after the last tour of the day.  That is, after enjoying our leisure lunch at the castle grounds restaurant.  Oh well.  So, after tooling around the courtyard and taking pictures as much as we could, we packed ourselves back in the car for the next 3 (or 6) hours of our trip.   That's when the real fun began.

But first, castle pics:

I have to put this disclaimer out there: My coat is hideous.  It's a ski coat. And not a very fashionable one.  When we sorted our things and prepped for the move to Tel Aviv last summer, I somehow had it in my head that we were moving to the beach where it was always 80 degrees or more, and I would never need a coat.  So, I took an old rain coat and this ski jacket.... you know for all the skiing we'll be doing.  I dunno.  I was hoping to find some more attractive options while on the trip, but all the stores were stocked with spring samples and no more winter coats.  You'll have to just bear with the blue 

bomber throughout these pics.

Once back on the road to Krakow, things took a different turn for the worse.  Stewart insisted on listening to painful, weird jazz while Katie and I wanted upbeat chic music.  As we're arguing over our musical preferences, we notice blue lights behind us.  So, we did the 'must be after someone else, let's change lanes maneuver.' It was us.  We pulled over in the rain, and two Czech police officers approached our car.  Stewart handed them our passports, rental car information, his driver's license and military ID.  They handed back the passports and rental car info without a second glance, and then asked Stewart to step out of the car and speak with them behind the vehicle.  At this point, Lydia blurts out, "Are they taking daddy to jail?!"  I assured her they weren't, and we all said a prayer that this would only be a minor setback in our journey.

Meanwhile, behind the car, the officers told Stewart that he had been doing double the speed limit (not sure this was true) & if he didn't pay them 20,000 crowns (a little over $1000), they would take his license and impound the car.  Stewart said he was mentally scrambling for some sort of plan or tactic; some way to get out of this one. Since nothing came to mind, he decided to just stick with the truth.  He told them he didn't have any cash, but if they wrote him a ticket and took him somewhere he could withdraw cash or pay by credit, he would be happy to oblige.  The cops immediately dropped their rate to 1000 crowns and told Stewart that they will accept Euro as well.  Stewart again explained to them that he literally didn't have any cash on him - not crowns, not euros, not dollars, not shekels.  NADA.  This banter went back in forth a few more times, and the fact that he knew zero Czech and they knew almost zero English definitely worked to our advantage .  Finally, Stewart said, "look, I don't have the money, and unless you're going to write me a ticket and take me somewhere that I could pay you, you're just going to have to take my license and impound the car...but first you need to give me back my military ID."  Then the officers looked at him, looked at his ID, looked at each other, and calmly said, "You military?"
"Yes"
"US Army?"
"US Air Force."
"We will pretend we didn't see anything.  Have a nice day."
"Thank you. I'll drive slower."
And that was that. Not too shabby...

Or so we thought.  It wasn't too much after surviving our Czech police shakedown that the major highway on which we were driving ended.  Literally just ended. No warning signs.  No detour signs.  Just an eight lane highway barricaded at night in the rain.  Thankfully, we were able to exit the highway, but due to major GPS complications, non-English speaking gas station workers, and lack of a paper map - we remained lost for the next three hours...in the dark...in the rain. How's that for slowing down? Good times.

When all was said and done, we were thankful to finally reach the Grahams (our friends in Krakow), albeit much later than anticipated. Just another 'Olmsted Moment' for the record-book.

Shalom Y'all!