Update #2

Seprtember 16
Yom Shleeshy

It does take some effort to transport myself back in time two weeks. I am currently sitting in the moadon (lounge area) of our building on kibbutz. Ugly Betty is blaring and people are walking in and out to get food from the fridge, but it's the only room we get internet.Backflash: Guy picked me up at the airport, we caught a train...and the rest is a blur! We stayed with Guy's childhood best friend Alon, and his very hospitable parents Ilana and Ze'ev. Alon just started his basic training in the army, Ze'ev is a goofy, wonderful, engineer, and Ilana is a very well known figure in the Israeli world of education, she's currently the principal of a school in Hadera, a town right nearby my very own kibbutz.

I spent that week taking naps, making nice and trying to follow all of the conversations going on around me. Guy was a great sport, he dragged me out of the house and into the city to wander around the artist's shuk (market), the main shuk, up Rothschild Street and Ben Yehuda Street as well. Keeping a running dialogue about the history or different areas and the best palces to get food - my own personal tour guide. He also kept watch while I napped on the bus. Inbound and outbound.I also learned a lot about Guy's old neighborhood. From Ilana and Ze'ev's backyard you can see the school that Guy used to attend, about 300 yards away. The little neighborhood of Gan Rashal is like a rural bubble the way it involves itself with itself, the way it gossips and maintains an edgy quaint feel. We spent one whole day helping Estie and Dror (Guy's parentals) unpack box after box into their new apartment closer to Tel Aviv's center, but the next night we were right back in the Gan Rashal spirit. Moshik and Ana got married! Of course the entire neighborhood was invited, to the same place his brother got married last summer, probably the same DJ? Same caterer? Why fix something that's not broken right?

The ceremony was done by the same ridiclous little rabbi. 5"5', big white beard, sparkly eyes, wise words, happy blessings, chip chop, he had to get home for shabbat. (Apparently he said that the ritual of a bride-to-be visting the Western Wall before the wedding is so that she can get used to talking to a wall) I wandered around, smiling politely to people who of course alreadt knew who I was, though I had never met them. Estie kept me by her side until I knew some faces, and then it was a schmooz-a-palooza. But here's the best part: Israeli's dancing? It's all eighties music that none of have heard, but they know all the words to, sort of. All the youngins and all the geezers dance together, and it's all in the shoulders. I must say though, that Ze'ev and Dror were the best twirlers and can-can partners. Outside the 'Old Neighborhood' residents naturally convened at one table and exchanged stories about where they were living now, or who's children were dating, who had died, who couldn't show up, etc. It was like watching a play, the way everyone simply fell into their roles. I left Gan Rashal feeling like I could return anytime, I have an invisible ID card, that's been stored in the collective rolodex of the neighbors. Hey, in this country if you know one person, you have a couch to sleep on in every city.