NOW WE KNOW HOW IT FEELS!

After the Covid virus brought traveling to a stop, we are finally in Israel again!

During that unwanted travel stop, I found myself one day missing Israel so much, that I decided to go for a walk in Tel Aviv with the help of Google Streetview, from "our hotel" to the beach:

ok, on Ben Jehuda, take a left on Bograshov, pass that nice Thai restaurant where the people are always lined up waiting for a table, oh Michel sure didn't like that Mexican restaurant, hey what the hell happened, our favorite coffee bar is gone! Straight on to HaYarkon, cross the street, and there is the beach. And back to the city, walk from Bograshov to Rothschild, imagining having a coffee under the trees on the terrace of one of those many kiosks on that beautiful street.

Walking those streets I remembered every restaurant where we ate before. I can't help it, good food is a big part of my life. I love buying food, cooking food, looking forward to eating good food, eating food, and talking about food.

Yesterday we went to Jerusalem, I wanted to walk in the souk, the 900-year-old market which breathes history, and you can see the age of the stones in the pavement of the streets,

Strolling the narrow streets, I found two scarves in one of the many shops, and I wanted to pay for them right away, but Michel loves to hackle about the price and he takes it almost to be an art form, everything passes the conversation:

"The price is not right, I make you an offer you can't resist".

"You are killing me, I need to make a living, I have children, do you have children? Then you know how it is!

Were you saying dollars or shekels, can I offer you a cup of tea?"

"Did I tell you it is real cashmere? Twenty minutes later they shook hands on the deal and slammed shoulders like they settled the price on 2 camels and a pound of gold for his oldest daughter.

I also wanted to light candles for my family in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I told my big love, Patricia, after I went on a trip to London with a friend, proudly that I lit a candle for her mother in Westminster Abbey. "Wrong church!" she answered me, as it wasn't a Catholic church.

I decided that I couldn't go wrong in this holiest Christian place in the world. It was amazing to be there and to admire the atmosphere, the history, the beauty of the building, and the devotion of visitors from all over the world. I lit the candles for my family and it felt meaningful, mission accomplished.

The next day was a beach day, with sand and sunshine! I wouldn't be myself if I didn't tell you that I ate the best fresh grilled artichokes and an amazing Caprese salad with fantastic olives as a surprise ingredient on the beach. Michel had to do something else work-related during the daytime, so I had to do all this enjoying myself alone. I loved to hear all the Hebrew speaking and was listening in to all the special wishes people had for the waiters, describing how you want your coffee can easily take two minutes, and the waitstaff listened patiently. I dozed off not reading my book and was very happy being there.

At night we decided to walk to the city to have dinner, plenty of restaurants on the lively Bograshov Street. But we didn't see much appealing to us and we strolled to the end of the lengthy street, almost at the crossing of Dizengoff street we found a good-looking pizzeria with the cheerful name Hapizza. Spying on the plates of the guests seated on the crowded terrace we decided that this must be the place to be.

We ordered nice appetizers and pizza. Of course, I need to tell you that Michel had the best homemade gnocchi with butter and sage and I had grilled eggplant with mozzarella, yogurt, and spicy red pepper. The terrace was filling up and I thought that they deserved to be busy, serving such great food!

One of the waiters came to us and asked: "Hebrew of English? " "English", we answered him.

"There is a shooting going on at Dizengoff, we don't know the details yet, you can do two things: leave, you don't need to pay, or go inside............."

I looked at the street as I thought we would see a terrorist coming toward us right away, but nothing happened. "It was nice knowing you," I said jokingly to Michel. We were kind of frozen in our thoughts not knowing what to do. The waiter came again seconds later: "GO INSIDE NOW!" he summoned us.

We squeezed ourselves into the small and narrow restaurant together with all the other guests. The waitstaff made sure everybody was safe and they locked and barricaded the door. As the show must go on they served all the already-ordered dishes to the guests, and after a couple of minutes they turned all the lights off. Then it was totally quiet for a minute, I guess it sank into people's minds. I suddenly got very emotional realizing some asshole on the street was killing innocent people, I felt helpless being locked up and understood that we couldn't do anything to help ourselves or anybody else against guns. The young waitress saw probably the emotions on my face and she came over to me and squeezed my arm comforting, "slicha" she said sweetly. I am sorry it meant. Suddenly we realized that we were safe in the hands of all those young people running the restaurant, they all appeared to know exactly what to do because they all did their army service. After half an hour we could leave because the perpetrator was killed and the street was safe again. Walking home some choppers were still in the air, looking for maybe more assailants.

NOW WE KNOW HOW IT FEELS!

And then life goes on.

The next day we met with my half-sisters Daphna and Sharon, the funniest and above all sweetest half-sisters I could wish for. Talking about the weekly demonstrations against Netanyahu's government's decision, to give the Knesset more judicial power than the Supreme Court, which sounds like a dictatorship, Michel offered to join the crowd on Saturday evening. So we did, Michel went to buy two of the tiniest flags you can imagine which we happily could leave in our pockets because there were 140.000 people with full-sized flags and banners.

The demonstration felt like a giant party, no violence, just a lot of people wanting the best for their country. the only thing missing to make it a real party was drinks. It really made our week great participating in it. And then of course, we posted proud pictures of the four of us on Facebook where right away somebody Dutch posted the remark, "Why are you there, you are even not an Israeli, mind your own business, you have nothing to search for there" Get a life, we both thought because we sure felt Israeli for a little bit.