You know you are back in Jerusalem when...

The 7-eleven J-town style.

Shavuot

Israelis have been known to have cactus-like exteriors but I think the stabs you get are less prickles and more elbows in the ribs at the market. Outside of shopping and lining up in the airport when the elbows are in full force, the truth is, the Israelis we have met have been exceedingly kind and generous people. To prove my point, a labmate and his wife kindly invited us to a family holiday dinner at his mom's house in Ashdod.

Starting last night and into today is Shavuot. According to Wiki, this holiday hearkens all the way back to Noah and is a celebration of the harvesting of the first fruits of the year. Then it was forgotten, but Moses brought the holiday back. Now the holiday also celebrates the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai.

I was a little confused. I though the burning bush was at the same time as the ten commandments, but my friends here, who studied all this stuff in school, got me straightened out. The flaming shrub told Moses to get the people out of Egypt. Mt. Sinai was later. (I blame the VHS bible stories we had as kids that someone taped off the TV. I think someone forgot to press record after one of the commercial sets and we were missing a bit of the story. Hence the confusion. I am lucky I don't think Noah survived a flood of locusts)

To add to the symbolic confusion, for some odd reason dairy products are eaten this day, so we pigged out on cheese, quiche, rice pudding, pizza, creme caramel, cheesy pasties and these awesome things called blintzes which are like crepes with a sweet cheese in them. (Blintz are a 10 out of 10 on the awesome cultural food scale; the passover fish blobs rate a 2.) To the Christians, this is also the beginning of Pentecost (who knew?) which in my apple pie experience is not a big holiday. I am all for bringing this tradition home. Just like Pancake Tuesday, I am going to start Cheesy Thursday!

There is one part of the holiday that I cannot see myself transferring back to Canada. Last night the religious folks in the city spent an all-nighter studying the Torah. Indeed, as we were driving back into the city we saw flocks of people filing into a synagogue at 11 pm. Then this morning they walked to the western wall before dawn. Although walking to the western wall for sunrise would have been cool, I am not into all nighters. No thanks. I survived all of undergrad without a single one.

Anyway, back to the party.

Our Hostess has an amazing apartment with a view out over the Mediterranean and the sunset was spectacular. Each of her children brought some friends so there was a lively crowd chatting about. Since the family has spent a lot of time in Africa, they had some items made out of an animal that rates high one the don't-kill-me-cause-I'm-cute scale. I asked how they got the items in the country and I mentioned my seal skin slippers that I wisely left in Canada. This dead-seal slippers comment got silence with couple of shocked gasps from the crowd. Oops. Clearly, not a good way to make friends. It turns out our Governor General's recent seal heart snack even hit Israeli media. So now they probably think that all Canadians are seal killers.

Ashdod is a new city, the most of which is only forty years old or so. It has a HUGE port, and James is dying to see it. Our hostess has invited us back so we can go see the port and go for a swim in the Mediterranean.

One more thing. After royally screwing up the "touching taboo" I got one right last night. I wore a skirt and a white T-shirt. Apparently white is the festive color in Israel. And that was all by accident.

Hugs and High Fives

Sometimes I feel like I am in a cultural minefield. With every step, I may or may not make a mistake. Today I made a new one.

Back in Alberta, my labmates gave high-fives so hard that my arm ached at night. High fives were for celebration and greeting and were occasionally a supreme act of athleticism as the slap of the palms was combined with a run, jump and a 360 degree turn.

One of my labmates here had a great result while I was gone and when I held my hand up for a celebratory high five...

I was shafted.

Utterly.

Normally, I would feel hurt, but the shafter was the kind of person who would never be rude intentionally. So I just went on with my work. Later he came to me and shyly said "I hope you weren't offended, but there is a rule for religious Jews that we cannot touch a woman that is not our wife." I replied that I was in no way offended. (In fact, I was a little pleased that one of my labmates realized I was female under the very stylish lab coat and glasses.)

Five minutes later, after thinking about how often I give high fives, hugs and even handshakes to members of the opposite sex, I had to ask him for a clarification. Can he hug his mom? Apparently, moms are the exception. Sisters are officially OK too but still a bit taboo.

He asked me if my religion had such rules and I initially answered no. But now I realize that is not exactly true. All sexual harassment issues aside, we do have cultural taboos about how we touch the opposite sex. Many Canadian men are the kings of the weak two pat hug. And taboo and religion are almost one in the same, aren't they?

Back from chillin' with the Village People to hangin' with the Chosen People.

It was a wild two weeks of visiting family and friends back in Ontario so there was lots of laughs and good times, but I must say, it is nice to be back in my own little home. Thinking back, it is amazing how much got crammed in. It was great to be able to give people big hugs an hear their stories and I might have come down with a wee case of Auntie fever playing with baby Vivian.

I got a big laugh when I saw our friends Lawrence and Renske, who are farmers down near my Grandma's old place. Lawrence came in from the fields, took one look at me said "The Israeli" and giggled. Renske tells me he is my biggest blog fan but is lacking the computer savvy to comment on my posts.

Apparently I am his inside source for the situation in the holy land to his church group, so he wants me to tell him more about the political stuff. My experience in Israel has been quite biblical in style, and I don't mean a case of Jerusalem syndrome and thinking I am Jesus or something. All of it is in little stories and parables that I will spend the rest of my life trying to figure out the meaning of. My poor father had to spend hours in the truck with me on the ride home from Grandma's and got an earful of anecdotes without any uniting theme or opinion other than "Janet and/or Israel is messed up." On top of the litany, he got the nasty cold I caught from the passport checker lady in the Tel Aviv airport. Sorry, Dad.

So Lawrence, sorry, you are not going to get answers here, only more confusion. But I am curious about what you have to say, so get working on speeding up your hunt-and-peck typing.

Sherut Shenanigans

Part of the adventure of traveling about Israel is the Sherut vans which are often the cheapest way to get around between cities. Although sheruts are cheap, unfortunately the schedule is not set; the van only goes when it is full, so you may be waiting around for a while. Visit any bus station or other central meeting place in any Israeli city and you will find these white ten seater vans with drivers standing around, smoking cigarettes and yelling out their one or two word vocabulary.
"Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv"
"HAI-fa, HAI-fa"
"Ramallah, Ramallah, Ramallah!""
If you happen to make eye contact, the inflection changes to
"Tel Aviv?" and when you shake your head no, they look away and go back to
"Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv"

This morning at 3:45 am, we got picked up by a special airport sherut that goes door to door. We were the second pick up of the morning, which means we got two of the seats near the front. Which is good because the next half an hour was an adventurous journey, spent going MACH speed though the twisty streets of Jerusalem. All I could do was hold on for dear life, feebly guess what neighborhood we may be in now, and try to keep my hastily scarfed bran-flakes down. You may think I am exaggerating, but one of the passengers lost her cookies this morning and the sheroot had to pull over for her. The driver was kind but it was clear this was not the first time a passenger had gotten car sick. He just waited till she was done, she hopped back in the van with a very green face and we were off again.

We went everywhere picking up the rest of the passengers: crazy back streets through Katamon, more crazy back streets to out past the yummy shawarma place Assi and Amit took me too, through more back streets to the neighborhood with the big red monster statue, more back streets and a curvy dark road to a moshava, which is a gated community that does communal farming- kinda like a kibbutz but without collective ownership. More curvy black roads for a few minutes and the pop! We were out on the highway near the intersection where my boss lives.

But no worries, we got to the airport with plenty of time, paid only 100 shekels (30 bucks) for the both of us rather than near 300 shekels (90 bucks) for a cab. And here I sit, drinking a McCoffee and waiting for the flight to open and using the free wireless internet in the Tel Aviv airport.

Here's Hoping!

With a serious amount of trepidation, I just wired a bunch of buckaroos to my account in Canada- well at least I hope it makes it there. The lady at the bank spoke "Lo Anglit" and could barely read neatly printed latin letters. It was a very exhausting thirty minutes for both of us. All day I will be madly checking my TD account hoping to see my money come through.

All of this is in preparation for Thursday's flight home to Ontario. We are going to spend two busy weeks saying goodbye to Grandma, visiting family, going to a wedding, and buying clothes that actually fit The Chicken, much to his annoyance. The man has lost I would guess 15 pounds since we last went shopping, and every morning with a great heave he cinches his belt to the smallest hole to avoid pants-around-the-ankles syndrome.

The weirdest part of this trip will be opening the cottage for the summer. Right before I left, I helped drain the water line, store the linens and put up the shutters for the cottages' winter sleep. To the cottage, it is as if I never moved to Israel and nothing has changed. Odd.

In good news: I found fifty shekels on the street this morning. James wants to spend it on a bus pass. Booo! Veto! I want to spend it on chocolate bars and ice cream.