Guess the Instrument

One of the more unexpected and amazing things I heard in Munich was this busker. Crank the volume, play the video and see if you can guess what instrument is playing.

The Family in Israel

Sorry folks that I have been away, but as you can imagine my life is meh-sho-gah. Crazy. Here is a quick update.

All of my family, save Al, arrived safely in the hours before I flew back from Europe. Thank goodness James was here to get them organized. Al's flight was canceled so he decided to postpone his visit.

So far they have taken a tour of the old city, seen Bethlehem and gone through the infamous wall and checkpoint, purchased supplies for Shabbat dinner at the shook, touched the Western Wall, strolled around the Dome of the Rock, floated in the Dead Sea, baked at Masada and today most of them have headed North for the day on a tour.

This morning, James, Mom and Dad picked up the BFV (Big Flipping Van) for the next week and we will be heading to Eliat and Petra. James managed to "parallel park the mother f*$@er" (his words) and right after that demanded a high five from my father who witnessed this act of supreme skill. I guess James is officially part of the Suburban-driving Mac-d family if he can parallel park a 9 seater van.

James' mom Judy is on cloud nine because James took her to high mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on Sunday at the ungodly hour of 6:30 am. I disagree with the Islamic notion of prayer being better than sleep, so I declined to attend and enjoyed every minute of my extra two hours of sleep.

The Mac-d family has also discovered sheseks (the best of the mystery fruit) as they are in season and a couple of the neighborhood trees are laden. We were all wondering how to get some of the juicy -looking higher ones and were eying up who was the lightest member of the family. Baby Vivian would probably just start chewing on a leaf if we hoisted her up. My pregnant sister is in no position to be grabbed about the waist, so before we new it, my brother suddenly lifted my sixty year old mom into the air so she could pick a bunch of us.

As for me, I am doing well, but a little frazzled. It is great to see my family again and have taken on new roles in life. I have become the chief master of organization, solver of problems, finder of Q-tips, quartermaster, source of extra flip flops, loaner of shekels, purchaser of stamps, player of paddy cakes, finder of tour guides, writer of lists, translator of grocery store cans, and above all else, herder of cats.

Yodel Eh Hee HOO!

I am in Austria and have spent two lovely unexpected and unplanned days wandering around Salzburg.

I now understand Mozart a little better and why he was so desperate to leave Salzburg. Only 16 000 people lived there when he was alive. Let me tell you, the H-hole is two thousand larger and I was desperate to leave too as a teenager.

But that is where our similarities end. First there is the genius, which I am lacking. And to tell you the truth, the guy was a complete twerp, his whole life.

Salzburg also can lay claim on Haydn and Paracelsus.

Myself and the other Israelis included, managed to snag a secret, not-published-on-the-internet flight home tonight from Vienna. We hopped on a train this morning.

Sadly, the only sights in Vienna I have seen are the train station and the airport. Neither are very inspiring. I will have to come back to Vienna again sometime, and for now can be satisfied with the sights I did see by volcanic accident.

While I sit here at the airport, I hope my family has made their connections in Paris and Zurich and are now arriving at the rental apartment in J-town. Poor Al, is still in Toronto, since he was to fly though Heathrow and resultantly his flight was canceled yesterday.

I should also tell you that I got the interrogation again at the El Al check-in desk again. And I got some very ominous yellow tags on my luggage when all of my friends got green ones again. It makes me sorry that I washed all my dirty socks and underwear in the sink two nights ago. Two weeks of dirty laundry to search through would be sweet revenge.

I am gong to avoid flying El Al from now on. I am going to get my stuff searched every time since my story does not fit in the little pigeon holes of "tourist" or "businessman". I think I will stick to the slightly less security crazy airlines.

Well hopefully soon I will be home and with my camera cable so I can post some pics of my adventures.

Auf weidersehen!

Guest Post: James versus The Volcano

Uh, well, I'm doing fine but James sounds like he is going to bust a blood vessel. Here is what he has to say:

The volcano. Eyjafjallajokull. Whatever its name is. I hate it. I hate it so freaking much. I have turned into a volcano of hate toward everything to do with the volcano to an extent which surprises myself.

Let me tell you how I got to this point.

Over the past few months, Janet and I have been making plans. Ambitious plans. Plans for a big family visit. How big? We made plans to transport 8 family members, from 3 different cities, all to Jerusalem, and all on the same day within 2 hours of one another. We also made a whole bunch of other plans for the two weeks they would be here. Like, for example, booking an apartment for everyone to stay in. And a trip to the Dead Sea. And a trip down to Eilat (found cheap hotels too - not easy) followed by 2 days in Jordan visiting Petra and riding camels in the Jordanian desert near Wadi rum. But wait. There is more. We rented vehicles. I called around for a 9 seater van (with car seat- I had to make sure of that) and a second car so that we wouldn't get all smushed. Janet found a stroller for Vivian. We even hunted down our old Ulpan classmate Taufiq to see if he could be our tour guide in Jerusalem for a few days. And we mailed shekels to everyone several months in advance so that when the Big Day arrived, everyone could take the sherut from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and pay in Israeli currency.

All was set for the big day, which was to be this Wednesday: 2 days from now.

But we failed, dear reader. We failed to plan that a BIG FRICKING VOLCANO would suddenly erupt, and leave Western Europe ensnared in a huge cloud of volcanic ash, effectively shutting down air traffic and delaying/canceling/inconveniencing the flights of hundreds of thousands of individuals around the globe.

Clearly, Wednesday is not going to happen the way we planned. What is going to happen? I am not sure.

One thing I am sure of is that I dislike this volcano very much. I got so upset on Saturday night that in a flurry of activity, I started an "I HATE THE ICELANDIC VOLCANO" Facebook group and sent messages to all my friends to join it. In this whirlwind of activity I am ashamed to say that I even joined Twitter. Never in a million years did I ever imagine I would join Twitter. But there I was, on Saturday night, twittering to the world. One of my first tweets was " I VOTE WE NUKE THE VOLCANO".

I have calmed down considerably since then. But I am still immensely frustrated. My mom is stuck in England, Janet is stuck in Munich, and we have all these busted plans for a trip we were so looking forward to and we aren't sure how to proceed. It's heartbreaking. We aren't sure what the prognosis is or when/if our family will get to visit us after all. It's still a work in progress. Let's keep our fingers crossed that the jetstream starts dispersing the ash.

Of course, if a well-placed nuclear warhead right down Eyjafjallajokull's pie-hole was sufficient to do the job, I'd still be all for it.

Volcano

It is official. My flight was canceled and I am stuck in Munich.

I am far more Zen about this that I usually am about everything. Israel has really made me more relaxed about travel. Really, is there any point worrying about a volcano? Is there anything I can do about a volcano? James wants to nuke the volcano, but I am not sure that will help or hinder the situation.

Unfortunately, there is a big convention in Munich this week and the hotel prices are astronomical starting tonight. My place here in a 2*, shared shower, straight from the 50's hotel is going from 40 Euros a night to 250.

But I say, with my new found Zen, when a volcano spews out lemons, make lemonade! I think I am going to hop on a train and head to Salzburg for a couple of days. Heck, why not?

Since I never did the back pack though Europe thing at the age of 20, I guess this is now my chance at the age of 30. The only difference really, is that I am back-packing with a suit jacket, dress pants and laser pointer in my pack.

Wait a sec here, my computer just made a booping noise telling me I received an email...

It was The Boss, just emailing me to tell me me he "hopes the flight situation will open up" and "here is a paper for you to review." It is a 37 page manuscript. I guess my lemonade making is going to have to wait a few of hours.

SNOW!

It is SNOWING big puffy white flakes that are drifting down to the earth. I realize most of you are getting over winter and are happy for spring, but I haven't seen snow in two years, and I love it.

The four Israelis traveling I am with are probably freaking out right now, thinking the world is going to end.

Munich so far has been great wandering around. I must admit, it has been a bit frustrating, slowing down to the pace of my friends. I am the kinda person who grabs sandwiches and eats them walking run so we can see just one more site, so it sometimes has felt like we have wasted hours wandering around deciding not to eat lunch in restaurants.

I loved the palace of the Bavarian Kings called the Reidenz. The gilding just went on and on and on. We spent two hours, barely stopping moving, though one insanely ornate room after another. I don't understand why Ludwig II had to build other castles. Wasn't this one decadent enough?

I also say in another palace, the king's thirty-odd portraits of beautiful women called the Gallery of Beauties. Like 19th century pin-ups. They ranged in rank from princesses down to the daughter of a shoe maker. I could have spent all day sitting there and wondering about each of them, who they really were and what happened to them. Wikipedia supplied a glimpse of one of them, Jane Elizabeth Digby, who loved every cliché of romance novels heros. She married a Count, then and Earl, had an affair with a King, at some point two of her lovers dueled. Then there was a Greek tycoon and last but not least, a twenty eight year marriage to a Sheik in Damascus where she spent the rest of her life.

Yesterday we went to Dachau which is only 20 minutes by train on the public transport from the city. Ehud initially joked that he wasn't sure he wanted to go to Dachau...on a train. All I could do was let out a horrified giggle. In the end all of us went.

My friends warned me that their macabre humor might come out, but no one peeped a joke until we were back on the bus heading back to the city. It was intense and silent. There was even a soccer team of Canadian, grade 9 boys and they were quiet too. Everyone visits the place in shock and horror because the exhibits and movies really don't hold back on the truth. It is funny, I have now been to some of the holiest places on earth, and yet Dachau was the one where people in their entirety behaved the most respectfully.

Middle of the night ramblings

Boker Tov!

It is 3:58 am and I have successfully made it through airport security and am chillin' out at my gate. I keep finding security stickers all over me and my stuff. I must have gotten 10 stickers in the last hour. I think I may have looked at the first security guy strangely or maybe he didn't like my "I am going to a conference but I live here" story, because all of my stuff got X-rayed, pulled apart, fished though and swabbed inside and out before I even checked in.

As the guy was putting on the plastic gloves he rhetorically asked "I can look through this?"

I replied with "As long as those gloves aren't for me, I am happy."

The guy laughed and proceeded to violate my luggage thoroughly with the swabby wand.

And then at the regular security check, my carry-on got swabbed and searched though and swabbed again and swabbed some more and then just for good measure, swabbed again. As a research chemist, the excessive swabbing for chemicals is a little disconcerting. One of these days, they are going to find something and those gloves will be for me.

Speaking of violation, on Good Friday, after over two months, my paper was rejected based on one review 'cause the second reviewer agreed and then didn't bother to do the review. And somehow, one review constitutes thorough peer review. The Boss wasn't very impressed either, but there is no point in appealing since that process will take months and it still might have gotten rejected. I just wish they hadn't sat on our paper for over two months.

Even though Katrine, Simon and James were mulling around the house and I tried to put up a good front, I was hard to hide that I felt pretty down. In the awkward silence I asked "Is everyone's job like this?"

Katrine, a librarian, without hesitation answered "Disappointing and Heartbreaking? Yes, Yes it is."

You know, of all the things people said to cheer me up, that one really worked the best. It turns out, getting stomped on and feeling like poop every once in a while is just part of life and it happens to everybody.

Not to worry, I am laughing about it now, and have since resubmitted the paper- yet again- to a third journal. We are tossing the paper as high as we can and hopefully somewhere it will stick.

Now you may be asking, why is she in the airport at 4 am? Well I am headed to Munich with four colleagues to go to a conference and do a little sight seeing.

One of the undergrads I worked with in Alberta is in Munich, so beers will be had with him. And also, my PhD boss is also going to be at the conference. I asked him to bring me a U of A hoodie, but what I really wish he could bring me is a large double double and a boston cream.

Easter Food for Thought

Fulfilling his twice-yearly duty, James went to church with me this morning. There were about forty people there from Jerusalem, Tiberias, Bethlehem, Texas, California, Nevada, Germany, Yorkshire, Scotland, Ghana, Korea and of course there was a good looking couple from Canada.

I got my Easter egg of the year. It was yellow.

Taking to George the Rev after, we discovered that there was a bit of a kerfufle with the communion bread this morning. Seeing as it is still Passover, there is no bread to be purchased at the grocery store and even the cracker aisle is covered up in plastic. Luckily, the Scottish Guest house attached to the church came to George's rescue. They get their bread from a bakery in the nearby Arab-Muslim and Arab-Christian Bethlehem (which ironically means House of Bread). They donated a loaf to our cause.

But this brings up a bit of a conundrum. Wasn't Jesus in town for Passover when he got crucified? What was he doing eating bread at the last supper?!? Maybe we should be breaking Matzo!

You know, I only had to ask James once if he wanted to go to church with me this morning, even though we can solidly put him in the non-religious category.

Holidays are really distilled here. No Easter egg hunt, no big dinner with family, etc. And I think going to church every once in a while on holidays, even for a non-religious person, becomes a life-line to the culture you left behind and a life-line to your identity. And perhaps that is why James happily went to church.

I realize that probably makes some of you uncomfortable: church being part of your identity. If you are asked by someone here your religion and you answer "I'm an atheist," people will not be satisfied with that answer since that concept in not understood in the same way here. You are an atheist, but you are still culturally a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist (in fact, they won't buy the Buddhist thing unless you look Asian, either). If you come here, even for someone who loathes organized religion, you have to get used to stating you are a Christian.

Even I, a practicing Christian, felt uncomfortable with this when I first got here. Now, I readily and easily state my religion and culture without a second thought in a way that I would never do at home.

Happy Easter to Believers and Non-Believers, because, like it or not, we are all in this together.

Good Friday in the Old City

Katrine and I went to the mid-day procession on the Via Delorosa for Good Friday. And we got a front row seat to all sorts of craziness.

We hung out, squished against the display of an Arab clothing shop somewhere near station number four. For over 35 minutes, thousands of people filed past us. We saw crucifixes ranging in size from twelve feet of metal and carried by several monks to hundreds of little wooden ones each clutched in the hands of believers. Some were silent, some were praying, some were singing, some were crying, some were smiling, some were talking on their cell phones.

And yep, there was even the guy doin' the Mel Gibson, with the crown of thorns covered in blood, towing a big honkin' wooden cross. We are still debating whether the blood was fake or not. In his wake was a big loud speaker with a woman plaintively crying "Help him! Help Jesus!"

The crowd was very pushy as they passed us. I got felt up by so many nuns it isn't even funny.

Despite being in the Holy city on one of the the holiest days of the year, Katrine and I didn't feel holy, we just felt squished.

Epic Road Trip and the Seder

We took Friday, Saturday and Sunday off work (I told every one it was a Christian Holiday, which technically Palm Sunday was) and zipped around the north of Israel with my old friend Katrine and our new friend Simon.

Every time they merely stopped for breath, I gave them the chop-chop and we were off to another site. We made it to Caserea, Haifa, Acco, Nazareth, Tiberias, and got royally lost in the Golan Heights again.

A highlight for me was Nasareth in which we made a one hour stop to do the required Church visit. The FAN-tastic signs put out in the main square in view of the church by some fanatic Muslims for the benefit of the Christian pilgrims made us laugh. I guess I am firmly ensconced in loser-dom. Next door at the arab candy shop the charismatic backlava guy wanted to know if Simon dyed his red hair as we were pigging out on the wares.

James loved getting lost for a whole day in the Golan again. The getting lost might be my fault. As James says in his fake Hebrew accent “When God made me perfect, he did not quite finish the job.” I fell asleep in the passenger seat as we weaved though the rolling hills, and consequently we took a 30 minute detour. As a consequence, I got hoofed out of my spot as chief navigator.

Katrine was entranced by the old city of Acco, which was once one of the most important Mediterranean ports. Although there are lots of sites to see, unlike J-town, Acco is not a tourist trap and much of the stores and shops are for the people living there. Simon, who is pretty much new to organized religion in any format, is still trying to process the baptismal site on the Jordan river and all the people in the white gowns. He wasn’t to sure about getting dunked in the murky water with the giant catfish and a muskrat but we all thought the big happy earnest hug from the preacher afterward looked good.

The day after we got back, I sent Simon and Katrine to the shook and told Simon that he had to buy a Kippa for the Passover Seder at the boss’ house. Simon, skipped the simple ones and went for a bright red one with the Pringles logo on it. We headed to The Boss’ and had a Seder with about twenty of his friends and family.

Most of us were dressed nicely, with the men in just shirts and nice pants – except the boss' eight year old son. Edo came to the door wearing a three piece suit and tie and was by far the best dressed person there. (Predictably for an eight year old, as the evening went on his outfit came apart; first the kippa, then the jacket disappeared followed by the six inch clip on tie which James decided to wear during desert) As we worked our way though the Haggadah book, which has the ceremony of the seder written in it, James and I had no idea what was being said as it was in “Old Hebrew” and Katrine and Simon were even worse off. But it is Passover, so the food afterward makes it all worth it. I wasn't again hungry until four the next afternoon.

To atone for the sins of too many falafel pitas on the road trip and passover seder, I have gone for two runs in the last 16 hours.