The next day I went to voice class with Tamar. We worked on Ave Maria and I had a lot of fun catching up with her. We rested all day, but that night we went to Ronit’s house for another Passover Seder.
All three families came (Aba’s, Ronit’s, and Oved’s) and we ate Moti’s steaks and my aunt Michelle’s matza ball soup! It was the first time we saw her this trip to Israel.
After dinner, Ronit made a speech. She said that she was very proud of our accomplishments this trip and that she had a present for us. When we opened them, Asher and I discovered that she had made us each a book of our blog posts for this trip! Mine is grey and finishes in Machu Picchu, Peru, and Asher’s is blue and finishes in Ecuador! It’s wonderful, and amazing quality! Ronit has been reading our blog all year, so thank you so much, Ronit! It’s magnificent!
For (near) future reference, “later” means a minimum of one day (I don’t need to keep track!) Later, we Oved, Meital, Matan, Savta, Troy, Asher, and I went to see Avengers: Endgame. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as good as I expected it to be. I especially hated, no spoilers here, the newest feminist scene. They’re all terrible, and in both big movies (Endgame and Infinity War)! We all had a dinner at Savta’s house of pizza in order to end the no bread fast of Passover. Fun fun fun!
Later, Savta’s housekeeper, Yael, came. She is also friends with us, so we all had fun chatting. I went to my lesson with Tamar, and that evening I slept over at Ronit’s house. In the morning, we went to Waltz class! She has always wanted to learn to dance the waltz, so for her birthday she’s been taking lessons and this time she brought me with her! Our teacher’s name was Leor, and he was very good. After dancing with Ronit for 45 minutes, it was my turn. I went in there with zero experience with dancing (except for my cringy talent show Tango Maureen with my friend Noah), and now I can do a very very basic and slow waltz! I’m practicing a lot. After the lesson, we went shopping and drove for Ronit’s doctor appointment at 1 o’clock. However, apparently it was scheduled for 11 o’clock and we missed it, so we ate lunch (salmon) and went back to Savta’s house. Later, I had another lesson with Tamar. Last time we were in Israel, Tamar taught me a song called ציפור שנייה, or Second Bird. It had a few high notes that had been difficult for me to hit, so we decided to try it out and see if I could reach them. I could. Not only that, we ended up changing the pitch three more times, going higher and higher. At the end of the lesson, we planned to go another pitch higher in the following lesson because I had no difficulty going so high! My voice has really changed a lot this year! Later, we went to Hendal’e, the restaurant we’ve been fantasizing about for months. They have the best hot dogs there ever. Period. Breakfast, lunch, or dinner, Asher and I order their hot dogs. Even though they’re from the kids’ menu. And we need to order three so that we’re full…
Later, we went to Hendal’e for dinner with our friend Noam and his mom, Susan. We had a lot of fun, especially because there are many affectionate and cuddly stray cats there. Noam is afraid of cats! It was really great to see them. Later, we visited Aba’s friends Hagit and Arnon and their daughter Hadar. She is turning 11 in July and we had a lot of fun together! When Hadar was three-years-old, the family also went on a ten-month vacation around the world, but mostly in India. When we arrived at their house, we were greeted by the family’s dog, Petty. They had only had him for three weeks, but the funny part is that he had to wear the “Cone of Shame” (from UP)! They had gotten him ‘fixed’, but the veterinarian didn’t watch him and he bit at the stitches and got them infected. His undersides are now a very bright red, poor guy. Hadar was there when we arrived but went to a Youth Group in the neighborhood. Asher and I jumped on the trampoline and Aba, Troy, and I talked to Hagit and Arnon and played with Petty, and by then we were ready for dinner. We took a short walk to the neighborhood falafel stand and bought 25 falafel balls, then went back to the house to eat (though by the time we got there we only had 18 left). Hadar joined us and I helped Arnon and Hagit put their other food on the table. Aba made me demonstrate the progress we had made on our back bends and I reached the floor, the farthest I’d ever gotten! Before and after dinner, I played with Hadar. The best was that I discovered that she’s very very ticklish! I’ve missed kids, especially younger kids. I know I’m writing as if she was young and adorable, but I actually thought she was very mature and enjoyed talking with her. You see, I’ve rated kids into different age and maturity zones. The period between the ages of 0-4 has typical ‘kid’ behaviors and maturity levels. Obviously, during the baby stage kids don’t communicate on a very high level of intelligence, but until the age of four, they really have to be taken care of. From 4-8, kids have a higher level of adult thinking. They are still very silly and lack a lot of skills and coping mechanism, problem-solving, etc, but you can have pretty “adult” conversations with them if you don’t act towards them as if they were kids. From the age of eight and up, I think kids have the capability of having the same maturity and most adults. Sure, in academics and experience they might have a ways to go, but when I meet an eight-year-old I treat them as if they were my age! There is a kid I know, Itamar, and he’ll be eight soon. I’m not ready for him to grow up! Anyway, Hadar is in a choir and is apparently a good singer, so in exchange for relinquishing my hold on her ticklish parts, she promised she’ll sing for me next time I see her. It’s a bit of a drive back to Savta’s house, and we enjoyed DJing from Aba’s playlist, shaming him when he didn’t have the songs we were looking for. We got home and started watching Fauda, but then Savta started feeling a lot of pain. It got so bad that Aba and Imri (he had come to eat salmon and watch Game of Thrones with Savta) took her to the hospital. As you can imagine, we very worried. Asher put World War Z on (taking advantage of my worried position, as I had forbidden him from playing it in my presence) until midnight. Savta came back at 2:30 AM. She has a stone in her gallbladder and it has been causing her a lot of pain lately; we think she’ll need surgery. She’s almost 90-years-old. He ended up purging anything in the house with fat, along with all of our chocolate (even though I haven’t had a single piece the entire time we’ve been in Israel. In fact, Savta has been yelling at me when I don’t eat chocolate because she’s convinced I’m on a diet (I’m not, by the way)).
In the morning, we visited Aba’s friend Leor at his job and had a checkup. He’s a dentist. I’m happy because I no longer have to wear my horrible broken retainer during the day (only at night), but Asher’s depressed because he got his first cavity filled. He won’t let me look, though… Savta only woke up at 11. Wednesday evening was the beginning of Holocaust remembrance day. We went to a gathering in Ra’anana and watched the ceremony at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum on TV.
In the morning, we woke up and went to the big street near Savta’s house. A siren went off at 10 AM and everyone stood still for one minute. Cars stopped and the drivers got out and stood on the street, bikers halted where they were and waited for it to end, all in memory for the 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. I had another lesson with Tamar and worked on O Mio Babbino Caro. Ronit visited us, and we watched Fauda and Desperate Housewives. Did I mention that Netflix removed it?! We had to buy it on Amazon because we were hooked! Arrgh!!! Anyway, still loving Israel!
Ella
13-6-19-6-17 8-3-17-10-6-26
😘
Yay!