Later, we had a busy day. In the morning, to Cliff Beach to eat lunch with some friends of Aba. They were Leor (yes, the dentist that liberated me of my retainer), Heyla, and their daughter, Tamar. Tamar is eight years old and we sat next to each other, having a lot of fun. She is a very exuberant girl and I additionally had fun tickling her! At one point during the meal, Aba joked with her about switching phones (yes, she has a phone. Me?, not so much) and stole her hat. She was very offended and burst into tears, but she was laughing again soon enough. After breakfast, we went with Oved, Meital, and Matan to Avshalom Cave in the Stalactite Cave Nature Reserve. It was accidentally discovered by miners and turned into a major tourist attraction. We have seen a lot of caves not only in our lives, but also many in the past year, but the formations in this cave were wonderful and had many different varieties.
For dinner, we met our second “Leor” of the day, Katia and Ronan’s son. Katia used to be Asher’s speech teacher, so it was nice to see them and their 14-year-old dog, Frutti, again. We ate dinner at their house, and Troy fell so in love with some of their sauces and pickled lemons(?) that he was “forced” to take them home. Later, it was the Yom HaShoah, a day of remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust. We went to the square again that evening for another community memorial service, then stayed home with Savta. The next holiday was Independence Day! Asher and I made fun of the cringy speeches and “BB Ad” on TV, and then we went to a big party with Oved and Michelle at a park. There were food vendors and a huge stage with some mostly terrible singers. However, I would like to point out that there was a group of elementary to middle school-aged girls that did a few songs and I didn’t want them to stop. They were amazing! There were quite a few professional singers there, and they outdid them by far. We danced and ate pizza and candy apples and casata and only got home around midnight.
Then Aba and Troy left for an “adult” party that I wasn’t allowed to go to. Oh, pleeeeeeaaase. In the morning, Oved picked us up (minus Savta and Troy) and we went to the beach in order to watch an army air show. However, having already seen a cool one at an army base last year, it was very disappointing. Maybe eight planes flew by and did no tricks whatsoever. The beach was nice, though.
We then went to my Saba’s grave again. Arieli was with her boyfriend, Jonathan, but everyone else was there. We put rocks on his tomb and Savta looked really sad, but I guess we all did. Troy never met him. After that, we went to Oved’s house for a barbecue. Yum! Let me tell you, the people in this family know how to grill! We played a few games and watched Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse on TV, then went home. It was a really nice day. Later, we went to Moti and Ronit’s for Sabich. Sabich is basically a falafel sandwich minus the falafel and plus eggplant. Yuuuuuuuuuuuum. We had to wait in line for half an hour because the booth we went to was so popular, but it was worth it. The guy making the delicious food had to talk about everything in football/soccer terms. He reminded us of the Soup Nazi! After that, Troy, Aba, Asher, Moti, and I went to the house and talked with Ronit. Arieli was there, but she was swimming with her friends in the jacuzzi. That night, we went to a BBQ with Aba’s school friends; Leor and Heyla with their kids Ido,Tamar, and Yael; Eitan and Edna with their kids Maya, Alon, and Enbar; Ravit and Yariv with their kids Shachar, Ophir, Mika, and Adi; and Eran and Orit with their kids Roni, Roi, Nofar, and ___. At first, Asher and I played ping-pong with Alon. Then, when more kids came, we jumped on the trampoline with Tamar, Roni, Nofar, and ____. I am actually very proud of myself for getting ____ to play with us, as whenever I see him he’s either upset or sleeping. Usually the latter. That night, though, he really played with us! And laughed! I don’t think I’d ever seen him laugh…
We played some more on the trampoline after eating, but after dessert, Troy’s malabi and Aba’s cheesecake-with-no-cheese (he forgot to put it in!), I played cards with Roni, Nofar, ___, ___, Ido, and one game with Asher. I learned two new games! Actually, I think Ido was the most helpful. He’s always been nice, but that night he was very considerate about explaining things to me and when I didn’t understand a word he would either tell me or show me what it was! He was very sweet. His sister, Yael, is also usually nice, but that night she was closed off. While the rest of us were talking and playing, she was sitting on a chair with her phone. She also cus her hair into a pixie-mohawk hybrid and wants a motorcycle. I’m gonna blame it on teenager-ism. In spite of that, though, I had tons and tons of fun that night! I could do that every week and never get tired of it. I think I’m going to miss everyone when we leave Israel again… The next morning, Oved picked us up. Arieli had slept over the night before in order to come with us and Oved’s kids were supposed to come, but they didn’t. They had to study for tests. However, we still had fun. We drove to Nazareth and Akko and toured the cities.
In Akko, we even did a virtual reality tour! Arieli was off of her phone almost the whole time (except in the car), so I was very very happy.
We ate lunch at a famous hummus place and had to fight our way in, and the food was good. When we went back to Savta’s place we talked with Michelle, who had been with Savta, and said bye to Ariel, Michelle, and Oved. We took showers and then drove to a Rita concert. She is a very famous Israeli singer, and I thoroughly enjoyed her concert. She is almost 60 years old, but she still put on a great show!
She was jumping and moving and dancing (to which Troy said that “she could benefit from a few dance lessons”) and still sounded wonderful. The crowd was singing with her almost the whole time, and she was so touched by it that she started to cry. I would’ve had it not been for two things: 1) I didn’t know most of the lyrics and 2) I was sneezing the ENTIRE time. Nonstop. The whole show. It was horrible. I could hardly talk that night… The next night, we went with Oved and his kids to a Peter Pan Escape Room. It’s sort of our tradition because we do it so much. Anyway, we “escaped” with five minutes to spare and had a lot of fun.
My favorite parts were that we had to insert somebody’s (Meital’s) shoes in a drawer in order to activate a clue, but when we opened it the shoes had been replaced with a key and hotel slippers. Poor Meital! She only got them back after two more rooms! My second favorite part was the “ocean” room, a tiny ball pit. With the six of us crammed in. Looking for stuff beneath the balls. Fuuuuuuuuuuun. We went to dinner after the escape room, though only Asher, Oved, and I ate. Later, Ronit and Moti took us to a Eurovision party. Eurovision is a big deal around the world. Representatives from European countries (plus some others) come to compete with songs. Personally, I think that is the only okay war. Israel won last year, so it’s now being hosted in Israel! However, Ronit was convinced that dogs were allowed and brought Tuko, but she was wrong. Therefore, Moti stood outside with him for two hours while we partied. I feel kind of bad… Anyway, inside it was very loud.
We ate food from booths and Ronit bought me a shirt that says, in Hebrew, “God is a Woman” and got the seller down from $80 to $30. The guy was also selling a book about the scientific reasons behind gays’ obsession with the Eurovision, so… They had some live performances including Russia’s TERRIBLE “Thunder and Lightning” and Sweden’s “Dirty Dancing”. Come on, Sweden! When we drove home, Oved and Meital were there and we watched the Eurovision together. 17 songs. 14 sucked. 1 was okay. Two were good. Seriously, Australia and Greece made up the 11.764705882353% of good music in the first half of the Eurovision. Not to mention last year’s winner, who I thought was terrible. Also, Iceland and Portugal are just plain weird. I’m shuddering because Iceland got in and it was basically a strip dance with screaming. After all the screaming of that night, my throat hurt again… Later, Oved and the kids took us to another escape room! This time, it was Aladdin’s Cave of Wonders. I’m glad I have this blog because now I can shame my cousin, Noa, publicly. One clue gave us the letters “CRPT#” and there was a carpet on the ceiling. Previously, I had pointed out the carpet and said that there must be a clue there and started looking around it. Noa stopped me and said that there wouldn’t be anything there. We got stuck sometime later and asked for a hint. The operator said to look at what the letters spelled and sure enough, once we looked at the carpet with a UV flashlight, we found a code. BURN, Noa! Sorry…
Later, we went out on the night of the second Eurovision semi-final with or family member Nadav and his girlfriend, Sarina. We went to the White Horse party area in Yaffo and could actually see the building where the Eurovision was taking place! On the drives there and back, we watched videos of the first semi-final and updated them on how bad all the acts were. We walked around and listened to a couple of different musician groups and saw an art gallery. I even bought something! It’s an Israeli flag painted onto wood with Eurovision and 2019 in Hebrew.
After wandering some more, we ate hot dogs while talking about Tel Aviv cockroaches and watched a concert. That was at midnight. We watched the Eurovision lights and strolled next to the ocean until Asher got tired. We arrived home at 2 am! In the morning we wanted to watch the previous night’s Eurovision contest, but I had to make a gambling/voting sheet for our party, effectively spoiling the winners for me. Troy and I went to the print shop next to Savta’s house and printed the sheets, some photos for Savta, and some photos for my present for my cousin, Callie. I just want to say that the man helping us was very very nice. He had helped me print before, and this time he even cut my photos for me after resizing them again! He was real sweet. We started the Eurovision then met Savta’s sister, Shula, _____ her ___…., for lunch. Savta sure got her exercise, because Aba accidentally took the long way to the front door! Everyone was quite late, but we still had a nice time.
Later, we went to dinner with another couple, the two Israeli men we met while in the Galapagos. David and Ofer’s apartment was amazing. They have got truly wonderful, exquisite taste. I wanted, and still want, to steal their cabinets and tables and trinkets and pillows and wall paint and light fixtures, but I especially liked their perfect art-deco tiny couch. It’s a creamy yellow color and very comfortable. We ate a three-course meal of fluffy chicken liver, a delicious steak burger with a portabello mushroom bun, and a rich chocolate cake, all homemade. Not only was it tasty, but it also looked like it came out of a fancy food magazine! Aba and Troy’s food is good, but they now want to start working on presentation. Later, Oved took Asher and me to a nature reserve with cave-man-caves! It was a lot of fun and we ate pita, then pizza!
That night, we had a Eurovision party!we had a Eurovision party! The whole (available) family came and we all rated and scored the songs on my voting sheet!
After dinner and a happy birthday song to Imri and Matan, a few people left. The rest of us enjoyed yelling at the screen when something was cringy and singing with the catchy songs.
Before the winner was announced, Arieli had a breakdown. It was almost 2 am so she must have been tired and she wanted to see her boyfriend, so Imri and Dar left and took her home. Now, it was only Meital, Oved, Savta, Aba, Troy, Asher, and I. It was annoying how long the hosts dragged out the verdict, but I was disappointed when they chose the Netherlands.
Jury Votes 
After Public Votes
It wasn’t a bad song, but I preferred Australia, Greece, Norway, and Russia’s songs much more. Iceland, the Neo-Nazi country, decided to make a scene and held up free Palestine banners. They’ve been disqualified from next years’ contest and got the last place in this Eurovision. Madonna did a show, but it was too bad to even mention… Later, we flew to Cape Town. Savta cried and Ronit wasn’t there because she had gone to see Oran in Switzerland, but Oved and his kids were there to say goodbye…
Ella
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