Really, Adventures in the Motherland.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3110/3934989966_ae64d1b003.jpg (picture i LOVE....streetart in tel aviv)

Ok, ok, I stink. You can say it--I stink at blogconsistency. Your well-guided angerannoyance can be directed at me: I accept it.

Now, wanna read some 'bout what I've been doing? Do ya do ya?



Ok, here we go.



Let's start a while back: Dum dum dum......Mom and Joel arrive in Israel. Their mission: to bring me a suitcase full of stuff. Hahaha just kidding. But that part did happen.
We started with a day (shabbat day, to be exact) in Tel Aviv. Mom and Joel got here in the afternoon and I went over to their hotel to collect them and walk them to my apartment, where my roommate Michal and I had prepared a fabulous Israeli breakfast-for-dinner for them, complete with herb chavita (kinda like an omlette-fritatta), tons and tons of awesome dips like turkish salad, eggplant and tahina, hummus ful, lebneh with zaatar, etc etc. And i made a bomb-diggity Israeli salad, shwangg! AND who can forget the best pitot ever?? ...apparently they can. They practically blacked out the whole night from exaustion/cultureshock/sleepdeprivation. Darn dinner--shoulda been smarter and made it for them the LAST night. There i go not being smart again...oh well.

The next day we hung out in Tel Aviv--they took their first city bus, and we travelled down to Yafo to see the sights. We checked out the flea market there, and also had a bomb lunch at Dr. Shakshuka. After we got back up to tel Aviv, we checked out the Carmel Shuk (big outdoor markety thing) and bought little treats and just wandered the streets--fun. Dinner that night was Falafel, quite good.

The next day was the trip to Jerusalem-- or as my mom likes to call it, "the (shiver) central (shiver) bus (shiver) station (shiver)". She was totally overwhelmed/grossed out by the Tel Aviv central bus station, which I will give to her isnt in the best neighborhood and is a bit big and dirty. I dont mind it that much--she is uber freaked by it. The only teeeensy sketchy part was when we got in an elevator with some rando ppl, and there were no lights in the elevator. Pitch black. Kinda sketchy, but we survived and got on our bus to Jerusalem just fine (what an easy 40-minute ride?) Once in Jerusalem, we used the last of the light left to scramble from our hotel to the Kottel, since M +J wanted to see it. They both thought it was pretty cool and we got to take some cool pictures from this overlook that I remembered how to get to (go my memory).

The next day we just did more of the old city- finding cute cafes, back to kottel, muslim quarter, church of the holy sepulchre (which was very dark and ornate). We also managed to make it to the Israel Museum, which was under construction but we got to see the dead sea scrolls which was pretty cool.

Then we bussed it down to Eilat--not so bad--and spent a few days down there seeing the sights, going to Petra in Jordan (which was a realllly cool experience), snorkeling the red sea (SUPER AWESOME), and generally relaxing. We ended back up in Tel aviv for a day, where we got to go to my fave restaurant in Florentine and to Max Brenners. yay!!! Overall, an amazing trip.

After a tearful goodbye, I got right into the swing of my international Dance festival at my work, the Suzanne Dellal Centre. It was so fun on opening night, dressing up and meeting everyone from around the world. I was impressed I remembered almost all of the names, and my only blunder was not knowing what Country Amsterdam is in. Amsterdamn.

Got to see a lot of interesting performances, including one with water (trout) which was pretty cool. We also had a chanukkah party at my apartment for the first night of chanukkah, complete with a gift exchange, a latke-off, and a dreidel tourney. It was really really fun, and I'm enjoying chanukkah in the motherland. If only I liked doughnuts!!!!


That's all for now--more to come later. Misses and kisses, Chelsea

HWOTD: siampti-- it meants im finished. I leanred this when my roommate pointed at her empty cup and said "siampti" which i heard "see, empty!" which helps me remember it.