Daniel's Summer Blog

I have never had a better spring break in my life. Jumping back to last night, everyone came in much later than I did, because I was exhausted. Having been woken up, my only option was to wreak havoc on the populace, and by the populace I mean David Weiss. He was noisily composing a letter to someone (I found out later it was The Slovinator) but he left them room to go be noisy somewhere else. I took my opportunity, swivelled his computer towards me (I was lying in bed the whole time) and typed, one handed, "weiss sucks." Unfortunately, he found it and I was forced to voice my displeasure of his via International Sign Language. No one else saw, which only made it funnier.

The next morning Mr. Botwinick and I enjoyed the Breakfast of the Gods at the Inbal hotel. Just imagine anything delicious and Israeli and Milchik and you are there. Having been sufficiently recharged, Mr.s Botwinick and I walked to the old city and around it, skirting the Arab Quarter and visiting the Kotel. That night everyone went to Norman's on Emek Refaim for the Sumoburger challenge. The Sumoburger is a 1 kilogram (2.2 pound) hamburger that is really enough to feed a small country. There were seven males present and all of them ordered and finished the Sumoburger, though some took their dear sweet time about it.

On Wednesday we all went to Tel-Aviv and walked through some of the sketchiest allies ever, as well as watched a lovely sunset over the Mediterranean. We then met up with some Brandeisians at a rather gross and dairy Yodvata Bair. Still feeling the effects of Canary Islands Daylight Savings Time, I took the early sherut home with Avi and proceeded to crash.

Thursday brought another amazing breakfast at the Inbal, as well as more walking around in the old city. It was Shayna's 21st so we all went out to eat on Ben Yehuda. In the late afternoon we went to Mahaneh Yehuda and made many, many purchases for Shabbat (including shwarma in a lafa). Weiss got told to go home to New Jersey by a total stranger, but other than that we didn't find any trouble there.

Friday day was consumed by cooking. Chocolate cake (no flour) chocolate covered strawberries, delicious soup, chicken, and assorted vegetables. We went to Shirah Hadashah, where I was not so impressed, though it may have been the jetlag talking. Shabbat dinner was a grand affair with many guests. Shabbat morning we attended Sha'are Shenah which was amazing as always. Yael hosted shabbat lunch which was also very delicious and very well attended. I closed out my vacation with a visit to the Waffle Bar for a chocolate waffle which was a regular waffle with the squares filled in with melted chocolate ice cream and the whole thing drizzled with chocolate syrup. After that it was an 2050 sherut and off to Ben-Gurion for another 12 hour flight.

I am at the airport, the infamous Boston Logan international Airport. I check in with my people at AA. They tell me that I am flying America West to JFK. Fine, as long as it's a jet and I get there. I follow the signs to my gate. I discover the America West loosely translates "cheapest domestic shuttle ever." The gate area is four gates in some godforsaken corner of Logan. There is a sign in front of the security check point that says: "No Bathrooms beyond checkpoint!" Cleary this is a joke or an error. Unfortunately, it is neither, and there is also only one dingy gross restuarant (no au bon pan, which I had really been looking forward to).

The plane to Israel, in classic El Al fashion, loads early, rearranges all the seat appropriately, get everyone settled and the proceeds to sit on the runway for half an hour (yeah it could be much worse, I know) while we wait for the 28 planes ahead of us to take off. Once we do take off, I peruse the magazine and cycle through the channels to discover that we are watching mostly crappy movies and that there is no music to listen to either. To make up for this, I am served meatballs with penne which is surpisingly tasty. Better though are the fresh rolls, tomatoes and cucumbers that I ate with gusto, topped with large amounts of sabra hummus. The dessert is some chocolatey thing with chocolate chips, also delicious. About 2 hours after I begin to get antsy, we land at Namal Sde te'ufat Ben Gurion and the Hasidim clap. I hightail it off the airplane to avoid the lines at immigration, only to find that there are none, so I wait roughly thirty second before the lady tosses my american passport aside, glances at my Israeli passport, glances up at me, then gives the old double stamp and I am done. She does not even glance at my ptor, which is inside my Israeli passport, just waiting to be examined. The shayrut takes me through mevaseret so I get to look at kenyon harel and long for the kosher mcdonalds (mmmm) within. I meet up with everyone and we have a party with Avi's hebrew homework. We go out to Ima's (morrocan) for dinner which is fair, although it turns out I don't like majadra. In the evening we have social time, so I fall asleep repeatedly while Abra and Yael try to wake me up. Eventually, they all go out and I go to bed. I wake up this morning at 630, so I am going to be a disaster at dinner, I will probably fall asleep in my sumoburger. For my next amazing trick, I will eat breakfast at the Inbal. Updates as events warrant them.