A taste of the life in Israel

I wanted to title this one “Jackass Potato Man” but didn’t because it may have been too shocking at first glance, but then again, I just wrote it in the opening line. Oops. So, people have been waiting for this blog for a while and here it is.

One day last week, Nicole, Matt and I were at the shouk (Israeli open market that sells things like fruit and veggies really cheap). We had a long list of things to buy, one of which was VERY important because it involved making Grandma’s amazing potatoes which are the best thing to eat.

I guess to picture what the shouk is like for those of you who don’t know, it is filled with small narrow lanes with stands or vendors lining both sides, and all very squashed in. Walking in the middle of these lanes is just about every type of person you can imagine shopping there, all day long: old ladies with carts who don’t stop at ALL to get by you, if you get knocked over with a cart, well it was your fault; then there’s the occasional slow-walker who stops abruptly to look around, thus causing people backup and lots of impatient yelling; or the large cart filled with pita and bread making deliveries that some small Israeli boy is trying to push down the center lane but is taking up the whole road and people are not getting out of the way OR they are trying to squeeze around it. Yes, it’s insanity most of the time. On top of all this is the bantering back and forth of vendor keepers yelling out prices per kilo in Hebrew and trying to get people to buy their apples, as opposed to the apples right across from them.

Ok, so with that in mind, our first stop was at a long row of vegetables, including the potatoes. Standing there, it all of sudden dawned on us that the Idaho potatoes that we needed were not exactly available in this country. HA, never really thought about that before! So we kind of stood there to discuss our options, and not really knowing what to do, will these ones work, and what should we buy…..when all of sudden, I get this very HARD slap on my arm a few times that shocked me and I turned to see the actual owner of the booth giving me an angry look to get out of his way so he can unload his carrots or something. I wasn’t even in his way…and excuse ME for shopping at YOUR booth, sir! Ok, I’m telling you, it doesn’t sound very mean how I’m writing it, but I can’t get across the ridiculousness of it.

You’d never get away with this in America, the guy would be sued in a second!

At first we all stood there gawking at him, like did he really hit me? He did. He kept fussing and commenting and saying things that Nicole translated for us later on like “You guys want to live here or something” and “Get out of the way” AND he had the audacity to accuse me of dropping a carrot on the ground, as he huffed to pick it up and shove it back on the huge pile of carrots that were just waiting to topple over anyway (PLUS you should see how dirty and nasty the sidewalk is). Meanwhile we left, wanting to yell and scream but too angry to say anything and just thinking, well hmmph, you’re not getting OUR business, which was the only thing we could think of at the moment.
Still, when we settled down we were all saying, why didn’t we throw a potato at him! Why didn’t we yell back!!

But you know, you’re better off NOT doing all these things. This, my friends, is life sometimes in Israel and you almost can laugh about something like this. They are abrupt, loud, tough and “in your face” people. I’m sure the dude didn’t think twice about what he was doing, it’s just the way they live. And in some ways, you can learn to appreciate it (when you’re not the one being bothered) and in some ways, you respect it more than those other types of people who would wait until you left and then talk about you behind your back. Ha.

In typical Israeli way, they’ll huff and fluff over you for a while, but if I went back, I’m sure we’d be best friends like nothing ever happened. That’s just the way they are. Well in this case, I’m definitely not going back, but still, it makes for a funny story.

And by the way, Grandma’s potatoes turned out quite nicely, no thanks to him!

Our Christmas Story continued…

12/24 – Christmas Eve day, Tony continued decorating the tree…he basically didn’t stop for 2 days straight. We joked that our tree now looks like the Armenian Orthodox church with ornaments hanging EVERYWHERE. And more baking went on, of course, while the movie Elf was playing… (“Is there sugar in syrup? Then YES!!!”)

That evening we went to a Christmas Eve Party at the lovely and posh home of Beverley (UK) and Sharon (New Zealand), friends of ours who work at the Embassy. They had a massive spread of good food - mulled wine, eggnog, Mince pies (which are so British), Stollen (German traditional bread) and other things that people brought native to their homeland during the holidays. I made Gingerbread cookies and Nicole made mini-pizza’s and peppermint hot chocolate. (Oh and it wasn't just a girls party, which is what the picture makes it seem like).

25/12 - Christmas Day was rainy and cold and it hailed a little bit – but that didn’t stop us from having a great day. Of course, I never left the house so it didn’t matter anyway. But Nicole and Tony went out that morning for some more last minute shopping and wound up coming back looking like Santa and Mrs. Clause! That morning all the packages sent overseas from family arrived – 5 packages! AND because it’s a normal working day for everyone, the post office was open, so they could go and pick them up.

Tony’s parents and Kathy, a friend of ours, came over for dinner. Nicole and I really prepared everything like we do in America (or I should really say what my mom, aunt and grandparents do) and it all turned out so good…including the COW that we roasted in the oven. I never saw meat like that before and Nicole commented on turning vegetarian, until it came out looking beautiful and tasting delicious. Then we remembered, THAT’S what meat should look like.

Armenian friends, Ohan (who was the best man in Tony and Nicole’s wedding) and his family came over afterwards for dessert. There was a smorgasbord of dessert: Tiramisu they had made and brought over, Panetone (very Italian), pumpkin pie (very American and made for the Armenians who couldn’t fathom the idea of a sweet pumpkin mix, and I still don’t know if they caught onto the idea very much), Torte di Noci (this is a walnut tort, an Italian favorite that we always see on our tables at this time of year but never really eat – until we made it ourselves) and other various cookies. There was tons of food…and playing in the background this time was White Christmas, the all time best Christmas movie where Bing Crosby’s voice glides over the mellow sounds of the title song. Awesome.

No Christmas would be complete, of course, without a viewing of The Marx Brothers, A Night at the Opera. We were all pretty exhausted by that time but forced ourselves to stay up and watch this movie once again even though we can recite most of the lines by heart. It’s SUCH a funny movie and brings back memories of watching this at home for years!

And of course, we had a phone call from the ENTIRE family in NYC as they were eating dinner. That was nice, hard to understand, long distance and everyone talking at once (like our family tends to do) but it was nice to share the moment with them. I hope it was nice for my parents to wake up their first Christmas with no kiddies there - just 3 cats, who hopefully were just as good replacements for us. Next year mom and dad, we'll all be somewhere together! (We don't want to have to cook everything again...hahah).

But it was VERY cool when I realized that the real reason we are celebrating occured only just down the road. Jesus was born only about 20 minutes from here in Bethlehem. Of course, the stable isn't there, it looks completely different and was an entirely different world back then, but it brought it all home to realize this is the area of the world where it all began – and will end someday.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

(Picture below, a brief look into the Christmas we had this year. No major catastrophes, just fun stuff to remember...)















Merry (day after) Christmas!
So lots has been happening. I wish I had been blogging all those little things that happened this past week so I could write in great detail, but now I'll just take the time to write the highlights of the days leading up to our big Christmas spent here in the HolyLand.

20/12 - Matt, my brother in the US Army flies in from Germany at 4am.

21/12 - We had a wonderful goodbye dinner with a very special family here, the Schutz family. It's like my 3rd goodbye party, but this time it was shared with my friend Carolyn Awitty, from Kenya, who is returning home after being here for 5 years. We had a wonderful meal that night, thanks Leslie!

22/12 - This night (Thursday) is the night that my Young Adults group meets. Once a month we have a big worship night called The Deep End where tons of people come and worship with loud music and Scripture readings and stuff. This was a cool night.

BUT this was also the day that Matt and I picked up our REAL Christmas tree from the Old City. And of course, real not in the American sense of the word, but real according to Israel's standards - which means pretty tall, very skinny with lots of holes and like a Charlie Brown tree. But it's probably the biggest one in all of Jerusalem. It smells like a mixture of pine and peanut butter.
Sooo after realizing that we can't fit it in a cab, Matt and I decided to walk the tree home to Nicole's apt. So there we were, walking along a major road - Hebron Road - during rush-hour for 40 minutes...each with an end of the tree in one hand and shopping bags in the other...

We definitely looked hysterical, and I'd just say a cheery and slightly embarrassed 'Merry Christmas' to the stares that were coming from the cars. Yeah, especially in a country that doesn't really celebrate OR recognize this holiday - we looked funny. But then again, anything can happen in this country...

23/12 - This day we went shopping for last minute items as we were planning to replicate our awesome and historic Schiavi Christmas dinner that we have every year in the US...I'm telling you, it took like 4 or 5 shopping trips to get everything...now I know what some people go through to get stuff.

OH and that afternoon we put up our tree - which meant sticking it in a bucket with really large heavy rocks to hold it up - and we made homemade pasta too which is SO good that you almost can't go back to the boxed kind.

I think our baking also started that day - and just basically continued straight through the next 2 days!! Insane. One of the Christmas traditions for our family is playing Nat King Cole's album while decorating the tree, which just sets the ambiance nicely...

And just so you know, the tree did actually fall over twice that day AND once on Nicole on Christmas morning as you saw above...buckets don't really work.

More to come...

Me doing a Plumb song called "Cut"...

So in response to Mike's last comment, I did give him permission to put the video clip up of a song I did - as long as I get 10% everytime someone clicks on it. I think it's on a website or actually something has to be downloaded in order for you to get it...so try clicking on this...

http://www.brainzipper.com/files/cut.avi

If it doesn't work for you, then let me know...and I'll do something. I don't really know what I'll do, but, um, we'll see.

I'm also laughing because there is so much background noise...WHY aren't YOU people listening to me! I'm crying... (actually I like it better that way...)

Anyway, how fun. Enjoy.

Rock On!

So, Everyone, last night I officially did a "concert" at a place in Jerusalem called The Jamm. It's a pretty chilled out coffeeshop/hangout place that usually has open mic nights or smaller bands come in.

It was kind of the first time I performed as a 'frontman' (or woman really, what's the PC way of saying that) of a band - a band that's not really a band at all. It was the first - and probably last - time all 3 of us will play together - Austin, a volunteer here from Texas who is leaving in a week, played guitar and sang backup and of course longtime fave drummer, Joel "the madman" Hilsden joined us.

So I did about 8 originals and 4 cover songs - mostly obscure or really old cover songs that people would have never heard of anyway - even threw in a Collective Soul song "The World I Know" because it mentions New York City, oh and a random band called Plumb has a great melo-dramatic ballad called "Cut" which I love because of the piano part.

Anyway, I think it all flowed pretty well depsite the fact that all 3 of us never practiced at the same time. I got to sit with Austin 2 times and teach him my songs - and I saw Joel about 2 hours before the show and showed him some stuff...

It's very different to hear your own songs being played band-style. I'm always writing/singing by myself at the piano and have thought through some ideas of what it could possibly sound like, but you never really can tell. All of a sudden my cutesey little song "Fly" which I have recorded on CD with just me and piano, turned into this Evanesence-y type song that gets pretty heavy at the end with the drums and stuff...Hmmm. Pretty exciting.


SO a LARGE thank you to all my friends who came out to watch and hopefully enjoy the show! You guys are COOL and maybe there'll be more....