a balloontwister’s aliya saga

First off, a Podcast is a audio and sometimes video file of someone that is about something.

Sports, Israel, Torah, Music, Comedy…. could be anything.

A Ipod is not needed as the files are downloaded / played on your computer OR can be saved to your Ipod / MP3 player.

That said, I have gotten several comments about the first podcast I put together last week. I am going to try and have a new one every week that will discuss Israel as well as other subjects.

You can either suscribe to it if you have a ipod or go to the site and listen to it.

More about that later.

Its Monday morning and I’m back in Baltimore. It was great being home for the few days seeing some familiar faces. I had a really good shmooze with my friend Adiel Levin who was a reservist. I think I’m going to interview him for a podcast in a few weeks as he gave me some interesting insight into Israel’s Losing of the war.

We finally DID make it to the Kotel on friday. We first hit up Tal’s Bagels in the German Colony. It was very nice and the bagels were very good. Almost Goldberg’s good.

What a zechus it was to go daven at the kotel as Elul is now upon us. Being that we ate out both meals on shabbos we had time to go out and spend some time there. I cant recall being there that late on a friday afternoon. The plaza getting set up… tables.. sidurrim… I bet it was a big crowd friday night.

The Jet lag continued Shabbos as I barely got up on time… the good news is that I only had to go accross the street for minyan in the AM. The friday night sun gardens minyan is now a full time shabbos minyan so… we dont have to leave our street at all on shabbos.. talk about lazy anglos..

On the positive side…. it was REALLY hot over the weekend. Not humid.. but very sunny and hot.

Thursday night we had the Strausses over for an Israeli dinner… Pizza. I gave them a tour of Ramat Beit Shemesh. The highlight being, Avrumi strauss meeting Avrumi Strauss. Interestingly enough they both lived in Kew Gardens hills years ago. I wondered if they would turn Ron Silver in Time cop and merge into each other when they shook hands…. They didn’t but I did wonder what would happen. Nothing did. Although I did get some weird looks from both of them.

Thursday was also interesting as I had a balloon gig for kids at Nefesh B’nefesh. I saw Adam Neustader a friend of mine when we lived in Queens together. He just made aliya and is living in Modi’in. It was a nice feeling to see the “green faces” and the eagerness. Friday I had a gig at the summer ulpan “graduation” where they have the kids try to learn some hebrew. I really think its set up to give parents some time to get their lives in order. When you make aliya your entire life is turned upside down for the first few weeks. So the Iriya given summer ulpan as a babysitting service. Met kids from NY, Minnesota, Toronto…..they seem kind of rowdy.. and excited…

sunday…..(boy this blog is totally all over the place.. shabbos.. to friday.. to thursday… back to sunday..) I learned a new little trick to make my hebrew seem better. I took a hitchhiker for the first time in months and when I told him I was only living in Israel a year.. he said how good my hebrew is….

I think I may tell people I’ve only been in israel for a year…. for the next 10 years. Yoni liked that idea.

LAst night we hit the bowling alley in Petach tikva and one thing is apparent. I think the bowling skills is going to be skipping 2 generations. Abba can bowl.. and thats it. We’re just horrible. Lets see if the next generation is any good. Oy. Just pathetic. Michal remarked that ALL our scores combined were less than Abba’s last time he took the kids out. I think we should have gotten some NIS back.

After bowling, on the way to the airport we had a rough time finding a mehadrin restaurant in PEtach Tikva. Turns out the one we were told to go to.. closed up. This has been turning into a huge issue. I think the trick is to call your rav in advance and ask which rabannut is reliable or not. Its the weirdest thing being in Israel and not eating at places that are kosher… but not mehadrin. Some rabbanuts are good.. some are better…etc. Just very messy. So I did the next best thing. I got to the airport and went to the King davids lounge and had 3 glasses of wine and some cookies and pickles… (took a few apples for the flight too…).

Well, signing off….Gotta do some work before I fall asleep….yawn….;)