Oh, boy.
We had a lovely Yom Haatzmaut until about 4:30 today. Then it went downhill. Literally.
Last night we saw fireworks and had a nice festive dinner, and then this morning had a festive breakfast (I mean we are Jews, so celebrating = eating, right?).
Then this afternoon we ventured out on our first semi-long trip to ANOTHER PART OF ISRAEL. See, as you can probably tell from previous posts, I am basically terrified of driving into Jerusalem or any other city I'm not totally familiar with. Modiin? No problemo! Herzliya? AAAHHH!
OK, I'm all right now. Deep breaths.
So today we had an invitation to go to Efrat for a simcha! An engagement party! And we'd get to see our old friends who made aliyah many many years ago but with whom we are very close nonetheless. We were excited about seeing them, celebrating with them, etc.
This morning we went over the directions twice, looked at it on every conceivable map known to man, and asked others for advice. Then it was time to go.
With hands shaking we drove towards Jerusalem like we were told to. Everything was just dandy - we found the Begin highway, lalalala, we are such great Israelis, we are golden!
And then - Mr. GPS kept "recalculating", we couldn't find the street names on our Google directions, and our big fat fancy book of maps was useless.
Lost.
We drove around and around until the GPS man started talking to us again and told us to go down a certain road and make a left. We did. And then - well, let's just say Mr. Tolkien ain't got nothing on us when it comes to windy roads, mountains, and freaky journeys.
We ended up going up and down mountains around Jerusalem on two lane roads - the kind where you DO NOT look to your right because if you do you will notice you are driving on sheer cliffs - like the kind where one false move and....well you get the idea.
We drove and drove - the 1 hour trip was now a 2 hour trip. And the road just didn't end. We were happy to see other cars, and hoped that they were not filled with sketchy looking people - most were not. But the mountains! I mean to the left it was sheer rises of trees and foliage - you couldn't see the top - and to the right was a sheer drop.
FINALLY we saw civilization - parks where people were having their barbecues for Yom Haatzmaut, etc. We felt better. And then - yay - a sign! For Efrat? Nope. For Beit Shemesh. Yay - we know Beit Shemesh! It is our friend! Let's go there!
So we drove to Beit Shemesh and from there to Modiin.
Missed the party. When we saw the hills of Modiin we felt like Frodo and Sam when they saw the Shire again.
So Frodo and Sam are home - and we are not sure that we are looking for any more adventures any time soon.
We had a lovely Yom Haatzmaut until about 4:30 today. Then it went downhill. Literally.
Last night we saw fireworks and had a nice festive dinner, and then this morning had a festive breakfast (I mean we are Jews, so celebrating = eating, right?).
Then this afternoon we ventured out on our first semi-long trip to ANOTHER PART OF ISRAEL. See, as you can probably tell from previous posts, I am basically terrified of driving into Jerusalem or any other city I'm not totally familiar with. Modiin? No problemo! Herzliya? AAAHHH!
OK, I'm all right now. Deep breaths.
So today we had an invitation to go to Efrat for a simcha! An engagement party! And we'd get to see our old friends who made aliyah many many years ago but with whom we are very close nonetheless. We were excited about seeing them, celebrating with them, etc.
This morning we went over the directions twice, looked at it on every conceivable map known to man, and asked others for advice. Then it was time to go.
With hands shaking we drove towards Jerusalem like we were told to. Everything was just dandy - we found the Begin highway, lalalala, we are such great Israelis, we are golden!
And then - Mr. GPS kept "recalculating", we couldn't find the street names on our Google directions, and our big fat fancy book of maps was useless.
Lost.
We drove around and around until the GPS man started talking to us again and told us to go down a certain road and make a left. We did. And then - well, let's just say Mr. Tolkien ain't got nothing on us when it comes to windy roads, mountains, and freaky journeys.
We ended up going up and down mountains around Jerusalem on two lane roads - the kind where you DO NOT look to your right because if you do you will notice you are driving on sheer cliffs - like the kind where one false move and....well you get the idea.
We drove and drove - the 1 hour trip was now a 2 hour trip. And the road just didn't end. We were happy to see other cars, and hoped that they were not filled with sketchy looking people - most were not. But the mountains! I mean to the left it was sheer rises of trees and foliage - you couldn't see the top - and to the right was a sheer drop.
FINALLY we saw civilization - parks where people were having their barbecues for Yom Haatzmaut, etc. We felt better. And then - yay - a sign! For Efrat? Nope. For Beit Shemesh. Yay - we know Beit Shemesh! It is our friend! Let's go there!
So we drove to Beit Shemesh and from there to Modiin.
Missed the party. When we saw the hills of Modiin we felt like Frodo and Sam when they saw the Shire again.
So Frodo and Sam are home - and we are not sure that we are looking for any more adventures any time soon.