The Fourth Week

We are inching closer to a milestone. On Sunday we will have been in Israel for four weeks. Millie began her day camp program and seems to be having a nice time. She says she hasn’t learned any new Hebrew words, but has made at least two friends (Zoey and Logan) who are likely also Americans. Adena has progressed to the point where she doesn’t turn on the GPS to drive the three miles or so to drop her off. Pickup is at three and Bev usually takes the girls to the playground at Schiff Garden across the street (after getting popsicles every-other-day at the bodega a few blocks down). Here’s a fun photo of “Abba’s Corner” near the day camp with an insightful inscription at the bottom.

Bev has been working a few hours in the morning and an hour or so at night. Adena’s work day is from eleven to six, and so this week Bev and Aviva have been adventuring while Millie was at camp. We drove to the mall, parked, and picked up a dongle to recharge our bus pass cards without having to visit an official kiosk. We took the bus to the Islamic Museum for Art and had a great time. Bev’s favorite was the khamsa exhibit and Aviva got to make one of her own in the museum workshop.

This week was also July Fourth. Typically we are either with grandma and grandpa or savta and saba on the Fourth, which already made it different. Since it is a regular day here, Millie went to day camp and the rest of us checked out the Israel Aquarium.

The headlines from America have been worrisome. It seems that the general political mood has shifted darker in the month that we’ve been away, and that added to the weirdness of this July Fourth week. For what it’s worth, the New York Yankees and American Eagle clothing line are hugely popular here. More popular than you would imagine, so maybe that’s something.

Today Bev took the girls to the Israel Museum by bus. Including walk time to the stop, it was over an hour of travel time to go 3.75 miles. Of course when we got there we walked through the ocean-sized parking lot out front! We didn’t have much time there as the museum closes at two on Fridays, but we enjoyed the model of the Second Temple and the sculpture garden, both represented below.

Surprisingly, the girls also really liked the fashion exhibit and the one archaeological collection we were able to see. On the way out, we walked through the Shrine of the Book, which houses the Dead Sea Scrolls and it was really cool. The bus ride home was broken up with a stop by the lions fountain at Bloomfield Park, then a quick stop at Liberty Bell Park across the street.

Next weekend we will be moving up to Haifa into the apartment we are renting. We are all excited to begin this next chapter of our big adventure and it will be nice to have our own space and more regular schedules. The landlord says the apartment was just renovated and his wife asked again how old our kids are… something tells me we may not get our security deposit back. We have rented a second car for the drive up because there is not room in ours for the four suitcases and the four Wilsons. Everyone is getting ready for Shabbat here and things are slowing down. Bev plans to go running tomorrow morning (he should be adjusted to the elevation by now) and we have been invited for lunch at Judy Brown’s home, who is an old friend of Adena’s family. It should be relaxing.