Mazal tov! It's a girl!

Esther just delivered a baby girl a few minutes ago. Today Alan and I decided to take it easy and just stick around the apt and RBS.

Sunday night we went to Neve DAniel to visit the Twerskys. They are doing great. Their house is beautiful. Aunt Gladys is really truly here. It took us 2 hours to get there and home. We had lunch Sunday afternoon with Dvorah and then took rakevet (train) to J-lem, took the longest bus ride to the tachana merkazit and then met Rashie to got to Neve Daniel. It's actually a 20 minute ride from RBS to Neve Daniel, but without a car it took 2 hours.

Monday we were scheduled to go to Esther and Mark's for dinner. We stayed around RBS during the day, walked to the mercaz, ate felafel there and did some shopping. Alan found a Feldheim Book sale so he was pretty much stuck in that store while I "shmyed" around. Went into J-lem on the 417 to Geula with the thought of walking up to Yafo and George. I found out that an old friend of mine DEbbie's hubby owns an electronic place at that corner so I wanted to go into the store to find out her cell phone number. (more about that later). While walking up rechov STrauss Esther called and said that last nite was not a good nite. She went to Dr. and she was in early early stages of labor.

We decided to meet Rashie and Asher and go out for supper. They were in J-lem at a meeting so they told us to meet them on the 14 bus. We were to get on first in front of Lev Yerushalayim and call them and they would get on a few stops down. We did, although until they called us we didn't know they were on bus, it was so crowded. We went to the German Colony to Emek Refaim which is delightful. We ate at Burgers Bar which was very nice. From there we took the 14 bus further to Talpiot to see where Miriam works in a woman's martial arts gym. New place very nice. She is their Bat Sherut, doing 2nd year Sherut L'umi.

We came home late, to the news that the Dr. told Esther to come in the night if things progressed, which they did and she went in around midnight. Today we walked around RBS delivering things to people. Saw cousin Rochel Taragin and daughter Aliza. Now it's just lazying around apt, working on work and writing blogs and listening to music and Alan is...sleeping for a change. We both never get to really veg out like this in Baltimore, ever...it's been great!!

Thursday night - Sunday Morning

Well the suitcase(s) did not arrive Thursday night so we had major changes in our plans. They called to say only one was coming on Friday. So we decided to go into J-lem for a few hours. Went by bus and cab straight to OU convention. Saw some of Baltimorons but not too many other people. They were at dinner so it was boring. Decided to go to Geula. Got ripped off by cab drive who conveniently "forgot" to put on the "moneh". ALT was so annoyed...I think we're walking everywhere from now on.

Geula: walked around a bit, but since we were tired decided to take 417 from there back to RBS. The bus took about an hour to come. But we made friends on line. Another couple our age who have apt in RBS. They have daughter in Kiryat Sefer so they come over pretty often to see 6 grandchildren. It turns out their daughter was in CAmp Sternberg with Hud many many years ago and we were at the same wedding this summer in NY. small small world...we had the hour's wait on line and then the hour's trip back to RBS together.

Friday morning old friends from Alon Shvut came for brunch. Always love getting together with them. We just seem to take up wherever we left off last time (that being about 15 months ago). Since we were going to J-lem for Shabbos and we didn;t get the suitcases yet (they called - only one was being delivered on friday and we didn't know which one). I decided to go to the mercaz (major RBS shopping center) to buy a robe since I had nothing to sleep in at the moment. well...R and A drove me there and when I got there I realized I took Alan's belt pack with only a few shekels in it...no wallet. I almost went back (about 20-25 min walk) when I bumped into fellow BY teacher M. Adler. She lent me $20 in shekels and I bought a robe, took a cab back with the few shekels Alan had in belt pack and in the meantime one suitcase came (not the one with the sleepwear, or hose).

We took bus into J-lem and another bus to Rechavia to the Kormans. We had an absolutely wonderful shabbos with them. I was surprised when Zev said he wanted to go to Kotel for mincha/kabbalat shabbat. It was wonderful. Saw Elly and the Kleins and a few other people I knew. The main language spoken was English. There are so many people visiting kids in yeshivot, seminaries because of Thanksgiving vacation. We walked back to Kormans (about 1/2 hour walk) and I ate like a pig...between the walk and not eating since brunch I was starved. Esther and Mark were with us and we really enjoyed being with them all. Esther looks so cute, but uncomfortable. Hope the baby comes while we are here!!

Shabbos I just stayed in apt and rested. After Shabbos Zev drove us to Kraft stadium where we watched one of Danny's teams play football. It was a beautiful night and from there we walked (Didn't I say we'd do a lot of walking?) to the Rennasance Hotel to the OU. It was well worth it...WE saw so many people from our past. It was great. We got a ride back to RBS with the Spigelmans and had a great time.

Today we're meeting Dvorah K for lunch and tonight going to the Gush to visit Cousins Y and G and Aunt G who made aliyah this summer. Will continue later and hopefully figure out how to post pictures.

Btw, last suitcase arrived this morning. Must go unpack before we go out!!

We're here!!

This post was written Thursday, but never appeared so here it is again:
Pinch me...we are really here.
Zaydie and BubbyT arrived in Israel this morning after what felt like a 2 day trip. We left home 2 days ago...and took British Air to London. We got in 8ish in the morning and spent the bulk of the day taking the "big bus tour" of London It was fun until it started raining. We had so many hours to kill as the flight to Israel left at 10:30 PM.

We hopped off the bus at one point to go to the 4th Starbucks we saw in 3 straight blocks. We got back to Heathrow (we went on the underground both ways - very pleasant and straight ride - about 45 minutes each way) early so we worked on the computer. Unfortunately Heathrow does not have free WIFI, but we managed to kill a few hours.

Trip to Tel Aviv went quickly. Slept most of the way. Got there and alas...only 2 of our 4 suitcases made it. Kudos to Dr. T. who suggested dividing our clothes among different suitcases. Zaydie got all of his, but I'm missing my sleepwear and some shabbos clothes and shoes, all the stuff we bought for my sister's family and the apt and misc other stuff which I probably don't realize.

They claim that one suitcase is on the flight coming in this afternoon and we should expect it to be delivered tonight. Where is the other one?? BA says that it could be on that flight too, but we won't know until later on. This all put a damper on our plans to go to Jerusalem tonight. We;ll sleep in RBS and go for Shabbos.

I'll try to continue posting every day and will try to post pictures also.
Regards from the Holy Land!!

"Walking in the Dark" Update 2

This past week Frank S. of Project Ezra gave my hubby a present: a full neon yellow reflective vest. Hubby wore it home from shul. Not too many diparaging comments, but one positive comment. The Baltimore Sun driver, who drives around every Friday night delivering parts of the Sunday paper in the neighborhood stopped his car, rolled down his window and thanked him for wearing it. He said: "You don't know how many of 'your people' I've almost hit because they walk in the street in their dark clothing and I cannot see them." (Walking home Friday night in the dark we saw a family in the street with a stroller and little kids who were impossible to see.) Project Ezra will be giving out FREE of charge reflective belts (not the full gear). They are white and not too terrible looking. I will be carrying them in my store eventually if people want to pick them up. Kol hakavod to Project Ezra for taking this suggestion and doing something about it immediately.