...and we're back

... safe and sound, though without any of our luggage or our stroller. It was a very visity visit, not a very touristy one, so if you're wondering if we saw site X, unless it was the kotel or the Jerusalem Zoo, the answer is no. The high points of the visit so far as Barak was concerned were the playgrounds of Jerusalem, and the made-in-China plastic dog and cat we bought him at the zoo. He behaved himself amazingly well on the flights, if I do say so, and at the Kotel, where I went to pray for a friend and bribed him into a mincha and several tehillim's worth of quiet with six chocolate Kedem tea biscuits. He now, unfortunately, is all too familiar with the concept of "cookie" and requests one regularly. (He is regularly disappointed.)

We stayed in Geula, in an apartment right on the line between Geula and Mea Shearim, which was pretty much perfect for us--it was about half an hour's walk from my SIL, who lives in Sanhedria, and two minutes from just about everything we needed, including a minyan factory next to a seforim store, lots of falafel, some very delicious pizza, a grocery store and so on. Such a pleasure to be able to walk into any eating establishment and just assume it's kosher, because in that neighborhood it wouldn't stay in business otherwise. We did eat well. Motzai Shabbos was still Chanuka, and we found ourselves without matches to light the menora with, so I walked the two minutes to Kikar Shabbos in search of some--and found Ya'aleh, the very lovely bakery, open, empty of baked goods but full of people patiently holding bakery bags and boxes. Since you don't often see a bunch of Jews waiting for food so willingly, I decided to get my own paper bag, and was shortly rewarded when pans and pans of hot chocolate ruggelach emerged from what was literally a hole in the wall.

What else to blog about--the unfortunate tamari incident, my continuing ill luck with strollers, Frum Chucky, El Al security, why you should never fly Iberia, Barak's enjoyment of bran flakes out of the laundry tub, his successful climb up almost all the nine million stone steps up from the kotel, my successful navigation out of the Old City, two sweaters that fit their recipients, the lost luggage and phantom boarding passes, our nephews and niece and their increasingly Israeli-sounding English, hills and more hills, taking buses in Israel and why it's still safer than driving, seeing old friends, having people ask me for directions in the most religious neighborhood in Jerusalem, MHH and his tour of the seforim stores and falafel stands of the Holy Land, my tour of the tichel shops of the Holy Land, Barak's tour of the playgrounds of the Holy Land... all this in time, I guess. In the meanwhile, although none of us seemed to have any jet lag on the way there, Barak is having a very rough time with it now, and none of us is getting much sleep, so that's about it for tonight's post.