Friday, June 29

Today’s major accomplishment – a successful trip to the grocery store in the mall - without Donna! Donna and Mati took a bus to Jerusalem earlier this morning. Oh, where to start with this one. The clueless trip through the parking garage, fighting for a parking spot? The kids thought it was a good thing their Abba wasn’t here for that, he would not have enjoyed the “adventure” at all. Walking into the mall and seeing all the food you could want? Not in stores, not even in kiosks, but just out in the mall there were stands ranging from a take-out, full meal buffet, to another with 20 varieties of olives, and on and on. Having no clue if any of these were kosher, and also having already gotten take out food for Shabbat early this morning with Donna at a place recommended by the real estate agent, we did not partake. We successfully got Naomi earrings and Eitan and Ilana books, and Sima finally got an iced Aroma (and it was delicious) and then headed to the SuperSol. We have a new appreciation for Schnucks. We could not find a cart, the store was mobbed, and we had to look at everything carefully to make sure it was actually what we thought. The tradeoff is that everything is kosher, and oh what finds we made – teddy bear shaped schnitzel, the Israeli equivalent of beef jerky (we have already finished two packages), ton of pre-packed cold cuts, lots of bisli, cheetos, animal shaped pasta, Clicks, ect. We left with hands full and happy. We also figured out that the reason the parking garage had initially been such a challenge is because we started off in the area where the Supersol connects to the garage. So Noah and Naomi waited by the door with the food, and Eitan and Ilana and Sima quickly navigated back to the car (up two floors in the mall, down to -4 in the parking garage, and then driving back to floor -2 to get to the Supersol door, I love that floors are negative numbers), blocked traffic, threw the kids and the groceries in the car, and headed out with our parking validated. What could be better than that? We got home and helped a nice couple from Houston jump their car. Now we are headed out to the kikar to wander a bit and to look for a wireless connection to post this. And to stop at the makolet to pick up the things we forgot at Supersol. Wishing you all a Shabbat shalom, Sima and the kiddos.