When we really got on the way with the Big Trip and started moving every week or so, we quickly grew exhausted. From that point on we spoke of our month (October) in Israel as a destination. We couldn’t wait to get there, settle down, and recoup after 3 months of galavanting around Europe with 3 young children. I was mainly looking forward to getting back in the kitchen and getting out of vacation mode, in every sense.
We arrived in Tel Aviv to a warm sunny day and right at the tail end of the Jewish holiday season. After some initial culture shock: people are kind but NOT polite, we quickly settled in. On our second day we walked to the farmers market and I just couldn’t stop telling E how comfortable I felt, even though I know only about 5 words in hebrew.
The following morning I went to a yoga class, a friend of a friend had spent some time in Tel Aviv and recommended the studio, and that’s it! I was home. I quickly found my people, my groove, and a very comfortable familiar daily rhythm to life in Israel.
I want to talk about yoga for a minute. Yoga has been my home, my heart’s home for as long as I have been practicing: 17+ years! But how quickly I forget. I get caught up in every day life, the thick of it, and I forget my way home. Through this period of travel any time I found a yoga studio I truly found my way back to myself. I found my community and my most authentic self in Tel Aviv at Shraddha Yoga.
I have been to Israel a couple of times in the last 14 years, but never spent any real time in Tel Aviv. If we lived in Israel, this would be it. E often compares it to Miami, but I don’t really see it. Yes, theres a beach, but it’s much nicer than Miami :). The culture of the city is also very different to me. I guess the thing they both have in common is Jews. As a jewish person when you first arrive in Israel the fact that most of the country is Jewish is this awesome feeling, considering the fact that normally we are always a minority. But let me tell you, after a couple of weeks that feeling of awe and solidarity quickly fades. Similar to how quickly you get used to seeing armed Israeli soldiers in the streets.
Two weeks into our stay my mom came to visit. We saved the touristy activities for her. We took a guided tour through Jerusalem and went floating in the dead sea. In Jerusalem, we separated to go visit the Western Wall, the most sacred place on earth for the Jews. There is a fence dividing where the men and women pray. My mom, Myla, and I with Sage on my back went to the women’s side and Eitan, Jude, and our guide went to the men’s. We decided on a time and meeting point. The women’s side was PACKED! We could not get through to the wall and I was trying very hard to be respectful and conscious and not push our way through. Women were not moving away. Old ladies were sitting in plastic chairs right up at the wall, most were crying, praying, talking in whispers to G-d. It took a while, but finally we got some brief time by the wall. When we moved back to the point where you can see both sides, I was shocked at how open and empty the men’s side was. But after talking about it with our group we decided it actually makes sense: it is the women who are always worrying and praying for loved ones.
The next day we went out and hiked through and around caves in the Judean Lowlands. Similar to my first visit to Israel the nature and beauty of the land is awe inspiring. The kids loved this day the most. Jude was back in his element: nature, and they got to crawl around ancient Jewish Guerrilla fighting tunnels!!!
While my mom was visiting we also celebrated Myla’s 7th birthday. We had such a lovely day celebrating our big girl. She and I baked chocolate banana bread/cake the day before so we could have it for breakfast the morning of her birthday. I went to yoga as a gift to myself on the day I birthed my second born. 🙂 After yoga the family met me and we walked around levinsky market showing my mom all the fun spice shops. Myla asked for a fancy tasting menu for her birthday lunch, but that’s not really how Israelis roll. E and I did a lot of research to find a restaurant fancy enough for our girl! We went to lunch at Alena at the Norman hotel and it was just perfect!
After lunch, the girls (my mom, Myla, and I) went to get manicures. We all took a leisurely walk home popping into shops and walking through parks. Once home we set up to prepare Myla’s fancy birthday dinner: rack of lamb, roasted sweet potatoes, and string beans. plus a french inspired apple and plum tart. This was all especially challenging with our limited kitchen supplies. But I gotta tell you, that was part of the fun. We had a great time trying to figure out how to make it all work. And the kids helped make the tart. Myla was thrilled with her fancy day revolving ALL around her. 🙂
The whole family quickly and easily fell in love with Tel Aviv. We LOVED the food, the beach, warm weather, young families, health and wellness community… I could go on and on. People often say Israel is a place of contradictions and the saying rang very true for us too. we would have days of loving it and moments of hating it. I don’t want to focus on the negative here, and now that we’ve left its even hard to remember what the negative parts are. At the end of the day for our family, it’s a beautiful place to visit; as jews, in a sense, it’s our home, but it’s not a place we would choose to live right now.
One more thing about my mom’s visit… Our first stop on #legerworldtour was Rome. When we settled into our apartment and began unpacking it drove me crazy how much stuff we had. Probably not a lot for most people but 2 large suitcases for our family is A LOT. I am a pretty light packer to begin with and when prepping for our year long track around the globe I did a lot of research and knew I wanted to pack as lightly as possible. The difficult part proved to be the fact that we would be in Scandinavia and the Nordics in August and Asia in November and both could be cold. So I needed to pack summer clothes and some warmer stuff. Anyway, as soon as we were on our way I felt weighed down by how much clothes we took. I told Eitan that first day in Rome that when my mom comes to Israel I’m going to give her half our stuff/one of our suitcases. In September we spent three weeks traveling around the Greek Islands with just one suitcase and it was super easy and doable. So, the night before my mom left E and I went through mostly our stuff and some of the kids and packed up one of our suitcases to send back with my mom. We are now down to one suitcase, 3 backpacks, and one tote. It feels good! but also stressful because our one suitcase is PACKED.