At the wedding reception we had a table with greeting cards and asked our friends and family to fill out a card and write a date on the back. On that date during the next year (this year, our first year away) we would open the card. We have gotten some really lovely messages and we look forward to those days when we get to open another card at breakfast. Last week one envelope read:
TO: Jen & Paul, Far Far Away
But Israel is not so far away. Especially if you have Skype. Now, this might sound like a Skype advertisement but I assure you they are not paying me for this. I wish they were. Every evening as we are making dinner Paul and I check to see who is on Skype. The usual suspects include our parents, Paul's brother, my cousin (though she never answers), my grandparents and 2 or 3 friends. We talk to those people quite often.
Moral of the story: if you miss us you should get on Skype! It makes the Atlantic seem like a puddle. For example: this weekend my mom and I had a one hour sewing lesson/date and my brother gave me a hug all the way from California! I had lunch/dinner with Greg in Brazil, a drink with my dad in Ohio, a chat with Jill in Wisconsin, with the Vaca family in Connecticut, with Alexandria in Florida, and coffee with my grandparents in Wisconsin.
Granted, it would be nice to sit next to my mom for the sewing lesson or actually feel my bother's arms instead of the hard computer monitor; but Skype is leaps and bounds above letters, phone calls or emails. And it is infinitely better than silence.
Assuming we had unlimited vacation time and money this is one example of why it is difficult to physically cross the Atlantic to see everyone: Paul might make it, but I'm not THAT strong of a swimmer. Haha, just kidding. Paul is having one heck of time trying to get home from a bachelor party right now. His "trip" home will end up being about...Sunday at 7pm until Wed at 3am - plus an 8 hour time change. You can do the math. It was not supposed to be this way, but this is how the mother nature, the human body and airlines work. Paul will write about this later and you'll understand what I mean.
Showing posts with label mail. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mail. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
One Kilo, Bavakasha
Few things remind of us of home more than rosemary, Christmas music and hamburgers on the grill! We brought the rosemary with us (and planted more here), and the Christmas music has randomly been played a few times. And this week our grill arrived!
We were told before we came that we'd have a "grill area" at our apartment. We fantasized about a custom made grill on the roof large enough for a full pig roast! Ha! It was a huge empty space to put a grill. So we used credit card points to buy a nice big Weber Grill!
"The Grill had Landed!," Paul emailed the minute it arrived. I quickly grabbed my grocery bags and headed to the shuek (market) to buy some stuff for dinner! Blah, blah, blah....after surveying the scene I finally chose a butcher.
The butcher had only beef in his case - but oh did he have beef! There were ribs...no, a rib cage...and hooves, a whole leg, and large cuts of meat that I couldn't identify. "Umm..One kilo, ground, bavakasha." (I don't know how much a kilo is but it sounded good.)
Wait...let me start over. Close your eyes and imagine a butcher...now take off his white apron and put on a gray sweatshirt. Replace the white pants with old jeans. Take off the white hat. Lose the gloves and the metal finger protector. Put a cigarette in his hand and give him a 5 o'clock shadow. This is the butcher at the shuek.
"One kilo, ground, bavakasha.." My butcher nods, puts the cigarette in his mouth and grabs one of the cuts of beef from the glass case. He sets it on the cutting board in front of him and whacks off a chunk. Plops it on the scale...adds one more small chunk. He removes the cigarette from his mouth. "Good?" he asks me. Sure! He puts the meat through his grinder and straight into a plastic grocery bag, then puts that grocery bag into another grocery bag and hands it to me. (No...I didn't forget to write about the gloves, the hand washing, or the wrapping and packaging of the meat...it didn't happen.) But, Oh were those burgers delicious!
Despite the completely foreign experience of buying the meat - it really tasted like home! (And no, we didn't get sick.)
We were told before we came that we'd have a "grill area" at our apartment. We fantasized about a custom made grill on the roof large enough for a full pig roast! Ha! It was a huge empty space to put a grill. So we used credit card points to buy a nice big Weber Grill!
"The Grill had Landed!," Paul emailed the minute it arrived. I quickly grabbed my grocery bags and headed to the shuek (market) to buy some stuff for dinner! Blah, blah, blah....after surveying the scene I finally chose a butcher.
The butcher had only beef in his case - but oh did he have beef! There were ribs...no, a rib cage...and hooves, a whole leg, and large cuts of meat that I couldn't identify. "Umm..One kilo, ground, bavakasha." (I don't know how much a kilo is but it sounded good.)
Wait...let me start over. Close your eyes and imagine a butcher...now take off his white apron and put on a gray sweatshirt. Replace the white pants with old jeans. Take off the white hat. Lose the gloves and the metal finger protector. Put a cigarette in his hand and give him a 5 o'clock shadow. This is the butcher at the shuek.
"One kilo, ground, bavakasha.." My butcher nods, puts the cigarette in his mouth and grabs one of the cuts of beef from the glass case. He sets it on the cutting board in front of him and whacks off a chunk. Plops it on the scale...adds one more small chunk. He removes the cigarette from his mouth. "Good?" he asks me. Sure! He puts the meat through his grinder and straight into a plastic grocery bag, then puts that grocery bag into another grocery bag and hands it to me. (No...I didn't forget to write about the gloves, the hand washing, or the wrapping and packaging of the meat...it didn't happen.) But, Oh were those burgers delicious!
Despite the completely foreign experience of buying the meat - it really tasted like home! (And no, we didn't get sick.)
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