The view between two Haifa homes.My friend, Olivia, and I were aching to leave this stressful place for a couple of days. So much schtick involving ulpan, toasters, starting school, gym memberships...
Shabbat in Haifa with Olivia's great aunt and uncle Michal and Tzvi was the perfect remedy to our extreme case of Stir Craziness.
We woke up just in time to catch the last bus to Haifa before Shabbos. The bus ride was gorgeous. I pressed my nose against the glass to take in the rolling hills of the Galilee, the clear blue Mediterranean coastline, the ancient caves, and ramshackle Druze villages.
Olivia's great uncle Tzvi picked us up at the Haifa bus station in his Oldsmobile. He looked like an older version of Mickey Rourke in Sin City:
He had a huge black eye and a massive bandage on his forehead. The previous week he had fallen over a ledge and onto the hood of a car.
Anyways, he's a really funny guy. 78, smart, Jewish, cynical, raised in Brooklyn, made aliyah 40 years ago with his wife and kids. He was a sociology professor at Brandeis! I wish I could have taken a picture of him at night, when he lights his corn cob pipe and paces around the house with that massive bandage on his head.
We arrived at their house, which is situated on top of the hill overlooking the ocean. When I opened the door, the smell of warm food spun my brain, nose, and saliva glands in a swirl of euphoric pleasure. Michal, Olivia's great aunt, was making cookies and quiche. So grandmother-like.
The house is all coordinated in a modernized 1970s, Ikea-like way. The color scheme is coral, pumpkin, and sunflower. It is a really nice home.
Tzvi and Michal both speak english perfectly. Michal has written many books and is a professor of African Studies at the University of Haifa. It was a pleasure to have no language barrier (except they were both hard of hearing, so I had to scream everything).
( A bad picture of olivia and Michal, but you get the point)
This trip has made me realize that retirees are pretty much the same universally. They love to gossip about the most ridiculous things, complain about their sciatica, and tell really fantastic stories. It turns out, Michal hosted the Village Of Peace at her home (because she is an African Studies professor). She gave us some dirt on all of their multiple wives and physically-abusive parenting.
We helped Michal do all the prep work that would have been hard on her arthritis (peeling potatoes, cutting carrots, etc.) Olivia and I watched sunset over the ocean, and then I read the New York Times (A REAL NEWSPAPER!) until our guests arrived. They were also an english-speaking couple. We lit candles, blessed the wine, ripped open a challah, and dinner began. First, cauliflower soup. Then, Southern Fried Chicken, roasted carrots and sweet potatoes, real mashed potatoes, quiche (Michal and Olivia are vegetarian), green beans, cranberry sauce, heinz ketchup, and red wine. For dessert, Tzvi had made creme schnitz (basically a Napoleon), and Michal served brownies and fresh coffee. I was really happy. I don't know how else to say it. I was blissfully, contently, uninhibitedly HAPPY. After dinner, we helped clean, and Olivia and I camped out on the balcony and sketched with my new artsy fartsy pencils.
We went to bed around midnight. Olivia and I shared a pull-out couch/bed. She slept-talked a lot. Mumbled something about roots and trees and made this funny smacking sound with her lips. I cowered in my little corner of the couch.
I woke up to the smell of Tzvi's corncob pipe. For breakfast, Michal made us fresh, challah french toast with REAL MAPLE SYRUP! And also orange juice, hot coffee, and yogurt with raspberry pomegranate jam.
After we recovered from yet another intense eating experience, we went to a moshav called Yodfat to visit some more family. It is a very Israeli, laid back village. Olivia's cousins are really hippy and chill. Mindy, Tzvi and Michal's daughter, is also a caterer and brought out trays of fruit and cookies and served us really fantastic spiced Turkish coffee. The only slight discomfort was that there were swarms of flies (the moshav has a monkey forest, and the family owns two horses).
Tzvi dropped us off near a sheirut (shared taxi) terminal, and we got a ride to Tel Aviv. We met up with some friends there, walked around a bit with them, cooked some chicken wings (I couldn't eat because i was so overstuffed from being a guzzling gourmet).
We caught a bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem after Shabbat ended.
Overall, this was an incredible weekend. Olivia was glad to have a travel buddy, and I was glad to get free, home-cooked meals. I am really committed to not cooping myself up in my dorms on Shabbos for the rest of the year. It feels great to see what Israel's all about.
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