Sounds Like Greek to Us

So, we wrapped up the Israel leg of the journey a couple of days ago and are now in Athens visiting with our friends, the Copps -- Kevin, Valerie, Morgane (my goddaughter), and Killian.

We spent our final day in the Holy Land being very unholy.  First, we said our goodbyes to Rikki and Dubie at the Safed Inn, packed up the car, and drove 2.5 hours south to Ben Gurion airport to drop off our rental car -- all on Shabbat.  How unholy. I'm sure the Lord will find a way to punish us.

We cabbed from the airport to a hotel on HaYarkon Street in north central Tel Aviv, across the street from the beach, for a final afternoon of Mediterranean surf time with several thousand of our closest friends.  We scouted for some lounge chairs and an umbrella, paid our 20 shekels for the privilege, and then dipped.  After that, we didn't see the kids for about three hours.  They swam.  Jen read.  I vegged. (It was the Day of Rest, after all.)

In the evening, we celebrated Havdala (the end of the sabbath) by obtaining a truly authentic Middle Eastern meal of burgers, fries, sangria, and sodas, at the Agadir Burger Bar on Nachalat Binyamin Street.  Sam was pleasantly shocked that he was able to have a large burger topped with both cheese (thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother's milk) and -- don't say it -- yes--- BACON! AGGGHHH. WE ARE DOOMED.  BACON AND CHEESE ON A BEEF BURGER IN TEL AVIV? WERE WE MAD? WERE WE REBELLING? NO, WE'RE SEMI-OBSERVANT, OVERLY SECULAR AMERICAN JEWS AND WE LIKE OUR DAMNED BACON CHEESBURGERS, OK?

And that is why we looooove Tel Aviv. 

After dinner, weighed down by our unkosher, uholy foods, we slogged back to the hotel and hit the sack.  We'd be waking up at 3:00am to get to the airport by 4:00am, three hours prior to our flight.  By 9am, we'd be in Greece.

A 7am flight to Athens from Tel Aviv cures insomnia.

Our visit to Israel was and extraordinary experience on many levels.  I need to take time to really reflect on it, so I'm not going to write about it now.  What I will say now, however, is that even though I tried not to have expectations heading into it, I did have them.  And, in most ways, those expectations were met.  In other ways, however, they were not. This is all strangely comforting.  I don't know yet how Jen and the kids feel about it, but I've gotten the sense that they feel similarly.