Oh boy, I've got no cleverness left!

It's been a while since I've written, and I've seen plenty of things that I felt like sharing. No major events, no major narratives, and due to camera trouble, no pictures. But here's a bunch of things about my life in Israel.


Jewish holidays
The two Jewish religious practices I try to maintain, besides being intelligent and good with numbers, are keeping pesach for Passover (i.e. not eating bread) and keeping the fast for Yom Kippur. I suppose both reveal a desire for sacrifice and penance within me. Fasting for a day isn't really hard (you miss breakfast and lunch one day, as it goes sunset to sunset) for me as a wrestler, so there's that pride thing too.

So I kept the fast here, same as always. What was different was how the rest of the world behaved.

It seems obvious to say that Israel, being a Jewish country, would take Yom Kippur more seriously. But to call this a Jewish country is reductive. A sizable part of the Jews in the country (who in themselves make up only about 75 % of the population) are not religious. That other 25 % is Christian, Muslim, or Druze, with Arabs and foreigners filling up the sheet.

And yet on Yom Kippur, the country coalesces into a day of rest. On Shabbat, for example, those who are observant do not drive, but those who don't care much for the religious details take over the roads.

On Yom Kippur, it is heavily frowned upon to drive. By 3:30 (about an hour and a half before sunset, as daylights savings in Israel are really early, due to Orthodox politicians/lobbyists who asked for an easier time on YK) the afternoon before Yom Kippur starts, nobody is supposed to be driving. This is a big deal; riots in the old, mixed-population city (i.e. Jews and Arabs) of Akko broke out over how an Arab drove through a Jewish part of town (it's disputed whether or not he drove quietly or with music blasting, and as usual, it sounds like both sides are much at fault).

I live in Nof Yam, a part of Herzliya Pituach, which due to its affluence, nearness to Tel Aviv, and heavy embassy population, is one of the most secular regions in the country. Still, the roads were virtually carless. I went for a walk at midday. In 45 minutes of walking, including a cross over the highway via bridge, I saw one car driving, an apologetic woman behind the wheel.

The roads were not, however, empty. Instead, bikers and rollerbladers and walkers flocked to the streets. Mostly families or kids on the main roads, they were people on bikes who enjoyed the freedom. On the highways, there were packs of serious bikers in matching tight red shirts and black spandex shorts. It's sort of a national bike day, a day where the whole country stops and then allows everybody else on the road. It was most tranquil. (NB: Looking through my archives, I think I must have used the "It was most tranquil" line about ten times. Anybody catch where it's from? (nb of nb: I've used it three times before this.)

After Yom Kippur there are two more holidays in the high holiday season; Sukkot and Simhat Torah (the latter is the reason I can write this blog, as there's no school). For Sukkot, I received an invitation, along with another young colleague and friend, to have dinner with another, older colleague's family. Under their sukkah (a hut, where a family is supposed to take all their meals for the week of Sukkot), we enjoyed a nice soup, pot roast, and sweet potato dinner. There was fine conversation about the movable Do, jury trials, and naive art. The youngest boy at the table threw up (that is, not me), and the big Jewish family feel of it was really nice. My personal practices haven't really changed much, and I don't have any curls growing down the side of my face, but seeing a Jewish country is a strange, refreshing, and at times saddening experience.

The Appropriate Music for the Holy Land
Ok, I'm not going to cover the entire holy land. But Tel Aviv is a city that feels like it should have Leonard Cohen on low volume at all times. The poetry, the mysticism, the cracking voice, the sex, the gypsy 3/4 songs, all a part of the Tel Aviv experience.

But that doesn't mean that if you're cruising down the Ayalon (the major Tel Aviv highway, like Rt. 93 in Boston) and have some difficult thoughts to work out, you can't crank up Purple Rain and "Wanna' Be Starting Something." In fact, quite to the contrary.

Another Strange Thing About Driving
First of all, I'd like to lay to rest the notion that Israeli drivers are bad drivers (a notion that most of you readers heard only from me. Sorry). When I drive 100 KM/H in the right way (roughly 62 MPH), I'm usually passing more than I get passed. 120 KM/H (75 MPH) is about enough to be the alpha car on the highway. So the speed isn't that big a deal.
Of course, like everywhere else in the world, Israelis clog the left lane unnecessarily and at times make outlandish lane changes. The latter actually is a trick I abuse too, so no worries.

Are the Israelis a little maniacal on regular roads? Yes, probably, just like drivers everywhere except in the American South and Midwest.

Are they ruder? Well, that's an excuse to share one of my favorite anecdotes from my dad.
Q: What's a split second?
A: The time between when the light goes green and when the guy behind you beeps.

Here, the split seconds are shorter. Also, there's the Red/Yellow warning light to precede the green, which means by the time it gets to green, you're already late.

The second point I'd like to make (so belated that I had to go back a day later to edit it in) is that in Israel, a flashing light on a police car means something different than in the States. What it means, I'm not sure of. After seeing a bunch of cars with them on, however, and a bunch without, I've noticed that difference. In the states, flashing lights is enough to signify that the cop car is on the hunt, and get out the way.

Here, cop cars drive with the lights on, but they drive with no particular sense of urgency. 85 KM/H in the right lane? That's just fine with these cops. A red light? We can wait. Streams of cars passing by the cops in laughter? These cops are above it.

Again, I have no idea what it means. But usually, when I pass the cops, I skip the laughter. Usually.

Mixed Martial Arts
One of the avenues I've picked up to supplement income and acquire new friends is teaching a local group of M.M.A. fighters how to wrestle. I got the gig from wrestling with one of the main coaches of the club, Ido, who happens to have been on the Ultimate Fighter show, and is a celebrity in Israeli M.M.A. and B.J.J. circles. He's also known as "The Hebrew Hammer".

Every other Sunday morning or so, I drive down to a stadium in a northern part of Tel Aviv (in fact, the very stadium where the wrestling federation is housed), throw on my gear, sans wrestling shoes and headgear, and train a bunch of Muay Thai and Brazilian JiuJitsu fighters.
So far we haven't gotten beyond a snatch single with various leg in the air finishes, and I'm still adjusting to the realities of teaching wrestling in a sport where a knee can always stop a shot in the facial area. But a few other differences and interesting tidbits have come to my attention.

- When the fighters shake hands to begin a sparring or live session, they add a little pound after the handshake. So far I have not considered adding an explosion into the mix, but it's now close to my mind.

- I practice what little Hebrew I know while coaching. If somebody's head isn't in the right place, and he doesn't speak English as well, I'll point to where the head is supposed to be and say, "Rosh po." If somebody has to squat their butt down, they explain to me that the word is "tusik", or "yashvan". In a related but not MMA related note, I'm getting decent at pronouncing Hebrew r's, the letter "resh". You have to swallow the r, you see, and say it all the way in the back of your throat. It's quite difficult, and I may end up choking on my tongue, but whatever.

- The fighters conversely get to practice their English. While much of it is of a blue variety that I would never print on such family friendly webspace, I do like how one of the guys pointed out that when I would call them to the center by shouting, "Bring it in," I was living up to all the coaches in movies. Apparently all I'm missing is the line, "Hit the showers!" Yarr!

- I also managed to develop this into potential social interaction. I've talked with many people here as well as friends from other places about the occasional, surprising challenge of trying to hang out with someone when you know them in one context. For example, one could be in a chorus south of Tel Aviv and unsure about how to approach their fellow choral singers to have a drink one night. Or a cool fellow might play tennis with another cool fellow, decide he wants to hang out with other cool fellow, and then wonder if asking other cool fellow to hang out would sound too awkward, like asking somebody on a date.
I'm told this is more of a guy problem, actually.

Anyway, we watched the most recent UFC the other night in some bar 5-10 minutes from my house. It was a private party and there were a bunch of kids waiting outside for another party. My man Ido let me in to the dimly lit bar area and I nursed a glass of red wine while I watched two guys punch each other for awhile. I can't say I was thrilled with the fight, but it was mostly an effort to set up that social action. And an American wrestler is fighting next time. And I forgot to pay for the wine. Then again, my man Ido was quoted on the Israel broadcast of the fights as saying that he who knows how to wrestle best will win the fight, so a little secret weapon action is worth a glass of wine, eh?

My Favorite Paris Story
The first foreign destination from which I updated this now veritable blog was Paris. I then mentioned the city in various posts, detailing all the adventures I had as well. Actually, there was one adventure I only briefly mentioned, so allow me to share it in detail now before I return to the present and future:
I had mentioned that on our second day in Paris, Ben and I went to the Yitshak Rabin Gardens and then the Palais du Bercy. And that we had to sprint to the train afterwards, and had a very confusing departure. But what we did at the Palais du Bercy added to the fun.

The Palais is, I think, a sporting venue. It's walls have this grassy face to them, and sleek concrete walls to mark each subsequent section of the wall. Atop each grassy face is a little walkway.

Naturally, seeing that wall, I decided to climb it. Ben decided to cheer me on. And naturally, going up was the easy part - pulling by grass or railway or just low balance, I scrambled to the top of this venue. I climbed it just because it was there, and upon being atop it (about 50 feet above Ben, at about a 45 degree incline), I received no satisfaction except the climbing thrill.

This was countered by the fear of how to descend. It's one thing to climb up by pulling and slowly edging. Going down you have gravity to take into account (it's a bitch, ain't it?).

I decided tiptoeing along the concrete face while holding onto the grass might be the trick. Surely a crab walk down would be a controlled, manageable venture.

For about the first five feet, it was controlled. Then I or my old sandals' soles slipped, and all of a sudden I was sliding. Having begun to slide, I started screaming, a happy sort of scream like on a rollercoaster or when I jumped off the 10 meter platform diving board at Duke, but with a hint of fear. Meanwhile I'm using my hands to try to slow my momentum. And Ben is waiting at the bottom, not sure if he should laugh, try to save me, or call for help.

I landed ok, skidding forward a little. As soon as I proved ok, the two of us burst into a couple minutes of hard laughter. And the damage suffered was a badly scraped finger and my left sandal, which tore up on the top so that I couldn't wear it before. If you ever wondered where my trend/fetish for buying brightly-colored shoes came from, it was out of mere necessity: the Roman blue Nikes where the cheapest things I could find at the train station in Rome, and I didn't have my backpack where my sneakers lay.

Me right before I lose control and start screaming.


So anyway, I'm going to Paris again in November with the AIS team. As part of the International Schools Sports Tournament, we travel at the end of each season, and Paris is the destination this year. I'm looking forwards to a triumphant return, a hotel 25 KM away from the center (though a small part of me thinks our tournament is at the Bercy), a meeting with Ben, and more unexpected good times. Of course, this time around, I'll be a leader of young men, and maybe such antics will be frowned upon...


Out on the Ledge
Speaking of students, here are a few of the latest fun things they've been challenging me about, and then a few more examples of how not different students and teachers are.

- One of my study skills sections has a few kids eager to be friends with me on facebook. They've spent class time and even a little of time out of class asking me about it, trying to figure out the proper spelling of my last name, and then still getting stumped. Little do they know that it's only recently that I've gone by Daniel.

- Some of those same kids were chagrined when I made fun of them for liking Jack Johnson. But I'm only looking out for them.

- Just like the wrestlers I worked with last year, all these kids are very eager to see me live out all their facial fantasies. Handlebars is the common request from the kids, and by handlebars they mean a fu manchu (where the mustache goes down along the chin, but with no goatee anchor; handlebars are the things that curl off your face, and I can't grow them yet). One freshman who grows far too much facial hair for a high school freshman has been bugging me to have a "Beard-off". Poor kid doesn't realize that regardless of the result, he will not be a winner in this event.

- Now to the teachers. Saturday I hung out with a few other teachers at our lovely colleague/friend Kate's apartment (she's actually the one who went with me to Sukkot). We drank, we spilled drinks, we had a good time. Her apartment is on the top floor of an apartment building (one that also houses my dentist's office) right next to the beach, and after a little bit of time, she invited us out to the ledge.

Accessed through climbing a few walls, the ledge hangs over the street. It's a fairly wide ledge, and there is minimal danger in sitting out there and enjoying conversation and one another's company.

I bring up this night, however, to draw similarities between us and them, with us as teachers and them as students. We like to imagine high school kids are especially immature, and that they do and say things we would never do. However...

One of our conversations on the ledge revolved around walking by people's houses and seeing if they have porn on TV, and all the implications of such thoughts and actions. Later, back in the apartment, the three girls (there were five of us total) went into a long discussion about tampons, their first periods, and the various implications of remembering these things. Which was fine, but not all that much better than the things our kids might talk about.

And needing to match the level of intrigue and weirdness, I, upon leaving, flashed a little worm on my arm. Somehow, that didn't repulse everybody, and marks the second time in a week's span that I showed female friends that little worm. The bastard's hanging around, alligator blood and everything.

Anyway, enough grossness and silliness. Until next time.

A whole new meaning to searching for the afikomen

No one will ever confuse me for the most observant Jew. I hold certain beliefs and follow certain religious customs, but owing to upbringing and inclination, I’m not the most practicing tribe member, you might say. I didn’t learn what kosher was until 6^th grade, for example, and even then the concept confused me greatly, and does so to this day.

I have taken my practice of religion though, limited as it is, with me during my travels. Back on the trip that inspired this blog, in 2006, I upheld the fast on Yom Kippur while living in Moscow. This involved eating dinner with my host family as they celebrated Vera Nikolavena’s (the mother) name day, and then refusing the dessert that came with it, as it occurred after sunset (or at least the time I had designated as sunset, roughly 7:00 p.m.). I didn’t explain myself, which further confused them, since they thought I was a junk food junkie. The next morning I purposely woke up late to skip breakfast, then managed to get through wrestling practice without eating or drinking (fairly normal, actually), and then keep myself occupied the rest of the day. At sunset I sat in the upper balcony of a theater with the host family, as we attended the staging of a British play whose name I can’t remember. The play was a slapstick affair, but more importantly, I had snuck in a chocolate covered marshmallow, and during intermission I broke the fast in gourmet fashion.

Last year, I kicked off Passover in a location naturally hostile to my people, and wholly ill fitting our storied ways: South Carolina. My friend Tara took me to her family/community Seder in Greenville. Of course, everything was quite fine, and it was probably the most proper and pleasant Passover I’ve spent. But, in all fairness, we were more or less in the shadow of Bob Jones University. That has to count for something, right?

Anyway, this time I’m in Spain for the holiday. Passover features the other tradition I try to uphold each year – no eating of leavened products for eight days (it would appear that most of the rituals I follow have to do with self-denial through eating methods. I wonder where I got that from). Again, my knowledge of the situation is flawed; I didn’t realize, for example, that rice is a no go until I went on a date with a Jewish girl during Passover. So sushi is an unlawful escape. But my diet in Spain is pretty basic as it is, so I thought I could manage pretty well. There was only one thing missing: Matzah.

***

“Well, I don’t think prison will ever be a problem for you,” Ben told me as we sat on a bench near the Sevilla Cathedral and ate lunch.

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“All they give you is bread and water, and you seem ok with that.”

It’s true. I was displaying my patented survival guide for how to travel and sustain yourself on the cheap: a 1-L carton of apple juice, a loaf of bread, and some form of chocolate is all you need. I followed this in Russia, perfected it when I swung through Helsinki, and have continued to preach its viability here on the Iberian Peninsula.

You would be right to presume, then, that not being able to eat bread for eight days would be difficult for me. My daily consumption before Passover has roughly been as follows: cereal (usually involving chocolate, as they’re big on chocolate cereal here) and maybe tea for breakfast; fried chicken or hamburgers with sautéed onions, a cup of apple juice, and a piece or two of bread for lunch; and whichever of chicken and hamburgers I didn’t have for lunch along with the same additions, or alternatively two pieces of bread with Nutella. So bread and leavened products (hello, cereal!) is a big part of my day-to-day Spain.

On all past Passovers, I’ve managed to cover up for the problem with bread’s thin, low-taste substitute specially designed for the holiday, namely matzah. You see, my penchant for eating a lot of bread is probably a legacy of my love for peanut butter. The gooey ochre cream is my favorite food, if that’s possible, and when I have it around, I eat a peanut butter sandwich once a day, on average.

Two things prevent me from falling back on that strategy in Spain, though one is easily ameliorated. That would be the first reason, which is that there is no peanut butter in Spain, excepting an exceptionally high exported from the U.S. import of Jif, which comes in a tiny container for nearly 4 turkeys (they call euros “turkeys” in Spanish, sort of like how we say “bucks”, except cooler and much more valuable). Not worth it. And not that big a deal, because the aforementioned hazelnut/chocolate cream known as Nutella steps in as a solid replacement off the bench. Which would be all well and good, except I have nothing to spread that Nutella onto this week. No bread, right? So I need matzah. And where does one go to find matzah in Madrid?

The answer, of course, is the same place one goes to find anything else in Madrid or anywhere in the world: the internets. It wasn’t a straightforward effort, but after beginning with “Madrid Matzah” and then turning to “Sephardic cardboard bread”, I hit upon “Synagogues Madrid” as my appropriate search term. A few hoops after that I was at www.comjuderia.org, a website for the Jewish community in Madrid.

The community is based around one synagogue, Synagogue Beth Yaacov, an orthodox community about 20 minutes away from me by foot (interestingly enough, it is closest to the Iglesia metro stop, Spanish for church). While I spent a good Shabbat at an orthodox synagogue in Vilnius back in ’06 (see “Lithuania Always Comes Near the End” in the archives), I don’t think my loose form of Judaism is the best match for their, umm, orthodoxy. Not that they wouldn’t welcome me, but it would be awkward. Also, they probably speak Spanish, which, well, you know…

So I decided against attempting to find a Seder to attend here and settled on just finding matzah. The website above listed four potential sources for the big, flat crackers. Three were close to the synagogue, and one was a little bit farther to the Northeast, up the paseos a bit. That last one was El Corte Ingles, the Costco cum uber department store that is endemic in Spain. I thought I’d try there first.

Passover started Saturday at sunset, so I went to El Corte Ingles on Friday afternoon. It was a rushed visit – I went right after a literature club gathering, and right before my final lesson for the week. The trip involved a few stops on the metro, and then a little orienting to make sure I was going the right way. Still, ECI is a pretty big establishment, so there’s no missing it

I entered on the ground floor, which held the supermarket. I didn’t have a clear idea of where matzah would be, but I thought checking near bread or bakeries might be a start. In ECI, there’s a supermarket and then a bunch of little “shops” – bakery, deli, etc. I went to the outer bakery and the outer foreign goods store, but nothing came of it. Time was running short, because I had to take those few metro stops back to get to class by 5. I raced through the supermarket itself, but from bread to fish, sodas to wine, I couldn’t find anything that would do the trick. I snagged a sandwich for a quick dinner bite, seeing as I could still eat bread for another 27 hours or so, and then rolled out.

So there was still Saturday to go looking around. I took a walk over to the Iglesia area. The weather was lousy, as it had been for most of the two weeks preceding Passover. La Boutique Del Pan was well lit and reasonably full of people and sundry sorts of bread, but in my tiptoe stance, I couldn’t spot any matzah on the shelves. Uninterested in asking in poor Spanish, I gave up and went to the butchers.

Of course, Saturday is Shabbat, so Carniceria Shalom would be closed. Carniceria Elias too, as it turned out. And since everything in Spain closes on Sunday, more or less, I didn’t have much hope for hooking up the matzah issues before the end of the weekend.

I survived just fine for the opening days of Passover, but the matzah was still missing. When it comes down to it, the matzah isn’t absolutely essential to Passover. Yes, it’s our only substitute for bread, but if you’re willing to Atkins it up, there’s not much to miss taste-wise. But for me it didn’t feel right to go without matzah. Instead of wandering the deserts, lost after crossing the Red Sea, I felt adrift in the now sunny streets of Madrid, without my raft of unleavened carbs to carry me to shore.

So on Tuesday when I had a two and a half hour break in my schedule, I resolved to resolve the problem as best as I could. Iglesia is also about 20 minutes from where I work, so I walked there after class. The timing was such that I arrived just before 5:00, so when I saw both butcheries closed, there was one saving grace: perhaps it was still siesta. Siesta in Madrid isn’t as big a deal as I thought last time: stores close from 2-5 and the pace might relax a bit, but for the most part life goes on. The biggest adjustment to Spanish scheduling is the “dinner past 10 pm” standard, and that’s not so bad either since everybody stays out later.

In this case, I hoped that the reason Carniceria Elias showed no signs of its existence beyond its name on the awning, with metal doors rolled down over the windows like on a garage, was the siesta. Carniceria Shalom was in a similar state, but the garage windows didn’t go all the way to the ground, which gave me hope that they were preparing to open at 5.

A few loops around the neighborhood and a purchase of a small bag of chips later, I returned to the places in question. Though it was indeed after 5, Elias showed no further hints of life, and Shalom’s garage windows did not creep up an inch. That doesn’t necessarily mean they didn’t open at 5:14, right after I left; Madrid is not considered to be the most punctual place.

But leave I did, because I didn’t want to wait around forever, and because I had a new hint for my search at ol’ El Corte Ingles. Apparently, right next to that very fish section I had passed with pinched nostrils and nary a glance three days before, there was the kosher section. Well, if anywhere in Madrid would have matzah, presumably it’d be the one El Corte Ingles that had a kosher section.

There was no walking from where I was to El Corte Ingles, but I did it anyway. A few minutes to the paseo, and then a 20-minute stroll along the paseo until I got to the familiar green pennant signs. I had a familiarity with the layout and with the supermarket, so I entered with a plan. Past the produce, ignore the sweets, and blammo! There was the fish counter, and indeed right next to it was an island of kosher goods.

On top of that island were packs of matzah. Big packs. In fact, double packs of matzah. They weren’t selling single boxes – you had to buy two, for about 8 turkeys, as they were imported too. Usually, slightly more than one box is enough for me for the week. Here we were almost halfway through the week, and I was in a final dilemma. Get the double box and surely have a surplus of matzah, or buy a small box of matzah crackers or bite-sized matzah pieces that would likely run out before the end of Passover but cost half as much? Well, at the risk of perpetuating ill-fitting stereotypes, I went with the small box. After all, I made it the first two days of Passover without matzah. I could probably make the last two, and then not have to worry about extras.

Back in high school, my friend Pete, a big Texan, and I had a tradition where every Passover he would ceremoniously take a piece of matzah from the cafeteria and break it over my face. Actually, he’d do that more than once during the week. It was all in great fun, and there was plenty of matzah to go around for such foolishness.

Now, I realize that the substance can at times be quite a luxury. I walked to the metro from El Corte Ingles with my bag of matzah and chocolate (I was running low), and a big smile on my face, knowing I wouldn’t have the chance to waste this matzah similarly, but that at least I found some. And I knew that thin salty unleavened bread would never taste so good as this time.

And so, all came to a happy end. Matzah and nutella is a great mix, I found a bridge to carry through Passover and uphold tradition, and things got messy in only the best of ways. For your viewing amusement: