Family Reunion

Today my mom woke us at around 11:00 AM, but I was really tired because my leg cramped the night before and woke me up. By the time everyone got showered and ready, it was already around 12:30 PM.

We walked back to the Old City and through Jaffa Gate on our way to Nana's house. On the way, we passed R's shop where we stopped to talk to him for a while. My mom changed some money there. Then we left, but LilSis claimed that she was going to faint and went into some random guy's store and sat by a fan. She bought a pocketbook from him. Then the three of us went on to Nana's and my mom and stepfather went their own way.

Nana and Aunt H were waiting for us and had prepared a big meal of rice, chicken, potatoes, salad, pickles and olives and watermelon for desert. After we ate, they showed us a video of Uncle L's 60th birthday party (which was two years ago) and we saw Aunt E and all of her kids and Uncle L's kids etc. and many more on the video. Then they showed us a video from our trip in 1987 with my dad. All of the kids spoke on the camera. It was really cute. At around 4:00 PM, we left to go to Uncle A's to meet my mom and stepfather.

When we got there, Uncle A was home. All of us sat around talking for a long time about everything from marriage to the American monoculture and consumerism. Uncle A said it's taking over the world. We also talked about basketball and fashion. Aunt M brought out some mint tea. Finally at around 7:00 PM we left to go back to Nana's and my mom and stepfather went for dinner with Uncle A.

El, Ar and Arsen came with us. Back at Nana's, we watched the 1987 video with them because they were in it. Oh-- I forgot-- this morning Nana gave us all beautiful 21K gold bracelets. Anyway, she also gave us some pictures of my dad when he was little, but said that Aunt E probably had most of them from New Jersey.

Aunt H brought out some Armenian pizza and we all ate (the kids) and sat around talking about movies and actors and actresses, etc. At 9:30 PM we left so that they could all get back to the Convent with plenty of time. When we got back, my mom and stepfather weren't back yet, so all the kids and Aunt M sat around playing some game with a koosh ball that Arsen made up.

Finally, my mom and stepfather and Uncle A returned and we said goodnight and headed home. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at some grocery store where the girl behind the counter was watching Seinfeld. We got back to the room and LilSis and I got into a fight with BigSis about the distribution of postcards. BigSis threatened LilSis by saying "you don't know what I did in this bed last night!" and LilSis and I started cracking up.

Anyway, now they are writing postcards (I gave mine to BigSis) and I am writing here, winding down for the night.