From Tel Aviv to Ramallah

This morning we woke up early to get a head start to Tel Aviv. My mom had ordered breakfast and some rolls and cheese and stuff up to the room so that we wouldn't waste time. We walked to the car rental place to pick up our car-- a mini-van. We got in and headed out for the city. We made a few wrong turns on the way, but finally got there.

Tel Aviv is much bigger than Jerusalem in a modern way-- like Moscow to St. Petersburg. But the buildings were taller than all three. They were almost skyscrapers. And like everything in this country, it is all new and under construction.

Anyway, we got to the university and went in to the Museum of the Diaspora. Nanny said she absolutely loved the museum, so I was excited.

When we first went in, we watched a movie about the diaspora and the rise of Zionism, etc. I thought it was really interesting. The rest of the museum wasn't so thrilling, though. It was organized in a strange way. I would have done it by country, but instead they did it by theme-- like "faith," "art," etc.

I got lost from the family so I got to go around alone. I found them at the end in the cafeteria. BigSis found a picture of Rabbi J and Rabbi L in the museum. We also filled out one of those family trees to put our family into the computer. We ate lunch at the cafeteria there-- pizza and my mom had a Bulgarian cheese sandwich.

We were running really late on the way home because we were supposed to meet Aunt M, Arsen and the girls at Jaffa Gate at 4:00 PM. We didn't get there until around 5:00 PM and Aunt M said that El and Ar were tired and went home. We were originally going to stop at the hotel, but because we were so late, we decided to just go to Ramallah.

The house in Ramallah looked exactly the same, but the city has gotten bigger-- a lot more people. Uncle A, Uncle Assad and Robert were sitting downstairs in the "factory" when we arrived. We said hello and then went up stairs to see Li and Aunt An. We all sat around talking for a while and then Li took me, BigSis, LilSis and Arsen for a drive around Ramallah.

She showed us her favorite coffee shops and where her best friend lives, etc. There are practically no driving rules because traffic rules are hardly enforced in the new Palestinian Authority.

When we got back to the house, everyone was getting ready to go-- first to Robert's house and then to Jifna for dinner. Robert lives with his wife in Uncle Assad's father's old house. In order to get there, though, we had to pass through a Palestinian refugee camp.

The house was beautiful, but I think it's strange that Robert's wife is only my age. Aunt An showed us around the gardens were there were fig trees and almond, orange and lemon tress, pomegranates and grapes, olive trees and more.

After we saw the house, we headed out to the restaurant. It is the same place where we all had our pictures taken as little girls. The food was really good--salads and dips and delicious chicken. Uncle A was smoking some giant pipe called a "hubbly bubbly" with a special Persian tobacco. It was a water pipe.

We all took a lot of pictures and had a really good time. We left around 11:00 PM and we were following Uncle A home. We had to go through a checkpoint and then some crazy detour when a truck tried to turn around at a construction site.

Finally, though, we all got home and all went to sleep.