Almost here!! (almost there!)

  Two months ago, our movers came and packed up much of our things, jigsaw-puzzle-like into a 20 foot container.  Last week, through the wonders of the way things work these days, we saw that the little red box with all our stuff had been off-loaded at Haifa.  And this morning we got the call that our lift will be delivered tomorrow.  Not to count my chickens...but it will be a very welcome delivery.  We made our move from my parents' place in Jerusalem to our apartment in Modiin this past Shabbat, and it will be nice to no longer be apartment camping.

  So tomorrow will be a big day.  Even more important than our delivery, tomorrow is the first day of school.  G and E will begin their ulpan and their first small steps at truly becoming Israeli.  From what we have seen so far, the school looks very good.  I have too much Eastern Europe still running through my veins to raise my expectations too high, but it seems like even if there are bumps along the way, the school has the resources (and more importantly, the desire) to work through any rough patches.

  I'll leave it there for now, but I can't go without a couple of first photos of the view from our mirpeset (terrace) a few minutes ago, with the sun setting over Modiin:

Between Ningbo and Ashdod

Part of our aliyah experience has been learning to be very patient.

Waiting for things to be processed (pre-aliyah paperwork); waiting for our number to be called (at the post office, the cell phone store, the gas mask distribution center at the mall, and of course at city hall to change our place of residence and register the boys for school); not to mention waiting for our shipping containing (our "lift") to arrive.

Last I checked, our lift had been off-loaded from boat #1 (Seattle to Ningbo, China) and is now on boat #2 (Ningbo to Israel).  If all goes according to schedule, we should be reunited with the rest of our belongings within the next week or so.  Don't get me wrong, I am very aware that it was not long ago that folks making aliyah watched their lift get trucked away, and maybe, just maybe would receive a phone call from the port a couple of months later to say that the lift is here, come to the port to sign this, this, this, and that form (and of course pay the associated taxes), and arrange the local movers to take it away.

So things are much better now, but it still takes patience.  So we will wait, and in the meantime set things up as best we can.  The feeling of limbo is just another form of waiting, but looking at the calendar (school starts next week!) this odd summer vacation of sorts will be coming to an end very soon.

Not that it has been drudgery....and the boys would never stand for day in day out of errands.  So we have been going here and there around Jerusalem.  Exploring and enjoying the city, past and present.  Of course it is the juxtaposition of the two which makes Jerusalem spin in the way that few cities do. And while there is so much more to say about all of that, something to leave you with is something that B-A said to the boys a few days ago after we literally crossed paths with history, and walked on a 2000 year-old street: how amazing it is to realize that the streets of Jerusalem have been bustling with similar mixes of tourists and soldiers and tradespeople and people just looking for a place to sit and eat lunch, for thousands of years.  And that we really do join that stream of history as we jump into the mix, and walk from the old city to the new.