On Monday, we traveled for some 14 hours to go from point A (Lindos) through points B (Athens) and C (Istanbul—fabulous airport and wonderful Turkish culture, made us very excited about our next month in Turkey) to point D (Tel Aviv). This crazy ticket was the result of having used frequent flier miles for most of our internal Europe and Middle East travels. Had we gone direct from point A to point B, it would have been a total of 477 miles. That’s a one hour flight. Thankfully, most of our time was spent in airports, so Jonah was able to run around, play with other kids in the terminals (including Deanna from Iran whom he had a major crush on…tried to kiss her, and another boy with whom he pretended to ride in boats, thanks to the friendly security staff who gave them bins to sit in), push luggage carts, ride on the people movers, and totally and completely exhaust Jeremy and me.And now I sit in an adorable café, Coffee Mill, on the main street called Emek Refaim in our neighborhood. The street is lined with cafés, boutiques, restaurants, a music school, and other nice shops. It’s a posh neighborhood. The prices at restaurants are outrageous. But it’s fabulous to have an American-style coffee shop in the neighborhood even if I am getting gouged at the caffeine pump. This place is straight out of New York, complete with The New Yorker magazine covers serving as the primary décor all over the walls and an American-born owner. And it’s about three storefronts down from the local bookstore, Tamir Books. Tamir is Jonah’s middle name, in honor of my cousin Toots who was like a sister to my mom. Considering that Tamir is a Hebrew name, I imagine this is the only country in which he’ll find such a store.
We’ve definitely gotten the monthly move down to a science. I was able to pack our bags in under two hours on Sunday, despite the fact that we’d spread our stuff throughout our huge house. It was much easier to remember where things were in our small Barcelona apartment, but I think I managed to recover all of our belongings. And by midday on our first full day in Jerusalem, I’d gotten our cell phones set up, found the local playgrounds, and done a supermarket run. If you could picture me now, I’m snapping my fingers left and snapping them right. Hooha!
So how did we finish off our time in Lindos? On Tuesday of last week, the weather was a bit too nippy to head down to the beach. If Jonah wasn’t the type to march right into the ocean, we probably could have been down there playing in the sand. But the outside air was a bit too cold for Jonah to be running in and out of the ocean. No worries though…Jonah has not stopped talking about the playground in Pefkos since our first visit. If it wasn’t “paygown”, it was “our car” to get us to the “paygown”. I told Jonah on Monday that we’d go back to the playground sometime during the week anyway, and I really avoid having to go back on my word since he’s too young to understand why sometimes one has to do so.
On the way to the playground, we stopped by Café Melia to pick up bread for lunch (something we did every day in Lindos) and talk with Louise for a while. Jeremy typically took Jonah first thing in the morning to go pick up our morning croissants, but since we’d gone to the grocery store and bought breakfast food we didn’t need the croissants. When I told Jonah that we were going to see Louise before heading to the playground, he said to me, “Bye, bye, mommy. Uppy, daddy,” thinking he was going to get the croissants. I explained that we were going to see Louise on the way to the car, and as I pushed him toward the café in the stroller he kept calling out, “Weez, Weez” because he was concerned we weren’t going to see her. It was quite cute. It’s clear from this and other behavior that his interactions with people we meet in our travels are quite important to him even if they’re not people he comes to know well.
At the playground on Tuesday, I drove the little motorcycle (a struggle to keep my legs from getting stuck) and Jonah drove the little car. He cracked up seeing me scoot along, asking for “mo, mo” (more, more). He also realized that he could go faster standing, straddling the car, and walking with the car under him. After about an hour at the playground, I successfully got Jonah in our car by letting him play with a little toy monkey that jumps (something I keep in my backpack to help entice him in such situations). On our drive home, I took a little detour to check out a little church in between Pefkos and Lindos that I’d noticed several times before. It required us to go down a rocky, dirt road, and as we started to bounce around a bit, from the backseat came a questioning Jonah, “Mommy?” Nothing gets past this little guy. If something isn’t quite as it should be, he starts asking questions. Turned out the gate to the church grounds was locked.After Jonah’s nap, he and I strolled through the streets of Lindos, checking out ones that I’d not gone down before just to see them. What an adorable little place Lindos is. Lovely, quaint Lindos. I definitely miss it. It’s the kind of place where I could leave Jonah parked in his stroller outside a café and run inside to buy bread or use the bathroom. Can’t beat that kind of security. The weather was crazy that evening and well into the next morning with very strong winds, so strong that we moved several things inside to keep them from blowing over. Around 11 pm, Jonah woke up and was quite concerned about the wind. I had to sit with him by his crib for a while, Jonah checking every few minutes to make sure I was still there by calling out, “Mommy?” He started asking about what was happening outside. “Happin?” he asked. I explained to him that it was the wind he was hearing outside and that it was something we just slept through. I explained that he was hearing the wind blow the trees and the shutters open and close and the umbrella over the table but that it was okay because it was just the wind. With that explanation, he said something to me that I thought was him telling me he was cold. So I asked him, “What?” He replied, “Go, mama. Mama, go.” I was stunned, so I asked, “Go?” “Go,” he said. Wow, I couldn’t believe it. He heard my explanation and was satisfied enough with it to fall asleep without me in his room. I walked into our room and sat on our bed for a while, thinking for sure he was going to call me back in to his room. But, no. To sleep he went until 7 am the next morning. What a big boy he’s becoming!!
On Wednesday I’d planned to go to the beach in Lindos, but the winds were still strong enough to make that seem not so fun. Rather than head straight to the playground, I decided Jonah and I needed a little morning adventure. So after breakfast, we headed north along the coast toward Archangelos. (Little aside here: in the morning, Jonah always calls for his oatmeal—“omeal” he calls it, points to his mouth, and says, “Eat it”. It is about the funniest and cutest thing ever.) But back to our morning adventure… There’s a church along the west side of the main road on the way to Archangelos that we’ve passed many times, and every time I’ve wanted to stop. This church is located literally a short stone’s throw from a major riverbed. The little retaining wall for the river can’t be higher than two feet, made with dirt and rocks. It turned out to be a newer church with lovely fenced grounds. When we arrived, there was a little, red car parked outside. Jonah and I went into the very little church (standard one room, white exterior walls) and found three people setting the place up with candles and performing some sort of ritual. I couldn’t exactly tell what was going on. One woman was carrying incense around and waving them in the sign of a cross inside the church and outside. Another was lighting candles. And the guy was standing there observing. I’d seen him around before. He recognized me too, but it was clear he spoke no English. In any event, the frescoes on the church walls were amazing. In contrast to the frescoes of the 15th-17th centuries, these frescoes were made up of brilliant colors, a gorgeous, bright blue as the background and intense reds, oranges, yellows, and greens making up the religious figures. I so wanted to take a picture of the frescoes, but in respect of the religious ritual taking place I kept my camera in my pocket. Dang!
Jonah and I headed back to our car, and the three of them left the church while we were getting our things settled. As we continued our drive to Archangelos, I saw the same red car pulled over on the side of the road by another little church. Later in Archangelos, I saw the three of them getting into their car just outside another little church. So here’s my theory: these three are the church openers. They go around to all of the little churches in the area and set up the candles, say some blessings, and continue on. They lock the churches when they leave, so I’m not sure if the set up is for the saints or if it’s ever for other people. I’m guessing it’s the former. I think I freaked these three church openers out because, when they saw me in Archangelos, they gave me the look of “why are you following us????”.Archangelos…what a lovely little town! We’d visited there before to get groceries and take a quick peek, but we’d not ventured into the little streets beyond the main street. How adorable it is!
The old part of the town has little, cobbled streets like Lindos, but the houses have brightly colored exterior gates and doors (mostly shades of blue) with a colored strip of paint where the walls of the houses meet the street. The town has a beautiful white spire on top of its bell tower by the main church, and Jonah kept asking for the bell to ring. We got out of the car to check out the bell tower, having to park on the main street and walk through the narrow streets. We met a little dog along the way that wanted to give Jonah kisses. Jonah didn’t mind being licked and kept asking for the dog after it ran off.
From the main part of town, we got back in the car and headed to the castle at the top of the town. You’d think it’d be an easy thing to do, as the castle towers over Archangelos. But it was a major undertaking (and interesting journey, actually) to find the different roads that led us to the top. As you drive higher up the hill toward the castle, the houses get bigger and bigger. Some were of the “wow” size—quite a contrast from the houses in the old part of the town, which are quite small and actually much more charming. We eventually made it, and I carried Jonah up the stairs to the top. There was a lovely view of Archangelos below and the gray, rain clouds off in the distance. Again with the bell at the castle, Jonah wanted me to ring it. I had to explain that we couldn’t because ringing it would likely indicate that something was going on, which there wasn’t. I don’t think he cared for this particular explanation. After a great morning detour, we headed back toward Lindos and on toward Pefkos, where we spent about 45 minutes at the playground before heading home to meet Jeremy for lunch. At the playground we heard some construction work going on down the road, and at one point, Jonah turned to me and said, “Construction work.” We returned to the playground after Jonah’s nap with daddy in tow. Jonah got a kick out of Jeremy and me playing on the seesaw together and Jeremy giving me a piggyback ride. He gave us these sheepish smiles and kept asking for “mo, mo”.In addition to amazing us at every turn with some of the words that come out of his mouth, Jonah also does a great job of understanding his options. Rather than tell him he can’t do something, we try to tell him he has two (or more, depending, but usually just two at this point) options. So, for example, on Wednesday morning, Jonah was playing with Jeremy’s house key. Jeremy didn’t want Jonah running off and sticking it in some place where we’d never find it again. So Jeremy told Jonah that he could either play with the key up on the raised platform in the sala (where Jeremy could see what Jonah was doing and might put the key) or Jonah could get down and give Jeremy the key. After Jeremy had explained the options to Jonah, each time Jonah went to the stairs to go down from the platform, Jeremy would say, “Okay, please give me the key.” Twice Jonah ran back and continued playing on the platform. The third time, Jonah went to the top of the stairs and immediately handed over the key, at which time Jeremy helped him down. So incredible. How amazing would it be if it was always this easy??
And then came Thanksgiving… We wouldn’t have remembered it was a holiday (since there’s nothing abroad to remind us), except that we knew our families were celebrating. Jonah didn’t sleep great the night before, I think because of bad dreams. At one point, he woke up and shouted out, “Mommy, mommy!” and promptly fell back to sleep. At 5:45 am, he woke up crying for me, and after holding him and rubbing his back, he was able to go back to sleep for an hour. In the morning, Jonah went through his repertoire of songs for us. He started with one we didn’t know he knew (although he’s seen the video on Jeremy’s computer and we sing it to him every once in a while). It’s a Bob the Builder song. It goes like this: Bob the Builder, can he do it? Bob the Builder, yes he can! (Quick side note to say that I’ve been wondering lately whether the creator of Obama’s “Yes we can” copied Bob the Builder’s song.) So on Thursday morning, Jonah sang, “Bob Builder, yes ee ca!” Jeremy and I looked at each other and cracked up. It was adorable. Then, as I was getting ready, he sang his own version of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Too, too cute.
Jonah and I spent Thanksgiving morning at the beach. How’s that for Lindos!!??? The beach in 70 degree weather on Thanksgiving. Hard to beat. Before heading to the water, we swung by Café Melia to say hello to Louise. Jonah snacked on a roll in his stroller, while Louise and I chatted. And the café cat started rubbing up against Jonah’s legs, which thrilled him to pieces. Really, the cat wanted Jonah’s bread and started to climb up the stroller, so I gave the cat his own chunk to enjoy. At the beach, I noticed the ocean tide was much farther in than I'd seen before, making the stretch of beach much smaller. The water was also colder from the last time we were at the main Lindos beach. Jonah stuck his foot in and said, “Cold!” That only stopped him temporarily from going in; after about 15 minutes of playing in the sand, in he went.We enjoyed a Thanksgiving lunch at Mary’s house around the corner from ours. Mary is a friend of Ann and Guy’s with whom we had lunch in Laerma over the weekend. She has an absolutely stunning Captain’s House. It’s similar to ours with the sala and open courtyard layout, representative of the Captain’s House style. It’s bigger though and, in particular, her kitchen is absolutely lovely with bright blue walls (only three because it’s open to the courtyard) with a long table in it and racks with ceramic dishes hanging from the walls. Her friend Sheila (originally from the states) and Sheila’s daughter Anita joined us as well. It was quite an interesting lunch. We talked politics (Sheila and Anita are lucky enough to be heading to the states for the inauguration in January). I heard about Mary’s very interesting life. And I learned a ton about Greek culture and Lindos goings-on. (Jeremy took Jonah home early for his nap, and I stayed on for another hour and a half.)
Among the interesting things I learned about Greek culture and Rhodes were the following. The house being built up the street from ours is for an 18-year old young woman—actually being built by her father. That’s the tradition in Greece. Families build homes for their daughters for when they marry to live in with their husbands, and the women then own the homes exclusively in their name. Apparently this is still the norm. So, my mom, Jen, and Lee will be thrilled to know that the sound of the drilling outside our house (which Jeremy and I were fairly oblivious to, given our previous noisy location in Barcelona) that drove Lee particularly bonkers is for a woman who may not even get married and who may not even want the house once built anyway. I heard of such stories at lunch. I also learned that there was a drug bust in Lindos the week before last. Small potatoes though in terms of what they recovered. I asked and heard about life in Lindos under the military dictatorship of the late 60s/early 70s. When I asked about the roadside memorials all over the island, they told me that more young people die in Archangelos than old people due to motorcycle deaths. No one around the island wears a helmet despite the fact that it’s the law to do so. (Side note here: I forgot to mention that on one of the days at the playground with Jonah, I saw a man, woman, and dog drive by on a motorcycle. I’m talking a BIG dog, not a little dog. The dog was draped over the lap of the woman as the man drove, none with helmets.) I learned more about the Irish guys who lived in the cave during the summer of 2006. One of them was apparently on the run from the law for something that was going to keep him from ever going back to Ireland. He fled town quickly after some Dutch authorities found him. Unfortunately, neither Sheila nor Anita (who gave me these details) could remember the reason for his fugitive status. Mary talked about the two movies she helped produce in Lindos in the 1980s—“High Season” and “Pascali’s Island”. We’ll have to rent those when we get home (as in home, home) so we can see Lindos back then.
On Friday, Jeremy took the day off so we could visit the Jewish museum and synagogue in Rhodes town. I’d emailed the administrator of the Jewish Community of Rhodes to find out whether there was a way we might be able to visit despite the fact that they were both closed for the winter. (Apparently, there aren’t enough people for a minyan during the off-season. Since it’s an Orthodox synagogue as most are outside the U.S., only men are counted.) The administrator, Carmen, had just returned from a three-week trip to the states and was happy to show us in. Before we met Carmen at her office, we first made a brief stop at Mandraki Harbor to see the ferry boats, huge yachts, and fishing boats. We drove out on the causeway separating it from Emborio Harbor, which was the Crusader’s military harbor, to see the three remaining Medieval windmills (there had been 13 milling grain at one time). We also made a quick stop at 14th century St. Nikolas Fort at the end of the causeway.
From the harbor, we headed to Carmen’s office and then over to the Jewish Quarter. Yet another wonderful Jewish museum—this one located in former prayer rooms for women at the synagogue. You can even see the old mikvah. Dating back to 1577, Kahal Kadosh Shalom (Holy Congregation of Peace) is the oldest Jewish synagogue in Greece and the sole remaining one on the island of Rhodes used for services. It's quite beautiful. The interior follows the traditional Sephardic style of having the bimah in the center of the sanctuary facing Jerusalem. At one time there were four synagogues and additional prayer halls in the Jewish Quarter of Rhodes town.We learned a great deal about the Jews in Rhodes from the detailed descriptions in the museum and Carmen as well. I’d previously posted that Jews came to Greece to escape persecution elsewhere. I asked Carmen whether that meant the Jews had a good relationship with Greeks. She said in fact the Jews traditionally have been associated with outsiders who have treated the Greeks poorly. When the Ottomans were in power, Jews made up half of the population in old Rhodes town, the Turks making up the other half, while Greeks were forced to live outside the walls of the city. When the Italians ruled Rhodes, the Jews were in favor and the Greeks were on the outs. So, it seems that there isn’t some sort of bond between the Greeks and Jews after all.
We also learned more about the Jewish community after the Holocaust. After World War II, the Jews didn’t return to Rhodes. Only 150 Jews from Rhodes survived the concentration camps, so there weren’t many to return anyway. In 1957, twenty Jewish families moved to Rhodes (new families, not survivors). Twenty was the number needed for the Jews officially to be designated as a “community” with the legal rights that go along with such a designation. With this status, the Jewish community began to reclaim many buildings that had been owned by the community prior to the war. They recovered about 15 buildings, which they still own and rent out to help support the synagogue, staff, and other expenses of the community. (The Jewish community lost the designation in the 1970s. Now there are roughly 4o to 50 Jews living in Rhodes—not the requisite 20 families. I’m not sure what the implications are of the lost designation, but the community still owns the 15 buildings.) The building we stumbled upon when my mom, Jen, and Lee were here is now the centerpiece of a legal case between the Jewish community and Greek government. In 1957, this was one of the buildings that the community recovered, but within the last ten years or so it was uninhabited and fell into disrepair. About five years ago, the Jewish community asked the government for permission to rehabilitate the building (because of the building’s age permission was needed). The Greek government claimed that the building was not in fact theirs. The Jewish community is now fighting for the rights to their building.
From the synagogue, we bid Carmen adieu and walked through the heart of the well-preserved Turkish Quarter of the old town. The narrow, cobbled walkways are amazing. It was like a snapshot back in time. There are many streets with arches attaching old buildings. Apparently, these aren’t for aesthetics but to help avoid damage from earthquakes. When you look at them, it seems incomprehensible that they’d actually work for that purpose, but here we are hundreds of years later with many arches still in tact (although who knows how many there once were). We also saw a couple of huge mosques in complete disrepair, consistent with the changing demographics in Rhodes after the demise of the Ottoman Empire.We enjoyed a lovely lunch in Falaraki, having failed to find a parking place in new Rhodes town. But the wait was worth it. We had the most amazing desserts! I felt quite deprived of dessert in Lindos. What, with no ice cream to be found (and that to be found with disgusting freezer burn…no, thanks) and no bakery around making cakes and such, seeing delicious apple strudel and chocolate cake was more than welcomed. Yum! Jeremy had a call in the afternoon, so Jonah and I took a little drive (during which Jonah snoozed) and then headed to the beloved Pefkos playground. We enjoyed a delicious traditional Greek meal at a local restaurant in Lindos called Maria’s. I had amazing moussaka—simply out of this world.
On Saturday, Jeremy worked so Jonah and I, yes, returned to the Pefkos playground. Now I understand why all he says is “paygown, paygown”—literally, every other word when we’re in the stroller outside is “paygown”. We enjoyed another delicious lunch at Skala by the small Lindos beach with Peter who watches over Guy and Ann’s house and had to come to the house on multiple occasions to change light bulbs for us. I’m embarrassed to admit this since I fancy myself a handy person, but Greece has some funky light bulbs and apparently new bulbs from the store often don’t work.
During Jonah’s nap, I embarked on the final advenutre on my list of things I wanted to do while on Rhodes—the hike to the Hellenistic Tomb of Kleoboulos in Lindos. Built in 1st century B.C.E., several centuries after the death of Kleoboulos, it was later converted into the church of St. Emilian. There’s nothing really to suggest that it’s used at all now except a broom and bottle of water. The hike takes you by the ruins of a windmill, which was so cool. It still had the mechanical components, which you could see by climbing up the sketchy stairs inside. The best thing about the hike is the amazing views of Lindos and the coast you can see along the way. Simply breathtaking, especially with the cloudy sky as the backdrop.Jonah started jumping for the first time that day (well, trying really…couldn’t quite get the concept of getting air). It looked sort of like his dancing, which is about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in the world. I’ll have to post a video clip of that at some point. He sticks his butt out and bounces up and down. Unfortunately for Jeremy who was trying to work, Jonah only took a short nap as he had the day before. I think he knew something was going on again, an impending move or something out of the ordinary. So after I returned from my hike, we took a drive around the area just north of Lindos to check out the old national highway, which led us toward a monastery at the top of a hill (closed but lovely winding drive), past the dry riverbed (I later learned the reason why it’s bone dry—because of the dam that was built within the last few years), and then back toward the main road where we found a sign to Masari, a town I had wanted to visit because of the bell tower I saw in the distance on numerous passings. Masari has a lovely bell tower, church, and courtyard area. As we drove through the village, the bell rang and Jonah shouted out, “Mo, mo!” We stopped because we saw the church door open, and it appeared that every woman from Masari over the age of 60 was heading toward the church in all black (perhaps for a funeral?). We peeked inside and found the same story: beautiful, 15th century church, old frescoes. We finished our driving adventure with a detour down the road to Charaki until we saw a big church on a hill and decided to follow the dirt road to it. Turned out to be new and not so interesting. We started for home and stopped at a rundown playground on the outskirts of Kalathos before calling it an adventure. The playground had a working merry-go-round, huge slide, and bouncing horse, but Jonah called for the “other paygown” anyway.
On Sunday, Jeremy worked in the morning, so we, of course, went to the Pefkos playground. It was definitely time to leave Rhodes. I packed during Jonah’s nap, which didn’t last very long, and headed over to have one last latte at Café Melia with Louise. Jonah and Jeremy met me there, and we all headed to a beach in Lardos, where we found another rundown little playground, before heading back to Jonah’s Pefkos wonderland. We stopped by Mary’s house on our way home to drop off a plate we’d borrowed, and she decided to join us for dinner at Il Palazetto that night. We had a lovely dinner out (including the chocolate molten cake…yum!). We did some final packing in the evening and put our heads on our pillows relatively early though slept restlessly given our impending 4:30 am alarm wake-up. Really, waking up any time before 5 am is just miserable.
For as many hours as we were in transit on Monday, it was fairly stress-free. We managed to get seats for Jonah on the planes from Athens and Istanbul, so Jonah was able to take a short nap on one flight and have a place to look at the airline magazine and hang out in another. I don’t know how Jeremy managed. I had two double-espresso-shot lattes and was still exhausted. Jeremy doesn’t drink coffee. At the Istanbul airport restaurant, Jonah chowed down on meat cakes and pancakes. We’d also asked the manager of the restaurant (who kept coming over to make sure we were okay) if they had yogurt and honey. He said they didn’t but that he’d get some. Within three minutes, he brought over a huge bowl of plain yogurt with honey drizzled on it. Amazing. I hope all of Turkey provides such customer service.
After arriving at the Tel Aviv airport and spending a bit of time with Su and Ofra (who brought us some groceries and baked us a cake!), we jumped in a taxi to get to Jerusalem. Jonah now constantly calls out for taxis and points them out. They’re all Mercedes and BMWs here, so it’ll be interesting to see what he says when he sees such cars back home (usually associated with people who have money, of course). We arrived at our apartment around 9:00 pm or so. Jonah had fallen asleep in the car but was thrilled to run around our place for a little while before crashing. Our apartment is just perfect. The location is unbelievable—one short block away from the main drag in a neighborhood called German Colony, one of the yuppie areas not too far from the Old City of Jerusalem. The apartment is quite large with two bedrooms, a big living/dining room, good-sized kitchen, and balcony, which we use to dry our clothes. We still haven’t received that clothes dryer gift package yet…
On Tuesday, Jonah and I headed out to find SIM cards for our cell phones, locate the local playgrounds (one of which we’d seen the night before from the taxi), orient ourselves a bit, and grab some groceries. Mission accomplished, although it was a bit more of a scavenger hunt for the SIM card than I thought it would be. We also went to a nice little café called Masaryk for coffee, milk, and the most delicious croissant. They had a little booster seat that straps to a chair. I think we’ve returned to the land of high chairs. Hallelujah!! We found a rundown little playground quite close to our apartment, which the woman at the bookstore told me about. There, we witnessed a woman going up to a guy in the park asking for a Shekel (the Israeli currency). She wasn’t at all nice about it. Went up and asked him for a Shekel as though he owed her the money. He obliged, and I was just amazed. For those who don’t know, Israelis are stereotypically “known” for being rude, some might say “direct”. We met several of those folks while out and about on our first day, but we also ran into several people who were smitten with Jonah, quite friendly, and helpful (like the guy at the supermarket who asked me if I needed help as I was trying to make sense of the different bags of chips). Israelis are also known for their love of ice cream, thank goodness! There is an ice cream shop just around the corner from our apartment, and the supermarket is filled with individual bars and a huge section of ice cream cartons. We have indeed arrived in the promised land!! After eating the freezer-burned ice cream in Greece, I was quite happy to enjoy a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream from a kosher ice cream store last night.Su arrived at our place yesterday afternoon just as Jonah was waking up from his nap. Jeremy had some work to do, so the three of us headed to the Mecca of playgrounds. The place was packed!! From the empty playground of Pefkos to the chaos of the German Colony playground, Jonah needed to take it in for a few minutes before heading off. It was quite interesting. He just sat in his stroller and looked around when we came upon the playground. Normally he’s chomping at the bit (FYI—it’s actually “champing at the bit” I recently learned but that sounds weird) to get out of his seat while yelling “paygown”, but he was more contemplative. He eventually jumped out and took advantage of every tunnel and slide on the enormous play structure. He tried to take a little kid’s car (of the type the Pefkos playground had—the scoot, scoot car) and eventually got to ride on it when the other boy was busy doing something else (despite his father’s weirdness about it…I ignored that). Su and I got to spend some lovely time together catching up a bit. I’m very excited about having the time to reconnect with her and to finally get to know Ofra. And I’m very excited about seeing my nephew Micha (who’s living in Tel Aviv) at some point soon too. He was a young kid when I saw him last, and now he’s 29!! As the sun set and it grew darker, the kids began to disperse. Jonah played ball with a couple of other kids, mostly running around trying to get the ball as an older boy kept kicking and running with it. We also checked out a local construction site, which allowed him to show off his ability to say “construction work” to Su. Quite impressive indeed. Su jumped on a bus home, and I hurried home to meet Jeremy for dinner. That night we enjoyed an ice cream and a stroll along Emek Refaim.
Today Jonah decided to wake up at 5 am. He’s still getting used to his room and new environment. Jeremy heard him say “other home” this morning, which just breaks my heart. I know he’ll be fine, I know he’ll be fine. I just wish there was a way I could explain to him what was going on. I’m afraid this concept is too big for him to understand at this point. I tried to soothe Jonah for an hour, but then he was basically up for the day at 6 am. Jeremy let me sleep a bit longer and then we were off to explore more of our neighborhood. Our first stop was our little café, Masaryk, where we’d gone yesterday. We chatted with Mikal (Michelle in English) who I’m hoping will become Jonah’s new Louise to help him get over Lindos and all he left behind. She is a lovely recent high school graduate who is waitressing until she begins her two years in the Israeli army in April. She was very excited when we chatted today because she just found out yesterday that she got the army job she interviewed for helping high school drop-outs who were on the verge of finishing their mandatory two-year service complete their schooling.
From the café we went to the hair salon I saw last night during our evening stroll. Jonah was in desperate need of a haircut, as his hair was getting super shaggy. His last cut was in the third week of September. The friendly guy at the salon took us right in and did a superb job cutting Jonah’s hair. The salon had a little chair just for kids—very cool. It looked like a high chair with a little electronic toy attached to the front for kids to play. Jonah was amazingly calm, despite the fact that he was really eager to get to a playground. His hair is super short again (still a little long on top). I just didn’t feel like having to find a place in Turkey to get his hair cut (and then having to pay for it!).From the salon we walked further down Emek Refaim to check out the area. My map showed some garden that I thought might have a playground—no go. I found instead a little bike shop so went in to find out if they had a little scoot-scoot car thing for Jonah. No go on that either. Instead I found a young guy who spoke no English. I was able to visually explain what I wanted. When he told me he didn’t have one, I managed to dig out a couple of words from my high school Hebrew lessons to learn where I might find one. It turns out that not everyone actually speaks English here after all. How jingoistic of me to think they did! I just don’t remember it ever being a problem when I was here back in 1992, but I guess I was only in the tourist areas then. Although I took four years of Hebrew in high school, I barely remember a thing. Slowly, words are coming back to me. Today I managed to get by sufficiently so.
We continued toward the direction away from the Old City and came upon a big shopping mall (big for non-U.S. standards, I think). I found a kids store and Jonah’s now quite beloved scoot-scoot fire truck. We hung out in the mall for a little bit for Jonah to get in and out of the coin-operated little cars, which he still doesn’t know actually move if you put in money. Then back home for lunch and a nap. It was nearly impossible to get him to the table for lunch because he just wanted to drive his car all around the house and even more difficult to get him into his room for a nap, of course. He really is cute on the car though. He talks about parking the car and backing it up. In Lindos, where he first started walking backwards as a joke, he would say “backing up” as he did so. Speaking of jokes, Jonah constantly cracks himself up. He does things for his own benefit, which I find so amusing. I crack myself up all the time (really at totally stupid things), so I guess it runs in the family.
So now it’s evening… Jonah took a decent nap today. He didn’t want to leave the house though to go anywhere once he got on his little fire truck. Even telling him we were going to the playground didn’t get him to budge. Eventually he came along, but, geez, short of taking this car with us everywhere we go, it’s going to be a struggle to get out of the house every day. We enjoyed an hour or so at the big playground just down the road, where we met a nice woman (Hava) and her adorable two kids (Adam and can’t remember the little girl’s name—had too many syllables for me). Jeremy met us at the playground. After a little more playing, we headed to the supermarket for a bigger groceries run. A quiet dinner at home, Jonah’s bath (which we’re back to doing at night—a nice way to settle him down and get him warm before bed), and off to slumber for him.Tomorrow I might venture into the Old City by bus—depends on how well Jonah sleeps and, therefore, how tired I am in the morning. We’re having lunch with one of Jeremy’s graduate students who’s living here for the year, and Su and Ofra are coming to our place for dinner. Should be a great day. Jeremy’s parents are arriving tomorrow night, and assuming they’ll be exhausted when they get in, we’ll see them Friday morning. We’re very excited about their visit! We’ve been talking up their arrival to Jonah too, so he’s asking for them every day. I’m hoping their arrival helps Jonah move past his desire to return to Lindos, which he again asked for as I was putting him down to bed tonight (“other home”). Oy, I really hopes he stops with that soon or else I might board a dang plane back to Greece!
Picture descriptions: Jonah enjoying the car luggage carrier at the Athens airport; at the Pefkos playground, Jonah smiles on request; Archangelos church bell tower; view of Archangelos from castle; Jonah smiling on the steps leading to the castle entrance; Jonah requesting more church bell; enjoying Thanksgiving at the Lindos main beach; 14th-century St. Nikolas Fort in Rhodes town; 16th-century Kahal Kadosh Shalom Synagogue in old Rhodes town; Turkish Quarter of old Rhodes town; view of Lindos from hike to the Tomb of Kleoboulos; Jonah and his friend pretend they're in boats in the Istanbul airport; Emek Refaim in our Jerusalem neighborhood, German Colony; Jonah enjoys the bouncing dog at a little playground off Emek Refaim toward Bak'a; Jonah's salon session; Jonah enjoying his new fire truck in the living room of our Jerusalem apartment; at the mall, Jonah sits next to his dog pal in a little coin-operated car.
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