Love Persian food

By Dr. Yasmine Kalkstein
Visited Lida, my cousin and saw my other cousins who used to live in the U.S., and ate delicious persian food.  YUM!!! They live in Petach Tikvah.
Earlier today, matan had his first "hour" in "gan".  It's bilingual gan (with english) so it's not hard for him that way, but he's only been to one other school and not for very long.  He did pretty well, but tomorrow--day 2, will be for 3 hours, so I'm a little nervous...or a lot.  yes, a lot.
Modiin is starting to become more comfortable to me.  We found a Judaica shop and I suddenly realized all the things I "need".  We also ate our first felafel from a felafel place (on day 1, shir delivered us felafels but that wasn't quite the same as going and filling it up yourself).  It was delicious.  We also did our first grocery store trip.  It's remarkable how clueless I feel despite some Hebrew speaking and living here.  in the US, I'd spend minutes considering which bread to buy.  here i just make sure it doesn't have flax and sure, whatever, it will be fine!  We have a remarkable amount of chocolate product in our fridge--shoko (chocolate milk which my kids are addicted to), chocolate croissants, chocolate pudding (2 different kinds)...we think israelis have a sweet tooth, or maybe it's just us :)
but in any case, matan is very happy with israeli food--he loves cucumbers, watermelon, chummus, bread, cheese, and shoko.  especially shoko.  :)
I really do think it takes about a week to even feel like you can begin to handle life here (or at least for me).   Doing this all by yourself means more culture-shock, and struggles trying to figure life out here!  My plan is doing sabbatical in Israel in 2016, and so i feel this trip is truly a learning experience to prepare for that!
On sunday, Rhona leaves, and I'm by myself.  I'm scared.  But also eager to finally get the kids into a routine (sounds so boring, but honestly routine is so good for kids).  On friday, we see Adam and we are very excited for that and I get a night in a hotel.  Ah....hotel.....i love hotels.  especially with swimming pools!!

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