Andrea's Travel Blog

HaMishbucha Sheli!

Yesterday I hopped on a bus to Tel Aviv and finally met up with my distant third cousins from Israel whom I've never met! My bus was a little early so when I received a phone call from my Israeli cousin Daphne, I was surprised not only to find that I had gotten myself lost, but that her voice revealed no hint of an accent! With her sister Noa in tow, the three of us finally navigated our way through the bus station to each other then to the car waiting outside.

Cousin Jeffrey and his wife Rachel were waiting to take us out to dinner at Israel's first Chinese restaurant called the Red Chinese Restaurant. Dinner was surprisingly delicious, almost as surprising as seeing our Chinese waitress speak fluent Hebrew! The Macy's were also surprised at my ability to name foods in Hebrew! The conversation flowed effortlessly as the entire mishbucha is fluent in English (they spent two separate occasions living in America for a year).

After dinner we attempted to take a walk to the port across from the restaurant where the Mediterranean sea meets Tel Aviv. Unfortunately the rain and wind caused the sea to create giant waves (something the Israeli Macy's had never seen), so we watched for a bit before the rain started to pour!

Driving home with my new found family was delightful as they acted as part tour guides part interviewers. I answered their questions about our extended family, my immediate family, my home life and school life etc...while they were more than happy to share information about themselves and the country I've begun to call home-Israel.



Once we got to their beautiful Mediterranean style home, Jeff showed me the family e-tree. Apparently my birthday was missing. As I filled in information about myself, corrected the spelling of "Robin's" name and edited Josh's birthday, I began to actually understand how I was related to the Israeli Macy's. I can't really explain it, but if you click this sentence you can see our family tree! (I think, if it doesn't work just ask me how we're related).




Because of the time change (Israel began "summer-time" yesterday) I was a bit pooped (I had work that morning at 6 AM, i.e 5 AM )so when Daphne put a movie on, I fell asleep...




The next morning (this morning) we took a tour of the garden where there are pomegranates, kumquats, olives,almonds,apples,lemons,nectarines and a variety of plants...their yard is so beautiful and alas, they use no pesticides!



I'm in the middle of doing 100 things, so I will update this blog with WAAAYYY more details tonite...in the meantime sarah enjoy the pictures! Just click the little picture at the top!