We’ve moved

Sorry, but we found out that all our friends are on blogspot instead of wordpress, so we’re moving over there. Our new blog is joshandmirah.blogspot.com.

Jerusalem

Sorry for the lack of updates for a while. It appears that the Venetians, while some of the wealthiest people in the world, have yet to understand the concept of wireless internet. They jet around in their billion-dollar yachts, and yet there is not a wireless hotspot in all of Venice. Grrr. 

Anyway, I’ll put up some pictures from Venice later. It’s somewhat frustrating to upload to both here and facebook with stolen intermittent wireless from the old orthodox people next door. We’re going to get our own ethernet and then use the wireless router we already have, but we haven’t gotten around to it yet. 

We arrived on Sunday and moved into our apartment immediately. Our landlady is this adorable old French woman, very much like my host mom in Strasbourg. We arrived early in the morning (like 6:00) and we didn’t want to wake her, so we hung around the little convenience store in the building for an hour. Meanwhile, the guy who runs the store gave us coffee and little cakes while we were waiting. Then we went up to Mme Cohen’s apartment, where she promptly scolded us for not coming up sooner and made us breakfast. We were speaking to her only in French, which considering we hadn’t slept in 36 hours was pretty damn good. We were both relieved that our French was still good enough to converse like that. 

Then Mme Cohen took us up to our apartment, and it’s gorgeous! Everything’s very modern, with marble countertops in the kitchen and pretty tile in all the rooms. The only drawback is that the kitchen is kosher, and the milk side is much smaller than the meat side. Apparently, vegetarianism isn’t too big in Israel. But we went out and bought some more pots and pans for the milk side, so we should be fine on the cooking front. The other thing about the apartment that wasn’t great is that the previous tenants had a cat, so everything was coated in a fine layer of cat hair. I mean, even the coffee table had little kitty footprints on it. Since I’m allergic to cats, that equals not breathing for me. So we spent the whole first morning moving furniture around and cleaning the place. But as we’re slowly washing everything in here, my allergies are getting better and better. 

The other problem we’ve been having is also animal-related: mosquitoes. We left our windows open at night to keep cool, and now I have about forty bug bites all over my body. I actually look like I have chicken pox. (I wonder if I should offer to play with people’s kids for a hundred shekels an hour. Now there’s an interesting plan…) Anyway, we got one of those things that you plug into the wall and it emits some sort of bug repellent, so we should be better for the future. But ick! 

Anyway, we love our apartment. It’s big and light and pretty, and it’s ours. It’s just so exciting to finally have our own home. After four years of dorms, it’s really nice to be able to live in an actual apartment. And after living in separate dorm rooms, it’s wonderful to be living together. And it turns out that we really do live together well. We split up the housework so incredibly naturally, I wouldn’t have believed it. And we’ve been having so much fun cooking together. So far we’ve done: pasta with Josh’s homemade sauce, goat cheese omelettes, and French toast. The breakfast-for-dinner thing was Josh’s idea, and I think it’s really great. Breakfast food is some of my favorite, but we never have time to actually make it in the morning. Speaking of breakfast, though, we’ve been sitting down to eat breakfast every day, which I think is really important and awesome. 

We’re also slowly figuring out other things about the city, like where to go grocery shopping. We went to the shouk today with another HUC student to get fruit and vegetables and stuff. It’s a lot like the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, only smaller, and they sell food instead of carpets and stuff. But the produce is so much fresher there than at the supermarket, and it’s an adventure to shop there. The only drawback is that it’s a fifteen or twenty minute walk, which can get old after a while. But right now we’re not busy, and it’s so much fun it doesn’t matter. 

After we went to the shouk, we invited Josh (Josh Knoble, the other student we went with) over for lunch. It was the first time we’ve entertained in our new home, so that was a lot of fun. Also, Josh K is a really interesting person. He’s becoming a rabbi after going to West Point and serving seven years in the army. So we were listening to him talk about his time in Iraq and Afghanistan, which was fascinating. He’s obviously really smart, and he’s got a unique outlook on a lot of things. I’m sure we’ll hang out with him more over this year. 

Anyway, time to go… ha! There’s nothing I have to do! It’s a cool feeling, for right now anyway. Pretty soon I’m going to start getting antsy, but then I’ll just write and take photos and enroll in cool classes. But right now, it feels great to just be able to chill and enjoy being a newlywed in our new home. 

Kisses, 

Mirah

Dublin, part 2

Saturday was another awesome day in Dublin – a good finale to this leg of the vacation, prior to setting off for Venice. Aside from clubbing, which was going to be a must, we didn’t have anything fixed and just set out wandering around the city. A few blocks into our stroll, we decided it would be nice to do a tour of the cathedrals, both Christ Church and St. Patrick’s. So off we went, thankful it wasn’t too windy and only drizzling lightly.

We finally made it to Christ Church Cathedral (the closer of the two and just 5 minutes walk from St. Patrick’s), bought tickets to go inside, and ventured in. It was very nice – no St. Peters – but very nice, with lovely glazed tile floors. As cathedrals go it was rather petit, but nonetheless very much worth the trip. But as we wended our way along the first long side (like all cathedrals, it’s shaped like a cross), we heard yelling, clapping, and the steady thump of a base drum. The noise got louder and louder, making us wonder what might be upon us. Giving each other the “oh, what the hell” look, we booked it for the doors to go and see what all the commotion was. And what a sight indeed!

As it turned out, we had stumbled upon Dublin’s Gay Pride Parade, ironically from inside a Cathedral. There was float after float of people, from sports teams to drag queens, couples getting married (or civil unions?) later that day. Even Google and a number of other companies sponsored floats. While standing and watching float after float pass, we turned to see two priests standing by the gates of Christ Church with one of their parishioners. “There’s trouble to be had,” we thought, wondering how the priests were going to handle the situation. But instead of frowning upon the event – much less heckling the parade’s participants, they stood smiling as the masses of floats and people passed. Some of the people walking (or dancing) in the parade even approached and handed them rainbow bookmarks and other multicolored items. The priests accepted the tokens with a great deal of gratitude apparent. And the next thing we knew, they were waving to those who passed – stopping short of cheering or clapping, we should add.

Mirah and I grinned at each other, thinking, “If this is possible…” and then “Can they get fired for this?” It was not our place to judge, but like the priests’, certainly ours to smile and wave. Ireland, or at least Dublin, was quite a progressive place and a really neat spot to spend a few days. 

Josh looking contemplative in our “newlywed” shirts:

All dressed up for clubbing! Also, Mirah’s new haircut.

And yes Guinness as usual

Catch you later from Venice!

Josh

Honeymoon, day 4

To make a long story short, we’ve decided to start a blog. Many reasons: leaving Amherst, our first year of marriage, being abroad. In general, it’s time to join the blogosphere. So we’re going to update as often as we can, and I think it’s pretty awesome of us to start on our honeymoon. (wink wink) 

We’re in Dublin now, which is the first leg of our honeymoon. After this we’re going to Venice; think of it as the drinking/eating honeymoon. The plan is to arrive in Jerusalem, in Josh’s words, “fat dumb and happy.” So far, so good. Josh’s family put us on first class on the plane over here, so we actually did touch down in Dublin a bit tipsy. Did you know they serve you champagne before you even lift off? And there’s a four-course meal complete with helpful flight attendants with trays of canape’s? We just kept looking at each other and bursting into incredulous laughter. Like, seriously, people live like this? We never would have bought first class tickets ourselves, but it was really fun. So thank you Tom and Marty and Benj. 

When we arrived, we checked into our hotel, the Westin Dublin. The deal was that since we had our wedding at the Westin in DC, we accumulated the Westin equivalent of frequent flyer miles. So we were supposed to be able to stay there for free for our honeymoon. Of course, it turns out we had many fewer points than we had thought, and we ended up having to move to another hotel after three nights. Though we’re in another five-star hotel now, thanks to last-minute travelocity deals. 

We’ve done a lot of exploring Dublin on foot, but we haven’t been doing the usual high-paced vacation thing. Since it’s our honeymoon, we’ve been taking it easy. Like, really easy. Last night we curled up in our room, took a bubble bath, and read until it was time to go to sleep. Then we slept until 2:00. We must have been sooo tired! I don’t think Josh has slept that much in his entire life. Then today we walked all over the city. We must have walked 10 miles today, which would explain my sore feet and happiness. Also, I got my hair cut yesterday. I was waiting to cut my hair really short until after the wedding, so I really wanted to get it cut on our honeymoon. It’s REALLY short now! Well, not really short, but short in comparison with the way it was before. Also, to my annoyance, the lady who was cutting my hair kind of misunderstood what I was asking and gave me these funky bang-like things. I was really freaking out about it for a while, but I guess I’m ok with it now. My new haircut makes me look much older, which takes some getting used to, but ought to be a good thing for my job, so people take me more seriously. I don’t want to be in the West Bank and have people now talk to me because they think of me as a child. But the stupid bang things keep getting in my eyes. Argh. 

Well, I have to go relax now. I’ll just add a few wedding pictures to tantalize you. These are from our wonderful friends who put their pics up on facebook, so don’t go thinking I get any credit for these. 

Love and kisses, 

Mirah