We took advantage of the day of rest to SLEEP in this morning. Marci and the girls headed to the pool (incredible; overlooking the walls of the Old City) while I was treated to a massage in the hotel spa...sort of.
Turns out, there are 2, count them one-two spas, in the same hotel. The special card offering a free 30 min. massage with any 1 hr. massage purchase was given to Marci, even though she was not aware that her reservation (er my reservation) was for the OTHER spa, in another part of the hotel. So... I spent 20 minutes shuttling back and forth, LEARNING that there were two spas, being told by each that my reservation was at the other, before I met Olga (name changed to protect the innocent). I was not in the best of moods at the beginning....and only matured to understand what a "cultural experience" this was. Let's just say that, midway through the experience (otherwise labeled "massage"), I had thoughts of the Kremlin, the Cold War, and what it must have been like to have been a high level Communist. It's just that when she pulled each arm, back, around, and pressed UP, I didn't really see (or feel) the MASSAGE part of that. Then, the instruction "BREATH OUT" (hard to understand until she repeated it for a third time), and a rather forceful blow to the lower spine (followed by similar blows to mid and upper spine). Back at home, great care is taken to preserve modesty. Enough said!
After the beating, massage, I headed up to the pool committed to get Marci a massage at the OTHER spa and plead with her to give ME the free 30 minute treatment. After some humorous descriptions of my experience, she thought it was a GREAT idea.
I spent hours with the girls at poolside. Marci had to leave for a Wexner text study. The girls and I continued studying water patterns in close proximity to the Temple Mount. They were selling watermelon poolside. What I didn't know is that they give you a 1/4 of a huge watermelon. The girls CONSUMED it in minutes. Time for lunch (at 3 pm!)
We went to the Yimka, better known as the YMCA, for lunch. It's a short walk up the hill from the hotel and they're open on shabbat (not many restaurants in Jerusalem are; except of course ALMOST every sushi restaurant!).
After lunch, we headed back to the hotel for a little more rest.
Saturday night was a free night for Wexner so Marci arranged dinner with Mara and David Langer. On Mara's recommendation, we actually found a Georgian restaurant. Couldn't find ANY southern cooking but, strangely, a whole lot of Russian speakers. David selected some typical Georgian dishes, so typical, in fact, that the server couldn't describe or define them in either English or Hebrew. Once again, she pulled out the Russian but we were....speechless. I'm just going on faith that David's description of the dessert; olives with cherry sauce, was right.
We made this our anniversary dinner and the Langers took the bill. (And we didn't make it our anniversary dinner SO THAT the Langers would take the bill.) Thanks, David and Mara.
After dinner, Marci invited all the SF Wexner folk to Rabbi Lezak (and now ours) favorite coffee house Tmol Shimshon (or something like that). She called it for 10 pm;
Rabbi sighting: Rabbi Elka Abrahamson on Ben Yehuda st. But since she's a director of Wexner and it was her night off, we didn't talk!
At 10 pm, with a table for about a dozen people, it was the 4 Dollingers... What about calling a party and no one comes... About 10:15, Marty and Vanessa Friedman came and by 10:45 we had about 20. We were really bad parents....at 11 pm, we were all still there chatting, Shayna was asleep on her forehead at the table, and we decided that it was so late, the kids were so tired, it was so exhausting...
So we took them to Babette's for some midnight chocolate waffles. Oy!
Rabbi Sighting: Rabbi Chaim Seidler Feller, once again, walking out of the King David Hotel, invited Marc to the Hartman Institute to study but, alas, daddy duty takes precedence.
By the time we got back to the hotel, we decided NO camp in the morning. They get to sleep until they wake up.
Lailah tov...or boker tov..
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