Twin Travelling: And Then The Rains Came......

I cannot wait until it gets colder

As soon as the stars come out on Yom Kippur you can hear nails being hammered all around Israel. Well, ok, I didn't personally hear any, but apparently you can. This is because everyone is hard at work preparing for the next holiday - Sukkot. In comparison to Yom Kippur, this is actually a fun one. And one when you can eat and drink, so right there, that's a win. I'm confused a little bit though - is it the festival of the harvest, or when everyone is celebrating the 40 years the Jews spent wandering in the desert after being freed from slavery in Egypt? The harvest sounds great, but the wandering in the desert part less so (around here without air con for 40 summers in a row??? Brutal). It just doesn't sound like soooooo much fun to me - but the celebration is related to the survival aspect. This is primarily the main theme behind all the Jewish celebrations and holidays - it's the "some fuckers tried to kill us but we survived" theme.

I take all credit for this shot by the way - for once its not out of google images

But regarding the slavery in Egypt thing - despite all the Israelites being rounded up and sold, then whipped and abused and made to work until they died, they did a fucking good job on those pyramids. We all have to admit it. Those pointy bitches have stood for 5000 years. Seriously, kudos to all the slaves - for people forced to do something so unpleasant, they did an amazing job. No shoddy workmanship at all. I mean, they look like shit up close - but from a distance they look as tight as they ever did. Nice one slaves. nice one. If it was me, I would have deliberately fucked up my part of the wall just to piss off my slave master. But not the Jews, they truly had pride in their work.

As I said - up close it's nothing special

I mean if you really think about it, all Jews today should get a cut from all the tourism dollars those mysterious structures bring into Egypt. Without the pyramids, tourism in Egypt would be rooted. Nobody is flying all that way to the desert to look at the Nile or eat kebabs, or see a woman shaking her belly in a sequined outfit no matter how good her tits are. It's the pyramids all the way. I actually went inside one a few years back. Not the main one, a smaller older one in another location. If you have claustrophobia or an aversion to the smell of years of built up piss, do not go in, I repeat do not go in. The tiny shaft you have to squeeze down for about 60 metres is bad enough - but once you're in, standing in the stagnant gloom of the main chamber of a pyramid - right at the bottom - and it's cold, despite the enormous desert temperatures outside, and you're choking on ammonia fumes in the dark while knowing that the only way out is back up the shaft.....well you better have some good relaxation techniques under your belt. Especially when another person on their way down that tight and tiny tunnel has to really squeeze past you. Just never let "getting stuck, wedged against a stranger, unable to move for hours, half way up a giant pyramid" thoughts flicker into your brain. Things get jumpy.

From the outside good, from the inside less so

This some sort of high class sukkah - believe me, nobody is going this far

So in backyards all over the country - and on streets outside synagogues, and on top floor apartment balconies - the building of the Sukkah commences. The Sukkah is a temporary structure - three sided, and made from organic materials (meaning wood and branches not like bio dynamic pears or anything) - the roof is called the s'chach (try saying that without bringing up a tonsil), and is typically made of palm branches and leaves. You are meant to be able to see the stars through it. For 8 days the ultra religious live in the sukkah. At the very least, you are meant to have all your meals and sleep out there. Most Israelis will have a meal there on the first and last nights of the holidays. After it's built, you decorate the inside of the roof. This is the fun part. The kids had been making decorations at school for ages. They were pumped. You can also hang fruit off the roof. Vali wanted to hang carrots. Their Aunty is pretty casual about these things, so the entire night I kept getting a dangling carrot in the eye.

Steady, steady

"We're only doing the pretty part"

Sparkly

That could bring the roof down Cord

But this year, right before it was time to sit out in the sukkah and have our dinner, the rain started for the first time. In Israel it's a very big deal when the rains come. This is because there has not been one entire drop for the past 7 months. There never is. EVER. It's the same every year. Can you imagine? You can plan outside events a year in advance and know that for absolute 100% certain there is no chance you will have to move it indoors. As someone from the south of Australia, this concept is completely alien to me. Not only will it most likely rain whenever you even express a desire to do something outside - but the weather will go into a sort of schizophrenic pattern of wind, rain, sun, and often hail before settling on rain alone. Plus it will be cold. Always cold. When you plan an outside wedding you are tortured - TORTURED - by thoughts of the weather fucking everything up. My cousin had a beach wedding last March - it was a bold move. But in Tasmania, North Face fleecy-lined jackets are acceptable wedding wear - as are blankets.

My auntie had the right idea. I, on the other hand, was foolish. Although, I refused to take off my shoes and socks

My Granny, doing it in style as she always has.

Pitter Patter

But here, everyone knows that the first rains after spring and summer will come some time after Rosh HaShana (The New Year), and so thus they did. A small storm last Wednesday night, and then a bigger one this morning with thunder and lightening and lots and lots of rain. Can you imagine a large amount of rain falling in a dry, sandy, dusty city that hasn't seen a drop for more than half a year? That's right. Absolutely filthy puddles of grot everywhere. Jet black and swimming with cigarette butts and other assorted junk. We were outside walking the streets this morning after a considerable amount of rain and it wasn't pretty. Not pretty at all......Although at times like this I fear I'm getting a bit pussy about the rain (see next paragraph). Life goes on in Tassie in the rain. Melbourne too for that matter. If you have an event planned - there nothing outside a full blown flood that's going to see it shut down. But there's a lot more rain sooky behaviour here. A friend's Israeli husband told me this morning that Israeli's don't leave their house when it rains. They really go into a bit of a panic about being outside in it. For example, a huge bike riding event through the centre of Tel Aviv that saw all the central roads closed, was cancelled right at the beginning of the ride today, because of about 30 mins of non stop rain - this was followed by sun by the way, which made it pretty damn humid. But it was too late, all the participants had panicked at the thunder and the event was already off. There were still a few red t-shirt clad riders circling round the streets on their bikes with kids and dogs wearing t-shirts as well. They were all looking a little bit on the lost side. Most kids were howling.

Not bad decorations for a couple of short 5 year olds.....alright Vali - even the carrot

But despite these weather conditions of terror, life in the sukkah goes on, and we decided to eat out there on the first night anyway. I was a little unappreciative of the drops of rain that kept plopping on my face, and considering my husband's nephew is actually an architect I think that roof could have been sealed a little better. But apparently the openness of the roof is what it's all about. Fine then. I accept it. The religious really go nuts for the celebration aspect though - apparently there's a lot of dancing that goes on tonight. There are sukka's knocked up all over the joint for the more religious. However, apparently many of their sukkah decorations are actual Christmas ones cheaply made in China. Do they know this? Would they even know what Christmas was? We presume that everyone knows about Christmas - last year when I said to a couple of people - "Oh Yes, we're going away for Christmas" they were like "When is that again?" I was like the 25th"- and them "Of what month - I have no idea". I was a little surprised, I have to admit it. When you are fairly cultural-centric it's hard to imagine that other countries don't give a shit about Santa and plum pudding. For lots of other Jews, they remember it well, and call it the "International Day of Travel" - because you can get really cheap air tickets on Christmas Day. No yok wants to be stuck at an airport instead of home, drunk, and opening a giant pile of loot.

The motherload at my mother's - brace yourselves this year girls - it's been a while

I'll actually get to do that in the homelands this year (the home and drunk on 25/12, with a bounty of pressies thingo). It's summer in Australia for us this year - and for the love of god it's been a while. I must admit, I kind of forgot what hanging out with Australians was like, until we met up with some new friends from Australia last night. This is despite my former policy which was, as a general rule, not to recruit new mates. Really, I'm culling the dwindling stockpile I do have. My attitude to friends is like clothes - if we haven't seen the light of day together in a year then.....gone. No offence, we liked each other once, possibly still do, but I know they want it over as much as I do. I, of course, had to adjust that set of guidelines since moving permanently overseas - a year without a sighting of a chum can more easily slip by. Plus in a new land you have to do a little bit of recruitment. You can't have no friends at all. That's taking being a cunt much too far. So through connections in Melbourne, an 'Australian-just moved to Israel' family and us, just met. They have two girls on each side of Vali and Cordi and one cute little boy. And within a few hours of hanging out with them and our kids running everywhere together, putting on shows, having "parties" which involved the loud playing of a keyboard and throwing stuff all over the floor, you had that kind of relaxed comfortable thing going on like when you've known people for ages. Anyway, it made me remember what it's like to hang out with Australians again.

But it was my daughter that got it spot on. Although this particular one of my girls fluctuates between pretending to be a poo in a drain while swimming on the kitchen floor; and breaking and knocking over everything she comes into contact with, she also has incredible insights. Tonight we were talking about the new friends we just met and she said that she liked playing with them best of all out of everything we've done in the holidays. And I asked her why? And she said "because when I met them they made me remember something about myself that I really liked". I found this incredibly cute, and somewhat astounding (I also like it when people ask her what she wants to be when she grows up and she answers in a sweet way "I just want to be myself"). I understood her perfectly though. I also found something extremely nostalgic about hanging out with Aussies again. Its been a while. It also made me remember how much I like being Australian and how I want my girls to grow up as Australians. It was a nice feeling to have again.

Looking forward to coming home.