Our Summer in Israel: En Route

Of course, many people have experienced much more arduous, physically exhausting journeys to Israel. I've read Exodus. But, at this moment, it's hard to imagine anyone could be arriving in eretz yisrael any more exhausted than we are right now. The kids have managed a bit more sleep, but Abe and I have probably gotten 2 hours between the 2 of us in as many days.

The flight to Amsterdam left at 6 pm and lasted only 6 1/2 hours. We knew that we needed to sleep as much as possible in order to be able to function the next day. KLM had other ideas. With lights bright enough for an operating room glaring in the cabin, we waited through hot towels (actually very nice), drinks and dinner (okay), after dinner liqueurs (really?), and duty free sales (are you kidding me?). Finally, around 4 am local time, they turned off the lights so we might get Sylvia to sleep (and us along with her), at which point the baby in the row in front of us began the crying spell which would last the remaining 2 hours of the flight.

Exhausted, we considered skipping our day trip into Amsterdam during our lay over, but I am very glad we did not! The city exceeded every expectation. I had watched two travelogues of Amsterdam on the flight over. One, produced by the municipality, presented a smiling utopia of bicycle riding and tulip appreciation. The other, by Anthony Boudin, depicted a depraved city of druggies and hookers. Neither turned out to be especially accurate in our experience. What we found instead was a charming, yet modern city, fascinating architecture and some of the nicest people we've ever met in any place we've been. We took the canal bus on several well narrated circuits around the city (the canals, which are being celebrated for their 400th year in 2013, were described as being 9 meters deep - 3 meters of water, 3 meters of mud, and 3 meters of bicycles. We did witness many bicycle/canal near misses which makes us think there's a kernel of truth to this). We had an amazing, moving visit to the Anne Frank House. Visiting as a parent of a girl almost the exact same age (and the exact same height - judging by the growth markings on the wall of one of the rooms) as Anne was at the time was especially sobering. In one video, Otto Frank, Anne's father and the only one of the hiders to survive the war, talked about how he was close with Anne, but how you never really know the depth of the feelings that your child is experiencing. He had promised not to read her diary, and kept that promise until after the war, when he knew she would not be coming home. Seeing this site very much brought home the reasons that Israel must exist and be defended and receive our support.

We walked many kilometers through the city, ate a wonderful, excessive Indonesian rijstaffel (a sort of tapas style meal with lots of little delicious dishes), and made it back to the airport in plenty of time to check in and then visit the airport satellite of the Rijksmuseum where they have a perfect sample of Dutch art with examples of different themes and styles.

Our flight leaves late tonight and gets into Israel in the wee hours of the morning. Next update from Jerusalem!