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| Packed and ready to roll |
A little juggling was needed - we had to be out by 9:30 am so the cleaning lady could do her job and we couldn't get into our new apartment until 11 am for the same reason. We could leave our bags at the DVI apartment but the cleaning lady wanted our bikes out. In any case we had to meet the apartment manager at 10:30 to get the keys and pay for the new place, so we walked our bikes over and got that done but there was no place to leave the bikes safely. We walked the bikes back and I hid them in the basement under the stairway at the old apartment. We collected up our food supplies and walked that back to the new place and got the stuff that needed to be in the fridge put away and then returned to the DVI apartment. It's actually a 5 minute walk back and forth but it was a beautiful day and there was a lot of activity on the street that was nice to see. Back at the old place, the cleaning lady had left and we saw the apartment so nice and clean, with fresh bedding nicely made and thought, if only it looked like that when we had arrived!
We called a taxi to take us and our bags to the new place and even arranged with the driver to take us to Beit Halochem on Sunday morning for the start of our ride.
The Colony Suites apartment is really nice. Looks newly renovated with all the conveniences, including Internet, TV, and washing machine which will come in handy.
We had arranged to take our bikes over to Beit Halochem that afternoon and get them out of the way, so we ate quickly, changed into our bike kit, stuffed our walking shoes and a change of clothes for Nimi in my backpack and took off on our bikes for Beit Halochem. It is an easy 5 km ride but we wanted to get there before people left for the day (on Friday, everything shuts down early to prepare for Shabbat). Fairly close to our destination, I got a flat! Usually, it takes me no more that 5-6 minutes to change the tube, but the valve came out of the tube after I pumped it up, so I had to change that with a different tube! A little frustrating, but that had happened to me before so I dealt with it.
We got the bikes taken care of at Beit Halochem no problem, put on our walking shoes -I cleaned the grease off my hands as I had to work the chain onto the chain ring with my fingers and we took off for a leisurely walk back to our apartment. It is a beautiful walk along the new bike/running path almost the entire way back. The border of East Jerusalem is right beside the path for a fair ways and we could hear the musical chanting of the Call to Prayer from a mosque close by. It was actually quite nice and I felt we were walking to the rhythmn of the chant for the 5 minutes or so that it lasted.
That was a good workout....should have us in great shape for our 5 days of riding...maybe.
The best part of the day was to come. We were invited for Shabbat dinner by Channa, one of the DVI people in charge of scheduling and attending to the DVI volunteers. She and her wonderful family live in a beautiful large townhome in a neighbourhood close to Beit Halochem. Channa picked us up at our apartment at 6:30 and we had a chance to talk to her, her mother and her 2 sons and daughter before dinner. I should say that Nimi talked to the family, because they are more comfortable in Hebrew. I think that Nimi really shined - her Hebrew is pretty good and she converses quite comfortably. I am always amazed and impressed with how well she does, because Israel is the only place she has the opportunity to use her Hebrew.
I could feel that Channa and Nimi really bonded. Here is the interesting thing and this is how things often work (only in Israel). Only because the DVI apartment was such a mess, did Nimi meet Channa. Channa was embarrassed by the apartment not being cleaned for us and wanted to apologize to Nimi personally. She visited Nimi at the apartment and in their conversation in Hebrew, Channa invited us to dinner. Had the issue with the apartment not happened, Nimi would not have met Channa .
Channa and her mom made an amazing meal and we had a wonderful evening with the family. After dinner, Channa's husband wanted to talk about a Biblical parallel to Noah and a famous Israel poet. Channa's sons (about 10 years younger than Daniel and Michael) and daughter (who is 18 and now in the IDF) helped interpret for me. We discussed the political issues of the day. Channa's husband was impressed with our commitment to Israel and with Harper's support in Canada to Israel. The boys told us of their travels to India, Australia and many different countries. The Israeli kids love to travel all over.
We left their place feeling we now have a new family in Israel!
