Fruit, guitars and American stuff

Hi everyone,

I hope you all had a successful Rosh Hashana. We had a good time and did lots of davening, walking and eating. My feet, stomach and brain were all hurting by the end of it, so I'd say that counts as successful.

The rest of the week was taken up with school for the kids and work for the grown-ups, and obviously plenty of trips to various supermarkets. In my quest to find some decent fruit (ie fruit that does not taste of cardboard) I bought some nectarines, peaches and apples from some real, live Amish people. Right here, at the Teaneck Farmers' Market! Though according to their little signs, I actually bought "nectertines", "peeches" and "apple's". This is not a joke. I'm hoping that the Jewish day schools are better than the Amish ones. It was quite thrilling to meet real Amish people though.

Another exciting quest this week has been the search for a guitar for Eitan, who is having guitar lessons IN SCHOOL, as part of the curriculum! For some reason which I can't quite recall right now, we didn't bring either of our two working guitars with us from Israel. That would have been far too simple. Instead we brought an old guitar from London that had been lying around in my in-laws' attic in Golders Green. (Thanks, Uncle Benjy.) Of course, after shlepping it here we took it to the music shop and were told that it was a write-off - it would cost more to fix it than to buy a new one, which I could get for $80.

So in an attack of extreme thriftiness we posted a message on the Teaneck Shuls email list (like the Raananalist or EdgwareK but times 1,000) that we were seeking a guitar. And at 10pm on Wednesday night Avrom drove off to Englewood and picked up a second-hand guitar for the bargain price of $30. Unfortunately, on Thursday evening, as Eitan happily started to tune the guitar, one of the strings broke, at which point we realised we would need to replace all the strings. But it was very urgent that Eitan get hold of a guitar to practise on Thursday for his lesson on Friday so he phoned a friend and we zoomed over to the other side of Teaneck to borrow one. Eager to get going with it, Eitan immediately started tuning the guitar, only to find the little tuning knob in his hand, somehow severed from the instrument. Yes, Eitan managed to break two guitars in about half an hour. A record probably only ever beaten by rock stars in hotel rooms.

So, on Friday morning, I stood outside the music shop waiting for it to open, and begged the man to fix these two sad-looking instruments. Which he did, at a cost of $33, saving us the grand sum of $17 in total. I think I shall go out and buy myself a new frock! Hopefully that will be the last guitar-related incident for a while.

Living here is giving us a certain appreciation for how Americans must feel when they make aliya. Things are very different here. They must have lots of questions about their strange new lives in Israel. Like: Why are the roads so narrow? Why does the food come in such tiny packages? Why don't the shop assistants want to know how I'm doing today? What are those people doing with their legs? Walking - what's that? Where are all the coupons? Where's Costco? Who's going to drive my kids to school? And what is this delicious white stuff? Oh - it's bread. I never knew it could actually taste like food. 

It must all be very disconcerting. It will certainly make us a little more understanding towards American olim in future. They have a lot to get used to. 

And in our attempt to sample all things American we have tickets for tomorrow's baseball game (not "match", by the way - you sound VERY stupid if you call it that) at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx! We're quite excited even though the game is no doubt as boring as cricket. But as long as we come back with a huge foam finger I think we'll regard it as a successful outing.

Meanwhile, hope everyone has a good week, and a decent YK. And good luck to all the Israelis for the mammoth YK-to-Simchat-Torah school holiday. Thinking of you!