Words from an interloper!

It's Donna here. I've taken over Josh's blog temporarily to add my own impressions of our life in Israel. (What actually transpired was that Josh finally got sick of my constant nagging -- "Why haven't you updated your blog?!" -- and made me an official member of Mr. Breitzer Goes to Jerusalem, with posting rights and everything!)

Right now Josh and I are both getting over a cold that Josh seemed to pick up in Rehovot when we were visiting my family last weekend. His eye-infection-turned-head-cold is spreading through the ranks at HUC, and of course I got it as well. Needless to say it's been tougher for Josh, as he actually has to get up early each day and go to school, and do work, etc etc.... Whereas my day consists of being the World's Biggest Lazybutt. I hope this designation will soon change; I hope to start teaching voice lessons soon, and there might be a possibility of some Gilbert and Sullivan in my future...

In other news, my father was here last week on business and we spent some time with him in Rehovot (cf paragraph 2, Josh's eye infection.) My parents set me the task of finding a nice silver kiddush cup that would be engraved as a present for my aunt and uncle's 30th wedding anniversary. I went to the Ben Yehuda area to look through the many touristy Judaica shops, comparing prices and inquiring about the turnaround time for engraving; everyone told me it took one day. I asked Josh to come with me to make a final decision and we picked out a lovely cup in a bright, welcoming new shop. I purchased the cup on Wednesday and was told it would be ready on Friday morning -- perfect, since Dad was coming to Jerusalem on Friday morning to say goodbye, and he could take it with him. The shopkeeper told me that the store "opens at 10:00 am. Be sure to come before noon!"

Blissfully naive (read: used to American consumer standards), we went to the store on Friday morning with my father, and of course the cup wasn't there. What ensued was an outright Israeli-style verbal brawl between Dad and the indignant, rude shopkeeper who seemed to be well trained in "customer disservice." After 2 hours of leaving, coming back, arguing, etc etc, we had no choice but to go home and wait for them to call us when the cup was ready. (This call never came. I had to call them and the shopkeeper who had been conversing with me freely during the morning tried to convince me that he didn't speak English. When I started in with my less-than-perfect Hebrew, he was trapped. Ha.) We went back and got the cup right before the shop closed at 2pm, and Dad had to drive back to Jerusalem in the evening to pick it up...

Well. Lessons learned. This blogging seems addictive so perhaps this interloper's presence won't exactly be "temporary..."