Israeli Mom

Taking a break from my ongoing account of our US & Canada trip for some local affairs.

A short recap of this week’s events for those of you who do not have Israelis or Iranians among their Facebook friends. Or haven’t read watched CNN or Al Jazeera. Or read the New York Times, Washington Post, or any leading newspaper from anywhere in the world.

About a week ago, an Israeli couple Roni Edri and Michal Tamir, designed a simple message, in bold colors and big bold text:

They posted it to the Facebook page of their small art institute: Mehinat Pushpin. Facebook, much like your average seven-year-old child, loves these kind of simple bold designs and so within hours, their students, and soon other people as well, were making their own posters using the same template. I added them to my list of Facebook friends and soon enough my feed was flooded with kitschy heart-moving versions of this. Here are just a few (out of hundreds? thousands?):

There were more of these. So many, in fact, that the Pushpin page reached its limits and  a proper page was started for the cause.

The messages traveled around the web, eventually reaching their recipients. The Pushpin people shared the responses on their wall, as they came in. It started with a few hesitant emails, but soon enough, a full fledged Iranian retribution was in motion:

For obvious reasons, the Iranian messages don’t tend to have actual people in the pictures. Even uploading a faceless message like these is illegal in Iran, and those who do seriously risk their own personal safety. Quite a few of the messages, certainly those that did feature faces, were from Iranians living in exile.

So is opening direct lines of contact like this a smart move? Or is it just naivety?

As much as I admire what they’re doing, I also feel a little sorry for the Pushpin couple. I’ve been there, albeit on a much smaller and less publicized scale. It’s an emotional roller coaster. The highs are truly high, and the lows can be really tough. Both are emotionally draining.

Here’s a little story. In fact, it’s the story of the birth of this very blog.

It was the summer of 2006. IsraeliDad left home for two months to participate, as a reservist,  in the second Lebanon War. At home, with two young children, I decided to share the fears and loneliness online. I started a blog about what it was like to be an Israeli Mom during the war.

Curious to see what the “other side” was blogging about, I started visiting Lebanese blogs. Soon enough, I was making new friends. It was fairly bizarre, in a way. There we were, on two sides of a border at war, moving on to discuss not just the day’s bombings, but also mundane family matters. We were creating friendships, in the middle of a war. It was weird, it was wonderful, it was exciting, it was moving. It was intensely thought-provoking.

Eventually, the war ended, but myself and a few others decided this was too cool to stop. Finding like-minded people in what was supposed to be enemy countries was a novel experience. Could this be the solution? an direct interpersonal connection between people via the Internet?

So we established a forum. We called it MEtalks (as in Middle East Talks). The moderating team had myself and another Israeli, an Egyptian, two Lebanese, and an Iranian. Oh, and an American too!

The honeymoon phase was over at some point, and while things were always pleasant and friendly in the moderators’ private forum, the general forums were becoming a lot like the real Middle East. Haters from both sides showed up (many of them not even from the Middle East, by the way, it was pretty amazing to see Americans and Europeans heatedly debating Middle East affairs, often posting more vehemently than any of the “locals” would).

Eventually, we gave up. I only speak for myself, not the other team members, but this was just too emotionally exhausting. I found it very difficult to keep myself emotionally detached from the subject matter; we were talking about the future of my children, perhaps their very survival and some statements were just too much for me to bear.

To wrap this post up, I can only wish for the nice couple and their friends, the best of luck. Enjoy the high, just keep in mind that eventually this virtual Valentine’s Day will be over. Haters are already popping up all over the place and I really hope you have thicker skins than me, because hateful people can get very nasty… And thank you, for this initiative. If nothing else, it does serve to remind us all that in the end, it’s people on both sides, and at least some of them are actually quite nice.

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** Click here for the previous chapter of our North America Trip or click here for all of the posts (in the wrong order, of course, this is a blog after all! **

Finally, after six nights and six full days in San Francisco and its vicinity, we were ready, in fact quite eager, to get on the road. Our next pre-booked accommodation arrangements were made several months prior, for a cabin of sorts in a Yosemite National Park campground. These were made for the following day, so we had the entire day to spend on the road, just getting close to Yosemite.

With so much time on our hands, I had planned for us to visit California’s Gold Rush area, and more specifically the towns of Jamestown and Sonora. Jamestown is only 130 miles away from San Francisco, so we figured we had plenty of time. Time for some shopping on the way, especially for hiking/camping gear, which we figured we’d need at Yosemite as well as during the rest of our trip. I had my mind set on a pair of Merrell hiking boots, and so it happened that we decided to take a not very short detour through the town of Vacaville, where Merrell had a factory outlet. Only another 60 miles or so added to our route, we figured it wasn’t too much.

With that misguided sense of leisure and time on our hands, we made our first stop at Fairefield, just north of San Francisco, where we parked next to a giant inflated candy and got our tickets for a free tour of the Jelly Belly factory. My kids, believe it or not, are not big fans of any kind of candy, and so for them there was no “Charlie in the Chocolate Factory” sense to the tour. For us, it was interesting to learn the historic story of Jelly Belly, and watch an American corporation in action, putting on its nicest face, leading us potential customers through a carefully planned tour, singing the praise of its innovative sugar pill (see, I just called a Jelly Belly “innovative” – it worked on me!) I think this was what you might call “branding in action”.

Jelly Belly Art

The tour seemed to last forever, taking us through every fascinating (if you’re a food engineer) phase of making one stamped jelly bean.  Half an hour later we were finally allowed to take off our Jelly Belly paper caps and leave the place. Of course, by that time, we needed some food and drink, and so stopped over at their cafeteria. We skipped the Jelly Belly shaped pizza and hamburger, settling instead for coffee and ice cream. All in all, well over an hour of our morning was spent learning more than we ever wanted to know about one of America’s favorite candies (see? their message did get through!).

Vacaville was just a short drive away from Fairfield. On the way to Fairfield, we had already driven through miles of populated suburbs. They all had a LOT of shops and dining venues. Our town has just over 20,000 people in it and not a single fast food joint. It has a handful of restaurants and Felafel stands, and a few hundreds of stores all in all, most of them small. In the US, we’ve seen towns of 2,000 people with more stores and restaurants then our town has.

But even that didn’t prepare us for a real outlet center, like Vacaville was.

We drove across miles over miles of mega stores, with familiar logos announcing factory outlets of every imaginable brand, dotted with dozens and dozens of fast food places, representing every chain we knew and quite a few that were new to us. It seemed like something out of the Twilight Zone, a shopping heaven, or hell, depending on your perspective. For me, it was awe-inspiring in a way, a physical embodiment of  that humongous capitalistic machine known as the American Economy. The most astounding thing about this gargantuan outlet is that it seemed surprisingly empty. I don’t think it really was empty, but it just gave that impression, because of the off-scale ratio between the sheer volume of buildings and roads to that of people.

I was thankful for having a very specific destination: the Merrell store. Otherwise, it would have been only too easy to get forever lost in bowels this huge mega mall, emerging five months later for our flight back home, impoverished and over-sized (or should I say Jelly-Bellied?). Mind you, finding any specific store in this complex is not that easy. Google Maps was our ally, as they had carefully mapped out the stores and businesses and could help us locate what we needed using the GPS. Not much to say about the shopping experience now other than this: We bought hiking boots.

On the road

We managed to leave Vacaville by early afternoon and  allowed our trustworthy GPS to take us to our next stop. Pretty Vacaville was soon replaced by Road 12. We had to double and then triple check our GPS, but yes, we were on the right road. We just hadn’t expected California to change into this huge empty land of fields and orchards. I mean, we knew about them, but we just didn’t expect to be driving through them for so long, and so soon. Keep in mind that in Israel, a couple of hours is how long we need to drive to the northern border from our home. And that’s a long drive, compared to the 20 minutes drive to the border with the Palestinian Authority to our east. That’s how small Israel is, and unless you go deep south into the desert, you’re not likely to go through any road without seeing towns and villages every few miles. We knew America had relatively empty states, like Montana and Wyoming, but were surprised to see just how empty of people California really was.

Eventually, we reached civilization once again and  passed the town of Stockton driving into Manteca. I hope the next sentence doesn’t offend any Americans: we wanted to go shop at Walmart’s there. Walmart holds a special appeal to us as Israelis. I’m not even sure why but it’s extremely popular here. Not that they have even a single branch in Israel, mind, only that Israelis visiting the US love Walmart. It’s hard to analyze love, but I’ll give it a try. I think it’s the sense of walking into this huge space of sheer availability. Walmart doesn’t try to be pretty, aesthetic or polite – it just bares its merchandise at us, plentiful and unabashed, and we get caught at the glare like rabbits in headlights.

Now, Israel is no Soviet Russia. Almost everything you see in Walmart is available in Israel as well. However, here it would be double to triple the price, and thus in smaller quantities, displayed or wrapped with some added value in terms of the shopping experience. Shopping in Israel, you need to be prudent and think hard if you really truly need this expensive product. At Walmart, you can just go wild and buy, buy, buy – or at least this is the feeling it gives you as you looks at these huge shelves and piles of everything. And yes, I realize it’s merely an illusion, but it works effectively on us.

I think we must have spent well over an hour at Walmart. This was our first Walmart on this trip, and we was meant to be our big stocking point. We bought sleeping bags, utensils, extra clothes, and a bunch of useless stuff for our Yosemite adventure (and those that were to follow). We paid a visit to the guns section, of course, a point of great touristic value. Coming from a country where soldiers are always around, M-16 in tow, and like most Israelis, having been attached to our own M-16 or Uzi for a certain part of our lives, we’re not gun shy. Yet, the thought that just about anyone can walk into a store, a supermarket, and grab a rifle and ammo, is almost inconceivable to us, and a source of constant wonder. In Israel, civilians need to work hard to get a license to carry arms, not that anyone cares to, and they need to have a very good reason to carry even a small pistol. It doesn’t even matter who you are, you could be military personnel and a high ranking officer, but they’re still likely to refuse you a license. This isn’t a problem at all, because as I said, who wants to? The IDF teaches you what a responsibility and a constant liability a gun is, so once out of the service, people are only too happy to be rid of weapon duties. The only civilians carrying weapons are the settlers in the Wild West Bank, and even there I believe it’s mostly the ones who came from America.

Stuff you get at Walmart's

Back on the road again, we headed for the town of Jamestown. By the time we finally got there, it was late afternoon, and we were ready to just settle in for the night. We chose a nice little place called The Miner’s Motel, where $70 or so got us a nice room with two queen beds, and all the amenities your average motel room has like a microwave, a mini fridge, the obligatory TV set and the very necessary WIFI connection. I know this doesn’t sound like much and it wasn’t very fancy, but for us, it was a little piece of heaven. We were just so thrilled with finally being out and on the go, in our first “real” roadside motel room, nestled in the woods around a small gold rush historic town. There wasn’t much more we could ask for.

The funny thing about this post, is that I had originally intended to write a single compact paragraph about this day of traveling from San Francisco to the Yosemite area. Reading this now, I realize just what a special day  it really was, getting a first taste of America, in so many ways. Yosemite will have to wait for the next posts!

Oh, and the pictures!

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Frankly, I’m getting a bit bored with blogging about yet another day in San Francisco. Which nicely correlates with our own feelings at the time. It’s not that we didn’t like the city, but we were more than ready to head out. It was time to get on the road, and that was exactly what we did, albeit, without yet leaving San Francisco. We had our San Francisco hotel pre-booked for six nights and pre-paid in advance (“I’m sorry, Ma’am, but we can’t offer a refund on a booking made six months in advance”.)

I won’t say that we tried to make lemonade out of life’s lemons. After all, having to spend another day touring San Francisco can hardly be considered a lemon. Maybe a delicious California orange, if you like. And besides, we did have one more important thing to do.

Over the previous days, we’ve often viewed it from a distance, peeking out from behind the foggy vapors, or sometimes fully exposed in bright daylight. Now, it was time to cross it: the bridge that is probably the city’s most recognizable landmark, that American bright orange icon known as the Golden Gate Bridge.

It was a quiet Saturday morning on Lombard street, so I decided to be brave and finally get behind the wheel of our rented minivan. As you may recall from my first day post, we were a bit unnerved by the sheer size of our Town & Country, but the “tank” turned out to be a surprisingly easy vehicle to drive. Within minutes, I was in love. From then on, I became the designated driver for the trip, while IsraeliDad took on the role of navigator. We reached all the places we wanted to, and in one piece, so I think this was a good division of labor.

Getting on the Golden Gate Bridge

And so we drove to the Golden Gate Bridge, and joined the traffic boarding the bridge and crossing over to Marin County, north of San Francisco. Crossing the bridge was certainly exciting! Our first bridge crossing in the US was on “The” Bridge of all bridges! I was glad to be doing the driving, as IsraeliDad was too busy looking at the bridge around us.

We wanted to visit some of the military sites on the hills overlooking the ocean, and specifically Fort Cronkhite, a former WW2 military post where you can visit preserved structures including the Mess and the Barracks themselves. Alas, the old dirt road leading up there was blocked due to a landfall. Like the other tourists around us, we pulled over and simply took in the breeze and the breathtaking view from the hill of the ocean, the Bridge and San Francisco itself on the other side of the bay. Finally, we backed down and drove on to our next destination: the Marine Mammal Center.

The Marine Mammal Center is a veterinary hospital specializing in seals and sea lions. Apparently, these sweet blubbery animals sometimes get into trouble and end up on the beach, in need of medical help. The hospital treats hundreds of seals and sea lions each and every year, for problems ranging from malnourishment to parasites, infectious diseases and even cancer. According to the Center, 10% of its patients are the victims of humans or human interference: fishing nets entanglements, boat strikes and even gunshots.

In the Marine Mammals Center

There were no organized tours when we visited, but we did enjoy the visitors center, where they had an interactive display of a life-size metal seal on a medical trolley. Our Dan really enjoyed playing vet by moving his hands over the seal, which in turn triggered a short explanation about that area in the seal’s body and what could be medically wrong with it there. We then walked to the observation decks, above the viewing area of the patients. Only four large baby elephant seals were out for viewing, and we were soon joined by a soft spoken docent who was only too happy to tell us about the pups. They had arrived at the center weak and malnourished, having been separated from their mothers at too early an age. The Center’s staff and volunteers had taken on the role of surrogate mothers, first feeding them back to health then teaching them how to catch live fish in their own small pools, appropriately named “Fish School”.

When we were finally done with the seals, we drove on into the adjacent Sausalito. A popular tourist destination, this small city north of the Golden Gate Bridge, was very crowded on that Sunday. It looked expensive and touristy, so we gave up on parking and walking mid-town and just drove straight to The Bay Model.

The Bay Model is an impressive enterprise taken on by the US Military, or more precisely the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1950’s. In an effort to better understand the complex system of water moving between sea and inland water bodies, the Army created a huge model, 400 feet wide in one direction and 320 in the other, depicting every bay, river, stream and boat canal in the Bay Area. The water that flows through the system, in a time scale of 1:100, used to help scientists and engineers estimate the impact of proposed changes to the system. The model is now used for educational purposes only – actual simulations are run more easily, and probably more accurately, on computers.
On the day of our visit, the model was dry, and undergoing extensive renovation. It was still interesting to take in the sheer size of it, as well as the fact that the US army so generously funds school aids for the students of the Bay Area.

It was only the middle of the day, but we decided, pretty much unanimously that we wanted to get back to the hotel. It was our last day in San Francisco for this particular leg of the trip, and the last of fairly intense six days of sight seeing. We all felt like we could use a nice break, and just take some time to relax, rest and prepare ourselves for heading out, finally, into the great outdoors.

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This post is about the fifth day of our road trip in America, still in San Francisco! You can read all of the related posts here. The ones describing the previous day, two installments can be found here –

Cable Cars and Matrimonial Cakes – Day 4 of our Trip

Serendipity at work and how we wandered over to the dark side of San Francisco – Day 4, part 2

Without further ado, here we go -

The weather forecast promised a sunny day, but the the morning was hazy. Our plan was to start our day in the Golden Gate Park and visit the new complex of the Academy of Sciences.

The California Academy of Sciences has been around for a long time. The institution was formed in 1853 with the goal of combining research and education, or in other words, attracting crowds to  stuffed woolly mammoths and skeletons of dinosaurs. Their halls had been severely hit by the two big earthquakes, in 1906 and 1989. It was bad enough to make them move to a whole new place, providing an opportunity for a major rehaul of the entire concept of Natural History displays. In 2008, the Academy opened the gates of its new award-winning structure. They claim to be the greenest museum in the world. In fact, pictures of their living roof, with its lush vegetation, played a big part in my decision to add this to our itinerary.

As it happens, the living roof was a bit of a disappointment, perhaps the dull morning light didn’t do it justice. We did however thoroughly enjoyed the rest. The highlight of our visit, as far as I was concerned, was the planetarium. The Academy’s patrons aimed at creating exhibits for the 21st century and I think they’ve nailed the futuristic aspect with the planetarium. Forget about galaxies projected above your head, this one had the most involving display I have ever experienced. It felt almost too real, taking us deep into far space and then into living cells. In fact, the show was so intense, it freaked one of our boys out, and IsraeliDad had to leave the theatre with him (he returned for a later show). If you’re in San Francisco, I can’t recommend this show enough, but be careful with young children, as it may not be suitable for them.

The rest of the Academy wasn’t too shabby either. Opposite the Planetarium was a twin globe, where a spiral deck led us through four levels of rainforest, complete with huge trees, waterfalls, ribitting frogs, chirping birds and colorful butterflies.

Academy of Science - Tropical Forest Globe

Once at the top, we descended in an elevator to the lowest part of the rainforest, right into a huge glass tunnel that let us walk inside the river and see the huge exotic fish of the Amazon river swimming all around us and above our heads. This was also the entry point to the large aquarium, with a rich and varied display, covering over 900 different aquatic species.

Academy of Science - Inside the Amazon River

We spent the better part of the day at the Academy. I thought it was just the right size, large enough to keep you busy and entertained for many hours, but without making you feel there’s no way you can ever take it all in.

It was early afternoon by the time we left and strolled along the park pathways to the Botanical Gardens. The haze had dissipated and we enjoyed being outdoors, experiencing the horticultural wonders of this park. We spent just over two hours there, focusing only on a limited area, as the place was too large to cover in so short a time. The highlight for us was the small grove of redwood sequoias. They were relatively young, but already tall and impressive. (We’ve seen so many mature sequoias by the time we were back home in Israel, of every type and kind… but there were the first in this trip.)

Next,  we drove on to the Haight-Ashbury area, where we had friends to visit. Well, friends-by-proxy at that point. Victoria and Aaron and their three children had visited Israel the previous year. Playing and singing in some venues, they happened to meet another musically inclined couple – my brother-in-law Boaz and his wife Ayelet. The two families formed one of those meaningful friendships that rely on a spiritual connection rather than on daily contact. Once we knew we were going to be in San Francisco, the wheels had been put in motion for a meeting.

Victoria and Aaron lived in a huge Victorian house. Over a hundred years old, this was in fact one of the famous San Francisco Painted Ladies.  They were renting the place along with some friends, in essence living in one big commune, very much in the spirit of the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, famous for being the birthplace of the hippie movement. Not that they were hippies, but there was a definite sense of sharing and acceptance about the entire household which we relished. We had a lovely evening, with a wonderful and joyous group of people. We not only shared food, but also helped prepare it and set it up. It was our first interaction with the “natives” of the land, and we left feeling that “the locals” were almost surprisingly friendly, relaxed and open-minded. Our only regret was that we didn’t have more time to spend with this group of people, and that by the time we’d be hitting San Francisco again, Victoria and Aaron would have moved to a different part of the country.

I can’t believe I’ve been writing so much and have barely covered five days out of 160! At this rate, we’ll be off to another trip before I’m done! I’m considering a change in this report, parting with the linear day-by-day structure and moving in jumps and leaps, back and forth, to other parts of the story: visiting Yellowstone (and losing IsraeliDad there), Yosemite, the Redwood National Park,  tidepooling and whale watching in Oregon, the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, our St. Louis adventures,  hiking the Appalachian trail (ok, a small part of it), the Canadian Rockies, the Black Hills of Dakota, amazing Glacier National Park, the Grand Canyon… so much to share! Hope this won’t turn out to be too confusing. Let me know what you think.

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This post describes the second part of our fourth day of our 160 days long trip to the US & Canada. First part of the day is here. In case you missed it, our trip posts start here. We’re back home now – an re-living the trip by blogging about it in retrospect.

A couple of weeks prior to our departure, I received an email with an interesting business proposal. I replied saying that while it sounded promising, I was leaving for San Francisco in a couple of weeks time, embarking on a six months long road trip, so it was probably a bad time for starting a new business venture.

“Well,” came the surprising reply, “our offices are actually located in the heart of San Francisco, so why don’t you guys come and see us there?”

I couldn’t find any good reason not to. Visiting the offices of a vibrant Internet company sounded promising, actually. At the very least, it will be interesting to see, in the sheer touristic sense. Besides, they were located right on Market street, where I had intended to visit anyway, and right across from a McDonald’s branch I had earmarked for the kids’ lunch break for that day. It seemed too serendipitous to pass up, so I accepted the invitation.

And so, having walked all the way from Lombard street to Chinatown, down to the Wells Fargo museum and up the hills to the Cable Car Museum and then riding down on the Powell street historic cable car, we were finally back on Market street and making our way towards that specific McDonald’s branch. This was when I phoned my contact, Nick, and told him we were finally there. He was kind enough to come down, along with his colleague to pick us up from that rather crowded and uninviting spot.

I can only imagine what the two young men were thinking when they caught first glimpse of their prospective business associate… It was around noon, and as if our intense morning activities weren’t enough, jet lag was hitting both me and IsraeliDad. Hard. I think “dishevelled” would be he word best describing us at that point, as we dragged along with two kids in-tow, hanging on to their crumpled bags of Happy Meals. To their credit, our hosts seemed unabashed and were gracious and kind, throughout the meeting, which turned out to be surprisingly fruitful.

After we were done, we went out to lunch with Nick, heading east towards the very end of Market Street, crossing the Justin Herman Plaza to the imposing Ferry Plaza building. We shared food and conversation at the small eatery on the northern wing of the building called Gott’s Roadside. It was a lovely day, and we enjoyed the views of the Bay Bridge, which the kids re-named as the Silver Gate Bridge. After saying our goodbyes, Nick went back to his day of work, and we returned to the grueling task of sightseeing.

Ferry Plaza Building from Market Street

We went inside to explore the Ferry Plaza building. This large building used to be one of the busiest hubs of commerce in the world some eighty years ago or so, with practically all incoming and outgoing shipping going through it. In later years, the two big bridges, Golden Gate and Bay Bridge took away most of that traffic, and Ferry Plaza’s days of glory were over. What’s more, in the 1950s a double decked road – the Embarcadero Freeway -  cut off the building from the rest of the city; interior decay joined forces with bad urban planning to make the majestic construction a nearly abandoned relic.

Ironically, it was an earthquake that saved the day. The 1989 earthquake caused irreparable damage to the freeway, which was removed in 1991. At last, the Ferry Plaza building, was reunited with the rest of the city and pedestrians were welcome once again to cross over from Market Street to the waterfront. Looking at the huge renovated building, with its proud and loud clock tower, it’s hard to believe just how close San Francisco came to losing one of its historic landmarks.

In 2003, the renovated interiors were re-opened to the public, and they are now home to San Francisco’s farmer’s market. I have to say, while there were rustic decor elements galore, the atmosphere was very upscale, with a strong emphasis on organic foods and prices to match. It’s not a very big market either, so ten minutes later we left and crossed back over to the Justin Herman Plaza, across the street.

The Justin Herman Plaza is a large open space in the heart of San Francisco, featuring an array of stands selling overpriced California-themed souvenirs and gifts, among a nicely landscaped mix of paved patches, grass and raised beds of flowers. The plaza was full of people enjoying the warm afternoon sun. Business men and women from Market Street were having a late lunch; tourists were leafing through their guides; youngsters were basking in the sunshine listening to their iPods; and quite a few homeless people were doing the same, i.e. basking, but with no iPods that I could see.

IsraeliDad and myself were more than ready to join the crowds in that pleasant pastime, but then the kids spotted the Valiancourt Fountain and all hopes of a peaceful break were gone.

The Valliancourt Fountain

The Valliancourt Fountain is an interesting piece of water sculpture that lets you, or more precisely your kids, climb up on it and walk through it, surrounded by fast and loud streams and waterfalls. The design is a bit harsh, made of elongated square columns, broken and then connected in a variety of angles. It has been described “as a thing deposited by a concrete dog with square intestines.” Hmmnm, since the thing is also continuously flowing, I preferred to stay away from that particular image. As it turns out, this is actually a political piece of art, dedicated to freeing Quebec, of all places, and happens to be quite controversial, both politically and artistically. I can’t say much about either aspect, only that our boys consider it to be one of the highlights of their visit to San Francisco.

Along Mission Street, SF

We finally unstuck them from the fountain and moved back down Market Street. Our destination was the Zeum, San Francisco’s Children’s museum. I think we must have covered over six miles on foot that day by that point, so admittedly, this part of our journey wasn’t easy. I know I was tired, but still, four days into our trip, we were eager to absorb more sights and sounds, and were enjoying the San Francisco atmosphere and the small gardens sprawled along Mission street on our way.

Right before the Zeum, we passed by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and crossed over to the Yerba Buena gardens. These gardens, stretching across two city blocks and connected by a bridge, proved to be a green gem. Sculptures, water features and gardening were the perfect landscape for our kids’ imaginary games. With a burst of renewed energy, Ron and Dan took to playing among the fountains as if they had just stepped outside the hotel room after a long night’s sleep.

SF Museum of Modern Art

When we finally strolled further into the gardens, crossing the bridge, we discovered an even more attractive spot: a spacious playground with a variety of structures to climb on, slide off of, and generally get active while your parents can sit in the shade nearby. By the time the kids’ play needs had been saturated, it was clear we were not going to make it into the Zeum, so we settled for a couple of rounds on the restored 1905 Merry-Go-Round next to it and then started heading back to the hotel.

Having walked who knows how many miles up to that point, we were all very tired, and decided to get a taxi back home. Easier said than done. While trying to hail a cab, we kept slowly progressing in the direction of Lombard street where our hotel was. I don’t recall the exact line of thought which lead us there, but in a fairly dazed state of mind, I let IsraeliDad lead us in the shortest route back to the hotel. Crossing Market Street again, we kept heading west, when in an alarmingly sudden manner, we were in an entirely different San Francisco.

I couldn’t even put my finger on it at first, but somehow the atmosphere had changed. There were fewer people on the street, and the ones that were there were mostly black and looked forlorn and desperate, with hoodies pulled over their heads. Passing by a heavily fenced and seemingly abandoned police station, I noticed the sign with a familiar name: Tenderloin. This was the one neighborhood Travel Guides warn about in San Francisco.

Here, Wikipedia describes it better than I can, so here’s what they have to say about Tenderloin -

“The Tenderloin is a high-crime neighborhood, particularly violent street crime such as robbery and aggravated assault. ….  Dealing and use of illicit drugs occurs on the streets. Property crimes are common, especially theft from parked vehicles. Violent acts occur more often here and are generally related to drugs. The area has been the scene of escalating drug violence in 2007, including brazen daylight shootings, as local gangs from San Francisco, and others from around the Bay Area battle for turf.”

And that was the area through which we were walking with the kids, getting quite a share of interested looks from passers by, or so it felt. At some point, a street beggar, an old woman in a wheelchair, called us over.

“Do you know where you are?” she asked sympathetically.
“Ummm, yes, I think so, we have a GPS”, IsraeliDad replied.
“Well, I don’t think you’re supposed to be here, you’d better get along and head out of this neighborhood.”

Let me tell you, we were walking pretty fast after that. IsraeliDad insisted that this could not have been really dangerous – after all we were in the heart of San Francisco. Perhaps. In the end, we were never mugged or attacked. We got to see a side of San Francisco, and maybe of America, not often visible to visitors, too. I wouldn’t repeat it though, definitely not with children. Was simply too scary.
Once out of Tenderloin, we did manage to halt a taxi and were soon enough in the comfort, and safety(!), of our hotel room.

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On our previous trip to the US, both IsraeliDad and myself were severely struck with jet lag. At least I think it was jet lag, very likely aggravated by stress, a fair amount of cultural shock amd even illness (I came down with a fever three days into the trip). We were fortunate
enough to have been able to spend the first ten days of our trip (roughly half of it) relatively stationary, exploring the wonderful city of San Diego. While visiting Sea World when you have a fever of 102 isn’t much fun, making you painfully aware of the hallucinogenic nature of Sesame Street songs played continuously in their playground area, it’s easier than actually being on the road.

I was afraid our first week or so in the US would be similarly dedicated to recovering from jet lag, and any accompanying malaise, and so made sure we’ll be pretty much stationary for that part of our trip. The next pin on the map, and in fact the actual launch of our road trip, was planned for the week following our arrival at the US. It was a highly anticipated pin too – Yosemite National Park – anchored down by reservations I had made for several nights in the Valley’s camping grounds.

Fortunately, the first week proved to be easier than I had expected. No one was sick, and the cultural shock far less shocking. Within a couple of days, we were eagerly exploring and having a great time. We could have possibly headed out of the city earlier, but those Yosemite reservations, as flexible as the grand rock of El Capitan, provided a good excuse to stay put and take it easy.
I’m telling you this now, to explain why my first posts of our “Grand Tour of the US” are limited in scope to the City by the Bay. Not that San Francisco felt “limited”in any way. There was plenty to survey, and so we set out on our third day in the city to discover some more urban treasures.

Rising early, we decided to head out on foot again, and walked all the way from Lombard on Octavia to the area known as Chinatown, a total distance of two miles. We walked along Broadway Street, looking out for signs in Chinese, which showed up somewhere around the intersection with Powell Street. Following instructions from our GPS, we kept on Broadway, and finally turned right on Stockton Street. The sporadic signs in Chinese turned into a fixed monophonic feature, with many of them now missing any indication in English as to their meaning.

It was early in the day, and it looked like we were the only tourists around. At least, everyone else looked Chinese. Industrious women were checking the produce in  stores, where stands were stretched over pavements, covered with small mountains of colorful fruit and vegetables. Groups of men huddled by alley ways, literally chain smoking, lighting one cigarette with the previous one, and talking loudly in what I assume was Mandarin. In fact, English was notably missing from the scene. Even small children prattled away in Chinese, holding hands of busy Moms, presumably going to school. Indeed, San Francisco’s Chinatown is not only the largest and oldest Chinese community in North America, but also the largest Chinese community outside of China. Slowly navigating the lively streets and alleys of what is known as “a city within a city”, in that early morning hour, before the onrush of the day’s tourists, as a  privilege and an appreciated treat.

This was no hour for dim sum, but there was one thing I did want to try. I had heard about it in a podcast long before we arrived, and had it in my notes to have something called “Black Bean Cake”. I had no idea what it would look or taste like, but in the name of science and geographical exploration, I went into a bakery, and asked for one. The saleswoman was very kind, and was happy to sell us a couple of cakes, saying they were “for the husband”. I cautiously inquired about “cakes for the wife”, torn between hunger and fear of being offered something too exotic, maybe containing bugs or snakes, but was put at ease by her promise that they had “wife’s cakes” made of yellow beans, rather than black.

The cakes, shared equally between us, were delicious. The fresh pastry pockets held a thick sweet layer of mashed beans, black in one version, and yellow in the other. Not too sweet, very fresh, nice and balanced and full of protein, they made for a very nice vegan breakfast.

Eventually, we walked over to Grant Avenue, the more touristic part of Chinatown. This was a street of shop after shop, holding huge and strange collections of Chinese artifacts. Life-sized sculptures of animals and people, carved ivory objects, maneko neko cats of various sizes, and bizarre souvenirs featuring the honorable chairman Mao; these shops had everything and anything, but were obviously more commercial and less authentic compared to the inner streets we had walked earlier. In other words, the signs here all had English on them (and some didn’t even bother with Chinese letters).

It was finally 9 AM, the opening time of one of the museums we had on the itinerary for that day – the Wells Fargo museum. The one in San Francisco, was larger than I had expected it to be. Displays spread across two floors, so while IsraeliDad took his time examining the detailed reviews of Wells Fargo’s historic part in conquering the West, I took the kids to the upstairs gallery to enjoy the more interactive items. One of these was a carriage in which, at a push of a button, you could start a movie going on a screen positioned where a very low-seated window might have been. The idea was to simulate a ride, I guess, albeit in a motionless exhibit. We sat there for minutes, looking at the screen, hoping for a gang of masked highway robbers to attack us, but alas the entire show consisted of a relaxed ride through a benevolent forest in bloom.

Once we grew tired of postal carriages, we went downstairs again and tore IsraeliDad away from the maps and documents. One thing I found on this trip is that our kids are on their best behavior, as long as they’re on the move. Of course, talking about two boys here, aged 7 and 9 at the time, best behavior is a very flexible term, so let’s just say they were much easier to handle while mobile and sometimes quite restless when stationary.

Fortunately, getting to our next stop – the Cable Car Museum -  provided us with over a mile and a half of walking, most of it uphill on Mason street, making me wish again that maps and GPS devices would come with built-in red flashing lights warning you against elevation gains. By the time we got there, even our hyperactive boys were exhausted, so we were very grateful to the powers-to-be for placing a nice cafe right across from the museum entrance, where we re-established a normal breath pattern and got some coffee and hot chocolate.

The Cable Cars Museum across the street was worth getting to though. It had the air of a non-commercial museum, lovingly nurtured by people who actually care about the subject matter. It really is a non-commercial project, or at least there’s no entrance fees to pay, which is always a nice bonus when traveling with family in tow. The museum is located right above the power house, and standing in the gallery, we could look down and watch these humongous wheels turning, and in effect moving the cables on which the cable cars ride.

A few steps away from the noisy system, the historic display included three old grip cars, one of them fitted with comfortable seat for viewing a movie, which explained all about how cable cars work, and which went way way over my head. My focus was on maintaining eye contact with our Dan and making sure he doesn’t climb up the rails and into the power house section. I hope at least a few of you are relieved to know I won’t be reiterating any complicated explanations about how these cable cars work – I simply never got it myself.

I am compelled to pass forward the common Travel Guides’ advice to get to the lower section of the museum, where you’re supposed to be seeing something quite fascinating – though I can’t recall what exactly. As far as I was concerned, it was cool getting underground and seeing the kind of tunnels and caves that form a subterranean world, which was there the whole time as we had been climbing Mason street, right under our feet. Other than this, it’s really just a bunch of belts and screws.

Of course, while we did visit the museum for free, we ended up donating $20 to the Cable Car company, in the form of travel fees for a 10 minutes long ride down Powell street and back to Market Street. It’s a bit overpriced, if you ask me, making it more into a fancy historic theme-park kind of ride for tourists than a proper transportation method. No one was screaming though, except for our boys, who were thrilled with the marked declines and sharp breaks at intersections. We didn’t let them ride standing up on the running boards on the sides of the car though. We did take some pictures in that famous position, but that was done down at Powell street, after the car had come to a full stop. We did get to see them manually turn the car around, but I have to say, it’s not an impressive sight as it’s made out to be.

It wasn’t even noon, and our day had only just begun, so to speak… This being a blog post after all, I’ll take a break here and let you enjoy the pictures. I’ll blog about the second part of this day in a separate post.

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This post covers the third day in our five and a half months of traveling in North America. Previous post is here. First post is here.

For our second day in the city of San Francisco, we opted to leave our car in the hotel’s garage and explore the city on foot.  The Buena Vista Inn is located along Lombard street, but don’t let that name, Buena Vista, fool you. It is in a part of the street which has none of the nice views the Russian Hill area offers. Lombard Street is in fact a very long street, crossing San Francisco from the Presidio in the west to the piers in the east. Its claim to fame stems from a very short section, only 400 yards or so in length, between Hyde and Leavenworth streets, where a series of eight sharp curves or switchbacks are tucked in, one immediately following the other.

Looking back on Lombard street - this is just part of our climb for the morning!

In the tradition of the Roman Empire, American cities are often built in grid format, ignoring natural features such as hills or valleys. Differences in terrain altitude tend to be raped by the artificial rows and columns, often forcing drivers to deal with steep grades. This is quite different from what we have here in Israel, where hills are traversed by means of long curvaceous roads.  With no grid to adhere to, buildings are simply built along roads, often broken into fractal-like smaller roads, either connecting back to main roads or ending in makeshift cul-de-sacs. In a sense, this reflects both the chaotic spirit of the Middle East as well as the inherently anarchistic nature of this country.

Apparently, even the grid has its limits. Lombard street, where the road comes down from the Russian Hill in a steep 27% grade proved to be too much of a challenge for early twenty-century motorists. In that short span of a road, nature won and in 1922, the crookedest street in the world was paved.

This was our first destination for that crisp San Francisco morning. We got up at the more civilized hour of half past five (which goes to show that everything is relative – this was more civilized compared to the previous day’s 2 AM). Two hours later, we could no longer sit in our motel room and  so headed down Lombard street, going east. Actually, we soon were going up the street rather than down. You see, what most maps fail to point out is that to get to such a steep decline, you actually have to climb up first. The kids and their Dad joyfully stormed up the wide paved sidewalk and I followed them in a more respectfully measured pace.

We were rewarded with the beautiful sight of a winding red brick lane, walled in by low-lying  green hedges and framed by red brick walls on each side. On the horizon ahead of us laid the beautiful San Francisco skyline, with Coit Tower and Bay Bridge hanging above the water to the east. The kids were eager to zig-zag down the hill as fast as they could, but alas, pedestrians are directed to a much safer staircase, alongside the street, where many tourists were making frequent stops to take pictures of the street.

Look, Ma! Lombard Street!

From there, we made our way through various streets, criss-crossing from Lombard to the parallel streets of Chestnut, Francisco, Bay and Beach, until we finally found ourselves near the northern edge of The Embaracadero, that long street that is the city’s eastern waterfront. This was Fisherman’s Wharf, that famous San Francisco neighborhood and magnet to the tourists. My plan was to visit Boudin’s bakery and have some of their famous chowder for lunch. En route, we made a stop at yet another well-known American culinary establishment, or branch of, and let the kids fuel up on McDoubles and Fries. This may seem like junk food to Americans, but for our kids, McDonald’s was still a rare treat at the time. With a Happy Meal costing nearly $10, and with almost nothing on the menu at under $5, over here going to McDonald’s is a big deal – a family night out. Being able to get McDoubles for a buck was a novelty!

With them fed, we continued strolling through the busy streets surrounding the piers, stopping occasionally to admire not only the colorful souvenir stores, but the very exotic (to us!) food stands selling oysters, crabs and lobsters, and other poor animals you rarely get to see back home, where seafood is often referred to using nasty Biblical terms. Spotting Boudin’s proved to be quite easy. I was expecting a small neighborhood bakery, possibly with a line of locals and tourists by the door. I can only assume the place has grown significantly since the early days, back when Isidore Boudin arrived from France and brought along his recipe of sourdough breads. These days, Boudin Bakery on Fisherman’s Wharf occupies a rather large building. On the right side of the building, we stopped in front of the large glass windows exposing the bakery itself, where metal baskets hanging from rails were constantly on the move between ovens, on a polished and efficient production line. Underneath, two bakers in white aprons and hats were busy sculpting unique breads. We stood there, watching one of them worked on a small alligator, gently adding features to the elongated form. The other one was working on forming snakes. Must have been reptiles day or something. Neither one of them looked up at the gawking tourists on the other side of the glass.

Baby alligator at Boudin's

Boudin's Clam Chowder

We moved on, past three round metallic chimneys and found ourselves in front of the large entrance. I ordered two portions of clam chowder, Boudin’s signature dish, and within a few minutes we found ourselves heading out the back door, with a tray holding two huge round loaves of breads, each one full of hot creamy chowder. The bread itself was delicious. As for the chowder, I guess it’s an acquired taste and while I managed to acquire some of it during the meal, IsraeliDad decided he simply does not like clam chowder. Well, you have to try these things to know, right?

No matter how much you like that chowder in a bread, I doubt anyone can finish the entire thing, bread included. We had quite a lot of bread leftovers, which we bagged and took with us as we left the place and crossed the street behind the bakery unto Pier 45. In a very relaxed mood, we took in the views, sounds and smells of the ocean and shared the blessing of the bread with appreciative gulls. When we ran out of bread we looked at what lay ahead of us, a large submarine, anchored to the docs.

Inside the Pampanito

We bought tickets for the four of us and were pleased to see that this was a self-guided tour, to be taken at leisure and with the aid of a patient audio guide. I am sure IsraeliDad could tell you more about the submarine, as he was the only one who actually wore the headphones and stopped at designated points to listen to the explanations. Once we went down into the  submarine, Dan declared he was seasick and wanted out into the fresh air. The narrow passages were all marked as one-way routes, so me and the boys almost ran to get through the entire inner trail and let Dan out. We did make quite a few stops, to allow Ron to enjoy some of the exhibits, but these were too short, as Dan insisted on moving on as quickly as possible. Eventually, we came out of the other side of the submarine, with Ron complaining that he didn’t get enough time to enjoy the tour. He then went back to the beginning and went down again, leaving me with Dan on the deck, wondering just how safe is this for a nine-year-old boy to take this tour on his own…

All’s well that ends well. Ron and his Dad finally showed up again and the four of us left the submarine. The large warehouse across from the sub lured us in right away, with a colorful array of machines – and thus we entered the Musee Mecanique. I had checked their website during the trip planning phase, and to be honest, it was a bit too spooky for my taste. I mean, coin-operated fortune tellers, player pianos, love testers and antique machines in general, are the stuff of horror movies. Just listening to the music on their website sent chills down my spine, and that spooky French name didn’t help either.

at the Musee Mecanique

In reality, the Musee Mecanique was not only benign but even mundane. The large space had huge openings that let in daylight, and the concrete floor and bland walls made it look anything but sinister. We joined a dozen or so other tourists strolling between the machines, and ended up spending four quarters altogether on ancient pinball machines. We didn’t try any of the fortune tellers though. They still were too spooky for my taste. Finally, having had our share of kitschy twentieth-century penny arcade machines, we left Pier 45.

My original intent had been to focus on the more famous Pier 39, leaving the less popular Pier 45, with its submarine and musee mecanique further down the list, occupying the “things to do if we have time and energy later in the day” slot. It was only our second day into traveling, and already we were breaking away from my carefully planned timetables. And you know what? I loved that! I was enjoying the way we so naturally glided into a more relaxed set of mind, exploring the environment not by a designated plan, but simply by following our senses, and pursuing our whims.

Still, I didn’t want to miss out on the Sea Lions colony, and indeed they were a hit with our family. I believe our kids drew almost as much attention as the large marine mammals, squealing and screaming with joy whenever a sea lion would pick a fight with another, which seemed to happen more or less constantly. Admittedly, this was lots of fun, watching these huge brown blubbery bodies squirming against each other, trying to get some sleep in the sun, as newcomers tried to make their way up the wooden docks, pushing through and barking up a row. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky to have seen the Sea Lions at all. Apparently, the previous year, they had left San Francisco, leaving marine experts baffled and with no predictions as to their return. This happened a year after the local population had ballooned into more than 1700 individuals. Why they left, or where to, was anyone’s guess. Why they returned is just as much of a mystery. I have seen pictures of the empty docks in 2009, and it was not a pretty sight, so I am grateful for their return on time for our visit!

Sea Lions at Pier 39

We spent a while watching the Sea Lions, but finally managed to tear the kids away from the show and crossed over to the wooden decked shopping and entertainment plaza. Pier 39 was everything I had expected it to be: an unblemished bright and colorful setting for dozens of fancy shops, restaurants and cafes. It had that modern “pier” or “boardwalk” air, where all the old-world decorations and pirate shows can’t hide the sleek commercial substructure. And there was actually a pirate show going on while we were there with Johnny Depp himself, aka Captain Jack Sparrow, performing stunts and magic tricks on stage! Well, ok, so it was Captain Jack Spareribs, but to me he looked just like the original and we really enjoyed his show.

Mirror Mazing

There was one attraction at the Pier, classic boardwalk bait, that I had told the kids about and they insisted on visiting: the Mirror Maze. A relatively new addition to the Pier, this one happened to be tucked away on far side of the second level. A bored looking guy took off his ear phones to collect admission fees and hand us transparent nylon gloves. IsraeliDad thought $5 per person was a bit steep, and preferred to skip it. I would have gladly done the same, but the thought of my two boys getting lost in the bowels of a mirrored maze didn’t agree with me. So I paid my dues and followed them, clad in my own pair of gloves, to help me feel which is a reflection and which a real passageway. The boys were having the time of their life – so much so,  that they insisted on re-visiting later on in the trip. Myself, I was spooked out by all the flashing lights, loud music and overall sense of disorientation, not to mention seeing what my life would have been like if I had to raise a pair of triplets. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I mean, literally, I couldn’t. It took me a while to finally feel my way out of that chamber of torture, with making sure my two (two, not six!) kids hanging on to me.

Walking past Boudin’s bakery once again, we noticed our old friend from the morning hours – the sculpted dough alligator. It had miraculously grown during the day, about four times its original size, which was pretty impressive! My feet seemed to have gone through a similar process though. It was time to hail a cab and get back to the hotel. You can see his picture at the end of this gallery (and a bunch of other pictures as well):

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This post covers the third in our long road trip in North America. Previous post is here. First post is here.

First Day in San Francisco

Two hours past midnight, in a dark motel room, in a strange new place, still laying in their big bed, our two boys woke up and started prattling away. Soon, all four of us, were wide awake, taking baths, browsing on the laptop, reading, playing and trying to keep our voices down, so as not to wake up the guests in the adjacent room. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is jet lag.

As soon as the small breakfast area was open for business, we went down to see what’s on the menu. Everything, from gooey donuts to strong brewed coffee, was different from what we were used to. We skipped the pastries, had a quick coffee standing up, and went out to a gray and drizzly San Francisco. We had a meeting scheduled for later in the day in the San Francisco Exploratorium, but we still had a few hours to kill, so we headed out to the nearest Safeway. And don’t take that one for granted!

You see, on our first visit to the US, two years earlier, we encountered a problem. Like most Israelis, we are accustomed to a diet rich in fresh vegetables. Salad is a staple food here and by salad, we mean fresh vegetables, finely chopped and seasoned with some olive oil, a touch of lemon juice and a sprinkle of salt. In Israel, even McDonald’s serves a good salad, freshly chopped to order. We soon found out that this is not the case in the US and within a couple of days developed an intense craving for some fresh veggies.

We were in San Diego at the time and consulted with our GPS about the nearest supermarket. The only name I was familiar with was Walmart – I had seen it bashed on internet forums often enough. So this is what we fed into the GPS, which in turn brought us to a huge Walmart store in San Diego.

We strolled from one aisle to another, itching to take out our camera and snap some pictures of these huge buckets of ice cream, pails of butter and jumbo sized milk cartons. It felt like a theme-park ride: A Walk in a Supermarket of Giants. There were no vegetables that we could see though. Eventually, I went up to one of the workers there and asked her where we might be able to find some vegetables. She pondered the question for a while and finally suggested that we may find some frozen peas in aisle four.

Fortunately, we ran into a compatriot the following day, while visiting Balboa Park. The lady sympathized with our unfulfilled veggie cravings and provided us with names of other stores, ones that actually carry fresh produce. That was how we learned of Safeway, Albertson’s, Vons and other wonderful supermarkets, where they had all the tomatoes and cucumbers our hearts desired.

Fast forward back to 2011, and here we were, on our first day in the US, pointing the GPS at the nearest Safeway, and being very pleased with ourselves for knowing where to get fresh vegetables!

San Franciscans proved to be an amenable lot, at least judging by the nice people at Safeway and the Tmobile store. Americans may be used to polite and cheerful service providers, but for us Israelis this was a true novelty. Soon enough, armed with two local mobile phones, and fully stocked in the food department, were ready to start our day.

We headed out towards the Exploratorium, to meet another Israeli family and enjoy our first day of sightseeing. Driving through the streets of San Francisco was challenging, but not because it’s a difficult city to drive in. IsraeliDad, our designated driver, was still adjusting to the sheer size of our vehicle, while I was trying to figure out how to operate the GPS app on my iPhone. There were streets we were getting to see more than once on the way, including a very redundant crossing of the Golden Gate Bridge, which cost us 6$.

Eventually, we arrived at our destination, the Palace of Fine Arts, located just east of the Presidio and south of the Golden Gate Promenade by the sea. Having circled the ceremonious structure twice, we finally parked at tiny Lyon Street. It was a beautiful street, with majestic houses in white, pink and gray, ornate and almost sculpted, echoing the Palace laying across the lake on the other side of the road. The area was exquisitely landscaped too, with small green plots and huge pottery containers holding topiary sculptures next  each house. Each house had its own garage entrance, leaving exactly one parking spot available next to the sidewalk before the next garage entrance began. It felt almost like we were trespassing on some grand estate.

Looking around for a pay meter or some other way for us to pay our dues to the local powers to be, we saw none. The signs on the streets informed us that parking was limited to two hours at a time. With no visible system of marking the beginning of our session, we wondered how can this rule be enforced, and worried that maybe we were missing on some mystic method of operation, familiar only to locals. Eventually, we gave up on trying to figure this out, and walked away, hoping that we don’t end up having to release our vehicle from the local pound on the end of our very first day in the USA.

The Palace of Fine Arts

The Palace of Fine Arts, where the San Francisco Exploratorium resides, reminded me of similar structures we had seen in Balboa Park, in San Diego, which had been built for the The 1915-16 Panama-California Exposition. As I later learned, this was actually the case here as well. The Palace of Fine Arts was built for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, held between February and December 1915. Just like in San Diego, a set of uniquely designed structures had been created for the sole purpose of housing the fair. These fancy constructions were highly decorative, but not very strong, intended to be torn down by the end of the Exposition. Indeed, most of them were. The Palace of Fine Arts, along with its surrounding artificial lagoon and gardens, was saved thanks to public pressure, and duly augmented to be turned into a fully functional building. I am happy to report that by 2009, two years prior to our visit, the place had finally been retrofit to withstand earthquakes.

The Palace has been the home of the Exploratorium since 1969. This hands-on science museum was breaking new grounds back then, teaching science through experience. The project was the vision of one man – Dr Frank Oppenheimer. He was the younger brother of “the other Dr Oppenheimer”, the director of the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos. In fact, Dr Frank was also part of Los Alamos team, as were many of the leading physicists of the time. You’d think the nation would show him some gratitude for his service, but instead he was put on the stake by the House Un-American Activities Committee, and sent into exile, to herd cows in Colorado. It was nearly a decade later, before he could go back to the realm of science, and that was in the capacity of a high school teacher. Oppenheimer fell in love with science education, and when he was finally offered a university position again, he focused on teaching, and creating what he called a “library of experiments”. This eventually evolved into an interactive science center: the Exploratorium.

As for our own first-hand impression, I’m afraid we were slightly overwhelmed by the place. I’m not sure whether it was the jet lag, the large juvenile crowds, or maybe our initial expectations were set too high, but what was supposed to be a pleasant dip into our favorite element, turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. The Exploratorium was like a huge warehouse (Warehouse 13 anyone?) with two levels filled with various hands-on exhibits, covering a plethora of topics. Some of them were quite complicated, and demanded an in-depth explanation in physics to figure them out. IsraeliDad has a degree in Physics, so he was thrilled with some of the demonstrations, but it was a bit too much for the kids to take in.

At the Exploratorium

We did enjoy meeting another traveling family in the Exploratorium. The Rezniks had set out on a similar, yet more ambitious journey, five months earlier. More ambitious not only because their travel plans spanned nine months, but also because they were a larger family, with two boys and two girls. Hemmy Reznik first contacted a few weeks prior to their departure, having found my blog online. We had been in touch ever since, with us keeping track of their progress across the USA, while preparing for our own trip. As with many online friendships, moving on to the “real world” arena was pretty seamless.

It was fairly easy to spot Hemmy and his wife Ronit. Both parents had large backpacks strapped on their backs, the tell tale sign of parents arriving into town via public transportation, carrying extra clothes, food and everything else necessary for traveling with four children in tow. They seemed surprisingly relaxed, allowing their kids to wander at will in the huge hangar, while enjoying a steaming cup of coffee with us in the hall. I couldn’t help but wonder if we would be the same several months into our journey. Above all, they were easy to spot because they were compatriots, and Israelis stick out in any crowd (many would add, like a sore thumb, but that would be unpatriotic of me). As we enjoyed out coffees and mutual talk, the boys struck their own affinities and were playing together within minutes.

We spent a couple of hours in the Exploratorium, after which the kids decided we had enough, and so we all stepped out to look for a place to eat. The surrounding area was surprisingly lacking in what everyone assured us would be everywhere in America: fast food chains where we can get the kids some fries. Eventually, we settled on a nice pizza parlor, and actually got to enjoy some San Francisco sunshine. Until it started raining, that is.

Having made tentative plans to meet again somewhere in Wyoming, we said our goodbyes, and made our way back to the car. Whew – no parking ticket! We did notice a white mark on the car, and I can only guess this was part of the mysterious system monitoring parking times. We didn’t stay around to see who was in charge of making these white marks, though, and drove back to the hotel. It was early afternoon, but hey, we’d been up since 2AM and desperate to get some sleep!

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Several months prior to our date of departure, I had already booked our flights, placed an order with a car rental company and made hotel reservations for our first month of the trip. By the time we had only one month left, pretty much everything, except for the bags themselves, was ready. We had my wonderfully dedicated in-laws, with whom we share the same backyard, assigned with the task of house sitting, and more importantly, cat sitting. Long briefings, oral and written, were provided, repeatedly, I might add, regarding care of our two cats. Our kids’ school was notified and the teachers gave their travel blessings. A constant stream of friends and family members was flowing through our household for those last goodbyes.

In a daily family ritual, we counted the days and crossed them out off a makeshift calendar we stuck on the fridge. We were excited, anxious, scared and thrilled, all at the same time. In short, we were ready for our big adventure.

The week prior to our flight was dedicated to packing. I had to constantly remind myself that “they have that in America too”, trying not to freak out over possibly forgetting band aids or some similar item. I had lists, carefully constructed based on items suggested by fellow travelers. They included things like food items (“you can’t get proper coffee anywhere in the States”), some local medications (“take whatever your used to”), clothes for every kind of weather (“we couldn’t find clothes for our kids anywhere in the US”). I think you’re getting the picture by now.

In retrospect, you can find everything in the US and can get away with packing nothing but your passport, drivers license and a credit card. Oh, and good coffee.

And finally, the day arrived. It was hard to believe, but we were actually and truly walking out the door with a couple of suitcases and two kids. Our adventure began.

Our flight destination in the US was San Francisco. With no direct flights between Israel and San Francisco, we had a quick stop over at Amsterdam. Sightseeing was limited to a fleeting glimpse of Schiphol airport, while literally running to catch our next flight. Both flights were mercifully uneventful. Our boys have a wonderful quality of calming down when on the move. They can be as playfully coltish as any boy, but once on the move, either walking, in a car, or on a plane, they miraculously settle down into a tranquil amenable mood. Had it been any other way, I’m not sure we would have survived the trip with our sanity intact. None of us managed to get any sleep on either one of the flights, despite having left home at the ungodly hour of Two AM.

Almost twenty hours after leaving, jet lagged and extremely tired, we finally departed our plane in San Francisco Airport. With two very sleepy kids, literally dragging on the floor behind us, we joined the long line in front of the immigration desk. It was a long wait, not made easier by having to haul the kids like a couple of potato sacks, shuffling forward a couple of feet at a time. Finally, we reached the immigration officer. She was a nice enough lady, who seemed to sympathize, but nonetheless solemnly informed us that we have to stick around for further questioning.

To their credit, the immigration officers we met at the San Francisco airport were polite and even cordial. They apologized for the delay and ran our names through their computers, while asking us a few questions about our trip. These were questions we had already heard back home, and would keep hearing throughout the trip: How can you leave your day job for so long? How can you take the kids out of school for so long? and of course, how can you afford to take such a long vacation? I guess we gave them the right answers, because within fifteen minutes or so, we were declared fit to stay in the United States of America for six months.

We picked up our luggage, placed the bags on a couple of trolleys, and crowned it all with our two sleeping boys. Us parents were all set and alert – nothing quite like being questioned by immigration officers for giving you a nice jolt of adrenaline. Eventually we found our way to the airport trains going to the car rental center, where the lines were blissfully short. It didn’t take long for us to gain possession of our car keys. Walking down the aisle looking for the car registration plate that matches the keys, we stopped in our tracks when we finally saw it. A brand new silver-colored Town and Country minivan. We had booked a minivan, but nothing prepared me for this gigantic beast.

Allow me to pause for a moment here and give you some background about our cars here in Israel. Motor vehicles in Israel are very expensive. We buy cars from importers, each essentially monopolizing a brand, making money off the vehicle itself as well as from exclusive access to parts. We also pay 115% of a vehicle’s value in taxes. That’s five times more than average taxes on vehicles in most European countries. The Israeli government makes a lot of money off taxing vehicles.

The bottom line is, cars are three times more expensive here, compared to prices in the USA, while average income is lower by one third. Combine that with gas costing twice as much as it does in America, and you can see why Israelis choose, or rather have no choice but, to get small economical cars. At home, we drive a small Chevrolet Aveo and a Hyundai Accent (fondly referred to as “the big car”, being the larger of the two). Minivans here are reserved for those who actually have four or five children, and their choice is rarely a Town & Country, but rather a much cheaper compact model such as the Mazda 5. Looking at it from the outside, you wouldn’t guess it was a minivan.

Which is something I couldn’t say about the huge vehicle waiting for us in the Rental Center aisle. Compact it was not. Having spent nearly six months driving America’s highways, I know now that its dimensions were entirely benign. Yet to us it seemed monstrously big. Having been the one who insisted on renting a minivan and not a Chevy Impala, I was embarrassed to admit that this colossus was more than I had bargained for. Literally.

“Honey, I don’t think I can drive this thing,” I mumbled as we pulled the trolleys closer.
“You’ve driven tanks before, right? I think you will have to be our designated driver,” I added, disappointed, because I had promised to do most of the driving myself.

Like children in a candy store, we began exploring the car. The three DVD screen flaps made the kids jump with joy, but alas they had no screens in them. However, we did have a shiny control panel, fully digital, with a cool touch screen, and arrays of buttons and levers, not limited to the front seat passengers. We decided to re-name the vehicle. No longer “the tank”, from now on it was known as “the spaceship”.

Getting our luggage and kids into the car was easy. They seemed so small in the huge seats, but they were happy. Once we figured out how to drive our pet monster, we were soon out of the garage and on the road. Alas, with IsraeliDad driving, I was in charge of navigation. Even with a GPS in hand, I managed to get us off at the wrong exit in the very first interchange… To his credit, he was fairly patient as he took matters, and the GPS, into his own hands, and tackled both navigating and driving a new car in a foreign city.

I can’t say I remember much of the views, or even of my own feelings and thoughts during that drive. We were all jet-jagged, culture-shocked and sleep-deprived. We reached our motel on Lombard Street sometime in the afternoon. The kids were asleep by the time we arrived, ending our plans to walk outside for a bit, to fight the effects of the jet lag. We had a long and peaceful afternoon, surfing the web, updating our blog in Hebrew (our real time travel journal), watching American TV, just to make sure we really were in the right country, and basically trying to keep from falling asleep too soon. Outside was San Francisco, California, the United States, and we were there, eager to devour it all during the following one hundred and sixty days.

I hope you’re enjoying the tale – I’ve only just started and you can expect future posts to have lots of nice pictures too!

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Finally! Season Four of the Israeli version of Big Brother started on Sunday. As with previous seasons, I am going to post about the housemates, for those of you who speak some Hebrew and try to follow the show. These posts have proved to be very popular in the past, so I decided to take a short break from m “Trip Chronicles” and honor this blog-long tradition.

Let’s start with the not very regal Royal Couple.

The “Grand Entrance” of this season was that of newlyweds Dudu and Betty Kapara. They were with their family and friends, going through their wedding ceremony, while the other housemates were getting into Big Brother’s house. As soon as they became legally wed, they left their guests to join the other tenants – still in a tuxedo and a wedding dress.

Dudu Kapara is a 34 year old truck driver from Rehovot. He works for the Israeli food corporation Tnuva. Overall, he seems like an easygoing person, providing a nice balance to his new wife’s energetic chatter. Typecast: working class antihero.

Betty Kapara (formerly Azran) is a lively 29 year old border control official who works at Ben Gurion airport. She is outspoken, opinionated (even when clearly in the wrong), and invested with her wedding. She definitely echoes Ma’ayan Huddeda and Einav Bublil from previous seasons. Typecast: the outspoken Mizrahi woman.

Ya’el Baron is a 47 year old marriage consultant from Tel Aviv, who claims who be a “natural born divorcee”. She has two kids but says raising them as a single Mom is easier for her. She doesn’t think very highly of marriage or long-term relationships and, yes, she is a marriage consultant. She is also a foxy long-legged blonde and dresses the part. Typecast: The cougar.

Yossi Sror is a 54 year old hair and makeup stylist from Kiryat Ata. He’s flamboyantly gay and proud of it, having come out of the closet only later in life, ending a former marriage of which he has two kids. It’s hard to ignore his unique style and energetic tone and he tends to mixing in words in Moroccan to create a colorful dialect all his own. Typecast: the fun(ny) queen.

Kim Ratosh is a 32 year old attorney from Kiryat Haim, and an outspoken sworn atheist. He attests to being confrontational by nature, but also a fun loving party guy. He doesn’t expect to last for long on the show, but time will tell… Typecast: the condescending know-it-all.

Avivit Bar Zohar is a 29 year old … ummm, well I guess kept woman would be the term. She needs rich, ummm, boyfriends, to pay for her lavish lifestyle and apparently is successful at what she does. People are saying she not only has a fake nose and fake boobs but has also faked her age too. Typecast: the bimbo.

Shay Regev is a 34 year old self-infatuated businessman from Tel Aviv, who likes to brag about his car, his fancy apartment and his ability to get any woman he wants. Typecast: Alpha Male or Show-off (not sure which yet, or maybe both).

Yana Yossef is a 23 year old beauty from a poor family in Tel Aviv. A practicing religious Jew during her teens, she later found out she was actually born Muslim. And that’s as close to Arab as you get in this season. She intends to go through an official conversion at some point, but for now she’s mostly busy with making a living. Typecast: the poor and the beautiful.

Sa’ar Scully is a 27 year old student from Tel Aviv. This guy is many things, all wrapped up in an attractive package. He’s an artist and a computer programmer. He’s also a political activist is what is now considered Israel’s radical left, but his military record lists 8200, the elite Intelligence unit. Typecast: The leftie, here to push his agenda on prime time.

Eran Teratakovsky is a 30 year old security freak from Be’er Sheva. He claims to have lead a career in a secret position in the military, where he was taught how to convince people to do anything he wants them to. His intro was strewn with disturbing references to what he sees as the threat to Israel by Israeli Palestinians. Typecast: Mr. Paranoid Security

Bari Simone Zohar is a 52 year old Rabbanit (Rebbetzin) and former belly dancer. She was famous in the 1980′s for her belly dancing, so not an anonymous housemate, but one who’s been away from the public eye for several decades. Typecast: the Rabbanit, with a twist.

Tamir Vardi is a 36 year old copywriter from Tel Aviv and quite the character. He calls himself “a weirdo” and he’s right, but he’s weird in the most endearing way. Imagine a hyperactive extrovert effeminate former tank driver that looks like Gila’d Shalit without the glasses, sniffing pillows to the sound of Christina Aguilera’s “I’m beautiful”. His is the only intro video I’m linking to, because it’s worth it even if you don’t know any Hebrew. Typecast: Bizarre.

Kuti Sabag is a 29 year old cook from Beit Shemesh. Working class hero of Moroccan descent, he’s had a strong sense of social injustice instilled in him from a young age. With his charm and sweet smile, I think he stands a good chance of winning. Typecast: the deprived Mizrahi

Sari Simhov is a 23 year old circus performer and interior design student from Tel Aviv. She’s left home at the age of fifteen to get away from her alcoholic mother and almost literally joined the circus. She’s a sweet girl, independent and trying to find her way in the world. Typecast: the girl you’d like to adopt.

Sophie Kravitz is a 26 year old waitress from Tel Aviv with a degree in law. She wants it all, the entire Israeli Dream, and she’s worried she may not get it in time while she’s “young and pretty”. Typecast: neurotic modern girl.

Ziva Cohen Behnam is a 34 year old housewife and mother of three from New York. Yes, “New York in Long Island”, as she defined it. She’s entirely Israeli through and through and religious to boot. She’s an extremely opinionated news junkie, obsessed with fighting Israel’s road safety problems. Typecast: that weird lady that calls radio news station.

Eitam Yissraeli is a web enterpeuner and international athlete. He is also blind and his seeing dog, Walter, is always by his side, including in Big Brother’s house. He is an inspiring figure, not allowing his handicap to come in the way of fulfilling any of his life dreams and his military service as a youth guide seems well-suited indeed. Typecast: the disabled person that proves he’s equal.

I won’t try to offer any predictions – I happen to have a lousy Big Brother crystal ball. I can tell you who my favorites are at this point and these are Eitam, Sophie and Sa’ar. Hopefully, at least one of them will make it to the final five.

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