SO much fun in newark!

I can't even begin to describe how much fun we're having at nadia and omeed's.
aliyah is in COUSIN HEAVEN.

picture that

sept 11

THE best breakfast ever



























meeting up with friends in the square near where we were staying.

picture this

ok friends,
this may be my last posting for some days as thursday we're flying to london and tomorrow night i may be staying somewhere else, so i'm just going to lay on what everyone really comes here to see: the photos... time to play catch up.

sept 9






































my ever-stylish, sweet, Benetton accessory designer friend, Parisa



























sept 10
unless you don't mind dirty looks, don't even think about going near the produce in a grocery store without the gloves













aliyah in the duomo

outside duomo

1st time i was here there was one child between us now there are four

un'occhiata

some pictures from yesteray.

always a bridesmaid, never a tourist

during my four years living and working in florence, i always dreamed of how nice it would be to just be in this city purely as a tourist without any obligations or things that had to be done. during our last months here i put a number of things off until the magical two-week visit that awaited us between the US and Haifa. by then we would have stopped working, given up our apartment and tied up all the loose ends of our life here. we would have nothing to do but roam the streets and gaze at the arno from ponte vecchio without a care in the world. as luck, or nature, would have it, i was pregnant when we came back and experienced my only two weeks of morning sickness exactly during our time in florence.
so when the idea of this trip came up and i would be here two weeks (ha!10 days) with my parents, one would think i wouldn't get my hopes up of donning my sandals and cameras and heading out with the glorious history of this place already scribbled in my head. but i did. and i shouldn't have. i've accepted the fact that this city won't let me just be. it has to tangle me in somehow so i feel like i'm truly at home.
take today for example. aliyah has been having fevers on and off for the past three or four days. the sores around her mouth that i thought were caused by her pacifier rubbing against her ever-drooling-teeth-breaking mouth seemed to be getting worse and more serious. so today i thought i should drop by another pharmacy for a second opinion. we had just come out of the duomo (which i can say that i did only twice in those four years, even though i lived 500 meters away from it and passed it every single day on my way to work) and i was feeling pretty pumped about the few waking hours aliyah had ahead of her. we took a picture and stopped by this pharmacy in that same square. the pharmacist told me that maybe aliyah should see a dermatologist and he gave me to the address of a place waaaaaay on the other side of town (near where the viale meets the arno by pzza beccheria, bicbic). so i haul it over there and find two nurses, one who turns out to be persian, and they tell me there's nothing they can do. what aliyah really needs is a pediatrician. where? via pico della mirandola. where is the house in which we're staying? on a 200 meter street called via pico della mirandola. the whole time this children's hospital was literally four doors away from us. so i went...somewhere between the viale and stopping by home to get aliyah's passport, she fell asleep. and so immediately after the doctor (she's fine. got her medicine), she was ready for a nap. a couple hours later she and i went to one of my former students' (a pharmacist, actually) house where another pharmacist student and her husband and 5-month old joined us all for dinner. one infant, two 1-year olds, a 4-year old, some hair pulling and a lot of drool.
and that was my day as a tourist in florence.
no complaints. :^)

remember this?

last night after i imported the last picture into my blog posting, i deleted the entire entry by mistake. i was dead tired by that point, so i just left it. good thing i did. aliyah had a rough night. her back teeth must be coming in because she's drooling a lot and has a fever. for that reason, she and i stayed in today. it was a good day to stay in... rainy and coolish. it reminded me a little of the winters here i don't miss so much. it getting dark early, feeling damp all the time, inevitably getting wet from the knees down because your umbrella never covers your stride... another thing i remembered tonight was how tired i'd be sometimes going to feast, which starts at 9:00/9:15. tongight at 8:30 i was ready to call it a night, but i had to get ready for feast. of course, once you're there you're so happy to see friends that you forget... then the next morning you remember.
it was great seeing everyone.. in some ways it was like i never left. i was sad the community couldn't see aliyah, though... i guess that's a part of life with late feasts.









yesterday was a bit more exciting for mom and daughter. we went with my parents around some other parts of florence: piazza signoria, ponte vecchio, piazza della repubblica and finally the san lorenzo market. in piazza signoria aliyah was in heaven. she just ran and ran all over the place. there was no stopping her for a photo. the close-up of her was taken at about 15mph.
in san lorenzo we visited a good friend of mine and victor's, an israeli living in florence who owns a leather jacket store. his brother used to work in the bahji as a gardener. small world.
afterwards we visited my two favorite social butterflies of florence: silvana and aurora. the two of them used to be my english students and our freindship grew from there. they are the sweetest, funniest women ever. and are they active. when i was teaching them, they were studying english wtih me, taking university courses, meeting with a personal trainer, going on tours of sites in florence... and on and on... slivie used to call herself my "vice mother" because she'd sorta look out for me while i was here.
afterwards, my parents and i went with another friend (and former student), giorgio to the best ice cream shop ever. at gelateria di medici, one of the most beautiful, old-fashioned, complete with wooden interior and chandliers (not known to tourists because it's just outside the center), they have this flavor called crema di medici which is this vanilla - but more creamy - flavor full of bits of chunky toffee and crunchy candies that just melt in your mouth.... they also always have a gorgeous display of ice-cream-filled fruits and cakes. it was so nice to be back there and, moreso, to be with our dear friend giorgio.

welcome back

the two things i miss most about florence is the city itself and my friends here. today a finally got a fair share of both. first i met up with the director and vice director of one of florence's most beautiful museums, the bargello, for an aperativo before they went off for lunch. beatrice and maria grazia are two amazing and accomplished women in the arena of art and restoration. both of them were my english students. while they were enjoying their drinks and i my sprite, aliyah had a little ice cream with grandma and grandpa in a nearby cafe.
next, stops at piazza signoria and piazza della ripubblica, and piazza san lorenzo, and lastly, topping the evening off with an evening visit with some close friends and then dinner with another set of near and dears. what more could a girl ask for? ... ok, besides having her husband here with her, what else could she ask for?

a little sun, a little rain, a lot of relaxation

these first few days in italy have been perfect. aliyah and i spent the first two days with the women of the parsa family in prato: fati, samieh, sepideh and shadi...and thier bunny mucchina (little cow). despite sepideh and shadi's need to do their summer homework (what crazy school system gives homework over summer vacation?) and samieh's having to study for her exams which could be next week or next month (what same system doesn't inform college students when their exams are?) and fati's ... well, motherhood is enough to do as it is :^), they did so much to make aliyah and me feel at home.

the first morning, we got down to business: the three sisters took me to the only mall within .... at least a 20-mile radius of florence. i almost fell over when i saw the large, perfectly spaced, white with black outline, pristine letters Z A R A . for those readers west of the mississippi, zara is a spanish clothing chain found in just about every country of the world except, until a couple years ago, italy. for the four years I was living here, I would save my lires for trips to zara while i visited haifa. the year before we left italy, zara finally broke into italy and opened its first store in milan. now here it was in the igigli mall and, as i discovered today, in the center of florence, in the very square where i used to work! i know, it's just a store, big deal. well, it just happens to be my favorite store and now it's in the place where i found it nearly impossible to shop for clothes for so long.

much of the rest of the time aliyah spent
playing on their terrace she loved so much.








after two heavenly days at the parsa home (honestly i felt like i was coming out of a spa), i came to mary jane's home. mary jane and i met six (!) years ago when i first came to florence and we both taught at the same english language school (yes, in the above-mentioned square). being the great friend that she is, mj invited me to stay at her place while she was away on a trip to the states. because of her i'm able to stay in florence for a good 12 days with my parents and really enjoy this city i love so much. here is a picture of mj's gorgeous veranda. what a dream to wake up to this beautiful porch where aliyah freely wanders in and out of... outside of the vine-covered gate is a huge garden with a beautiful gazebo in the middle. inside her home is the cutest little apartment ever... so comf, charming with a little rustic feel to it.. so tuscan. more pictures to come...

here goes something...

one day after lunch when aliyah was too small to even sit up, amelia and i were walking to her office for an afternoon of item appraisals and she asked me if i knew what a blog was. after i found out it wasn't another aussie slang for food or a type of person, i started thinking about starting one of my own, for the usual reasons.. friends, especially those in italy, always ask what my life is like in haifa. the problem is my life always seems to be so busy and hard to explain that i don't know where to start and it seems like a pretty big first bite to chew.

enter: vacation in florence. starting my blog with this trip seems like good idea... it's the perfect set-up. starting with the most beautiful city in the world to write about, then revisiting the old, discovering the new, quiet evenings at my dear friend mary jane's home with no distractions (mj, sei un amore!), my parents here to keep aliyah entertianed and vice-versa, adsl connection so i don't have to count the minutes i'm spending money online (as it is with dial-up in Italy), absolutely nothing good to watch on TV... ever (c'mon, bicbic, you know it's true) and so many people back "home" (haifa, oklahoma... ok, texas) that i want to keep in touch with and share my time here with.

so here it goes...