There's no place like home

"Home" can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. Though I have always lived in the same apartment all my life until this year, I have found many homes. Back in the States, home was my apartment in Kew Gardens and my grandparents' apartment in Bayside. During the school year it was Bronx Science and during the summers it was Sprout Lake and Tel Yehudah. Now that I'm in Israel I have new "homes". For awhile, home was a small run down apartment in Bat Yam. For the next couple months, it's a slightly bigger apartment in the middle of the desert in the city of Arad. But more importantly I know that I also always have a home here with my aunt's family in Maale Adumim.

It's hard to be away from my parents and sisters for such a long time, particularly now that
winter vacation is starting soon and with it comes the arrival of families visiting their kids. It's at times like these that I actually listen to my mom's advice: "Go to [Aunt] Karen's. Hang out with the kids, listen to them fight, argue with them a little, eat some food, you'll feel better."

And so this past weekend I stayed in Mitzpe Navo, my favorite place to spend Shabbat. Mitzpe Navo is the religious neighborhood of Maale Adumim. There is no thru traffic which means on Shabbat, no cars drive by. A lovely consequence of this is that when people are not sleeping and eating (granted that is what I do the majority of the time), families or groups of friends are strolling up and down the street enjoying the Shabbat atmosphere. This weekend, all the cousins were home. This also meant that so were all their friends. The open door policy of the neighborhood (where essentially no one ever locks their door so friends and neighbors are constantly just walking in to come and chat) is put to the test at my cousin's house. Either they are very popular or very centrally located (or both) because the whole neighborhood seems to stop by to chat, to drink, to eat or to just say hi. It's an incredible sight to see every cousin plus 3 or 4 or 5 of their closest friends all sitting around the table at the same time singing and joking around.

And then of course there's the food. My cousin Yona sums that up nicely: YUMMMMMY!!!!!!

Karen: thanks for opening up your home and letting me make it my own for these nine months.