azrieli

A couple of days ago my eldest returned from her visit in the US/Canada. She was gone for about 5.5 weeks and I think everyone agreed that it was 2 long. My wife, God bless her, took all the kids and went down to pick her up from the airport. My in-laws came in as well, and they planned on having dinner with at my BIL's in bet shemesh. The problem was that after a long, exhausting day with the kids, my wife was a bit nervous about driving 3 hours back home. I don't blame her at all, because it's a long drive and very dark and the kids tend to fall asleep. So I offered to take the train down after work and drive back with them. It's not that I'm so gallant, but the last thing I need in my life is a trip down south to identify the bodies.

I was going to go all the way to the Bet Shemesh station, but that included a layover in Tel Aviv and I was not in the mood of that, so we agreed that I would go to the Azrieli mall and wait for her there. I brought my laptop with me, so I could work on the train, I am learning wxPython right now and it gave me a full hour on the train to play around with it.
--Did you know there are outlets on the train to plug in laptops? You have to sit in the right seat though.--

I got to Azrieli at about 6:15 and my family was supposed to leave Bet Shemesh at 6:30, which gave me time to find something to eat. Unfortunately it is the 9 days before tisha b'av and we are very sad that we cannot put our cows on the altar so we don't eat meat to make the memory real. So I had to settle for Sbarros. Not bad food, but not exactly a shwarma either. Then I walked around the mall. They were having the 10th Bday party of the azrieli center, and the place was full of clowns, music, and other events for kids. They had a bunch of stuff that was very cool, like people doing flips (I like flips).

The azrieli center is right on top of the Ayalon highway, so the plan was that when the family drove by, i would walk down to the highway and get in. If I timed it right, they wouldn't need to pull over because of the horrible traffic situation on the Ayalon. Thank God we live in the Galilee where there is no traffic.

When the wife called to say she was enterring Tel Aviv, I went and bought a couple of fruit shakes from Juiceland. They had grapes, watermelon, cantelope and pecans crushed into an orange juice base (the 2nd one had a milk base). Drinking this is also part of the 9 days, by the way. By the time they finished, I walked down the entrance ramp of the highway and my wife had just passed. She pulled over to the side and I got there a couple minutes later.

The rest of the ride was relaxing and enjoyable. It was very nice to see my daughter again.